Actress Kyla Pratt Wants to Normalize Talking About Mental Health: 'It Doesn't Make You Less of a Person'

Welcome to Deep Dives, a new Health video series where inspiring people talk about a health topic that's meaningful to them and share relatable stories around health and wellness. Watch Kyla Pratt's Deep Dive above!

Actress Kyla Pratt, 34, is trying to change the image of Hollywood stars like herself. Because celebrities are in the public eye, people don't think of them as having the same mental health challenges as everyone else. She knows first-hand that this isn't true.

The Dr. Doolittle star says that when she gave birth to her youngest daughter in 2013, she struggled with her own mental health, but she didn't have the vocabulary to discuss it. "I didn't recognize that something was wrong," she tells Health. "As a woman, your hormones and your body are not even back normal until like two years after you have a baby."

She was used to pulling herself through tough times, she says, but during the period after her daughter was born, she felt stuck. "Usually I can come out of a lot of bad feelings," she reflects. "At that time, I just didn't know how to."

Pratt says that labeling public figures as "strong" might send the wrong signal. "The term 'strong'-it can be very deceiving," she explains. "It puts people in a position of thinking they're not allowed to have feelings, or they're not allowed to go through certain things emotionally. I think that's a piece of crap."

"I feel like everyone is working through something they don't talk about-we all go through it," she adds. "We can normalize it, and it becomes something we can bond over."

Watch the rest of Pratt's deep dive in the video above.