Country music star Tracy Lawrence managed to survive a terrible mugging some three decades ago. It must have been a horrendous experience for him. He is opening up about it now in the hopes that what he went through and how he dealt with it can be of use to others in the same situation. For as bad as Lawrence's injuries were, it was the understandable anger he harbored that was truly corrosive and debilitating.
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The Incident Happened in Nashville in 1991
Per Fox News Digital, Lawrence and a girlfriend "were mugged by multiple gun-wielding assailants" in Nashville. He got shot four times by these people. It made him mad. Very mad. Looking back on it, Lawrence wishes he had attended to his mental health more robustly in the aftermath.
"I was angry back then. I felt like... they were trying to take my opportunity away from me, and I didn't get the mental help that I needed. I'm much more aware of the consequences, whether it's, you know, if you go through a physical altercation or family trauma or whatever those things are."
He added, ""I'm a big believer in taking care of your mental health these days, and I didn't do that at the time. That was a very traumatic experience for me. I just suppressed it and shoved it down, and it caused me a lot of problems in my personal relationships, problems in my career."
He Says He Had a "God Complex" as a Result
The "I See It Now" singer, 58, feels that he had a "God complex" after the brutal mugging. It was an urge to take risks that might not have been there before.
He explained to the outlet, "When you overcome a life-altering experience like that, I think there's a little bit of a God complex that comes with it when you survive something that you probably shouldn't have. It caused me to push things to the edge a lot more than I would have if that had not had happened to me."
Tracy Lawrence Emphasizes the Importance of Dealing With the Emotions That Can Follow a Trauma
He knows what it feels like to have your life cruelly upended by vicious strangers. The key, however, is to get those feelings out of your system in a constructive, healthy way. You can't let them devour you.
Lawrence wisely said, "Don't suppress it. Purge that thing out and get it out and deal with it and confront it, because if you don't, eventually it's going to come out in a way that you can't control."
His Injuries Were Severe
Tracy Lawrence almost lost his leg. To this day, so many years later, he still has physical problems caused by the bullets his body took. But his abiding love of music and his deep faith in God have sustained him.
He shared, "I still have the highs and lows of it. I'm still a struggling Christian, and it's something that I counsel with my pastor on a regular basis about. But I know that God's always there. He's had his hand on me since I was a little child and I've been blessed to have a lot of prayer warriors. My mother and ladies from the church where I grew up, and even people in my life today that are praying for me constantly...."
