(WGHP) — Maybe he slipped through the cracks because what Lee Hammock exhibited growing up in Reidsville seemed to fit in with the ethos of the times.

“When I was growing up, I just thought I was different … but I knew something was going on,” Lee said.

“From my early childhood, I always felt disconnected emotionally,” he said. “I was never … satisfied with what I had in life, what I was doing in life. I would have moments of happiness, but it would go away immediately. I graduated from A&T in 2015. I remember being happy as I walked across the stage. I was like ‘Yes! Finally got my degree.’ As soon as I hit the bottom step, it was gone.”

It affected his ability to form long-term relationships.

“Just growing up, I liked to isolate myself a lot from people,” Lee said. “I had a lot of friends, but I also liked to kind of be by myself, and that’s carried over into my adulthood now where I know a lot of people now, but I don’t feel like I have a lot of friends.” 

His situation came to a head when he had an argument with his wife, and she referred to him as a narcissist. He wasn’t sure what she meant.

“I looked up the signs and the symptoms and the traits and all that, and I was like, ‘Oh, wow! This is why I been feeling different since I was 8 years old, 9 years old,” Lee said. “This explains my lack of emotional connections to people. This explains why I get ‘ragey’ really quick, why I’m emotionally unstable.”

That led to real problems with his family for a while.

“My wife told me this, and it kind of broke my heart. She’s like, ‘I think the kids are scared of you because you are super ragey,’ and I was just like, ‘Ugh! … You hate to hear that, and it can be extremely embarrassing,” Lee said.

His main job was real estate, but Lee started dabbling in social media, and it was TikTok that really took off for him because he was laying his situation right out in the open.

“My very first video, I said, ‘I have a personality disorder. It’s called narcissistic personality disorder. It’s not the end of the world. I’m on my way to therapy right now. You can get help. You can choose to live a better life.’”

There is a lot of interest in what Lee puts on social media. He has nearly 2.5 million followers between his TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook pages, which all go under the heading Mental Healness.

He uses that platform to let others know that if they get help like him, they can live a great life.

“Whatever you’re doing, whether you have a personality disorder, a mental health issue, you’re dealing with somebody who has a mental health issue, you don’t have to heal in silence,” he said.

Lee Hammock certainly isn’t. See more of his journey in this Social Media Stars edition of The Buckley Report.