Lily Collins opened up about her toxic relationship with her ex-boyfriend

Lily Collins recalled a "toxic" relationship from the past. In a conversation with the hosts of the podcast We Can Do Hard Things, the 33-year-old star of the TV series "Emily in Paris" talked about violence at the hands of a boyfriend when she was in her "early twenties." "My romantic relationship then was verbally and emotionally abusive and made me feel very small," Collins explained. "He called me 'little Lily.' You were supposed to be 'little Lily,' and he said horrible things about the way I dressed and called me dirty words and everything." The Emily performer added that the "derogatory words" made her want to become "very quiet and natural in silence and shrink down to feel safe."

This relationship led Collins, who had previously admitted to overcoming her eating disorder, to therapy. During her sessions, she learned that the victim usually refuses to eat when she experiences an attack. "When the victim feels threatened, she tries to get as small as possible," she explained. "Perhaps by refusing to eat and making themselves less blooming and attractive, they feel safer.".

Collins says the aftermath of that relationship left her with "panic" and "anxiety". Even now, despite her fairly successful marriage to director Charlie McDowell, those emotional states come back to haunt her. "The current situation is the exact opposite of what it was 10 years ago ... But the panic still haunts me," she says. "Even when I'm in a healthy relationship, there can be moments during the day when a similar story comes back to me. For a millisecond or less. Your stomach reacts, your heartbeat speeds up, and suddenly you're transported to those moments when it was said 10 years ago, but you're not in that situation now, but it's a trigger, and it's damn hard. It's horrible," the actress added.