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Enter Shikari's Rou Reynolds opens up on mental health struggles

[Photo by: Rou Reynolds/Instagram]

Enter Shikari vocalist Rou Reynolds didn't sleep for a week following a 2015 panic attack. The British musician is opening up about that experience—and revealing more about his mental health issues—in a new interview with Kerrang! for the magazine's YoungMinds takeover this month.

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“I didn't sleep for a week,” Reynolds recalls of his intense anxiety following an awards ceremony-induced panic attack. “I was already suffering from exhaustion, I was worn down, and that night was particularly anxiety-filled.”

“It's a very strange experience,” Reynolds says of the episode and ensuing insomnia. “The amount of adrenaline surging through my system during the panic attack must have just hung around and prevented me from sleeping.”

The vocalist describes his anxiety attack in vivid detail: “It was quite a weird feeling in my chest. It was as if there was a balloon in there and someone was blowing it up.” Reynolds says he was hospitalized after the attack, but he didn't get the answers he was looking from emergency room doctors.

After the panic attack and a week of sleepless nights, Reynolds sought further professional care, visiting a psychiatrist and undergoing 12 sessions with a psychologist. The musician then learned that he has social anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder and is “a bit on the OCD spectrum,” and he began using methods like CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) to assuage his anxiousness.

“I'm a lot more aware now of what my body can take,” says Reynolds. “I know the signs to watch out for if it looks like I'm going into a period of heightened anxiety. […] I made the mistake of thinking I could keep up with everyone.”

The Enter Shikari singer stresses that everyone should take the proper steps to ensure the well-being of their own mental health, saying, “It doesn't get portrayed enough that mental health is a spectrum and we’re all on it.”

“Even people who don't look like they're struggling often are.”

Watch more: 10 things you didn't know about Enter Shikari