Ben Pearce has opened up to the public on his battle with depression.

The Manchester based producer took to Facebook this morning, admitting to his fans and the general public that he suffers from this far too common mental illness, and that he is putting his music career on hold in order to fight it.

Read the full post below:

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I have an important message for all my fans, especially anybody who is planning on seeing me DJ this year.

It is with a deep regret I am cancelling all my upcoming shows for 2016. I’ve battled with depression for the past few years and despite professional help I have reached a place where I know this is sadly the only choice I’m left with. It has nearly pushed me to saying goodbye altogether a few times and now more than ever I feel that is a huge risk. It’s affected every part of my life, I never used to have social or performance anxiety and now I suffer with it terribly. It is real, it isn’t talked about enough in society or the music industry and I hope my fans and fellow industry members can understand my decision. It can be easy to hide behind your social media or intoxicants and pretend it isn’t happening but that doesn’t help in the long run.

This isn’t a goodbye forever at this stage; this is taking the time and the steps necessary to make an attempt at recovery towards leading a healthy mental state of mind. I may still be making music, I’m not sure yet what will happen. I hope I can come back from this, I know deep down I am truly grateful and lucky to be able to do this for a living.

Lastly I would like to thank each and every one of you who has supported me, you’re the only reason I’m not still working in a call centre and do not for one second think I am not extremely grateful for that.

Ben x

For any management enquiries please contact: [email protected]

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Pearce has not yet defined how long he will be away from the music world, but we will update this post as more news unfolds.

Get well, Ben.