Why Kevin Smith Created a Public Persona to Cope with Childhood Trauma: I Called Him 'The Other Guy' (Exclusive)

Clerks director Kevin Smith is opening up about the coping mechanism he developed to deal with several childhood traumas — and how it eventually threatened to consume his life.

"I called him 'the other guy,'" Smith tells PEOPLE in a story in this week's magazine, detailing the psychological crisis that forced him to seek help at Arizona's Sierra Tucson treatment center for a month of intensive therapy.

It all started one morning last January when Smith awoke and felt like he was losing his mind. "It was scary," says Smith, who has released an intimate, first-person video account of his mental health journey on People.com.

The day after, what he describes as his "complete break from reality," the 52-year-old filmmaker, podcaster and comic book creator flew to Arizona and checked himself into the treatment center where he spent hours a day in private and group therapy.

Watch Trauma is Trauma: A Mental Health Talk with Kevin Smith below.

He soon came to understand that he'd been suffering from lifelong trauma, triggered by several disturbing childhood incidents — including being sexually abused by an older boy and publicly teased about his weight by an elementary school teacher who ridiculed him about the size of his "gut" in front of the class.

That, in turn, had led him to create and hide behind a boisterous public persona he calls "the other guy" that eventually eclipsed his core sense of self.

"That's when 'the other guy' started to appear," he says. "I decided I'd be entertaining and make people love me before they noticed I was fat."

By the time he was 24 and making headlines for his first hit, 1994's Clerks, his alter ego began to take center stage in his life.

For more on Kevin Smith's mental health journey, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

"I was already a self-loathing mess. 'The other guy' became my favorite piece of clothing to wear. I'd just let him take over," says Smith. But after awhile he started wearing me. The authentic me had stopped existing and the other guy had just kind of taken over and was at the wheel."

It took two weeks, he says, before he began "feeling the ground under my feet again."

He learned about the healing power of self-acceptance, a life-altering concept for Smith, who had always judged his self-worth by his ability to entertain others.

Equally helpful were mindfulness exercises he was taught — like concentrating on his breath — that he now uses to stay focused in the present.

"This was eye opening to me," admits Smith, "because I'd always spent the majority of my time depressed about the past or anxious over the future."

The days ahead, Smith knows, will be filled with plenty of emotional ups and downs as he learns how to cultivate a better understanding of what he calls his "authentic self," while also spreading the message to his fans about the importance of looking after their mental health.

"Deal with your trauma, kids," Smith says in his video. "I'm dealing with mine. Go take care of your mind."

If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.