Amanda Seyfried lifts the lid on her mental health battle with obsessive compulsive disorder.
The 30-year-old actress opened up to Allure magazine about the stigma surrounding her illness, and revealed she has been medicating for over a decade.
“Yeah. I’m on Lexapro, and I’ll never get off of it. I’ve been on it since I was 19, so 11 years. I’m on the lowest dose,” the Mean Girls star admitted.
“I don’t see the point of getting off of it. Whether it’s placebo or not, I don’t want to risk it. And what are you fighting against? Just the stigma of using a tool?”
Seyfried, who last month became engaged to her Last Word co-star Thomas Sadoski, continued her discussion on mental health, questioning why it’s seen differently to physical illnesses.
“A mental illness is a thing that people cast in a different category [from other illnesses], but I don’t think it is. It should be taken as seriously as anything else,” she said. “You don’t see the mental illness: It’s not a mass; it’s not a cyst. But it’s there. Why do you need to prove it? If you can treat it, you treat it.”
The Dear John actress also opened up about how she was diagnoses, admitting that she thought she was suffering from a brain tumour.
“I had pretty bad health anxiety that came from the OCD and thought I had a tumour in my brain. I had an MRI, and the neurologist referred me to a psychiatrist.
“As I get older, the compulsive thoughts and fears have diminished a lot. Knowing that a lot of my fears are not reality-based really helps.”
Despite being in the public eye, the Mamma Mia! star admitted to feeling insecure at time.
“Sometimes I feel I know the world so well, but then…it’s so debilitating. You’re like, What am I doing here? No one wants to see me. Why are you taking my picture?
“It’s stupid, it’s irrational, and it’s not all about me, but I make it about me because I’m insecure.”
You might also like…
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
