Jodie Sweetin is opening up about her feelings around being adopted.
The “Full House” star, 39, was adopted as a baby after her biological parents weren’t able to care for her, and she says she has “never connected” with her birth mother and father.
“As far as I know, they’re not alive, and I’m totally OK with that,” she said in a recent interview on the “Allison Interviews” podcast with Allison Kugel.
She said that over the years, she has come to understand her biological parents’ decision to give her up for adoption in a new way.
“There’s this point in your life where you finally kind of realize what happened. That it no longer becomes something about you, that it’s like, ‘Oh, I wasn’t wanted,’” she said. “It was like, ‘No, they actually made the healthiest decision for me by allowing me to be adopted by another family that could provide better.’”
Sweetin added that when she was younger, she looked at her adoption “in a very self-torturous way" and at one point, thought, "‘Oh, something was wrong with me.’ I think we all kind of take that on a little bit. But I’ve completely changed how I view myself.”
Sweetin, who played Stephanie Tanner on “Full House” from 1987 to 1995, and reprised the role in the sitcom’s Netflix sequel, “Fuller House,” also opened up about her mental health during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I know I was a mess during the pandemic. I was not a fully functioning person,” she said.
She also revealed that she lost 37 pounds during the pandemic due to stress and anxiety.
“I'm a stress starver, but not in a good way,” she said. “I just stopped eating. I couldn't keep food down. Like, I’ll be real honest about it. The pandemic was not good for me. I have severe anxiety and depression anyway, so it really didn't do any favors for my mental health. So I really struggled with it, and for me it was a time of feeling really out of control."
Sweetin has been open in the past about her mental health, including a drug and alcohol addiction after “Full House” ended. She has now been sober for several years now and said that for her, caring for herself means being honest and holding herself accountable.
“A lot of it is really looking at yourself and looking at what are the things that I do that are behaviors that I’m using to try and cope with my life?” she said. “Like, how do I do this better? How do I interact with people better, how do I hold myself to a higher standard and how do I go back and make some of those things right so that I can alleviate that shame and that terror that comes with all of it? And then how do I go about my life and not create those situations for myself in the future?”
She added, "I'm always very honest too. For me, medication has been key. Otherwise, I struggle with stuff where I'm not getting out of bed ... and that's now how I want to live my life. And now that I know when I need to speak up for myself, I've done that."
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