Opening UpLili Reinhart Feels ‘Defeated by Depression’: The ‘Riverdale’ Star’s Quotes About Mental Health

Experience With Body Dysmorphia

Lili said she experienced a recent mental health “spiral” from dealing with body dysmorphia while filming the latest season of Riverdale. She spoke about her mental health struggles with Dr. Daniel Amen for his interview series Scan My Brain in September 2022.

“It has been really hard the last couple months, specifically dealing with more noticeable weight gain than I ever have in my life while also being on film while it was happening. So,  shooting my show [Riverdale] and having that weight gain basically documented on camera, episode by episode, week by week of my life, my weight fluctuation. It felt very much like this massive problem, this thing that was taking up truly 90 percent of my brain capacity, I was barely thinking about anything else,” she recalled.

“[Body positivity is] not something that I’ve mastered and I don’t wake up every day feeling like, ‘Oh it’s OK that I don’t look like that.’ There are very brief moments where I feel that and when I do feel that, I feel empowered to talk about them and be vocal about them. But the other 90 percent of the time, it’s the struggling part,” Lili explained. “I want it to happen and I want to fully believe it but I’m also still on a daily basis struggling with it.”

Thanks to Milo

In a heartfelt TikTok video shared in October 2021, Lili revealed that her dog Milo has been helping with her mental health struggles.

“I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety for over a decade but lately it’s been harder than usual,” she wrote. “This little guy has been my reason for getting out of bed most days. There are angels everywhere. Look out for them and thank them for sticking with you on your journey.”

Struggling With Depression

“I have many times in my life, and even in this pandemic, felt entirely hopeless. I’ve been dealing with a lot of personal traumas and the trauma of the pandemic itself. Being quarantined and not knowing what the hell my future looks like— there was a point where I definitely felt that I had hit rock bottom, and I had only felt that a couple other times before in my life,” she told Vogue in September 2020. “One being when I was 16, when I experienced really severe depression. And this was different — I think it was more intense as an adult. It kind of scared me more, because I felt like I had less guidance as to how to get out of it. I felt a little more hopeless. So I did therapy every single week for the past couple months, and I just kind of took it upon myself.”

Anxiety Amid the Pandemic

During a July 2020 Instagram Live, Lili said she would stress herself out “all the time” while doing “simple” tasks during the coronavirus pandemic. “It gives me anxiety because I don’t want to have to leave my dog; I don’t want to have to deal with going out in public; I don’t want to do the mask thing. I would, but like I don’t want to put myself in a stressful environment,” she explained. “And I get myself hyped up about very dumb things. And I do that all the time.”

Speaking Out

“I think the more we talk about [mental health] the less alone we feel,” she told ET Canada in January 2020. “It was something that was part of my life: depression and anxiety. It was something that I was kind of surrounded by and living with for a decade now. My parents never taught me to be ashamed of it.”

Constant Feelings

“I’ve experienced depression and anxiety. Not constantly, but I’m still experiencing it. I have spells of time where I feel completely unmotivated, I don’t want to do anything and I question myself. I don’t know how to handle stress very well. I find that talking about it and sharing my experience with other people, and reminding myself that I’m not alone has been incredibly therapeutic,” the actress told Glamour in November 2019. “Sometimes I wake up and I’m like, ‘OK, I have anxiety today.’ I’m not really sure why, I’m more irritable than usual. It’s like an undercurrent that lives within me, and certain social situations can obviously trigger my anxiety. I work a lot of hours, sometimes I don’t get a lot of sleep, and that makes me anxious. I’ve found a way to talk myself down when I’m getting super anxious.”

Mental Health Activism

“I’ve never been ashamed of having depression,” she told Variety in August 2018 after she was awarded the Variety + H&M Conscious Award. “If there’s something I feel really passionate about and feel the need to comment on, then I will.”

Making Her Struggles Public

“I truly can say it was never something I had to stop and consider whether I was comfortable doing or not,” she also told Variety. “I just did it. It didn’t really matter how many followers I had. I’ve always kind of spoken up about stuff like that, and been very open and honest about it.”

Lili continued, “I’ve always been aware of depression, anxiety and body dysmorphia, because it’s something I’ve lived with for a while. But being exposed to this industry and so many more people from all around the world, I’m really seeing how closed off people are from talking about it, so it’s been a process of learning that what I’m doing is actually helping.”

Dealing with Anxiety

“What I do to help my anxiety is not necessarily going to help anyone else,” the actress explained in the same Variety interview. “It’s a very personal thing. You have to figure out what’s going to work for you and what doesn’t, and it’s going to change over time. Breathing exercises didn’t necessarily work for me. Writing did, and driving did, but driving makes some people anxious! It’s different for every person. So my advice would be to not feel so pressured to figure myself out so quickly because, well, I’m still figuring it out.”