Courtesy of Audrey Roloff/Instagram
LPBW’s Audrey Roloff Slammed for Offering Mental Health Advice: ‘Never Said to Not Seek Treatment’
Little People, Big World star Audrey Roloff was slammed by fans after she offered her followers mental health advice on dealing with anxiety.
The TLC personality, 31, held an Instagram Q&A session on Monday, August 7, after a fan asked for tips on dealing with anxiety and stress. “I definitely deal with stress and overwhelm but no anxiety,” Audrey replied via her Instagram Stories. “I really believe that more people need to believe that you can live without anxiety because YOU CAN.”
While the LPBW alum called anxiety a “massive issue” in our culture and didn’t want to “oversimplify it,” she concluded that she felt many people have “overcomplicated it.”
“Find out the root cause of your anxiety instead of just treating your symptoms. Make lifestyle changes accordingly,” she continued. “Pursue relationships that bring you peace, truly love you and support you and don’t add to your anxiety. Ask God, ‘What do you want me to know about my anxiety?’ and quiet your mind enough to listen.”
Following her initial message, Audrey addressed the backlash she received via her DMs from fans who claimed she was “pushing ideas” that may influence people with mental health issues to not seek professional treatment.
“Highly disagree on this,” the user wrote in a screenshot reposted on Audrey’s Instagram Story. “Anxiety is a chemical imbalance on the brain. Unless you have truly experienced it, you cannot understand what it is like.”
Audrey stood firmly that she “never said nor encouraged people to not seek treatment.” “In fact, I encouraged the opposite,” the influencer responded via her Instagram Stories. “To figure out the cause and explore solutions. Hence ‘start things and stop things.’”
Others referenced extreme situations where anxiety stemmed from childhood trauma and abuse. “It’s probably not something that will ever fully ‘heal’ for us until eternity,” one user argued. “No matter how many lifestyle changes and counseling we get, it’s a process. And for a lot of us, it will be a struggle for us until God calls us home.”
In response, the mom of two explained she thought “most people experienced some form of childhood trauma” and didn’t necessarily believe that “trauma = anxiety.”
“I believe you can be healed from childhood trauma. And I disagree with the statement that we can’t be healed from this side of eternity,” she continued. Adding for further clarity, she noted that she was “not anti-medication” and instead “anti-masking symptoms.”
The Instagram post is not the first time Audrey has faced online backlash. In February 2022, she was criticized for planning to take her kids — she shares daughter Ember, and sons Bode and Radley with husband Jeremy Roloff — to Disneyland.
“Telling our kids we’re are taking them to Disneyland for the first time! Me: ‘We’re going to Disneyland!’ Bode: “Balloons!!’” she wrote alongside the clip, which captured her revealing the news with Mickey Mouse-shaped balloons. “But Ember is ecstatic to meet the princesses.”
Shortly after Audrey shared the post, one critic took to the comments section to leave a negative response. “How can a Christian go to Disney?” the social media user wrote. “Pls protect your children.”
Audrey clapped back by sharing a screenshot of the comment via her Instagram Stories, which featured responses from her other followers taking the mother of three’s side. “Comments on my reel like this,” she captioned the post, expressing her frustration by adding an emoji with spiral eyes.
Have a tip? Send it to us! Email In Touch at contact@intouchweekly.com.
