Meet Nathan Clarkson

We were lucky to catch up with Nathan Clarkson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Nathan, sincerely appreciate your selflessness in agreeing to discuss your mental health journey and how you overcame and persisted despite the challenges. Please share with our readers how you overcame. For readers, please note this is not medical advice, we are not doctors, you should always consult professionals for advice and that this is merely one person sharing their story and experience.

I was diagnosed at a young age with multiple mental health conditions and learning disabilities. I can still remember the conflicting emotions I felt that day in the psychologist’s office, the first being relief that I could finally put a name to the mental struggles I had faced my entire life, but then almost immediately a sense of separation from the world around me. I all of a sudden had to face the difficult reality that my mind didn’t work like most people’s did. I was different.

In a world that so often demands conformity, being different can be a very lonely thing. Seeing the world in a unique way often made me feel othered, separated, and lonely. I wanted to be normal so I could fit into the mold that promised ease and acceptance, but so often I felt I was looking at life through a glass I simply couldn’t get past. For years my mental diagnoses felt like a curse I couldn’t break, but then little by little, through the nonstop encouragement from my family, mentors who saw value and potential in the way I saw the world, and an entrance to a professional creative life, I began to see my diagnoses not as a weakness to rid myself of but instead a superpower to be used for good.

I still struggle with the difficulties of living with mental illness, and I always will. But I have found in the years of being an actor, author, and filmmaker that my unique mind—something I used to hate—is something that can actually help me create, imagine, and problem-solve in ways no one else can. My mental realities come with problems to be faced, but they also offer me a completely unique way to view the world that I can share through my art.

So the way that I have “persisted” and/or “overcome” is changing my perspective on the things that make me different—seeing them not as aspects of myself to be quashed and covered but rather celebrated and used.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I love stories and have dedicated my life to telling ones I hope and believe can make a positive effect in the world, stories that can bring light into the darkness of a difficult world. I have chosen to tell and be a part of these stories as an actor, where I have been able to be a part of (even a small part) of great film and television productions; an author, where I have been able to tell my own personal story to help readers think more deeply about their own; and as a filmmaker, where I have attempted to create stories that offer visions of meaning, hope, true love, and redemption.

Currently, I am finishing editing a memoir titled I’m The Worst, coming out early next year; finishing production on an arthouse film called Act of Contrition that will be released middle of next year; and I just finished filming a small but pivotal role in a major series streaming soon!

I also co-host a weekly podcast called The Overthinkers, where we attempt to have fun thinking deeply alongside intellectual and influential people on a host of interesting questions.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1. Become an expert on who to listen to and who to ignore. It’s harder than you think.

2. Realize anything good will take a long time and require hard work. Cliché, I know. But there’s a reason for that.

3. Have a purpose larger than yourself for why you’re doing this. Doing what you do for a reason will give you the longevity to keep going, even when it’s difficult.

How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?

Exactly as I would now, using whatever gifts, talents, or abilities I possess to help people understand the truth more fully and make the world a more beautiful place.

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