The extremely doe-eyed Amanda Seyfried has opened up about the realities of living with OCD and her experiences of using medication to help manage it.
In an unusually candid interview (as far as celebs go, anyway) with Allure Magazine, the former Mean Girls star spoke about being on the antidepressant medication Lexapro since the age of 19 (she’s now 30), and how she’ll likely be taking it for the rest of her life.
“I don’t see the point of getting off of it,” she said. “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? 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. 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.”
She also revealed she once became convinced she had a tumour in her brain, thanks to “pretty bad health anxiety” that came from the OCD.
“I had an MRI, and the neurologist referred me to a psychiatrist,” she said. “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.”
It’s not the first time she’s spoken about her mental illness, revealing to Allure in 2009 (same publication, different writer) that she was “obsessive” as a young girl.
“I would have to be really organised – too organised,” she said at the time. “Things like straightening my room didn’t feel right to me; I’d have to redo it and redo it.”
While the world in 2016 is slowly getting to terms that mental illness is not a sign of weakness and affects a huge bloody percentage of us, there is unfortunately still some stigma about using medication to help manage it.
Photo: Getty / Kevin Mazur.
If you’re going through a rough time or experiencing mental illness, reach out for help by giving the folks at BeyondBlue a call on 1300 22 4636. If you are in crisis or distress, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. If it is an emergency, call 000.
