Elizabeth Olsen has said she suffered panic attacks “on the hour every hour” during early adulthood.
In an interview with Variety, the 33-year-old actress revealed how she “didn’t understand what anxiety or a panic attack was” until she was 21 — and how she thought she was going to “drop dead” when she experienced them.
“I remember I would get them on the hour every hour. 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 shared about her time living in New York City.
The Marvel actress shared she felt like she was “spiraling” — and even experienced symptoms of vertigo.
“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,” Olsen said.
Elizabeth Olsen experienced symptoms of vertigo during her panic attacks.Alessio Botticelli/GC Images“It was so weird. A ENT doctor said that it could be vertigo related because it was all about truly spinning. So it was an interesting six months.”
The “WandaVision” actress learned a lot of brain games in order to get past the panic attacks, including a method called “repetition” where she tried to connect with her surroundings.
“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. That was a helpful tool. But it just became a practice that got me out of it,” she said. “I didn’t want to be on medication, but I had medication in case I felt like I was having an emergency and just having that in my bag felt good.”
Elizabeth Olsen learned a lot of brain games in order to get past the panic attacks.© Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / courtesy Everett CollectionOlsen admitted the panic attacks felt foreign to her since she wasn’t anxious when she was young.
“It’s very weird because I was not an anxious child. I was very loud and confident,” she said.