The actress is reflecting on getting diagnosed with depression, and how she's managed to overcome.
Annie Murphy is getting candid about her mental health. The actress says she was diagnosed with depression, and has been working hard to cope and overcome.
The Schitt's Creek alum reflected on the severity of her battle with depression in a recent interview with The Zoe Report, sharing, "I think I have a big dose of my dad's Irish melancholy."
Murphy she was first diagnosed in March 2020, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns -- although she said she felt the pangs of her depression begin months before.
Murphy was originally supposed to begin filming her new show, Kevin Can F**k Himself, in late March, after a visit to her parents' house in Canada. However, shortly after her visit home, lockdowns were instituted, she stayed with her parents, and the planned production was put on hiatus.
"My mom was like, 'You're crying 12 times a day hysterically, to the point where your teeth are chattering. That's not normal,'" Murphy recalled.
Taking her mom's advice, she went to see a therapist and was subsequently diagnosed.
Murphy admitted that she felt people might not appreciate her situation or take her mental health issue seriously, sharing, "A lot of people are going to think that I sound like I'm playing a tiny violin for myself... [or think], 'Oh, you're rich and famous. Why the f**k are you sad? You have nothing to be sad about.'"
"But I'm not going to post photos of me covered in my own snot, lying on the floor, unable to get up. I don't want people to have to see that," she shared.
Murphy explained that, due to the shutdowns, she had time to address her depression and begin to figure things out for herself before production on her new show began.
"As excited as I was to get this huge part on [Kevin Can F**k Himself], I do not think if I had gone to work when I was supposed to go to work, I would have been able to do my job," Murphy shared.
For Murphy, the answer for her struggle came in both regular therapy sessions and pharmaceutical antidepressants, which she said she would recommend to anyone deal with depression as well.
"Honestly, if a friend's like, 'I'm having a really hard time,' I'm like, 'Get on drugs. Get on drugs!'" Murphy said. "You don't have to be on drugs for the whole time, but they truly, truly saved my life in the sense that I was not a functional human being and I was able to be a functional human being."
"I do not cry every single day on the floor 12 times," she explained. "I am able to focus on other things in my life."
Murphy said that, when production restarted on her new show, she was coming out of "a real messy mental state," but found herself having a good time, working without issue and forming new friendships, all of which had been hard during her battle.
"Not to toot my own horn, because I f**king hate that, but I do feel a sense of resilience," she shared.
Murphy's new dark comedy, Kevin Can F**k Himself, airs Sundays on AMC. New episodes air one week early on the AMC+ streaming platform.
Check out the video below for more on Murphy's genre-bending new series.
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