Lake Bell is opening up about her daughter’s diagnosis.
On Wednesday, the Bless this Mess actress, 41, revealed on Instagram that her 5-year-old daughter Nova is epileptic, a reality she didn’t originally intend on sharing with others.
Bell — who also shares son Ozgood, 3 next month, with husband Scott Campbell — said she decided to share her family’s experience with the neurological disorder to feel less alone.
“It’s taken me a few months to gather the courage to post about it because I do not want to endorse its existence,” Bell captioned a photo of Nova peering into the camera while wearing a yellow jacket. “I also didn’t know why I should share it. Why tell a bunch of strangers?”
She continued: “However in a time where we are so isolated I crave community. We all do. We want to be reminded we are not alone in any reality.”
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Bell said she is “grateful” to Campbell, 42, for researching the condition and “giving these seizures a worthy adversary.” The mom of two also described the episodes as “invaders that come on without invitation nor warning.”
“Scott and I, along with the care of the incomparable [Children’s Hospital L.A.], will conquer them. For Nova… so she doesn’t have to cry in fear after she gets sucked into one,” wrote Bell. “… We will fight for Nova. For her future. For tomorrow. For today.”
“It’s a beginning of a long journey and I want/need to remember that I am not alone,” Bell added. “And if you are dealing with a loved one with epilepsy, I get it… You are not alone.”
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In August 2017, Bell spoke to Good Housekeeping about raising a daughter and setting an example, telling the magazine that she doesn’t want Nova to “be afraid of anything.”
“I hope to send her the message that women are beautiful, truly, at every age, and [that] there’s this tremendous privilege to age,” she said at the time. “There’s this sort of responsibility as the mother of a girl in that I want to be comfortable with aging, and I don’t want her to see me afraid of that because I don’t want her to be afraid of anything in that way.”
Bell also opened up about balancing motherhood with her own wellness.
“It’s very, very easy to fall into this role of feeling like you can’t do anything because you have to drop everything that has to do with your own self-care to take care of [your children],” she said at the time, “but I’m finding [that] trying to take care of myself is literally taking care of them.”
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