Amanda Seyfried: 'Mental health should be taken more seriously'

Amanda Seyfried wants mental illness to be taken as seriously as any other condition.

The 30-year-old actress has been taking mood disorder medication Lexapro since she was 19 to help ease her obsessive compulsive disorder. While she explains her condition is manageable and even helps “protect” her nowadays, the Ted 2 star believes more awareness needs to be raised in regard to mental health issues, which can be more difficult to demonstrate.

“A mental illness is a thing that people cast in a different category (from other illnesses), but I don’t think it is,” the Mean Girls star told Allure magazine. “It should be taken as seriously as anything else. You don’t see the mental illness: It’s not a mass; it’s not a cyst. But it’s there. Why do you need to prove it? If you can treat it, you treat it.”

Amanda recalled how her OCD triggered an episode of anxiety, which eventually got so bad she thought she had a tumor in her brain. After nothing was found following an MRI scan, a neurologist referred her to a psychiatrist.

And while renovating her home in upstate New York recently, Amanda, who revealed she is currently on the lowest dose of Lexapro, was so worried that fitting a stove in the kitchen might burn the house down, that she didn't bother.

However, the Pennsylvania born actress tries to maintain a positive outlook on life though, even when she suffers lapses in confidence that leave her feeling exposed.

“It’s funny when insecurity hits you,” she mused. “Sometimes I feel I know the world so well, but then... it’s so debilitating. You’re like, ‘What am I doing here? No one wants to see me. Why are you taking my picture?’ It’s stupid, it’s irrational, and it’s not all about me, but I make it about me because I’m insecure.”