Zosia Mamet, one of the stars of HBO’s Girls, has revealed she has suffered from an eating disorder since she was a child.
Mamet, 26, revealed her struggles in a column for Glamour.
She bravely wrote, “I've struggled with an eating disorder since I was a child. This struggle has been mostly a private one, a war nobody knew was raging inside me. I tried to fight it alone for a long time. And I nearly died."
The actress, who plays Shoshanna on the Emmy award winning show, called herself an “addict in recovery” and explained how she eventually got help at the age of 17 with the help of her father, playwright and director David Mamet.
“My dad eventually got me into treatment. He came home one night from a party, took me by the shoulders, and said, 'You're not allowed to die,'” she wrote. “It was the first time I realized this wasn't all about me. I didn't care if I died, but my family did. That's the thing about these kinds of disorders: They're consuming; they make you egocentric; they're all you can see."
She admitted to starving herself, making herself “run extra miles” and even standing at her refrigerator at night for hours contemplating if she should eat or not.
"I was told I was fat for the first time when I was 8. I'm not fat; I've never been fat,” she wrote. “But ever since then, there has been a monster in my brain that tells me I am — that convinces me my clothes don't fit or that I've eaten too much."
image via Walter McBride/INFphoto.com