Nothing General About It

by Maurice Benard

  My problem is I define myself by social media or compliments. This goes back to everything having to be perfect when I was growing up and the bar being set very high. Fortunately or unfortunately, my social media thrives and is positive, but it shouldn’t matter either way. I’m working hard on not worrying about what people think, but it’s definitely a work in progress. It drives Paula crazy that I’m always posting videos because she would prefer that my face not stay buried in the phone when I’m off work. My daughter Cailey even called me out on it and at first I didn’t understand and thought no one was being supportive.

  In 2015, an opportunity came up for me to play the character Ridge in the film Joy with one of my idols: Robert De Niro. Although I wasn’t in a deep funk, there was still a major problem—I hadn’t gotten on a plane in ten years. There was no way around it, it was time to confront my panic attacks on a plane, because if I didn’t fly to New York I would miss the chance, and I might not get another. It was overwhelming and my anxiety was through the roof. I tried everything but I couldn’t get my head in a good place and I couldn’t sleep. When I told Paula I couldn’t go, she just looked at me. Usually Paula has this sweet, caring voice, but there’s this other voice—the firm, “that’s it, you’re going” voice—and she used it that day.

  Cassidy and Joshua accompanied us and when we got to the airport, I boarded the largest plane on the planet, but of course I didn’t think it was big enough. It felt like a tiny box to me and I glanced at the exit, but before I could move toward it, Paula touched my arm.

  “You’re not getting off the plane,” she said with finality in that firm voice that I knew I couldn’t ignore.

  I looked at Joshua and Cassidy, who were already in their seats, and I flashed to the last time I had made my kids get off a plane and miss a trip. I couldn’t do that to Joshua or Cassidy again, so I sat down and said a prayer, and although I was anxious, somehow I got through it.

  The first day I arrived on the set it was closed to everyone but a few actors and crew. I couldn’t tell if one of the guys was the director, David O. Russell, or not, because his face was covered with a surgical mask. It reminded me of Michael Jackson and I thought, Okay, this guy is weird, but as it turns out he was sick and didn’t want to spread germs to his cast and crew. And then I heard a voice behind me and turned to see Jennifer Lawrence.

  “Hi, I’m Jennifer, it’s nice to meet you,” she said, smiling, and we chatted. She’s lovely, and I think she did a phenomenal job as Joy in the film.

  The highlight, of course, as well as the terror, was meeting De Niro. In the film there’s a world within Joy’s world, and the soap opera that her mother follows and Joy’s reality bleed into each other, which was really a cool concept. The first scene I had to perform in included Bradley Cooper, Jennifer, and De Niro. I remember watching De Niro watch me, and I was more nervous than I had ever been in any pressure-cooker situation before. He just stared at me the entire scene as I said my lines, but afterward he shook my hand and I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders, like I had passed on to another sphere at that point. If I did nothing else in my career, I had gotten one perfect day acting in a room with one of my heroes.

  Funnily enough, my path crossed Susan Lucci’s on the set of Joy; on the last day of shooting, I had a scene with her, Donna Mills, and Laura Wright.

  “Yell at her! Now tell her you love her!” David Russell interjected different instructions every few seconds. Suddenly the director of photography told him the film had run out, so I thought that was that, but David didn’t hesitate. “Put another one in,” he directed, and we kept on going.

  He said in a TV interview that “soap actors are like professional athletes” and that I “was like the Brando of soap operas” and that means a lot to me, but it’s funny, he never got my name right.

  “Mike, let’s try this,” he’d say. I’d follow his instructions, then he’d throw something else at me. “Mitch, do this.”

  People kept correcting him, but I laughed and told him, “I don’t care what you call me.”

  He smiled and said, “I always forget everyone’s name.” I get it; I’m pretty bad at names, too. He might’ve been bad with names, but he sure knew his job—the film was released that December and went on to win a Golden Globe for Best Picture.

