Winona Ryder Anxiety

American actress Winona Ryder (real name: Winona Laura Horowitz) has suffered from anxiety disorder.

Winona has been checked into hospital several times for depression, anxiety attacks and exhaustion, most prominently in 1990 when she dropped out of portraying Mary Corleone in "Godfather: Part III" two days before the begininning of filming.

WhenWinona Ryder starred in the film based on Susanna Kaysen's novel "Girl, Interrupted", it was a nightmare for Winona because she had to face her own fears. As Ryder stated: Kaysen "captures a mood we've all experienced. It's like a reflective time we've all had in our lives, whether to kill ourselves, whether to be miserable or move on. You go through spells where you feel that maybe you’re too sensitive for this world. I certainly felt that."

''It was very scary, because the role (in "Girl, Interrupted") did mirror a lot of stuff I've been through. I was terrified to play a character who was full of fear and anxiety knowing that I have been full of fear and anxiety, and it's not something that's just past tense for me. It's something you battle with your whole life," Winona admitted. 

''To play an anxiety attack, you have to get an anxiety attack. And I didn't know how to put a lid on that when they said "cut". My heart would still be going a million miles an hour, and I would be sweating and I would feel like I felt when I was 19 and felt totally alone and couldn't describe to anyone in the world how I was feeling," Winona explained. 

"There was a time when I was 19 when I really, really, really thought I was going crazy. I was exhausted and going through a terrible depression. I had had panic attacks from the age of 12 - probably from the pressure of working and then going through adolescence onscreen", Winona claimed about her own brief stay at a psychiatric clinic.

It has to be noted that Winona left to get a year of intensive therapy. "I was wallowing and I eventually got sick of it - I got sick of being sick. I was coming out of my own serious depression and I didn't know what to label it, just as Susanna doesn't know what to label hers. There was nothing really wrong with Susanna. They called her a "borderline personality" because they couldn’t diagnose her," Ryder was quoted as saying.

Ryder has revealed to reporters that she sometimes indulges in alcohol to escape her anxiety attacks and depression.

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