Jared answering a question about healthy coping mechanisms:

[I just watched this panel and I thought it was important to type up Jared’s response to a question a fan had.]

In response to the question: “Have you guys ever had, like, some kind of unhealthy coping mechanisms and how did you get out of it?”

Jared: “That’s a huge, that’s a huge, huge, huge, wildly important question. And very, very, very, very near and dear to me and my heart and my family and my soul. Unhealthy coping mechanisms are…. very unhealthy.”

Jensen: “We established that.”

Jared: “Yeah. I consulted and still consult a professional—a doctor— about how to cope more properly with pain and sadness and depression and with anxiety. It gets really scary sometimes. The world’s a scary— it can be a scary place. Even from where I stand, you know? And I’m a six foot four white dude who has [a beard], you know? Like, I get— and I get pretty scared sometimes, and I get pretty worried. And sometimes my wife isn’t there to tell me it’s alright, sometimes [my boys] aren’t there to tell me it’s alright, sometimes my friends aren’t there to tell me it’s alright, and I, I choose to listen to the bad instead of the good. So I went to a professional and am proud of it.
I’m certainly not qualified to give proper advice, but to say— I hope this doesn’t sound like a cop-out—but to say, if I want to learn how to be a kickboxer, I would go to a kickboxing professional. If I want to learn how to be a nutritionist, I would go to a nutritionist. It I want to know how to be a surgeon, I would go to medical school. I wanted to learn how to take care of my mental health, so I went to a mental health professional. And I’m proud of it.
And I truly wish that for everybody. I think there’s a weird stigma right now where if you go like, ‘hey,’ if you say, ‘I’ve got cancer, so I went to a doctor.’ People are like, ‘Well, yeah!’ But if you say like, ‘Hey, man, I’ve got some wild anxiety.’ They’re like, ‘Oh! Well, just relax.’ You know? Which doesn’t make sense. I think we’re moving in the right direction as a society. But there was something going on in my head that I wasn’t controlling, that is not dead today, you know? So I go to— I go to a doctor, you know? Because something’s going on and I just want to get answers. There’s not— there’s no shame. There’s no like, ‘Oh, you know I talked to somebody about I’m feelings sad.’ ‘What?! Why are you sad, you know? You’re rich!’ or whatever, you know what I mean? F*** that. F*** that.
So I say to everybody that one of my greatest blessings in life was realizing before it was too late that I wanted to figure out what was going on in my head. So that’s my answer.”