Elizabeth Olsen, the ‘WandaVision’ actor, is breaking down the stereotype by opening up about her experiences with panic attacks and how she coped with them. Olsen stated that she was racked with hourly panic attacks every day when she was young.
The actress said that there was no one to guide her, so she experimented with her own methods to manage her panic attacks. Eventually, she stopped suffering from the disorder. But years later while filming ‘His Three Daughters’, her character Christina brought all her memories back.
Elizabeth Olsen Says She Suffered From Panic Attacks “Any Time There Was A Shift In Something”
Elizabeth Olsen started suffering from panic attacks when she moved to New York. In 2022 she told Variety, “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.” Olsen’s attacks began when she was 21.
Talking with The Guardian the ‘WandaVision’ actor said, “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.”
She continued, “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.”
Elizabeth Olsen Reveals How She Coped With Panic Attacks
Elizabeth Olsen further revealed that she had to carve out her own coping mechanisms to deal with anxiety. She told The Guardian, “No one talked about panic attacks in the mid-2000s,” which then forced to find her own solution to the problem.
In another interview, she said that one of her friends who suffered from the same disorder gave her a few tips to manage her discomfort. “It actually was very similar to an acting exercise,” she told Variety.
She continued, “You just are constantly making observations about the person in front of you and you’re just trying to connect. When I would walk down the street, I would just start naming everything I saw out loud to get myself out of the spiraling thoughts in my brain.”
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Olsen told The Guardian that she related to her ‘His Three Daughters’ character Christina. Like Christina, Olsen also applied the methods of breathing exercises and meditation to cope with panic attacks.
“You learn very quickly who you feel comfortable around and who you don’t,” she said. The ‘WandaVision’ actor does not suffer from the attacks anymore.
