Shailene Woodley details her experience struggling with various health issues in her early 20s.
The actress made an appearance on SHE'S A DOCTOR podcast, hosted by Mary Alice Haney and Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi, where she talked about her new series, Three womenand his struggles with an undisclosed illness during the early days of his fame.
When asked if she would be willing to elaborate on her previous comments about how she was “very sick” while filming the Divergent film, said she didn't feel the need to share her diagnosis because it's personal, but she would be willing to talk more about what she experienced.
“It got to the point where I was losing my hearing. I couldn't walk for more than five minutes at a time without having to lie down for hours and hours and hours and sleep,” she said on the podcast. “Everything I ate hurt my stomach. It was this confusion of problems and diagnoses and different doctors telling me different things.”
THE Big Little Lies star explained that it was a long journey that lasted about a decade, during which her health fluctuated between recovery and difficulty. She noted that the stomach pains she felt eventually led to a fear of food.
“Then, going into the mental confusion that can come with body dysmorphia and the confusion about identity and feeling safe in my capsule, in my skin, and what that meant and what it was supposed to be,” Woodley continued. “It was a journey that ultimately came together physically. And I'm very healthy. I'm so happy to say that. And also, it forced me to really look deeply and become introspective.”
Looking back now on what she went through, she realizes that in addition to her body needing to heal physically, she was also able to heal mentally from “real trauma and real PTSD” that she had at different points in her life, which impacted her body and her emotions.
The Fault in Our Stars The actress was especially confused because she remembered always eating healthy and being very athletic, so she couldn't figure out what she was doing wrong that was causing her body to react the way it did. Separately, she also said she had been having health issues with her “reproductive and female cycle” but had been unable to get a coherent diagnosis from a doctor.
“Every person I reached out to was giving me conflicting information, and that led me to go on my own journey of, ‘OK… I don’t feel safe with any of these people who are guiding me because I feel like they’re actually understanding along the way,’” she said. “And so, I might as well take matters into my own hands and dedicate myself to educating myself on so many topics and approaching them from a holistic, internal perspective.’”
At this point in his life, he is no longer taking any medications and his body is back to health: everything “works as it should.”
“I think ultimately the thing that got me there, along with, again, the physical aspects, was recognizing that I was in a constant state of fight or flight,” she said. “My nervous system was super empathetic and just operating very much from a place of fear and a place of where is the lion in the room?”
Woodley has spoken openly about her health issues to The Hollywood Reporter in a 2021 cover story in which she revealed that she had to turn down some acting jobs during that time because she was physically unable to participate.
“It was pretty debilitating,” she said. “I definitely suffered a lot more than I should have because I didn't take care of myself. The self-inflicted pressure of not wanting to be helped or cared for created more physical restlessness during those years.”
Although she has now fully recovered from her health problems, when she previously spoke to DAY She said that she was at the end of the crisis and was almost back to normal, but that this situation had marked her indelibly because of the way people perceived her.
“It's an interesting thing, going through something so physically dominant while so many people are paying attention to the choices you make, the things you say, what you do, how you look,” the Divergent the star noted. “It made me dizzy for a little bit. You feel so incredibly isolated and alone. Unless someone sees that you have a broken arm or a broken leg, it's really hard for people to relate to the pain that you're feeling when it's silent, silent, invisible pain.”
Three women will debut every Friday on Starz until the finale on November 15.