Pete Davidson revealed that he struggles with borderline personality disorder on comedian Marc Maron’s podcast, WTF With Marc Maron. Davidson is a fairly recent addition to the cast of Saturday Night Live, but is perhaps most famous for becoming a recent Comedy Central Roast staple. (At the Roast of Justin Bieber, Davidson, whose father was killed on September 11, 2001, told Snoop Dogg that his movie Soul Plane was “the worst experience of my life involving a plane.” This remark caused many to take note of the young comedian.)
Davidson discussed his symptoms in detail, explaining how he initially believed that the source of his troubles stemmed from being a “pothead.” He explained that “Around October [or] September last year, I started having these mental breakdowns where I would, like, freak out and then not remember what happened after. Blind rage.” These incidents caused him to take a break from SNL, and he used this time to check himself into rehab. Lorne Michaels gave Davidson his blessing, likely due to the showrunner’s past experiences with troubled comedians and self-destructive behavior.
A few months later, even after being off marijuana, Davidson had another episode. This is what lead to his diagnosis with BPD. He recounted that a conversation with his psychiatrist: “He was always saying before this big meltdown, ‘You’re probably bipolar or borderline, we’re just going to have to figure it out.'”
Davidson admitted that the new treatment plan has not been without its share of difficulty, but he does claim to be seeing improvement overall. “It is working, slowly but surely. I’ve been having a lot of problems. This whole year has been a fucking nightmare. This has been the worst year of my life, getting diagnosed with this and trying to figure out how to learn with this and live with this.”
Davidson is not the first entertainer to be diagnosed with some type of disorder or similar affliction. But his openness about his condition, and his struggle to improve himself, are heroic. He will undoubtedly serve as inspiration for those diagnosed with similar disorders.
