Philip De Fries Reflects on Anxiety Issues That Impacted Most of His Career: ‘My Life Was Hell’

Philip De Fries is a few days away from attempting his sixth title defense. De Fries (20-6, 1NC; 6-0 KSW) is headlining Feb. 26’s KSW 67 event, where he is locking horns with Darko Stosic. In his latest appearance, the Englishman stopped Tomasz Narkun with punches as he scored the longest consecutive title defense streak in Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki history by beating five straight contenders. De Fries is now riding an impressive eight-bout winning streak and feels like he is in a better place in his career and life. However, the Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran had to battle inner demons for most of his career, dealing with some crippling anxiety issues that impacted his performances in the cage and diminished the quality of his life in general.

“My life was hell,” he said to Sherdog. “I can’t really say it, but I was crazy. I was insane, I couldn’t operate as a person. I got to the head that someone was gonna steal my dog, so I put a camera in my bedroom so I could look at my door on my phone when I was out. I would have to check the technical off the front door like hundreds of times. I was so worried about people going to my house. When I was fighting somebody, I would like, ‘Oh, what if he got the right hand, what am I going to do?,’ and I was worried about what this guy was gonna do so much that I couldn’t fight. My fight was horrible, and my life was hell. I didn’t know I had anything wrong with it because I was raised with it. When I beat this anxiety, it was like, ‘Oh my God, normal life is amazing without this anxiety.’ It ruined a lot of my life. It’s quite sad, but I’m extremely happy now.”

De Fries also discussed training with Tom Aspinall in preparation for their respective fights, talked about his relationship with Polish fans and more.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(00:28) His flight to Warsaw
(01:29) Buying a PS4 to pass the time
(02:40) Preparing for Stosic
(03:18) Training with Aspinall for this fight
(04:21) What he expects from Stosic
(04:51) Whether there is any bad blood with Stosic
(06:11) Dealing with anxiety and mental health issues for most of his career
(07:48) Balancing his life as a professional fighter
(08:31) When did he realize he had to overcome the anxiety issues
(10:12) What’s next for him, if he wins
(11:00) Fighting away from home
(11:58) Feeling like the outlander at first
(13:00) His relationship with polish fans
(13:40) Promising to do a shoey if he wins

Tudor Leonte started writing about mixed martial arts in 2013 for Italian media outlets. His journey with Sherdog began in 2018 and now he covers One Championship and countless European shows. You can follow him on Twitter @MrTudorLeonte.