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There’s no shame in speaking openly about or seeking help for your mental health, but if you’re nervous to do so, let Emma Stone be your guide. The Academy Award winner has done both and, in the process, made huge strides in destigmatizing issues like anxiety and panic attacks.
During an interview with Stephen Colbert on the Late Show on Tuesday to promote her new film, Battle of the Sexes, in which she plays tennis champ Billie Jean King, Emma revealed that she’s been in therapy for anxiety since she was seven years old and shared a picture she drew in one of her sessions. “I was nine. I was in therapy at that time, I drew this at therapy,” she said, then described the drawing, which has “I’m bigger than my anxiety!” written across the top in neat handwriting. “This is me, I guess, it’s really great artistry, with my shoes. And then this is anxiety here,” the 28-year-old said, pointing to a tiny green figure standing next to her in the picture. “It’s a little green monster that looks a little bit, as someone backstage said, a uterus with some ovaries. But I didn’t mean for it to be hormonally related in any way—as I said, I was nine.”
The La La Land star’s years of therapy have given her much more than just a collection of creative illustrations. “I was a very, very, very anxious child, and I had a lot of panic attacks. I benefitted in a big way from therapy,” she said, adding that acting and improv were also a huge help in learning to cope with her anxiety. And although her panic attacks have mostly gone away (“knock on wood”), Emma noted, “I still have anxiety to this day.”
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Emma has been refreshingly open about her mental health issues many times before, and has even previously spoken about the meaning behind her elementary school drawings of the little green anxiety monster. “I wrote this book [in therapy] called I Am Bigger Than My Anxiety that I still have,” she told Rolling Stone last year. “I drew a little green monster on my shoulder that speaks to me in my ear and tells me all these things that aren’t true. And every time I listen to it, it grows bigger. If I listen to it enough, it crushes me. But if I turn my head and keep doing what I’m doing—let it speak to me, but don’t give it the credit it needs—then it shrinks down and fades away.”
Related: Emma Stone Opened Up About How She Copes With Anxiety
