Amanda Seyfried, an actress known for her roles in Mean Girls and Mamma Mia, openly discussed her OCD in an interview last week.
Seyfried talked openly about her mental illness, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. She talked about how she uses Lexapro, an anxiety medication, to help her function, and said, “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. 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?”
She also discussed how when she first started experiencing the symptoms of OCD, she thought that she had a tumor in her brain. She had to convince her doctors, after receiving MRI scans, that no matter how much they looked, they wouldn’t find a mass or cyst in her brain.
Seyfried also added that she “[doesn’t] feel like [she’s] struggling with it. I think OCD is a part of me that protects me. It’s also the part of me that I use in my job, in a positive way.”
Another celebrity who has recently spoken out about mental health is rapper Kid Cudi, who recently posted on Facebook about checking himself into a mental institution because of his depression. Cudi ended his post by saying “I feel like sh*t. I am so ashamed. I am so sorry.”
There is a striking difference in the way that these two celebrities opened up about their mental health. Part of that likely has to do with where they are in their journeys, and the different industries that they are in. While Seyfried has been on medication for 11 years, and is a female in the film industry, Cudi is still fighting with and learning how to manage his depression, and is a male rapper. Discussing mental health in the hip hop music industry is very taboo, and many artists such as Kanye West, have rapped about having mental health problems.