  After I shot the film, I returned to Port Charles to find that finally Sonny was going to save the day. With Frank’s approval, the writers wrote an episode where everyone is on The Haunted Star, dressed to celebrate, unaware that a bomb has been placed there and is counting down to annihilation. When they detect the device it is too late to disarm it; however, right before the bomb goes off, Sonny grabs it and dives from the boat into the water. For once, Sonny saved lives instead of threatening them, but the haters immediately thought it was overkill and beat us up, complaining that now Sonny had rescued the whole town all at once. Still, I’m glad Frank let Sonny have the moment.

  Sonny had a moment with Ava—rather, a grief-driven one-night stand—that resulted in a daughter but didn’t erase their seismic hatred for each other. Ava and Sonny’s daughter, Avery, are played by twins Ava and Grace Scarola and I have a lot of fun teasing them.

  I was finally exploring my own personal layers, and allowing myself to be truly, publicly vulnerable. In February 2016, I was asked to appear on Dr. Oz, and this time, with Paula by my side, I allowed myself to be vulnerable and become emotional when talking about bipolar.

  At the end of the long, intense interview, they surprised me with a pre-taped video from Bryan, my TV son, which brought tears to my eyes. He said he couldn’t have done the bipolar arc without me and my honesty and strength were an inspiration. His sentiments will always mean the world to me.

  Finally, finally, I felt like I’d shown the world my true self.

  Chapter Fourteen

  God Only Knows

  When I was fifty-three, dark days really hit and my personal and professional worlds were rocked to the very core. It started when I was offered a script for an indie film in New York I wanted to do because the concept was really cool: they planned to shoot it in one day—and in a single continuous take.

  I committed to it immediately, but deep down in my gut I also immediately had reservations. It was General Hospital’s fiftieth anniversary year and my work schedule was more intense than usual because I had a full five-day week and had dozens of scenes, which made for long work days and dozens of pages to memorize every night. I was giving it my all and then some.

  As a soap actor I have to memorize a lot of dialogue and a lot of pages every single night because it’s a talking gig, but there’s usually less talking in features. This film was different and it was so dialogue-heavy the script was almost one hundred pages of me talking. Even though I’m used to doing one-take scenes on the show, it started to seem overwhelming to do it all without breaking, in one twenty-four-hour period. Four days after I started studying my lines, I began to feel that familiar panic in my bones. It was crippling and I couldn’t sleep for days.

  But I was about to get a one-two punch.

  Paula had not been feeling well and when Vanessa Marcil talked with her awhile at a function, she was convinced something was wrong and Paula needed to have her thyroid checked. Vanessa pushed Paula to go see her doctor, and while Paula usually takes care of everyone else before herself, this time she listened to Vanessa’s advice and made an appointment. I’ll always be grateful to Vanessa for that.

  A few days after the tests, the physician called with bad news. Paula had thyroid cancer, and to make it worse, they were not sure if the cancer had spread. It was like a swift kick in the gut; I couldn’t breathe or function.

  I couldn’t lose Paula. I couldn’t picture my life without her.

  Knowing that Carol’s treatments hadn’t stopped the damn cancer from growing or killing her, I was terrified. My head started spinning and the anxiety wouldn’t go away, day or night. I visualized Paula in a coffin and kept going down that d
ark tunnel of hopeless thoughts.

  The hospital scheduled surgery to remove Paula’s thyroid in mid-June, and until then we would have to wait and hope and pray for the best. There were all the normal pressures—the kids’ school and schedules and problems, running the house, caring for sick animals, managing my career—but she wasn’t going to let cancer or anything else ruin any of her plans. She amazes me because, no matter what, she just tackles whatever is happening and moves forward.

  Meanwhile, I’d also been cast in the indie movie Hold On, playing a music executive, and it was too late to back out of it, but I was still depressed and the darkness that had started after The Ghost and the Whale had followed me there. Paula being diagnosed with cancer didn’t help, and although the character I played was interesting and I delivered the goods, no one knew I was hanging by a thread, least of all the director, Tarek Tohme.

