Troian Bellisario is one of the most influential actresses around, and she has not been shy about her experiences with mental illness.
The 31-year-old Pretty Little Liars graduate opened up about her experiences to Lenny Letter. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a newsletter run by Lena Dunham and Jennifer Konner.
The actress opens by recalling a time in her life when she was swimming in a lake with a close friend. The lake was cold, and the star commented that she felt discomfort, yet could not remove herself from the water.
It’s a worrying visual to imagine, but that was a sign that the actress was suffering from mental health.
She opens up candidly about her body telling her to get out of the lake, but she did not want to show weakness in front of the friend.
“Here I am, 31 years old,” the actress wrote.
“And I’m still denying my body the one thing it is asking me to do: take care of it.”
What we love about Troian is that she is an inspiration. She does not hide anything from fans and opens up whenever she’s given the opportunity.
She moved on to chat about a difficult time filming Pretty Little Liars when she was faced with harsh Canadian weather.
“I looked around: Lucy [Hale], Ashley [Benson] and Shay [Mitchell] all seemed cold but fine; they looked professional, powerful,” Bellisario wrote.
“Was I not cut out for this? I pushed that thought out of my mind. Suck it up, Bellisario, do your job.”
Bellisario then opened up about her experience writing, producing and starring in her film Feed. She wanted to create a project out of her struggles; one that would hopefully help other people.
She even goes as far as saying that the movie helped her differentiate herself from her mental illness,
“It was a difficult journey finding my way back to health,” the actress wrote.
“Through hard introspection, intense medical and mental care, a supportive family, friends and patient and loving partner, I survived, which is rare.”
The actress opened up last month to Interview Magazine about her struggles with an eating disorder.
“I couldn’t get anyone — even the people who loved me the most, even my boyfriend or my mother or my father — to understand what that experience was truly like for me,” she said at the time.
Troian has been keeping busy since her seven-year-stint on Pretty Little Liars came to a close, and has booked a role on Richard Linklater’s latest project, Where’d You Go, Bernadette.
