Mara Wilson Says She Struggled With Anxiety And OCD After Filming "Matilda"

This post discusses topics related to mental health.

You know Mara Wilson from her performances in movies like Miracle on 34th Street, Mrs. Doubtfire, and the iconic film adaptation of Roald Dahl's Matilda.

When Mara starred in Matilda as, well, Matilda, she was barely 10 years old — and that was several years into her career as an actor. That's very young to experience any level of Hollywood fame.

During a recent appearance on the podcast Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, Mara told Mayim about her mental health struggles she endured at a young age after filming Matilda.

"I was always very worried from a very young age," she explained. "I worried about death, I worried about sickness, I was that kind of worrier. And it was strange because I was either, like I said, a very sort of upbeat extroverted kid or I was having an anxiety attack."

Mara says that "all the shit hit the fan" when she entered the third grade. "My mother was sick, I had just finished filming Matilda," she recalled. "I started having panic attacks about things like my pet hamster escaping."

Alongside struggling with anxiety, Mara was also dealing with undiagnosed Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). "I started washing my hands all the time," she said, "so much so that my hands were always red and chapped and raw and my mother would have to put salves and ointments and all these kinds of…home remedies on them to make sure that they wouldn't hurt so much anymore."

"It was a really hard time for me and I knew that it was weird. That was the thing. I knew that I was strange, I knew that this was something that other people didn't have, and I started having panic attacks at school."

"I had a feeling that this was not something that other kids had."

Mara also talked about how it was hard to get help for her mental health struggles from sources like her guidance counselor and parents — and how entering therapy at the age of 12 changed her life for good.

"I think I was on Zoloft at the time," she said. "I'm on Lexapro now and it helps because I could not function without it. And I was diagnosed with severe OCD and I couldn't have functioned without it."

"That diagnosis saved me."

You can listen to the entire interview here.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline is 1-888-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.