Paige Spiranac has just made a confession about her mental health, revealing that she has been battling anxiety since childhood. The 32-year-old shared her deep frustration with frequent crying and credited cognitive behavioral therapy as a lifeline, noting that it helped in managing her struggles.

“So I have always struggled with regulating my emotions. I am a crier through and through. I have always been and I hate it. I hate it so much,” she confessed. “And it’s just something that I’ve never been able to self-regulate from being a child to now being a grown adult. It is so embarrassing and I hate it. I hate how much I cry. I hate when I cry, how it comes out. And it comes out in all different situations,” Spiranac said during a recent Q&A session on her YouTube channel.

She explained how tears come at random times, like when she’s angry, happy, or even when she sees dogs. Watching someone eat alone, hearing the national anthem, being around bright lights, loud music, or a lot of people can also cause the same reaction.

Notably, biofeedback sessions showed that her brain activity gets mixed up when she’s stressed. The solution lay in simply letting go of emotions,

These problems also hindered her professional golf career. When Spiranac played on the Cactus Tour and tried to qualify for the LPGA, the stress of these tournaments, together with her severe anxiety and panic attacks, made it impossible for her to keep competing.

Before learning about cognitive behavioral therapy, Spiranac tried biofeedback and talk therapy.

“I am doing CBT which is cognitive behavioral therapy and it has been really beneficial for me,” she shared. The results are measurable: “I do feel like I cry a lot less because of the work that I have done.”

Things got better, though. In January 2025, Paige Spiranac gave fans a brutally honest update on her mental health.

“I have never felt more confident and secure and at peace with my life, both professionally and personally,” she said at the time.

The statement marked a dramatic shift from an earlier time in her career, when she was “painfully insecure” and lacked self-identity. Her newfound confidence has also changed her relationship with social media.

“Now that I am feeling more fulfilled and more secure in my own self, I have different motivations when it comes to creating content,” Paige Spiranac explained.

Now, she’s navigating how to create content that resonates with fans while allowing herself room to grow and evolve creatively, rather than posting out of insecurity and a need for external validation.

While therapy has helped her manage anxiety, she still grapples with being chronically misunderstood by the public.

The misunderstood persona of Paige Spiranac

In the same Q&A session, Spiranac described her online presence as “very polarising,” with a persistent gap between public perception and her authentic self.

“This person that people assume me to be feels so vastly different from who I actually am as a person,” she explained, highlighting the emotional burden of constant mischaracterisation.

The disconnect fueled an exhausting pattern.

“I have this deep burning desire to defend my character and overexplain things,” she admitted.

Each defense triggered accusations of playing victim, creating what she calls a “vicious cycle” that consumed her energy without changing minds or earning understanding from critics. Breaking free required accepting a difficult truth.

“I just finally learned this lesson and I put my foot down and I said, I am just done doing this,” Spiranac revealed.

She recognized that critics would maintain their views regardless of facts presented, making her defensive explanations futile exercises in frustration. She eventually accepted it, and it brought a sense of peace within her.

“The people who dislike me will always dislike me. They will always think that I am that person no matter what,” she said.

She got back the energy she had been using to fight against opinions by letting go of the need to correct every misunderstanding. Instead, she is now focused on her ongoing mental health journey.

Spiranac’s story shows that being open about mental health and accepting things can do more than staying quiet ever could.