Lena Dunham has opened up about her real-life struggles with obsessive compulsive disorder in an excerpt from her upcoming memoir, 'Not The Kind Of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's Learned'.
Fans of the hit series 'Girls' will have seen Lena's portrayal of the mental illness in her character Hannah, but what none of us knew is that the 26-year-old's battle in the HBO series was in fact a reflection of her actual life.
In the snippet titled 'Difficult Girl', taken from her upcoming biopic, the actress discusses her childhood trips to the therapist, confessing that she was "afraid of everything" when she was eight. She says she recognised her own symptoms after reading an article on OCD while at the salon with her mum.
The article, which followed a woman who was: "so burdened with obsessions that she has to lick art in museums and crawl on the sidewalk," rang alarm bells for Dunham who began to realise she experienced similar feelings.
Lena Dunham opens up on OCD (WENN)
In her book she recalls: "I tear the article out and bring it to Lisa, whose face crumples sympathetically, as though the moment she'd been dreading had finally arrived. It makes me want to throw my needlepoint supplies in her face. Do I have to do everything myself?"
Lena Dunham's 'Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's Learned' is released on September 30 in the UK and she'll be coming to London's South Bank to talk to author Caitlin Moran on Friday October 31.
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