George Clooney's life changed in 2005 when a freak accident left him with chronic, debilitating pain for years to come. While filming the movie "Syriana," someone happened to kick a chair he was sitting in. When he fell, he tore his dura mater, which holds the spinal fluid. For the next few months, Clooney was in pain that was severe enough to make him consider suicide. "I was at a point where I thought, 'I can't exist like this. I can't actually live,'" the actor told Rolling Stone (via Huffington Post). "I was lying in a hospital bed with an IV in my arm, unable to move, having these headaches where it feels like you're having a stroke, and for a short three-week period, I started to think, 'I may have to do something drastic about this.'"
Eventually, he sought help from an expert, who recommended that Clooney learn to live with the pain until he no longer registered it in his brain. "Basically, the idea is, you try to reset your pain threshold," he told GQ. "Because a lot of times, what happens with pain is you're constantly mourning for how it used to feel." And eventually, it worked — the pain vanished, and for Clooney, it was like "euphoria."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
