Last week, actress Kristen Bell opened up about her personal experience with mental illness – namely depression and anxiety – during an episode of Off Camera with Sam Jones . Being that it was her first time speaking to the issue, there has been a lot of attention brought to this unexpected disclosure that took place. While of course we want mental illness to be talked about more frequently in a way that dismantles stigma, some of us mental health advocates do have a slight problem with how some of her words were delivered; however, I will highlight the bravery and commendability in the rest of her interview first.
Bell eases into the topic by first mentioning her struggles with co-dependency and acknowledging her fears and insecurities around being disliked, of which she admits affects her to unhealthy degree. She shares that she would mould her likes and interests based on who she was currently hanging out with to try and avoid their rejection.
She then gets straight to the point by divulging her struggle with depression and anxiety, saying that an imbalance of serotonin (a chemical in the body that has a significant role in neurological processes and is implicated in many mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, etc.) runs in her family. In fact, she states that her maternal Grandmother was apparently one of the first patients to undergo Electroconvulsive Therapy as a treatment for mental illness. Bell goes on to say that while she presents herself as a cheerful person, behind the scenes she does a lot of work to cope with and treat her illnesses; this includes introspection, professional help, and a long-standing prescription for a psychiatric medication that she says she has been taking from a young age. She finishes off by pointing out the double-standard that exists between mental health and physical health by saying that someone with diabetes is never shamed for taking insulin, and yet people are shamed for taking medication to treat their mental illness.This is something I also often try to point out and so I think it is amazing that she’s using her voice to bring light to this incongruency and the stigma that surrounds mental, compared to physical, illness.
However, this leads me to reflect on the stigmatizing language that she used in this interview herself. When she first introduced her Grandma’s history with mental illness, she used some terminology that makes me cringe every time that I rewatch the video: she referred to her Grandmother as being “nuts”. While I can resolve that she didn’t intend to speak poorly about her Grandma (at least I hope), using that kind of derogatory language when referring to an individual with mental illness supports the exact stigma and shame that she is advocating against. Using terms like “nuts”, “crazy”, etc. have extremely negative connotations and suggest that there is something wrong with a person’s character rather than a valid illness that disrupts one’s ability to behave or function healthily. Just as we would refer to someone with physical illness, why can’t we describe someone with mental illness as unwell? Why does our language change between the two?
The fact of the matter is that health involves both physical and mental well-being, and if we want to change the way we think about mental illness then we need to change the way we talk about it too. Overall, I think it was an incredible thing for Kristen to publicly discuss her struggles with mental illness as it further reinforces that anyone can be affected and that it isn’t always visible to outsiders. My hope is that after reading this, maybe you’ll reflect on your own language and see if you can minimize the ways that you might be contributing to the stigma because of it.