Kristen Bell Opens Up About Her Mental Health Struggles And Why She Decided To Discuss Them Publicly

Actress Kristen Bell exudes happiness and excitement, and she is not really the kind of person one might expect to deal with mental health struggles. However, Bell has personally dealt with issues such as anxiety and depression for a long time, and she is now opening up about these problems to show others they don’t have to feel ashamed to talk about these kinds of things, according to Today.

For this very personal interview, Bell sat down with reporter Willie Geist. Geist pointed out Bell’s recent openness and honesty about her mental health battles throughout the past year, commenting on how the version of Bell the world sees is hardly the face of anxiety or depression.

“But if they see Kristen Bell, who projects — even sitting right here — she’s happy, she’s smart, she’s bubbly,” he said.

Bell didn’t deny that she has gained a reputation of a bubbly, carefree individual, but also admitted that she does take medication to keep her problems with anxiety and depression under control. She also went into the specific steps she takes to get a feel for where her mental state is when she’s feeling low.

“No, it’s not always that way. I am someone who takes a medication for her anxiety and depression. I am someone who has to check myself and sometimes — if I’m feeling really low — make a checklist of good and bad things in my life to see if it’s my mental state or if we really have a problem.”

Bell went on to explain that it was actually her husband, Dax Shepherd, who initially encouraged her to begin talking about her mental health battles publicly to potentially help other people. As soon as he suggested this, Bell quickly wondered why she hadn’t been doing this all along.

“He was like ‘Why don’t you talk about your anxiety and depression?’ and I had never thought about that before. And I immediately felt incredibly irresponsible,” she told Geist.

Since then, Bell has been trying to do just that, often discussing her mental health battles on her husband’s podcast, The Armchair Expert.

In addition to talking about her anxiety and depression, Bell also discussed her marriage to Shepherd and their first date together. As The Inquisitr previously reported, Bell admitted she did not feel a spark the first time she met her future husband. However, that spark did build over time and now the pair couldn’t be happier. They share two children together.