Los Angeles, Dec 3 (IANS) Actress Amanda Seyfried decided to keep her Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) to herself when she was younger because she worried she "wasn't normal".
She told W magazine: "I feel like there's so much less stigma about everything, like mental health. If I'd only known when I was obsessive-compulsive about stuff when I was 10, I would have shared it with my parents and not thought that I was crazy. But I thought I was crazy. You can't step on this tile or ... all those weird superstitions.
"You would share it with people and they would help you out and make you feel better about it. They'd say, 'That's really normal. Don't worry. That's just your anxiety running high and trying to control it.' That could have saved ten years of my life feeling that I wasn't normal. I really hope the younger generations are hopefully feeling safer in being who they are."
And the 30-year-old had earlier opened up about how she uses antidepressant Lexapro to help her control it, reports femalefirst.co.uk.
She said: "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? 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."
