"I've been through a lot of therapy and childhood trauma" - Kelley Earnhardt gets real on mental health stigma

Kelley Earnhardt opened up about her childhood trauma while discussing the rise and importance of mental health awareness with Kenny Wallace. She revealed that she had been through a "lot of therapy."

Mental health awareness has become a major talking point over the past few years. Workplaces and even households now pay attention to it, but this was not the case earlier. NASCAR veteran Kenny Wallace talked about this with Kelley Earnhardt on his "Kenny Conversation" podcast.

Kelley Earnhardt stated that while mental health wasn't as widely talked about when she was growing up, it was because it wasn't a large issue. She claimed that the ever-changing world is one of the reasons why mental health has become an important aspect of life. Kelley Earnhardt also revealed that she had been through some childhood trauma as well.

Describing her experience with her father Dale Earnhardt Sr., she said:

"I didn't have anybody to talk about my feelings when I was a kid. My dad said 'You do this, you do it this way, and you do it now, and if you don't do it, then I'm gonna - I'll bust your ass'. I'm not saying that's not the right way to do it."

"But you know what did Kelley hear? 'If you don't do this, you're not good enough.' I've been through a lot of therapy. I've got my own childhood trauma and I talk about that in my book too." [1:57]

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Kelley Earnhardt blames social media for affecting the mental health of people

Out of the multiple causes she talked about with Kenny Wallace, Kelley Earnhardt claimed that social media is affecting the mental health of the current generation.

She stated that the entire world is connected on a single platform and users can see the differences between lifestyles of people. Kelley Earnhardt added that the current generation is put under too much pressure by social media to be a certain way.

"Social media has made it so much worse because I didn't really know that I needed to talk to anybody. I didn't know it was any different. Now I get to look across the internet and you know I get to decide whether people are prettier than me, whether they have more money than me." [2:40]

"I mean it's just crazy all the things that our kids, especially, and our teens, and our 20-some-year-olds, the pressure on them to be something, and they can't, and the world's too critical if you're not what they think you need to be." [3:01]