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Wil Wheaton: a Prescription for Anxiety and Depression at Phoenix Comic Fest

Published Sun, 03 Jun 2018 10:15:10 -0500

Last updated Sun, 03 Jun 2018 13:31:54 -0500

Donald R. Guillory writes:

Wil Wheaton was not on my list of panels I had planned on attending for this year's Comic Fest in Phoenix, Arizona. I had listened to him speak about his experiences with Star Trek and his acting career previously when the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation was a featured panel at Phoenix Comicon several years ago. After planning out events and scheduling with a friend, I decided to go with him to the panel to hear Wheaton field questions from fans.

The panel was everything that panels should be. Wheaton began the session by giving a short update on his career, his upcoming book (All We Ever Wanted Was Everything), and the challenges of being a father. The panel quickly went far beyond the subject matter of his acting career. It was a heartfelt, candid, and frank discussion by the actor about what it is like to suffer from anxiety and depression.

Mr. Wheaton discussed how it affects him daily and the struggle that he sometimes has just to get out of bed. It was a remarkable conversation and insight that he allowed fans to have which went beyond his blog where he discusses mental health, at length. In a world where mental health has been trivialized and those suffering from it have been demeaned, he focused his energy on letting everyday folks that they are not alone. They found comfort in his words and expressed thanks to him for sharing his stories and experience as someone who lives with mental illness.

When I left the panel, I felt refreshed from hearing the stories of the countless fans who were helped and comforted Mr. Wheaton. His words combined with his platform allowed him to reach out to individuals in the audience who may have felt that no one was listening to them or that there may have been no one who understood what they were going through. The panel might not have been what everyone attending expected, but it was definitely a panel that was needed.

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