Chris Rock Goes To Therapy 7 Hours A Week, Reveals He Was Diagnosed W/ Nonverbal Learning Disorder: All I Understand Are The Words

September 17, 2020 by Demi Lobo in Film with 0 Comments

Chris Rock

Chris Rock Goes To Therapy 7 Hours A Week, Reveals He Was Diagnosed W/ Nonverbal Learning Disorder: All I Understand Are The Words

Chris Rock revealed that he has been diagnosed with non-verbal learning disorder (NVLD).

While speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, he said a friend once suggested he might have the neuro-developmental condition Asberger’s that affects one’s ability to socialize and communicate. Chris Rock said that he took a few tests and was later diagnosed with nonverbal learning disorder (NVLD.). NVLD is a learning disorder in which one struggles with non-verbal signals. He said:

“All I understand are the words…”

He continued:

By the way, all of those things are really great for writing jokes — they’re just not great for one-on-one relationships. I’d always just chalked it up to being famous. Any time someone would respond to me in a negative way, I’d think, ‘Whatever, they’re responding to something that has to do with who they think I am.’ Now, I’m realizing it was me. A lot of it was me.”

Chris Rock, who said he now goes to therapy seven hours a week, added that he thought that his popular 2000’s TV show Everybody Hates Chris, was his outlet to address his childhood trauma, but later realized it wasn’t:

“I thought I was actually dealing with it, and the reality is I never dealt with it. The reality was the pain and the fear that that brought me, I was experiencing it every day.”

The veteran comedian said that his fear of failing and not being rich, mixed with low self-esteem is what kept him driven, in his early years of being a comedian,

“I had this great combination of big ego and low self-esteem. And the ego gets you out onstage, but the low self-esteem is the thing that makes you practice so much because you don’t believe in yourself at all. You think you’re a total fu**ing fraud, and you don’t think anybody could love you for being you, so you have to be good at this thing.”

Chris Rock spoke on how the coronavirus pandemic has forced him to take time to rest, and even learn to swim.

“What people don’t realize is that athletes get that time, and you can’t obtain greatness without the time to rest and work on yourself and your faults.”

Although Chris Rock has been addressing racism in his stand up comedy for 30 years, he says the current resurge in the Black Lives Matter movement makes him regret not doing more.

“Even though I talked about it and I joked about it, there’s a part of me that’s ashamed at how much of it I just accepted.”

Chris Rock was recently dragged into a debate about Jimmy Fallon’s impersonation of him during an episode of SNL in 2000 wearing Blackface. Jimmy Fallon issued an apology for doing the Blackface skit and Chris Rock said he called him and told him he loved him. He chalked Jimmy Fallon’s move to bad comedy and added,