Lily Collins has started to open up about her not-so-good memories of an emotionally abusive ex-boyfriend, in a relationship that the actress now realizes was “toxic.”
According to the magazine Peopleprotagonist of the Netflix series Emilia in Paris and daughter of musician Phil Collins opened up about that relationship during a recent appearance on the podcast We can do difficult things (we can do difficult things).
“For me, my toxic romantic relationship was one of verbal and emotional abuse and it made me feel so small,” Lily Collins told co-hosts Glennon Doyle, Amanda Doyle and Abby Wambach during her candid appearance on the podcast.
painful memories
“He called me ‘Little Lily.’ And she used horrible words about me because of the clothes I was wearing,” she said. And she added moved: “she called me a bitch and all those things”, she recalled about the relationship, during which she the actress was just over 20 years old (she is 32 today).
According to Collins, her ex’s “disparaging words” made her “pretty calm and comfortable in my silence. It was like I had to make myself small to feel super safe.”
The report took Collins, who has previously discussed overcoming eating disorders, to the psychologistwhere he learned how the prey of any animal species refused to eat when they felt attacked.
That experience, she said, led to her therapy, where she experienced an epiphany about how her behavior was similar to that of an animal threatened by a larger predator.
“When the prey felt threatened, they made themselves as small as possible,” he explained. “Maybe by not eating and looking as unappealing and unattractive as possible and that’s where they felt most secure.”
A good relationship
Despite now being in a healthy relationship with her husband Charlie McDowell, Lily Collins has admitted that trauma from the past still resurfaces from time to time.
“Situations are completely different from 10 years ago to today… That panic is what can still cause me,” she said.
“Even if I’m in the healthiest relationship, there can be a moment during the day where the story comes back to me,” added Collins.
“It’s like a millisecond, or less than a millisecond. And your gut reacts, your heart starts pounding, and suddenly you go back to that moment where they told you 10 years ago, but now you’re not in that situation and that’s the trigger and it’s really, really hard . It’s terrible”.
A streaming hit
Source: Clarin
