Jodie Sweetin has been open about the pandemic’s profound impact on her depression and anxiety. In 2021, she shared her journey with Allison Kugel via Kugel’s podcast, “Allison Interviews.” “I really struggled … for me it was a time of feeling really out of control. I can’t imagine how it affected people who were working on the front lines,” Sweetin said.
The actress is also keenly aware of the massive scale of the mental health crises occurring throughout the global pandemic. She shared, “I think that collective trauma and pain has really affected us and is really going to affect everyone’s mental health in ways that we haven’t seen yet.”
Engaging in meaningful activism during the pandemic even led the actress to ignore her own body’s needs unconsciously. She lost 37 pounds — calling herself a “stress starver” — and told Kugel that she had even been hospitalized for dehydration after a protest. Sweetin said she almost went into kidney failure during that scary time. “I just had gotten to the point where I was not taking care of myself … I really hyper-focused on [activism] and was out a lot,” she revealed to Kugel.
Sweetin overcame momentous challenges in the past, and she was once again able to use healthy coping mechanisms to get herself back into a good place.
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.
