Mean Girls star Amanda Seyfried has opened up about her struggles with OCD in a new interview. Speaking to Allure magazine, the actress revealed that she had been living with the illness since her teens, and has been on medication to manage it for over a decade. 

“I'm on Lexapro, and I'll never get off of it,” she shared. “I've been on it since I was 19, so 11 years. I'm on the lowest dose. I don't see the point of getting off of it. Whether it's placebo or not, I don't want to risk it.”

Seyfried, who is set to star in the highly anticipated Twin Peaks revival next year, spoke candidly about the stigma surrounding the disorder, and stressed the dangers of not seeking treatment. She also vented her frustrations over the way mental illness is viewed compared to more visible, physical illnesses.

“What are you fighting against? Just the stigma of using a tool?” she continued. “A mental illness is a thing that people cast in a different category, but I don't think it is. 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.”

The Miu Miu muse went on to reveal that her crippling anxiety and “compulsive thoughts” led to her being checked out for a brain tumour. “I had pretty bad health anxiety that came from the OCD and thought I had a tumour in my brain,” Seyfried added. “I had an MRI, and the neurologist referred me to a psychiatrist.”

“As I get older, the compulsive thoughts and fears have diminished a lot. Knowing that a lot of my fears are not reality-based really helps.”

Read the full interview on Allure here.