These Inspiring Celebs Who Are Open About Mental Health Prove You're Not Defined by a Diagnosis

Riverdale actress Lili Reinhart has been open about her experience with depression and anxiety. In a 2017 interview with Cosmopolitan.com, Lili said her fans shouldn't feel ashamed if they are struggling with a mental illness.

"There's no pattern necessarily, it can come and go in waves, which makes it a little more difficult because you're not really sure when one point ends and another point begins," she said. "It can be based off a certain situation or it can be seasonal or it can have no reason at all, because it doesn't need a reason."

And while it's refreshing to hear celebrities like Lili come forward to share their experiences, she said it "should be commonplace" to talk about mental health. "For teenage kids, they feel a pressure to sweep things under the rug because they feel like they're not important enough to have problems," she said.

She also debunked the myth that depression looks the same for everyone. "I had friends at school," she said. "People were like, 'You have no reason to be upset. Your feelings are illogical.' My message is that that's not true. You don't have to have a reason. Your feelings are validated by the fact that you're feeling them."

Olympic gymnast Simone Biles came forward as one of the many women abused by former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State doctor Larry Nassar. On Jan. 24, 2018, he was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison. In December 2018, Simone spoke to Robin Roberts on Good Morning America about her year of "ups and downs."

"I still go to therapy, and I'm on anxiety medicine now because I had a lot of ups and downs throughout the year in trying to figure out what was wrong," she said. "It's not easy, but the people surrounding me are some of the best, so it makes it a little easier."

At a competition in 2018, Simone wore a teal leotard in honour of fellow survivors. (A teal ribbon is the symbol for sexual assault awareness and prevention.) "I feel this year gave me a voice," she said on GMA. "I tried to find my voice this year and use that to the better potential in positive manners."

People love Chrissy Teigen for her refreshing honesty and openness, especially about pregnancy and motherhood (she also has a wicked sense of humour about it all). But the Lip Sync Battle host got even more real for the April 2017 issue of Glamour where she penned an essay describing her experience with postpartum depression after giving birth to her daughter, Luna.

"I had everything I needed to be happy. And yet, for much of the last year, I felt unhappy," she wrote. "What basically everyone around me — but me — knew up until December was this: I have postpartum depression. How can I feel this way when everything is so great?"

She described having horrible back and wrist pain and not being able to leave the house for days. Normally a goofy and outgoing person, Chrissy said she started feeling unhappy, irritable, and not like herself. After visiting several doctors, she finally got the proper diagnosis: postpartum depression and anxiety.

"I'm speaking up now because I want people to know it can happen to anybody and I don't want people who have it to feel embarrassed or to feel alone," she wrote. "I also don't want to pretend like I know everything about postpartum depression, because it can be different for everybody. But one thing I do know is that — for me — just merely being open about it helps."

Demi Lovato received her diagnosis of bipolar disorder after checking into rehab in 2011. Since then, the "Sorry Not Sorry" singer has been open about her mental health.

"It's possible to live well, feel well, and also find happiness with bipolar disorder or any other mental illness [people are] struggling with," she told WomensHealthMag.com in 2015.

For her own health journey, Demi is a big proponent of fitness. She told POPSUGAR last year that she works out six days a week and does a mix of cardio, strength training, and martial arts. "My favourite part about fitness is the way you feel afterwards," she said.

As a cast member of Saturday Night Live, Pete Davidson has taken the opportunity to use his Weekend Update appearances to talk about his mental health. In October 2017, he got real about his diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.

"As some of you know, I was recently diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a form of depression," he said during a Weekend Update segment. "Depression affects more than like 16 million people in this country and there's no cure, per se, but for anyone dealing with it, there are treatments that can help. First of all, if you think you're depressed, see a doctor and talk with him about medication and also, be healthy. Eating right and exercise can make a huge difference." In typical Pete fashion, he went on to joke about how his mental illness affects his performance at work and how getting more of his sketches on the air might help him feel better.

