Kristen Bell on Living with Depression and Anxiety | Body Stories | SELF

i have to know how my brain works um in order to catch it from doing bad things because the brain is really tricky and it will tell you things that aren't true and so knowing that i would remember a negative experience more than i'd remember a positive i would really make it my mission to go okay but the positive experiences with that person were equal i'm gonna choose to let that negative experience go [Music] it's hard to put into words honestly and it feels different at different times when my anxiety is high it feels like an absolute inability to make decisions like i would rather not do something then decide what to do and it's almost paralyzing which is odd because it seems like it's simple do you want to go on a walk or sit on the couch and watch tv and i'm like i can't figure that out my i don't have the brain power it feels like decision fatigue and then depression is different my version of it feels very restricted like um like if you're trying to put on like a latex glove that's way too small for your hand also it sort of coincides with this feeling of not being excited about anything which again on a day when you feel great or even normal you can get excited about things like you're like oh i'm gonna have pizza today or i'm gonna see a friend today or i mean all of the fun things about life and when i'm having depression it's like none of those things are exciting or seem worth it so there's this real disconnect because i know logically that should be a feeling that induces some happiness but it's like my depression will not let me recognize those feelings at 40 i don't like believe anything should be taboo anymore like i talked to my kids about sex and yes they're very young but they wanted to know how they got here and we talked about it and they were grossed out and left the room and that's fine but i think that anything that's taboo and hard to talk about should be some of the first priorities you should be talking about with the support systems in your life i wish that i had known as a person in the public eye to talk about it publicly at an earlier date i had been acting and you know doing publicity for a while and i was at the stretch the last stretch of of two movies of a press tour and i'd done all these interviews and i was lying in bed about to do sam jones which is a long-form interview like it's like a 45 minute to an hour sit down so you better be prepared to talk right and i said to my husband god i have nothing to talk about i feel exhausted like i've said every story about my life and he said why don't you talk about your struggle with anxiety and depression and it like was a huge light bulb i was like have i never i've never done that i was experiencing the same thing that everyone else was which is like well just don't talk about that and then i just felt so inauthentic and irresponsible to have been presenting this like bubbly happy person which is someone that i cultivate and i nurture and i try really hard to exist as um and i just wasn't being honest with the people like the girls who may look up to me and so i was like okay i'm just gonna talk about it and so i don't even think that sam knew but during that interview i was like actually you know for a period of my life and periods and often and sometimes just on a random wednesday i feel this way and then we started to get more in depth and i found myself really happy to be admitting all of it and the response i got from that interview was like astounding to me like so many people saying i've felt that way too thank you for saying it out loud you gave me the courage to say it out loud which i i mean i did practically nothing other than do what i should do which is be honest and authentic and it really it was a huge turning point in my life i just felt a huge sense of responsibility um and so i kept talking about it and i talk about it a lot and here we are i started noticing like a feeling of being disconnected when i was probably 18 or 19. i moved out of detroit and to new york when i was i just turned 18. i was like two weeks into being 18. and i was so excited it was all i wanted to do i was going to nyu i was studying musical theater i was living in this beautiful like melting pot cultural city and seeing you know broadway shows each night and it was it was wonderful and i i i just felt like if i wrote my life down on paper i had so many opportunities so much privilege so much access to happiness and yet my feelings were not that as an 18 year old living on her own in new york city i should be like yes like it should be so exciting but it wasn't i felt like i was sort of followed by this weird dark cloud that just didn't allow me to see all the happiness around me and i was lucky that i felt in my bones that that wasn't how i sh i hate to use the word should but should be feeling or how i could be feeling i guess and i was lucky enough that my mom had sat me down and had a conversation with me and she said hey just a quick heads up um i experience these feelings sometimes your grandmother experienced these feelings sometimes she's a nurse and so she recognized that there could be a hereditary component to a serotonin imbalance and she said if you start to feel any of these things just know there are a variety of ways that you can reach out to people or try to fix it and you don't sort of have to live like that it's such a hard thing to talk about like i i don't like that there's any sort of stigma to it but i i get it it's a weird thing to talk about because it's not an affliction that you can see it's like a hard thing to i guess diagnose and also acknowledge and a lot of families or support systems or anyone in your life they don't know how to talk about it especially if they aren't themselves feeling it i think i had an upper hand because my mom had explained it to me in a very medical way early on and i was like oh okay you sort of armed me with the information um about what could happen and maybe it never will but if it did there's access to help i knew that there were all of these ways like talking to a friend finding a therapist talking to a psychiatrist or a psychologist and just knowing that changed everything for me even if you're not experiencing any mental health issues i would hope that you would walk through life being open and ready to be a shoulder if someone needs you because the the reality is we're not all born the same some of us are born with a ton of confidence and then some are born really timid and i just feel like maybe this is just my maternal instincts talking but i just don't want anyone to feel like they don't have a support system so if we collectively as a society like self-care this whole idea should also include caring about each other you know it has to obviously be on the person to identify the feeling and say i need help but then i think it has to be on the people around them that love them to say okay let me see if i can support you you know even if that's just checking in once in a while

Channel: SELF

Views: 1,428,709

Keywords: body stories, body stories self, body stories self magazine, celebs with anxiety, celebs with depression, kirsten bell cover, kirsten bell dax shepherd, kirsten bell self cover, kristen bell, kristen bell 2021, kristen bell anxiety, kristen bell behind the scenes, kristen bell children, kristen bell depression, kristen bell happy, kristen bell interview, kristen bell mental health, kristen bell self magazine, kristen bell story, kristen bell the good place, self

Id: 2EPnNOlxF8M

Length: 7min 42sec (462 seconds)

Published: Mon May 03 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/pdnagilum]

At 40, I don't believe anything should be taboo.

At 41 I wholeheartedly agree.

Most people, I'm guessing of course, experience some sort of anxiety and depression in their life, so it should be a fairly normal topic to talk about and open up about, but it's almost never is.

I too suffer from it in various degrees, exacerbated a lot by the pandemic, which sucks all kinds of ass, and I almost always get the feeling that I have to hide it.

Fuck that!