Anyone can be dealing with a mental health condition ― even the girl next door.
Lili Reinhart, who plays love interest Betty Cooper in “Riverdale,” The CW series that reimagines the classic Archie comics, reiterated this exact fact recently. In an interview with Cosmopolitan, Reinhart opened up about her experience with depression and anxiety. And her message about living with the conditions and going through treatment deserves all the praise-hand emojis.
“There’s no pattern necessarily. It can come and go in waves, which makes it a little more difficult because you’re not really sure when one point ends and another point begins,” Reinhart told Cosmopolitan. “It can be based off a certain situation, or it can be seasonal or it can have no reason at all, because it doesn’t need a reason. It’s a chemical in [my] brain that I have to take medication for, so I don’t constantly feel doom and gloom and sadness.”
Reinhart explained she felt compelled to address her mental health in order to normalize the discussion around anxiety and depression.
“[I’m speaking out about it because] I felt like the celebrities and people who did talk about it were commended for being so brave. It’s not something that you need to praise anyone for,” she said. “It should be commonplace. It should be something that we talk about in school. The fact that it isn’t makes people ashamed of it.”
The shame Reinhart describes is in large part due to the stigma around mental illness. Nearly one in five American adults will experience a mental health disorder this year, but just 25 percent of people living with a mental illness feel that others understand or care about their condition.
Reinhart said she felt this prejudice deeply during her time in school.
“For teenage kids, they feel a pressure to sweep things under the rug because they feel like they’re not important enough to have problems. I dealt with that,” explained. “People were like, ‘You have no reason to be upset. Your feelings are illogical.’ My message is that that’s not true. You don’t have to have a reason. Your feelings are validated by the fact that you’re feeling them.”
We’ll salute that sentiment.