Outside Source
UFC light heavyweight Ronaldo Souza recently spoke about the battle with mental health issues which nearly induced him to retire from MMA.
The grappling ace moves up from middleweight to light heavyweight and will make his divisional debut against Polish veteran Jan Blachowicz in the main event of UFC Fight Night 164 on Nov. 16 in Sao Paulo.
Ahead of the fight, “Jacare” spoke with MMAFighting’s Guilherme Cruz and revealed that he had been struggling with a mental issues several months ago which led him to contemplate retiring (via MMAFighting.com):
“Man, I was thinking about stopping (fighting). I had a psychological problem, I was burned out. I would drive to the gym and cry in the car and say, ‘Man, what am I doing going to the gym?’ My wife found a psychologist for me, I’m working on that once a week, and that has helped me a lot. I’m super happy with the opportunity of going back to fighting, I’m happy and excited and training like never before. There are a lot of good things happening in my life. Three months ago, I was crying on my way to the gym, tears would come out of my eyes and I didn’t know why. ‘What am I doing, man? I’ll stop fighting, I don’t want this for my life.’ And all of a sudden things were new again. I have the opportunity to headline a card, I’m excited again, I’m training, you know? ‘Dede’ Pederneiras has been phenomenal, he’s helped me a lot as well. I have no words for him. I already admired him before and now that we’re working together I admire him even more.”
Cruz followed up by asking “Jacare” what the cause of the stress was that led to his work with the psychologist. While Souza didn’t want to elaborate, he credited his wife with finding the help he needed:
“Honestly, I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to say that my family has helped me a lot, my wife helps me a lot, and that’s what helped me get back up. My wife was the one who found this psychologist for me. I told her, ‘Are you crazy? Why am I going to talk to a psychologist? I’m not crazy.’ And that was the best thing I’ve ever done, to accept it and work on it.”
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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