Riverdale actress Lili Reinhart has said she hopes speaking about her mental health issues will encourage other young people to do the same.
The TV star, 23, added that she believes mental health should be discussed just as much as physical health in schools.
Reinhart plays a high school student dealing with grief and a traumatic injury in her new film Chemical Hearts, in which her character talks about the importance of openly sharing your struggles and she told the PA news agency: “It’s interesting because that monologue is very in line with how I feel and how I go about being in the spotlight.
“I very much talk about mental health all the time and I talk about my feelings and my emotions, especially with my friends.
“I am always talking about how I feel, which I’m sure can be kind of annoying but it’s so important to feel like you can talk about it and my one piece of advice for people who are going through something like that is to keep talking about it.
“The only way you can work through something is to talk about it and to acknowledge it and to feel it, so never try to suppress that and so that was a great message.”
Reinhart added she feels it is important to set an example to her young fans in this way, saying: “I want to feel like the future generation is coming after me and even the Gen Zs, I’m a Gen Z, that they feel like it’s an open discussion and it’s not something so taboo.
“I believe we are getting there, I believe there is progress that is being made in that regard, so that is encouraging and I hope that it continues on and that mental health becomes something that is more easily talked about, especially in school.
“I think it should be talked about just as much as we talk about physical health.”
Chemical Hearts is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.