Evan Rachel Wood opens up about spending time in a psychiatric hospital
Evan Rachel Wood. (Getty/ Matt Winkelmeyer)
Bisexual actress Evan Rachel Wood has penned a heartwrenching essay for Nylon where she detailed how a suicide attempt when she was 22 years old led her to check into a psychiatric hospital.
In the essay, Wood said she had “no shame” about having spent time in a psychiatric hospital, and said it was both the worst and best thing that ever happened to her.
Wood explained that, after attempting suicide, she called her mother and asked for help.
“My PTSD was caused by multiple rapes and a severely abusive relationship that went on for years.”
– Evan Rachel Wood
“My mind was not a peaceful place,” Wood said in the essay. “My mind at the time was filled with scars and shadows and, most importantly, so much shame.
“I was struggling with PTSD and didn’t know it. PTSD is considered a mental illness; it can be caused by a number of things and is not limited to brave service people. My PTSD was caused by multiple rapes and a severely abusive relationship that went on for years.”
Evan Rachel Wood: PTSD made her ‘afraid to be alone’
Later in the essay, Wood wrote that her PTSD was so severe that she would wake in the middle of the night, thinking she could hear people whispering her name in her ear.
“In my hazy stupor, I would see shadows, figures of people in my room, I would scream and they would dissipate. I was afraid to be alone, but I also couldn’t be around people. I could barely leave my own house. I was too afraid to go outside. I couldn’t sleep because every little noise was deafening. I was defensive, I was impulsive, and I had no healthy coping mechanisms yet. I lost friends. I lost job opportunities.”
“Mental health shouldn’t be a luxury for the rich. It felt like I barely made it in by the skin of my teeth – and I am privileged. Imagine how hard it is with no health insurance or money or resources?”
– Evan Rachel Wood
Wood also wrote about how being in the public eye made it even harder to cope with her mental illness, and that she worried about people finding out she was in a psychiatric hospital.
She also said that she didn’t want to go into a state psychiatric hospital, saying she wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy.
“If I didn’t shell out a significant amount of money to snag a private room at a decent place, I don’t know what I would have done.
Chelsea Guglielmino/Getty
“Mental health shouldn’t be a luxury for the rich. It felt like I barely made it in by the skin of my teeth – and I am privileged. Imagine how hard it is with no health insurance or money or resources?”
Wood said that – while the experience was difficult – she was “relieved to feel safe.”
Evan Rachel Wood worried about sustaining ‘a normal life’
“When my time was almost up, I felt conflicted about leaving. Of course, you want to get out of there, but it’s the first place where I had felt safe and taken care of for some time. It’s scary to imagine going back into the world to fend for yourself again.
“You worry about the future and if you can sustain a normal life. I was also going to miss the other patients. I would most likely never see them again, but we had just shared a space so intimate and personal.”
“There is no economic class, race, sexuality, or gender that is safe from their own mind.”
– Evan Rachel Wood
At the end of her stay in the psychiatric hospital, a psychiatrist revealed to Wood that she had been inspired to become a psychiatrist after seeing her film, Thirteen.
Since then, Evan Rachel Wood has continued with her therapy and is no longer on medication.
“There is no economic class, race, sexuality, or gender that is safe from their own mind.
“We know success doesn’t cure depression, we know that people telling you they love you doesn’t cure depression, we know that just thinking positively doesn’t cure depression.
“Depression isn’t weakness, it’s a sickness. Sometimes a deadly one. And sometimes all people need is to know that they are loved and that others are there for them. They may not take your hand right away, but knowing it’s there could save their life one day.”
Evan Rachel Wood: Bisexual actress
Evan Rachel Wood came out as bisexual in 2011 in an interview with Esquire magazine.
“I’m more of like the guy when it comes to girls. I’m the dominant one. I’m opening the doors, I’m buying dinner. Yeah, I’m romantic.
“I’m up for anything. Meet a nice guy, meet a nice girl.”
Wood later said that she “cried so hard” when she came out as bisexual to her mother.
She said she was “terrified” of her bisexuality as a child as she did not understand it and nobody discussed it with her.
Evan Rachel Wood tried to tell her mother she was bisexual when she was 12 years old but “never got the words out.”
“I told her years later. Before I cam out publicly,” she said.
