Tyler Perry Says He Was ‘Bound by So Much Trauma’ Pre-Therapy

Going to intensive therapy last year has given Tyler Perry permission to live freely.

Days before the Netflix premiere of his new historical drama, The Six Triple Eight, the filmmaker, actor, and media mogul appeared on The View and told co-host Joy Behar that he took her advice about going to therapy.

“I went to therapy for the first time at 54 last year,” he said around the 7-minute mark of the video below. “I was able to really get in touch with some things and find out I’m living the freest, best part of my life at 54. I’ve been bound by so much trauma, so much pain, so much heartache and heartbreak.”

Perry stressed that he would recommend the “right” therapist to “anyone.”

He continued, “I knew all the trauma and I had all the bells and tools to understand that, because as a writer, I would always chase down motivations of my characters. And I used that for myself.”

“But I didn’t have the understanding of … now I have the information. Now what do you do with it? So getting the information was so powerful.”

The 55-year-old later explained that his rigorous filming schedule is a “coping mechanism” that he developed as a child, which was discovered in therapy.

He concluded, “They wanted to test me for autism to see if I was on a spectrum because of the way I see things. I can see multiple things, but then we realized its because I was in such a traumatic experience; I was always trying to survive. So everything was hyper-vigilant in me. … So now, when I’m working, I’m paying attention to everything.”

Earlier this month, while accepting the Paley Honors Award, Perry recalled going to intensive therapy in Arizona and detailed the pain from his upbringing that he confronted.

“I have turned toward all of that pain, threw my arms wide open, embraced every bit of it, stared at the shame, went down in it, and took the power out of it so that I could heal,” he told the audience.