Abigail Spencer: Stress almost took me out in 2021, I didnt give up
Abigail Spencer has appeared in so many shows that I almost don’t know how to describe her. I know her from Grey’s Anatomy, Suits, and Timeless, but she was also in a ton of other shows, including True Detective, Mad Men, and All My Children. Aside from a contentious divorce a few years ago, Abigail doesn’t really make headlines outside of her work. But one of her recent Instagram posts alluded to “the hardest year of [her] life,” how stress affected her, and how she found her way out of it.
Abigail Spencer looked back on some of the trials she has faced as she rang in her 41st birthday.
The Grey’s Anatomy actress opened up about her physical and mental health battle amid “the hardest year of my life” in an emotional Instagram post on Thursday.
In a collection of photos showing off a recent trip to Paris with her son Roman Pruett, 13, and friend Miss Jai Alexander, 64, Spencer smiled in the pictures as she offered an inside look into the personal turmoil that took place after she celebrated her 40th birthday — and how she overcame it.
“August 4th 2021, I moved into the hardest year of my life,” Spencer wrote. “It almost killed me, and if I hadn’t been in training for my mind, body & spirit for & surrounded myself with the most incredible community of friends & healers, I do not believe I would have survived it. I’m not going to get into the details of the events that brought about what I’m about to share, but I’ll tell you some of the emotional headlines of its effects.”
“Stress almost took me out,” she explained. “I literally felt like my insides were being eaten by stress. I couldn’t get up off the floor some days. Fear & loss had gripped me. Anxiety would arrest me. In the fight of my life.”
The symptoms began to manifest physically, Spencer added, noting how she “cried so hard on multiple occasions that it led me to vomiting.”
“I spent hours some days trembling while holding myself through the incessant distress. I didn’t leave the house for days. I couldn’t catch a breathe [sic]. Everything felt so hard. At one point I thought I was having a heart attack. I talked to a cardiologist & he said I wasn’t having a heart attack, that my heart was so broken & I needed to be held,” she recalled.
After some time passed, and through work with her “healing community,” Spencer experienced a shift in her energy, allowing her to somewhat close the painful chapter in her life.
“I scheduled my grief & physical care like it was my effing job. Because it was,” she said. “And then…more light came in. And every day something or someone would come along to be a warm glow. I started to get my sense of humor back. I remembered that laughing was an option.”
The Suits alum continued her message offering hope for her followers also experiencing a rough patch in their lives.
“I share all this because the ‘pretty & dreamy’ ‘living your best life pictures’ you see here don’t tell the full story,” the actress said. “They were earned. And if you saw the gal from August 2021 to March 2022 you could never have imagined me here. I didn’t. And I’m so proud of myself. For not giving up.”
[From People]
What Abigail described sounds really difficult. The way she described the symptoms and how she felt physically was very visceral. While it’s certainly her right not to discuss the specific details of what led to her condition, I feel bad for her that she felt so terrible. I also prefer to refrain from a lot of personal information, and it can be hard because people pry or find it hard to understand what you’re going through without examples. But I’m glad the people around her and her doctor took her symptoms seriously and helped her through it instead of being dismissive. It’s wonderful that she had such a supportive community around her and had the time and resources to devote to healing. Not everyone going through a rough time has those same options, but her message is still accessible and hopeful for anyone who might be going through a rough time, to show them that they’re not alone and it can happen to anyone.
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Photos credit: Cover Images, Getty Images and via Instagram
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