The world of MMA has recently been opened to the strange man that is Sean Strickland. He recently got candid about his mental health and what are some of the root causes of why he is the way he is.
Strickland has been around the UFC for a while, but with his recent winning streak with impressive performances, his personality has been thrust into the limelight. This has resulted in a bit of backlash towards him for his bizarre and concerning comments, ranging from wanting to kill people to take them out in the woods for weird activities.
However speaking in an interview with Michael Bisping, the top middleweight contender explained a bit about where his odd persona stems from. He explained that it is due to some self esteem issues that he deals with, which resulted in him being the way he is.
“I look myself in the mirror and sometimes I want to break the f—king mirror. Half the time I hate I hate myself… If I wanted to show the scars I’d probably be a cuter. It’s something in the way you get brought up in life,” Strickland said.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CVEHeFEhH4R/
Sean Strickland Doesn’t Like Being Crazy
One of the things that has regularly been noted about Sean Strickland, is the fact that his behavior makes him seem like a psychopath. Of course, this is something he has done to himself in a certain extent, by saying the things he has said over the last several months.
While some look at that as a positive attribute for a cage fighter to have, Sean says it has a way of hindering his performance in fights at times, and feeds into the already existing self doubt that he has. That said, he explained that it comes from his upbringing, with terrible things he heard from his father growing up.
“I think the biggest issue is people look at it as a strength. People look at you like ‘Oh, you’re an angry psychopath’ like it’s a strength. It’s not a strength, it makes you doubt yourself, like I’m not good enough, I’m going to fail. You start making people seem bigger than they are,” Strickland said.
“My dad wasn’t really physically abusive, but like psychotic s—t. I grew up hearing some psychotic s—t that really f—ked with me. F—k, there was one time where, I mean you’re talking about pre-elementary school, I used to like hug my mom’s leg in the kitchen. My dad would start drinking, and I just remember him saying ‘If you leave me or cheat on me, I’ll f—king cut your body up and bury you in the backyard.’ Crazy s—, I mean that’s just the tip of the iceberg of the insanity I would hear. And dude, it effects you, it really does.”
https://youtu.be/4CrDKQkHkyQ
This is clearly no excuse for some of the strange things that he has said or the behavior that makes Sean Strickland notorious. However it does make things interesting to see what has led to the person that he is.
