The actress shared a thoughtful and self-reflective message for fans about her own recent mental health journey.
Dove Cameron is getting candid about her recent struggles with depression, dysphoria and her sense of self.
The 26-year-old actress and singer took to Instagram on Wednesday afternoon, where she posted a number of snapshots of herself in a mirror, her eyes red from crying and her face still soaked with tears.
She shared a lengthy written message for fans in the last two slides of the post, where she spoke out about how she's been "struggling lately with the concept of self, my inner relationship to who i know myself to be and my outer perceivable self who i feel i have never known but other people seem to."
"I've been covering mirrors lately. i've been feeling wrong in clothing that used to make me feel beautiful lately," she continued. "I've been crying a lot lately, sometimes terrorized by my identity and image, sometimes in absolute flow with something new and peripheral and joyous to me."
Cameron wrote that she doesn't really know if she's "ever slowed down enough to learn who I am outside of fight, flight or freeze."
"Sexuality and performative gender norms, societal rewards and identity are really throwing me for a loop," she continued. "social media and mirrors and branding and the constant broadcasting of self and visibility of ourselves and everyone everywhere is not optimal for mental health, clarity of energy or relationship to our inner world. for any of us."
Ultimately, the actress said that, at this point, she's "trying to maintain a quiet non judgmental curiosity rather than punish myself for not knowing what I'm feeling or where i'm going."
"I don't have any answers from myself yet," Cameron wrote, adding, "We all deserve a life unburdened by the societally created identity, we all deserve to unlearn self abuse and self hatred. i am on that journey now and I'm sharing so that we may all feel more comfortable in a conversation that may be confusing, and we may navigate something that feels difficult to put to words, together. human, first. the rest is all the rest. Emotion is COOL. dysphoria is OK. living as a human is INTENSE. we are all holding hands. don't forget."
Cameron echoed similar sentiments in the thoughtful and ultimately hopeful caption to her post.
"Identity vs the self !!! depression & dysphoria. the self is someone i feel i have always deeply known, someone i deeply love and protect, like my own child, i know this self and we are very close. for me, identity and the self have always been diametrically opposed, and there has only ever been room for one at a time to occupy my life," she wrote, in part. "i have never been able to make them hold hands, and i realize as i get older, its because i hold a deep seeded belief that who i am is wrong, i am not allowed to be just as i am, i am not meant to be here. i feel i must be something else if i am going to be allowed to be here. and i really do wanna be here with you."
Cameron wrote that she is "interested in a life unburdened by myself," which she acknowledges is "easier in theory than in practice, but we’re making room."
"I am beginning to have a hope that the public platform that has been difficult for me to learn to take up space as myself in, can actually be the conduit for change/mutual support/exploration/safety," she concluded. "Maybe the spaces that are the least human can become the most human, if we want that, and we can all let each other take up a little more space. i love you."
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