Lili Reinhart Opens Up About Her Pandemic Anxiety Battle

On Thursday, the Riverdale star took to her Instagram Live to chat with author Sylvester McNutt III about how she feels stressed out "all the time" and the way coronavirus has aggravated her pre-existing anxiety issues — even when it comes to seemingly "simple tasks."

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"Say, going to the post office. Like, I really don't want to drive to the post office," she said. "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."

Reinhart then went on to explain that she's found herself getting "hyped up about very dumb things."

"And I do that all the time," she continued. "I remind myself, 'Why the hell are you stressing yourself out about going to the damn post office?'"

Reinhart — who's always been candid about her mental health — also added that she's dealt with anxiety for years, revealing that she began having panic attacks in the eighth grade.

"Every day, in my eighth-grade year, I would cry in the morning," she said, before talking about how she let the anxiety "consume" her. "I would pretend to be sick to my mom. I did not want to go to school. I did everything in my power to not go to school. I hated it. It caused me so much anxiety."

That said, Reinhart ended things on a positive note by reflecting on how she's been able to use quarantine to focus on her mental health through weekly online therapy sessions, reading self-help books, and thinking about taking a solo retreat.

"It's been a very important time for me—the past four months—to just process things," she said. "I've very much been…just trying to take full advantage of this very rare time, where I don't have much to do and deal with my own little box of trauma in the back of my head that I wouldn't normally ever want to sift through, you know?"

Watch the entire conversation, below.

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The importance of self reflection and actively making better choices in our lives ❤️

A post shared by Lili Reinhart (@lilireinhart) on Jul 23, 2020 at 12:05pm PDT

Photo via Getty