Michael Ray Reveals Battle With Anxiety

Michael Ray is opening about his battle with anxiety. The "One That Got Away" singer reveals it's something he has struggled with for some time, but is now ready to talk about it, if only to help others going through the same thing.

"One day it hit me of the best way for me to get over my anxiety, what I was going through," Ray tells PopCulture.com and other media about his decision to speak out. "I held everything in to where on the outside everybody thinks everything cool and it wasn't. Fortunately, I have real close friends, and I have band guys that I grew up with, and I've kept a very tight circle in that realm. So, when you aren't right, those are the first people that can go, 'Hey, you might be fooling a lot of people, but you're not fooling us and we need to know what's wrong.'"

Ray has struggled with anxiety for most of his life, ever since his parents got divorced when he was a child.

"That's what clicked mine," Ray says. "And your whole world as a eight year old, nine year old, gets flipped upside down. What you think is the normal is not the normal anymore. You got people trying to tell you, 'Oh, it's great. You're going to have two Christmases!' All this stuff that they try to sell you on in the process of it. [I had to] grow up real quick with my little sister. I just woke up one day and it was like this voice in my head went, "You need to say something. It's your job to say something ... I went a doctor and I was like, Dude, I don't know what the hell is wrong with me, but this ain't me."

Although the Florida native insists he wasn't in any danger to himself, he wanted to get help before his anxiety and depression escalated.

"The bad thing with anxiety and the bad thing with the beginning signs of depressions is, you can't get out of your own head, and so then it leads to worse things," says Ray. "And so, I wanted to curb that and get ahead of that. I know that people will see what we all do as artists and they see either TV or they hear radio or they see the video or they see the stage and that's it. They don't see the human side of things on the other side.

"They don't see the, maybe so-and-so's getting in an argument with their significant other," he continues. "Maybe stuff at home isn't the best. Whatever. And then you gotta go on stage or you still got bus call at midnight. That doesn't change."

Ray previously discussed his battle with anxiety on YouTube, sharing that it was the support of both his friends and fans that helped pull him through some of his darkest days.

"We're all going through the same stuff," the 30-year-old concedes. "There's no difference. The only difference is I'm on stage. That's the only difference between the two. My dad was a paramedic. I was raised in a double wide trailer in 10 acres. There's no difference in this. But being open and being honest and hearing their stories, it helped me. It was like this kind of like weird reverse affect. I guess it was like I said something that helped them, then they said something to help me and it's led me to where now.

"I'm in the best place I've ever been in my life personally and professionally, and there's a lot of reasons why on both ends. I've never been more excited of a chapter in my life and I think that I will look back on this time and be able to say this is where a lot of thing changed for me."

Things are definitely looking up for Ray. In addition to dating girlfriend Carly Pearce, Ray's lastest album, Amos, landed in the Top 5, with the debut single, "Get to You," becoming a Top 15 hit for Ray. Purchase the record at MichaelRayMusic.com.

Photo Credit: Getty images/David Beck