- Andrea Barber, who played Kimmy Gibbler on Full House, is speaking out about her battle with anxiety and depression.
- She opened up about hiding her mental health issues in her new book, Full Circle.
- The actress, 43, said, “I would go to the bathroom before tapings to vomit.”
Everyone’s favorite TV neighbor, Andrea Barber—a.k.a. Kimmy Gibbler on Full House—just revealed that her life on set wasn’t nearly as perky as her on-screen persona.
In her new memoir, Full Circle: From Hollywood to Real Life and Back Again, Andrea opens up about about a lifelong battle with anxiety and depression. The actress details how her mental health struggles affected her on set.
“I am an introverted, anxious, quiet person who plays a very extroverted, confident, loud character on television. And often, during the eight-year run of Full House, I would go to the bathroom before tapings to vomit,” Andrea wrote, per People.
But Andrea thought her reaction was normal—something everyone experienced. “I didn’t realize that these were the first signs of a lifelong battle with anxiety and depression, something I would hate about myself for years to come,” she says in the book.
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Andrea was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and depression ten years after Full House ended. “The anxiety felt completely disconnected from my life, and I couldn’t wrap my brain around the idea of accepting it,” Andrea writes. “Why would I have anxiety? I had a wonderful, supportive family. I got excellent grades in school. I achieved a lot of success as a child actor, which provided me with cushy savings to fall back on if I ever needed to. I wasn’t neglected, abused, or damaged in any obvious way. So where was this anxiety coming from?”
Andrea describes her life with anxiety as a “perpetual state of worry and mental paralysis.” She also explains in the book, “I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to live with this anymore.”
With time, she gained a better understanding of anxiety. “I didn’t realize that anxiety does not discriminate against privilege or class or race or gender or life circumstances,” she writes. “It is an equal-opportunity mental illness, for lack of a better phrase.”
Andrea hopes speaking out will contribute to an important conversation to destigmatize mental health. She writes: “We can create a culture of acceptance and healing. We just need to stop being silent about it. We need to speak up.”
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