  During all this time, with everything else going on in our lives, Paula had also been embroiled in finishing the final postproduction touches and financing battles for that costly part of filmmaking on The Ghost and the Whale. But in true Paula style she completed post on our film while simultaneously beating the pavement to find distribution, and again, against all odds, she did—the film came out on digital and on-demand through MarVista Entertainment in May 2016. We were probably more relieved than anything to finally put our passion project to rest with a distribution deal, and were glad for the distraction during the most terrifying time of our lives.

  A month later, the wait for Paula’s surgery was over. It took place without any complications and afterward Paula had to stay at the hospital for radiation treatment, but even though she was released three days later, she had to spend a week away from everyone at home because the radiation was dangerous for others. Meanwhile, I was in Los Angeles, coming to the set every day, and it was hard not to be there for her.

  Between scenes and at night I was also studying for the indie film and the anxiety was growing because I was distracted and terrified about Paula’s illness and what it meant for Paula, for us, and our kids. I could barely stand the pressure crushing me from all sides. I went to work at General Hospital the Friday before the film shoot was taking place and began pacing, and then I began weeping. Donna took one look at me and knew the film was doomed.

  “You’re not getting on that plane,” she said.

  Once again, we called Dr. Drew and he set me up with a therapist. When I arrived at her office, she explained that she was going to use a nontraditional type of psychotherapy for my stress and anxiety, called EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), which is also used with people who experience PTSD. She turned on strobe lights that flickered back and forth and asked me to follow them with my eyes, and while I concentrated on the lights, she asked me to recall a traumatic event, including all the feelings and physical sensations that accompanied it.

  A flood of tormenting memories washed over me. I thought about being a little boy, shaking with terror in bed, afraid to be alone in the dark with the demons that lurked in the shadows. I thought about the anxiety waiting for my father to hit me and him standing over me in a rage with the belt and felt its sting against my skin. I thought about being strapped down in the mental institution, unable to move freely, my wrists raw from struggling, sweat covering my body, terrified of the demons I was sure were coming to take my soul.

  After a while, she instructed me to switch to a happy memory, still following the flashes of light, and I thought about the first time I saw Paula and how everything inside me pulled me into the store. I thought about her walking toward me at our wedding and my heart being so full it could burst. I thought about her laughing with the kids and how her smile is contagious and felt the smile on my face . . . but then suddenly her face was in a coffin and I instantly was sucked down into the dark again. The flood of memories was interrupted by the fluorescent overhead fixtures as they clicked on and washed the room in bright steady light.

  The strobes had stopped and I had been there an hour and a half, but I didn’t feel any different; the knot of anxiety was still sitting in my gut. However, the therapist looked at me and said I was fine and told me to get on the plane. I thought I had heard her wrong, but there was a huge disconnect because she meant it. The moment I left her office I started sobbing, because I knew I still couldn’t get on the plane and I also felt like a failure.

  Clearly that therapist wasn’t the right person for me, and the moral of the story is, follow your instincts. Every therapist isn’t meant for you but if you’re in trouble, reach out, talk to one. If that person doesn’t fit, find another one, and if you can’t talk to a therapist, talk to somebody, a loved one, a friend.

  Don’t ignore it.

  Don’t hold it in.

  Don’t feel like a failure.

  Paula contacted the indie film director and told him I couldn’t do the role after all, and I was devastated but knew it was the right call. The director, in one of those rare Hollywood moments that gives you faith in people, was completely cool and understanding. Even though I didn’t have the pressure of the film weighing on me anymore, the anxiety still wouldn’t dissipate and was loading me down like a ton of bricks. Two more weeks passed and I still wasn’t sleeping, because I was terrified to close my eyes—when I did, I kept seeing Paula’s face in that coffin.

  This anxiety was a new and more menacing beast, because in the past anxiety would usually leave after minutes or an hour, but not this, and not now.

