Maeve McDermott

USATODAY

Kristen Bell wants you to know you're not alone.

Bell is the latest Hollywood figure to get candid about depression, writing a new essay for Motto that aims to lessen the stigma around one of America's most common mental disorders.

"I didn’t speak publicly about my struggles with mental health for the first 15 years of my career," the Bad Moms star wrote. "But now I’m at a point where I don’t believe anything should be taboo. So here I am, talking to you about what I’ve experienced."

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Bell shares that she first experienced depression while a student at NYU. "I felt plagued with a negative attitude and a sense that I was permanently in the shade," she wrote."I’m normally such a bubbly, positive person, and all of a sudden I stopped feeling like myself."

So, why share her story now? There is such an extreme stigma about mental health issues, and I can’t make heads or tails of why it exists," she explained in her essay.

"In fact, there is a good chance you know someone who is struggling with it since nearly 20% of American adults face some form of mental illness in their lifetime. So why aren’t we talking about it?"

And with her essay, that's just what she's doing -- read the full version here.