Troian Bellisario

Just assume it’s Spencer, y’know, sluttin’ it up.

Falling is scary but good practice for life. We must fall. In love. Out of love. Into new experiences. Out of old habits. Deeper and further into ourselves. We must fall, life is falling over forward. The only choice we have is how we let go.

Pretty Little Liars Meme ∙ 4/5 Liars → Spencer Hastings

I really do hope that I can play, and story-tell in a way that is memorable. But I also really can’t say that, because God knows who’s going to remember me or who I will be remembered by, but if I get to play in the world of great stories, then I feel like that’s all I can really hope for as an actor. That’s it, really.

As heartbreaking as it is to say goodbye to Spencer, I do feel like it is time to move on. Our fans have been incredibly supportive but they also are growing up. I want them to look back on the show as something special and beautiful. I don’t want them to get bored of it.

I was 3 years into my recovery from anorexia and I still had trouble describing to people that struggling with an eating disorder was more than just not wanting to eat. Mental illness is very complicated and for the most part invisible. If someone is physically ill often you can see the outward manifestations of their illness or injury and offer to help to alleviate that pain or work towards restoring health. Your leg is broken? Here is a cast to help you mend the bone. You have a fever? Stay in bed and drink lots of fluids, etc.. But a mental illness?  There is no scan of the brain that can detect an eating disorder, but it is still the deadliest mental illness, recovery is incredibly difficult and death tragically common. This is a disease that is acutely painful; life threatening, but at times it can make no outward appearance. Yes, sometimes people with an eating disorder lose weight in such a drastic way that you can see them as clearly needing help, but often people battling with this illness can look totally “healthy” on the outside and have a war raging inside against themselves. It’s horrible and beyond that, it’s also greatly misunderstood and not spoken about often enough.

I have worked for many years to recover, and I will be honest, it is not always easy and still a journey. Recovery is not something you just achieve and then you never have to look back, it is a constant choice. So, to welcome with open arms the compulsions, restrictions and voices back into my head and heart, I was very aware of the challenge and the risk.

I had an idea to try to communicate a life experience that I had gone through that I still feel like a lot of people in my life never really understood, or that I couldn’t really communicate.

It’s kind of like driving a car and when you tap into the fact that everybody’s in giant, very fast moving, metal death traps and you are in one too… You can’t really tap into that. I am definitely very aware. I try not to put out things that are offensive. I have a lot of young people following me, which at times can feel a little restrictive. However it helps me keep in mind that I have to maintain the status of a role model.

Alex Drake in 7x20, ‘Til DeAth Do Us PArt