Amanda Seyfried has opened up about living with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), reflecting on her journey from diagnosis as a teenager to managing the condition today.
The 40-year-old Hollywood actor revealed that she was diagnosed with what she described as “really extreme” OCD at the age of 19, during the early stages of her acting career.
In a recent interview with Vogue, the Mamma Mia! star recalled the challenges she faced while navigating the diagnosis as a young actor working in Los Angeles.
Seyfried said she was living in Marina del Rey at the time while filming the HBO series Big Love, when her condition became overwhelming.
“My mom had to take a sabbatical from work in Pennsylvania to live with me for a month,” she said, adding that medical evaluations, including brain scans, eventually led to her starting medication. “That’s when I got on medication — which to this day, I’m on every night.”
Seyfried explained that her OCD influenced many of the lifestyle choices she made early in her career, particularly avoiding situations that could trigger her symptoms.
“I distanced myself from things like drinking too much alcohol, doing any drugs at all, or staying out too late,” she said. “I would make plans and then just not go.”
Reflecting on those decisions, she added, “I didn’t enter that realm of nightclubs. I gotta give credit to my OCD.”
The Mean Girls actor has previously spoken publicly about her mental health. In a 2016 interview with Allure, Seyfried disclosed that she has been taking the antidepressant Lexapro since her diagnosis and had no intention of discontinuing it.
“I’ve been on it since I was 19. I’m on the lowest dose. I don’t see the point of getting off of it,” she said at the time, questioning the stigma often attached to long-term medication use.
“Whether it’s placebo or not, I don’t want to risk it. And what are you fighting against? Just the stigma of using a tool?” she said.
Seyfried emphasized that mental illness should be treated with the same seriousness as physical health conditions.
“A mental illness is a thing that people cast in a different category, but I don’t think it is,” she said. “You don’t see it — it’s not a mass or a cyst — but it’s there. If you can treat it, you treat it.”
Her candid remarks have been widely praised for helping normalize conversations around mental health and long-term treatment.