  To distract me, Paula decided we would drive to Vegas with the kids. We had gone numerous times over the years for concerts and boxing matches and I had even met Sugar Ray Leonard in a casino once and welterweight Keith Thurman, too. Vegas was always a fun destination and an easy last-minute road trip for us, but this time I couldn’t shake the anxiety, and while everyone hung out in the casino I was in bad shape.

  I don’t know why, but the anxiety won’t go away sometimes, and when it gets that bad, I just have to ride it out, so when we got back to Temecula I stayed in my room for days. I tried to sleep, but the scary uncomfortable feeling always started creeping in to choke me and I would bolt back up, sweating. Now I just try not to fight it, but that’s easier said than done, and during that episode the doctor had to prescribe Xanax to knock me out just so I could get some rest.

  One night I finally went out, and while I was in a drugstore a woman started talking to me.

  “You saved my life. I saw you on Dr. Oz,” she told me.

  I was honest and told her I was suffering right then but that I had to just keep on keeping on. I told her things would get better and I desperately wanted to believe that, but I couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel because I knew I had to go back to L.A. to work on Monday and I was scared I couldn’t do it. I was reading meditation books but that didn’t help, and on Sunday night before I had to drive to Los Angeles I was huddled in a corner crying.

  When Paula saw me, she took on that firm tone. “Honey, enough. You can do it. You’ve got to go to work tomorrow.”

  But I didn’t get much sleep and early in the morning I watched church services on television to comfort me. The first thing the preacher said was, “Today we’re going to talk about anxiety.” I listened and I prayed, but I still didn’t want to go back to L.A., so Paula said she would go with me. I felt ashamed that I needed her to be with me and said I could do it myself, but when the time came to get in the car to drive, I couldn’t move my muscles to start the ignition. I just sat there for a moment or two with Paula patiently waiting, and then she gently opened the door and helped me out, steering me to the passenger seat.

  During the drive I couldn’t calm down and when we arrived at my apartment in Los Angeles, once again I couldn’t move my limbs to get out of the car. After Paula talked to me awhile, I got out of the car; we walked through the hallways to the door of my apartment, and it was crazy but I couldn’t even make myself put the key in the lock. It was surreal, like I was trying to swim in
quicksand. Once again, Paula soothed my fears and assured me everything was okay. I didn’t want to go inside my apartment, either, and Paula was, as always, ever so patient and talked to me until she convinced me it would be fine to enter. Opening the door, she helped me inside, promising she wouldn’t leave me alone that night. It was terrible and it terrified me that the anxiety had gotten such a tight grip on me that I physically couldn’t move.

  Paula contacted Dr. Friedemann Schaub, a therapist in his forties based in Paris I had found online, and whom I absolutely love. He gave me this beautiful scenario that I use often when he said, “Pretend that your son Joshua is on the bed and he’s scared and you come to him and you say, ‘I’m here, I’m your dad, I’m going to protect you,’ and Joshua gets in your arms and feels safe. Well, imagine that little boy is really you.” That has helped me so many times when my anxiety has gotten bad.

  This time, over Skype, he taught me a breathing exercise. I take a step, I take a deep breath, and say, “I am confident.” He told me to start at the top of the stairs. Breathe, walk another step. Breathe. Go down another stair. Breathe, take another step, another stair.

  I am confident.

  I am confident.

  I am confident.

  Breathe.

  With this new tool, I was able to make myself go back to work. I practiced the breathing exercise constantly in between scenes and in my dressing room. I had a big story line and there were so many monologues, I wasn’t sure if I could get through them. I remember being full of despair and thinking, They don’t know what I’m going through.

  Then I had to go in front of the camera and finish the scenes.

  Dominic knew and listened to me while I cried with him, and I also talked with Laura about it and told Frank. It took a while to get through that anxiety period, but, little by little, things do get better, whether you can see the light at the end of the tunnel or not. You just have to keep doing what you usually do, going through the motions. I couldn’t stop, even though there were times I wanted to. Even if I didn’t do anything else, I still had to take Cain out for exercise two times a day, and some days that alone felt like climbing the tallest mountain in the world, but I did it.