Elizabeth Olsen Opens Up About Having Panic Attacks 'Almost Every Hour' in Her 20s

09/30/2024 08:54 AM

Olsen opened up in a new interview about her experiences with panic attacks and how she has "gone through phases" during her journey with them

Elizabeth Olsen is speaking out about past mental health struggles.

Opening up in a new interview with The Guardian, published on Sunday, Sept. 29, the actress, 35, highlighted how she relates to her character Christina - who finds peace by using breathing exercises and meditation - in the 2023 Netflix movie, His Three Daughters.

"I've gone through phases of it," Olsen said of having anxiety and panic attacks during her 20s. "Figuring out what works for me, or what works enough. No one talked about panic attacks in the mid-2000s."

She added, "I thought it meant you just write a list and check things off and get over it. I didn't realize it was something you had no control over, but I had to figure out how to have some control."

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Explaining that there were times she would have panic attacks multiple times a day, she added, "Like, almost every hour!" 

"It was literally, like, any time there was a shift in something: hot to cold, hungry to full. I thought, 'Oh, is this OK?' And then it would spiral and it just became this habit," she continued.

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Speaking about how she overcame the attacks, Olsen said she would  "interrupt the thinking process" and name everything she saw in her head to interrupt it.

Having not had a panic attack since then, the star added, "You learn very quickly who you feel comfortable around and who you don't."

Meanwhile, back in 2022, Olsen opened up about how intense her panic attacks were.

Speaking with Variety, the WandaVision star said she experienced the attacks while she was living in New York at 21 years old.

"I remember I would get [panic attacks] on the hour every hour," she said at the time. "I used to live on 13th Street between 6th and 7th. I was crossing 6th Avenue at 14th Street, and I realized I couldn't cross the street — I stood up against the wall, and I just thought I was going to drop dead at any moment."

She continued by noting, "If I went from cold to hot, hot to cold, full to hungry, hungry to full — any kind of shift in my body, my whole body thought, 'Uh oh, something's wrong!' And I just started spiraling. It was so weird."

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