Lena Dunham battled obsessive-compulsive disorder

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(Photo by Charles Eshelman/FilmMagic)

“Girls” creator and star Lena Dunham has opened up about her battle with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and anxiety.

The actress, who was diagnosed with OCD as a young girl, reveals she came up with strange rituals after becoming obsessed with the number eight.

She tells Rolling Stone magazine, “I’d count eight times. … I’d look on both sides of me eight times, I’d make sure nobody was following me down the street, I touched different parts of my bed before I went to sleep, I’d imagine a murder, and I’d imagine that murder eight times.”

Dunham now takes anti-anxiety medications to help with her condition, but she admits the anti-depressants she took as a teen often had unpleasant side effects.

She says, “(I felt) drugged like a big horse. I was so exhausted all the time, night sweats. I was pretty fat in high school if I look at it, because it just slows down your metabolism. My mom would always be like, ‘I think you’re having a lot of side effects.’ And I’d be like, ‘You’re such a [bleep]; you just want me to be skinny!’”