The ‘Stranger Things’ actress first opened up about her experiences with anxiety and depression in the late nineties.
Winona Ryder has said she’s sick of society “shaming women” for being sensitive or vulnerable. The 44-year-old, who returned to acting with Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things’ last month, said she’s been painted as supersensitive and fragile, ever since opening up about her experiences with depression and anxiety in the nineties, but those emotions shouldn't be portrayed as a bad thing.
Winona Ryder says she’s perceived as being “supersensitive and fragile”.
“I’m so sick of people shaming women for being sensitive or vulnerable. It’s so bizarre to me.” Ryder told New York magazine. “I wish I could unknow this, but there is a perception of me that I’m supersensitive and fragile. And I am supersensitive, and I don’t think that that’s a bad thing.”
Explaining how sensitivity is often seen as a bad word, she continued: “There’s a line in the show where someone says [of her Stranger Things character], ‘She’s had anxiety problems in the past.’
"A lot of people have picked up on that, like, ‘Oh, you know, she’s crazy.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, wait a second, she’s struggling.’ Two kids, deadbeat dad, working her ass off. Who wouldn’t be anxious?’”
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In 1999 Ryder starred in Girl, Interrupted, which focused on a young woman’s experiences at a mental institution in the late 1960s. Ryder herself served as an executive producer on the film and helped get it made.
“Even that word, anxious. It’s a bad word. And so like all of these words — it’s kind of what I tried to do with Girl, Interrupted, and why I was so invested in that book and trying to get it made [as a movie],” she continued. “My whole point was, this happens to every girl, almost.”
After the film’s release Ryder appeared on Diane Sawyer and spoke about her own experiences with anxiety and depression. “I think by doing that, maybe coupled with my physical size, there’s this ‘crazy’ thing,” she said. “And I’ve realised recently it’s literally impossible to try to change that story.”
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“I don’t regret opening up about what I went through [with depression], because, it sounds really cliché, but I have had women come up to me and say, ‘It meant so much to me,’" she said.
"It means so much when you realize that someone was having a really hard time and feeling shame and was trying to hide this whole thing. And even the whole, like, sensitive, fragile thing.
"I do have those qualities, and I just don’t think there’s anything wrong with them," Ryder added. "There were times when I let it feel too overwhelming and almost, like, shamed, but I had to just get over that.”
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