After an 18-year career, I left the film industry, not wanting to become one of those child-actor cautionary tales.

Hello, my name is Lisa Jakub. But most people in a restaurant/dentist's office/yoga studio dressing room, call me 'Hey, you look like that girl from 'Mrs. Doubtfire'/'Independence Day'/'Rambling Rose.' There is a good reason for that. I am that girl. More accurately, I was that girl.

It's estimated that 16 million people in the U.S. have struggled with depression - and I include myself in that statistic. It's real, and it's not shameful, and there is help available. You can bring it to the light, you can tell the truth, you can go to a meeting, you can reach out to a friend. None of us are alone.

My memoir is being published by Beaufort Books and will be available fall of 2015. It's about my unusual life as a child actor and how I made the unpopular choice to leave Hollywood, grow up, and stop pretending.

I've spent quite a bit of my life as a meditation teacher and writer commending the strengths of love and compassion.

The first thing I remember when I moved to a school in the suburbs was, 'My gosh, all these books!' The classroom and school had a library; I'd never seen so many books in my life! It was something we didn't have in the township.

People think I have the benefit of a public school education. I have this suave and debonair label, but really, I'm as common as muck.

Nobody thought a white girl should learn to cook in South Africa. I went to drama school. My mother was an actress, so I thought I'd be an actress.