Troian Bellisario Gets Candid About Her Struggle With Mental Health Issues
Pretty Little Liars’ Troian Bellisario wrote an emotional essay for Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter, talking about her struggle with mental illness.
The 31-year-old actress told a story about the time she shot the pilot of PLL. It was a freezing December day in Vancouver, but the show was shooting for a summer scene.
She wrote, “Wanting to be the most professional I could be, I sniffed back the snot that was threatening to ruin every take and forced my shoulders to stay where they were, even though I could see my breath on the air. I looked around: Lucy, Ashley, and Shay all seemed cold but fine; they looked professional, powerful. Was I not cut out for this? I pushed that thought out of my mind. Suck it up, Bellisario, do your job.”
Bellisario didn’t want anyone to think she was a “diva” for asking to stop production when she lost the feeling in her feet. She also felt guilty when a crew member offered her help. The actress questioned why she needed to ask permission to take care of herself.
“As someone who struggles with a mental illness, my biggest challenge is that I don’t always know which voice inside me is speaking.”
Bellisario also discussed her history with anorexia and how her mental health affected it: “There is a part of my brain that defies logic. Once, it completely convinced me I should live off 300 calories a day, and at some point, it told me even that was too much. That part of my brain is my disease, and there was a time when it had absolute authority over me.”
She admits the battle against mental illness isn’t easy, but she’s determined to scream back at her disease and say: “I am enough.”
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