Actress Evangeline Lilly is opening up about battling with a severe case of clinical depression, saying she’s now back in control of her state of mind without the use of medication.

"I have battled clinical depression and have come out of the other side," The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug star told reporters. "I've been free of it for many years now.”

Lilly added to Digital Spy and other press, "Finding the place in my own mind and heart to win that battle without using medication, finding the place within myself where I could be alive again, that was one of the biggest challenges I've faced."

Instead of medication, Lilly overcame depression a more natural way. She said she completely changed her diet to mostly organic food while she was shooting Lost in Hawaii.

"Going from eating whatever to eating primarily organic food, I was astounded what a difference that made," she said, E! Online repots. "After about a year or two years, I started to feel something physically lift out of my brain, and I believe it was all the chemicals I was probably ingesting [before].”

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug hit theaters Dec. 13 and also stars Orlando Bloom, Martin Freeman and Ian McKellen.

image: Wikimedia Commons