While things may have seemed great on the outside for the ‘Game of Thrones’ star, Maisie Williams definitely went through a dark period in her life that she recently opened up about.

Maisie Williams, 22, talked about a period of time several years ago in which she had suicidal thoughts. Maisie opened up to Lewis Howes in an hour-long interview, and the Arya Stark actress was truly vulnerable. Maisie revealed that she suffers with anxiety and has had “a lot of overwhelming feelings of not really wanting to be here.” The star said the dark thoughts and negative feelings started when she was around 15 years old, which would have been around one year into Game of Thrones.

“I used to tell myself ‘I hate myself,’ like every day, I’d say outwardly to myself,” the young star said. “It started just in my head and I would think of something and cringe and feel disappointed and I’d be like, ‘I hate myself.’ And then it started getting worse and worse and worse until like sometimes I’d be with people and they would be talking and I would say quietly, ‘I hate myself,’ and then people would be like, ‘What?’ and I’m like, ‘Nothing sorry,’ and it’s just cause thoughts in my head were getting so overwhelming that I would just say it out loud and not realize that I’d done it.” Maisie also said that she struggles with anxiety and she has gone to therapy and been on medication to deal with it. She said she hasn’t let anxiety stop her from “doing [things like] a Ted Talk.” She said that she still did a play, despite her anxiety – “I And You” in London in 2018.

Maisie continued, “I felt very negatively about myself [during that darker time]. I was waiting for something on the outside world to change and it was never really going to. So I think it was important for me to find peace within myself.” Maisie said, “I would punish myself for being successful.”

“It definitely hit rock bottom before I got to where I am now. We would not have had this conversation a year ago.” Maisie described that one year ago she was in a relationship, in which she wasn’t “ready” to love another person. She recounted that after that relationship ended, she went on a “self-destructive path.” Maisie said, “I was just dead-set on being self-destructive – I never really had a good relationship with substances anyway. And then it just all started to sort of come out in those few months. And I just got very, very sad. And yes I had a lot of overwhelming feelings of not really wanting to be here.”

From there, Maisie went on medication that she described as “very numbing,” which she was on during the final celebration for the Game of Thrones eighth and last season. She said, “I didn’t feel anxious but then I never really felt anything. Everyone around me is sobbing and crying and hugging and we’re looking at pictures of us […] and I just couldn’t for the life of me feel a thing. Literally nothing. Was just floating through these last few months of the shower. And yeah I think when I did start to sort of bring myself out of that, I just started to love myself I think. And now I wouldn’t dream of telling myself that I hate myself. It makes me so sad to think that I was like that because everything is so wonderful now.”