Orlando Bloom reveals mental health struggles after near-death experience
Los Angeles, California - Orlando Bloom got candid about his mental health struggles after one of the "darkest times" in his life.
On Monday, in a joint Instagram clip with UNICEF, Bloom dished on a near-death experience he endured in his teens that almost left him paralyzed.
"When I was 19 I fell three floors from a window and broke my back," he began in the clip.
"I was very fortunate to survive the fall because my spinal cord was still just intact."
The dad of two further revealed that during the first four days of his recovery, he would told that he "may never walk again."
"That was really the beginning of what was a long and painful journey for me into recognizing and understanding some of the patterns that had been in my life that had led me to having numerous accidents."
"And the culmination was breaking my back, which was a near-death experience," he continued.
Orlando Bloom gets honest about his mental health struggles
Though The Hobbit star had a "remarkable and unheard of" physical recovery after the critical injury, his mental health suffered greatly.
"I would say the months after the fall were quite a dark time," Bloom admitted.
"As somebody who'd sort of always been very active in my life, it felt very restrictive all of a sudden and I was in a lot of pain."
The 45-year-old, who was made a UNICEF ambassador in 2009, continued: "Mental health is particularly challenging because it's unseen. There is always an opportunity for you to transform the pain, whether it be physical or mental, into the great, good fortune of your life."
He finished with some crucial advice: "[It] is so important to reach out to people, to talk to people, to find somebody, in order to create the possibility for communication that leads to transformation and change."
Cover photo: Screenshot/Instagram/orlandobloom