Clerks star Kevin Smith has opened up on his traumatic childhood, which led him to enter intensive therapy at Arizona’s Sierra Tucson treatment center recently. The director told People he had a “complete break from reality” in January last year, as he confronted the sexual abuse and body shaming he suffered as a child. He told the magazine he was six years old when an older boy he didn’t know forced him to perform sexual acts with a young girl. He says at the age of nine he was traumatized again when his fourth grade teacher made fun of his “gut” in class. “I‘m terrified to see everyone’s reaction to [all of this],” Smith said. “But I know there’s somebody out there who doesn’t know this stuff—like I didn’t—who could get something out of this.”