Kristen Bell Has Written A Candid Essay About Her Struggles With Anxiety And Depression
"I felt worthless, like I had nothing to offer, like I was a failure. Now, after seeking help, I can see that those thoughts couldn’t have been more wrong."
In a piece for Motto, Veronica Mars (and most recently, The Boss) star Kristen Bell has opened up about her battles with mental illness and the “taboo” around discussing anxiety and depression. Bell describes the “dark cloud” that led her to seek professional help, admonishing people’s reluctance to disclose their own mental health struggles for fear of judgement. She admits that she has not felt comfortable talking publicly about her own 15 year battle with depression.
“For me, depression is not sadness. It’s not having a bad day and needing a hug. It gave me a complete and utter sense of isolation and loneliness,” she writes. “Its debilitation was all-consuming, and it shut down my mental circuit board. I felt worthless, like I had nothing to offer, like I was a failure. Now, after seeking help, I can see that those thoughts, of course, couldn’t have been more wrong.”
Bell contends that one of the reasons that people are still reluctant to discuss mental illness is because it’s not considered the same as physical illness. “Mental health check-ins should be as routine as going to the doctor or the dentist,” she says. “After all, I’ll see the doctor if I have the sniffles. If you tell a friend that you are sick, his first response is likely, ‘You should get that checked out by a doctor.’ Yet if you tell a friend you’re feeling depressed, he will be scared or reluctant to give you that same advice. You know what? I’m over it.”
Kristen Bell has spoken briefly about her depression before, telling Off Camera that she had a long history of mental illness in her family and was taught to look for “warning signs” when it came to her own health.
“I shatter a little bit when I think people don’t like me,” she said. “That’s part of why I lead with kindness and I compensate by being very bubbly all the time because it really hurts my feelings when I know I’m not liked. And I know that’s not very healthy and I fight it all the time.”
Recently The Rock also discussed his experience with depression, saying that: “I wish I had someone at that time who could just pull me aside and [say], ‘Hey, it’s gonna be okay. It’ll be okay.’”
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If you suffer from depression or anxiety, you can reach Lifeline on 13 11 14, or beyondblue on 1300 22 4636.