Dove Cameron is a talented actress and singer who initially got her beginnings as a Disney starlet, having starred in hits ‘Live & Maddie’, as well as ‘Descendants’, with Sofia Carson, Boo boo Stewart, and Cameron Boyce, who tragically passed away in 2019 at age 20 following him suffering an epileptic seizure in his sleep. The death of her friend, whom she considered to be her brother, hit her hard, but it wasn’t the first loss she ever experienced in her life. Her father passed away of suicide when she was just 15 years old and just started her career in the limelight. While recently appearing on the ‘Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard’ podcast, Cameron opened up about that time in her life. She said, ‘I didn’t really learn how to navigate, um, like, sort of fan attention or public attention for many years. I couldn’t have prepared. I also think like I surprised myself by being more introverted than I anticipated. You truly don’t know until you’re put into that situation. And then you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m very introverted.’ There was so much going on in my personal life… That’s gonna affect any kid. When you’re 15 and that happens, it changes the course of your life. There was no way for me to wrap my head around it. Understand it, conceptualise it. We were at his funeral, and then like, on Bainbridge Island. I would come to work every day and some days would be good and some days would be bad, and everybody was super protective of me. It was kind of like a volatile time in my life in general, just being a teenager, being on TV was a great escape.’ Here, we break down Cameron’s struggle with depression and anxiety, as told in her own words. We explore what having to witness a parent’s own struggle with depression and anxiety at a young age can do to a child and then into adulthood. And finally, we redefine mental illness as brain health, and we analyze what one can do to better the next generation. Let’s discuss…