General Hospital\u2019s Chris McKenna is publicly opening up about his battle with bipolar disorder for the first time.<\/p>\n
The actor, 48, shared his diagnosis in a sneak peek<\/a> of the Sunday, December<\/a> 21, episode of his co-star Maurice Benard\u2019s \u201cState of Mind\u201d podcast.<\/p>\n McKenna initially reflected on how the COVID pandemic impacted him mentally.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just lingered on and on \u2026 the monotony and not, like, moving on with my life<\/a>,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI was back at home and it really started to do a number on my mental health in particular.\u201d<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfac SIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/a> \ud83c\udfac<\/p>\n Benard, 62, then asked McKenna whether there was \u201canything specific for you that happened as far as you want to talk about,\u201d prompting McKenna to reveal his diagnosis to his co-star, who also suffers from bipolar disorder<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I\u2019ll talk about the fact that I have bipolar disorder,\u201d McKenna said. \u201cThis is the first time I\u2019m ever talking about it publicly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo, from one bipolar to another bipolar,\u201d Benard responded, \u201chow you doing, brother?\u201d<\/p>\n Before detailing his past struggles, including with drugs and alcohol, McKenna assured Benard, \u201cI\u2019m doing good right now. It hasn\u2019t always been the case, but I\u2019m good right now.\u201d<\/p>\n While McKenna is in a better place, he acknowledged that he dealt with symptoms of his disorder for years before being officially diagnosed.<\/p>\n \u201cI had my first breakdown when I was a teenager and then lived my whole life with this disorder undiagnosed, which is fascinating in retrospect,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n During the COVID lockdown, McKenna dealt with \u201cheavy cyclothymia,\u201d which is a rare mood disorder that causes emotional ups and downs, according to the Mayo Clinic<\/a>. This triggered \u201cmy first dangerous depression<\/a> since [I was] a teenager, which was followed by a manic psychotic episode which required hospitalization.\u201d<\/p>\n McKenna\u2019s hospital stay led to him finding out that he has bipolar disorder.<\/p>\n \u201cI finally got my diagnosis that I needed my whole life and got on medication, and that\u2019s where I am today,\u201d he told Benard.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, McKenna joined the cast of General Hospital as Jack Brennan<\/a>, making his first appearance in February. Prior to his role on the ABC<\/a> soap, he starred as Joey Buchanan on One Life to Live from 1990 to 1993 and Detective Mark Harding on The Young and the Restless from 2014 to 2015.<\/p>\n As for Benard, he has played Sonny Corinthos on General Hospital<\/a> since 1993. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 22 and became a mental health advocate after sharing his struggles publicly in 2000.<\/p>\n During a November<\/a> episode of his podcast, Benard confessed that \u201cthe pain [I] feel inside\u201d and \u201cthe thoughts are un-fricking-bearable,\u201d but he is \u201cproud of myself that I can go through this when it\u2019s that tough.\u201d<\/p>\n If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text \u201cHOME\u201d to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or visit their website<\/a>.<\/p>\n This story was originally published by Parade<\/a> on Dec 18, 2025, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"General Hospital\u2019s Chris McKenna is publicly opening up about his battle with bipolar disorder for the first time.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[12758,177791,21033,97,53845,259,260,177792],"class_list":{"0":"post-359966","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-bipolar-disorder","9":"tag-chris-mckenna","10":"tag-general-hospital","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-maurice-benard","13":"tag-mental-health","14":"tag-mentalhealth","15":"tag-mood-disorder"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}