Life & Style

Concerned: ‘Mental illnesses should be taken seriously’

Amanda Seyfried on living with OCD for the past 11 years

Ians October 20, 2016

seyfried has starred in hits like mean girls les mis rables and dear john previously photo file

Seyfried has starred in hits like Mean Girls, Les Misérables and Dear John previously. PHOTO: FILE

LONDON: Hollywood starlet Amanda Seyfried has revealed that she is living with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which affects most areas of her life. In fact, the 30-year-old Les Misérables star has had the condition for years and takes antidepressants to help control the symptoms.

“I’ve been on it since I was 19, so 11 years now. I’m on the lowest dose and don’t see the point of getting off of it,” Seyfried 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.”

The newly engaged Seyfried said OCD has had a negative impact on her life and at one point, she thought she had a brain tumour but it was just her anxiety making her believe that. “You don’t see the mental illness because it is not a mass. It is not a cyst but it’s there,” stated the Mean Girls actor. “Why do you need to prove it? If you can treat it, you treat it. I had pretty bad health anxiety that came from the OCD and thought I had a tumour in my brain.”

Seyfried went on to reveal the episode and how it panned out. “I had a MRI and the neurologist referred me to a psychiatrist. As I got older, the compulsive thoughts and fears diminished a lot. Knowing that a lot of my fears were not reality-based really helped me,” she said.

The Mamma Mia! star said living in the public eye does not help her symptoms and fame can make her OCD worse. “It’s funny when insecurity hits you. Sometimes, I feel I know the world so well but then … it’s so debilitating,” Seyfried confessed. “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.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 21^st, 2016.

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