General Hospital's Finn Carr opens up about his mental health struggle

With what General Hospital’s Rocco has been going through lately, he’s definitely going to need some help mentally. He lost his mother figure, Sam (Kelly Monaco), and as soon as his bio-mom, Lulu (Alexa Havins), woke up from her four-year coma, she ran off to find her daughter, Charlotte (Scarlett Fernandez). Rocco’s portrayer, Finn Carr, who feels lucky to have landed the role, has had some mental health issues in real life, and he recently opened up about it.

Zoom therapy wasn’t doing it for him

General Hospital’s Finn Carr was a guest on co-star Maurice Benard’s (Sonny) mental health talk series, State of Mind. As always, Benard steered the conversation toward mental health. Carr admitted, “A few years ago, I was having a little bit of, like, seasonal depression,” which surprised Benard. “Pretty good for someone my age,” he quipped, acknowledging that it was very serious.

“I remember I asked to see a therapist and because of like Covid and stuff like that there was no in person,” he remarked, adding, “which I, I almost didn't want to do it because…and I think I held off for a little bit to try and get an in person, so I wasn't able to to get to it because…I was just so turned off to the idea of doing it over Zoom.” Carr felt that in a room, on Zoom, others could hear his conversation, and he preferred the privacy and intimacy of a one-on-one conversation with someone in person.

Benard mentioned that no matter what, if someone needs therapy they should take it any way they can get it, and Carr agreed, stating, “Right. Something's better than nothing.” Benard wanted to delve deeper into the subject of depression and asked what it looked like to Carr.

Carr remarked, “It's hard to kind of …think back on that because it was something that I…I didn't really tell a lot of people about it when it was happening. I kind of just kept it maybe to myself. Told like a close friend or something like that.” He knew that his parents were very open-minded at the time and would be there for him, but “Something something just wanted me to…not talk to them and just…work on it by myself.” He felt that being depressed was something “silly” to ask help for. Once he started talking to someone about his feelings, he felt “things got better.”

He described his depression as a point in his life where he didn’t want to get out of bed, go to school, or eat right. “I would get terrible sleep,” he explained, adding the because the quality of his sleep was so poor, “The only thing that would really help me…is exercise.” He noted that swimming in cold water, and just, “the quiet in the water,” helped soothe him and make him feel much better.

General Hospital’s Finn Carr further explained that he feels worse mentally when he doesn’t exercise. He pushes himself to do it when he doesn’t want to and remarked that exercise is “Such a great resource that I've…kept with me, especially then. It was the only thing that was able to really help.”

You can watch new episodes of General Hospital on ABC and Hulu.