Recognizing the problem. Jodie Sweetin lost 37 pounds during quarantine, but she is making it clear that it wasn’t a healthy time in her life.
“I have severe anxiety and depression anyway, so [quarantine] really didn’t do any favors for my mental health,” Sweetin, 39, revealed on the Monday, November 22, episode of the “Allison Interviews” podcast. “I really struggled with it, and for me, it was a time of feeling really out of control.”
The Full House alum, who has previously been open about her addiction and mental health battles, revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic took a real toll, despite no one in her family testing positive. When host Allison Kugel asked if there was anything in her past she could change, Sweetin just wanted to save the world from the respiratory virus.
“I think that collective trauma and pain has really affected us and is really going to affect everyone’s mental health in ways that we haven’t seen yet,” she explained, adding that she can’t even comprehend how frontline workers and survivors of coronavirus are coping.
“I know I was a mess during the pandemic. I was not a fully functioning person. I was awful,” Sweetin revealed. “I lost like 37 pounds during [quarantine], because I’m a stress starver, and not in a good way. I just stopped eating. I couldn’t keep food down. I’ll be real honest about it. The pandemic was not good for me.”
The California native was in lockdown with daughters Zoie, 13, and Beatrix, 11, as well as boyfriend Mescal Wasilewski when she started having trouble eating.
The actress, who starred on Netflix’s Fuller House from 2016 to 2020, struggled with her mental health long before lockdown started, and she said the world shutting down only made her battle harder.
The “Never Thought I’d Say This” podcast host also opened up about her struggles with anxiety and her appetite in January. Though she typically enjoys healthy food and exercises — with occasional indulgences for her favorite meal, a burger and fries — there came a point in June 2020 when realized she had a serious problem.
Sweetin was hospitalized for dehydration after attending a protest. The mother of two realized she didn’t eat or drink anything for at least three days and hadn’t gone to the restroom in 18 hours.
“I could not keep water down, I couldn’t do anything,” she said at the time while on the “Alec Mapa: Hot Mess with Matthew Dempsey Psychotherapist” podcast.
After two pressure bags of fluid were administered, she still didn’t have to urinate, and the doctors said her kidney function was starting to fail.
“I just had gotten to the point where I was not taking care of myself … I really hyper focused on [activism] and was out a lot. It was at that moment that I was like, ‘OK, this is now affecting my ability to be a mom and to show up for people.’ It was probably one of the hardest times I’ve had mental health-wise in several years,” she said.
Luckily, Sweetin credits having a support system of friends and loved ones as well as proper resources — including a nutritionist, therapy sessions and medication — with helping her get back on a healthy track.
