Sophie Turner, Game of Thrones star, has recently opened up about her struggles with mental illness and an eating disorder amid a social-media-crazed world.
“I have a love-hate relationship with social media. I wish I’d never got myself involved with it in the first place,” Turner said in a new interview. “I look at the comments on Instagram and think, ‘Oh, f–k. Everyone thinks this about me.’ It would completely consume me.”
The actress then revealed that she had a “companion,” AKA a live-in therapist to help monitor and guide her through the difficulties of living with an eating disorder. The therapist, according to Turner, would make sure she “wasn’t doing anything unhealthy with my eating habits.”
“One night, I was playing over and over in my mind a comment I’d seen on Instagram. I was like, ‘I’m so fat, I’m so undesirable,’ and spinning out,” Turner shared, referencing a moment when her therapist gave her life-changing advice. “She said to me, ‘You know, no one actually cares. I know you think this, but nobody else is thinking it. You’re not that important.’ … That was the best thing anyone could have told me.”
Turner was able to shift her perspective and reevaluate her relationship with social media.
“I have noticed that social media makes me incredibly anxious and it’s something I try to distance myself. Having it off my phone has been so helpful,” she explained. “Now, if I do have to go on it, it’s for a few minutes once or twice a week, rather than hours every day. It’s made such a difference.”
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