In an interview with Variety in 2018, Pete said that he is on new medication and feeling stable. "I took all these mental health classes and really spent a lot of time getting me good," he said in the interview.

And while things got tumultuous after his split from Ariana Grande (he posted an alarming message to Instagram in December before deleting his account), he returned to Weekend Update to address the suicide scare and has been spotted out and about with new flame Kate Beckinsale. Things seem to be looking up for Pete.

Busy Philipps has been open about her experiences with anxiety. "I grew up in a family where mental health issues are . . . we've got 'em! I've had that since I was a kid — racing thoughts, unable to get control of my thoughts, spinning out into paralysis of not being able to do anything and crying hysterically about it, or just feeling totally helpless," she said in the July/August issue of Health magazine.

To help mitigate those feelings, Busy makes exercise a top priority. She told POPSUGAR in February that her daily trampoline-based workouts at LEKFit are nonnegotiable. "If you are a person, who the cloud settles in your brain, and you can feel it, and you get the anxiety, or depression, or whatever . . . the routine takes over, and so it's not even a question," she told POPSUGAR. "It's like, 'Well of course, I don't want to get out of bed,' but the routine sort of forces you to go."

In fact, she doesn't view exercise as a means to look a certain way — she told Health she got rid of her scale — it's more for the mental and emotional benefits. She also told the magazine that she's also done acupuncture for anxiety and takes CBD and THC gummies.

Evan Rachel Wood penned a raw essay on Nylon.com earlier this year detailing her experience with mental illness, a suicide attempt, and checking herself into a psychiatric hospital.

"I am not a mental health expert, but I can share with you one of my experiences with it. When I was 22, I willingly checked myself into a psychiatric hospital, and I have absolutely no shame about it," she wrote. "Looking back, it was the worst, best thing that ever happened to me."

She went on to detail her experience with PTSD caused by multiple rapes and a severely abusive relationship. After her suicide attempt, Evan Rachel checked into a psychiatric hospital, but it wasn't easy to find one: it took several phone calls to find a place with a free bed. But after connecting with fellow patients and attending group therapy, she felt like the experience was worthwhile.

"I had felt worthless, and like the world was better off without me," she wrote. "I am not always perfect, I am not always at my best, I still struggle with my PTSD, but I know that I will get through it. I have better tools now to get through what seem like the impossible times, and most importantly, I know my worth."

Michael Phelps has won 28 Olympic medals, but he isn't immune to the gravity of mental illness. "You do contemplate suicide," he said during a mental health conference in Chicago. He revealed that he experienced his first depression spell in 2004. After the 2012 Olympics, he said, it was his "hardest fall" and that he didn't want to swim anymore. "I didn't want to be alive anymore," he said. Eventually, he decided to get help.

Now, Michael shares his experience in an effort to help others not feel so alone. He told CNN that mental illness "has a stigma around it and that's something we still deal with every day. I think people actually finally understand it is real. People are talking about it and I think this is the only way that it can change."

He's a spokesperson for Talkspace, the online therapy platform that he himself uses. The company now offers services for users ages 13 to 17 (it was previously only available for adults 18 and older). He's also working to incorporate a mental health component into his foundation, the IM Program, which has a mission to grow the sport of swimming and promote healthier lifestyles.

Mariah Carey graced the cover of People magazine in April 2018, revealing that she has bipolar disorder: specifically, bipolar II. Although she was first diagnosed in 2001 after she was put under mandatory psychiatric care, she told the magazine that she "didn't want to believe it."

She finally sought treatment after "the hardest couple of years," she told the magazine. Her treatment includes going to therapy and taking medication for bipolar II. "I'm actually taking medication that seems to be pretty good," she told People. Now, she's using her platform to help erase the stigma attached with mental illness.

"I'm just in a really good place right now, where I'm comfortable discussing my struggles with bipolar II disorder," she said in the interview. "I'm hopeful we can get to a place where the stigma is lifted from people going through anything alone. It can be incredibly isolating. It does not have to define you and I refuse to allow it to define me or control me."