In an interview with “Variety”, the 33-year-old actress recalled a particularly difficult period in her life, when she began to suffer from constant anxiety, which she then overcome thanks to the mental exercises that a doctor taught her.
When she had her first panic attack around New York, Elizabeth Olsen actually believed she was dying because she couldn’t understand what was happening to her. “I have never been an anxious child, quite the opposite and up to the age of 21 I never knew what anxiety or panic attacks were – the 33-year-old actress confessed in a long interview with Variety – then I began to suffer every now, on the hour. I lived in New York on 13th Street, between 6th and 7th Street, and I remember I was crossing the street when I realized I couldn’t do it. I stood up against a wall and thought I was going to die any moment. ‘
A nightmare
A nightmare that repeated for the next six months. “If I went from cold to hot, from hot to cold, from sated to hungry, from hungry to sated, in short, any kind of change, my body went into ‘something is wrong’ mode. And so I started to lose control and it was so strange, for six months I really saw some good ones ». To save her from this spiral of anxiety was a professional, who taught her exercises for the mind that helped her to wipe out the obsessive thoughts and focus on other things. “A friend of mine was being treated by a neuropsychiatrist or a psychologist, I don’t remember well, because she had suffered from panic attacks before me,” Olsen continued, “and she learned many mental exercises. They were actually very similar to an acting exercise we did at Atlantic, which was called “repetition” and which consisted of constantly making observations about the person in front of you. So when I walked down the street, I started to name everything I saw aloud, to get myself out of the spiral of my thoughts ». The method worked, but the actress still preferred to rely on medicines as well. “I kept them in my bag in case of an emergency and just knowing they were there made me feel good.”
October 4, 2022 (change October 4, 2022 | 16:35)
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