Author and psychologist Jordan Peterson uploaded an eight-minute video to his YouTube channel on Monday, the first in more than a year due to a prolonged illness that saw him travel around the world seeking therapy.
Peterson, whose wildly successful self-help book 12 Rules to Life: An Antidote to Chaos catapulted him to international fame in 2018, explained he has been “suffering from severely impaired health” as a result of withdrawals from the anti-anxiety medication benzodiazepine, which he was prescribed following his wife’s cancer diagnosis in 2019.
“I have returned home to Toronto after spending much of the last eighteen months in hospitals,” Peterson, 58, wrote in the video’s description. “I am hoping that my health has improved to the point where I can start producing original content again. Thank you to all who are watching for your support over the course of this trying time. I hope that you all are coping with the COVID crisis successfully.”
Peterson traveled the world in seek of medical care and credited his family with helping get him through “the worst period” of his life as they searched for therapy, stopping in Russia, the United States, and Serbia along the way.
Peterson thanked his daughter, Mikhaila, who confirmed in August he also contracted COVID-19 while in Serbia, for accompanying him through the most “grueling” parts of the treatment.
“I’m alive, and I have plans for the future,” Peterson said. “I completed a biblical series devoted to Genesis in fall of 2017, and that has proved very popular, it’s a strange word to use for a lecture series like that. I’m going to start working on the next book in the Old Testament, which is Exodus, that will take a while, but in the interim, I think I’m going to produce videos devoted to Proverbs.”
The University of Toronto professor rose to prominence as a vocal critic of the Canadian government’s Bill C-16, which sought to establish “gender identity or expression” as a prohibited ground of discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act. Peterson objected on the grounds that the new law could force him to address a transgender student by his or her preferred pronoun or else be faced with prosecution under human rights laws. The bill passed and became law in 2017.
Peterson, who is one of YouTube’s top content creators with more than 3 million subscribers on the platform, said that although he is still feeling the effects of his battle with his illness, he hopes to begin making content again soon.
“I wanted to tell you that I’m back in Toronto, that I’m in much better health, although it’s still severely impaired, especially in the morning. But I can work again, and I really want to,” Peterson said. “With God’s grace and mercy, I’ll be able to start generating original material once again and pick up where I left off.”
