According to Ryder, the time following her split from Depp amid the pressure of Hollywood fame was difficult.
"That was my 'Girl, Interrupted' real life," she told Harper's Bazaar.
"Girl, Interrupted," released in 1999 and adapted from Susanna Kaysen's memoir of the same name, stars Ryder as a teenager who spends 18 months in a hospital following a suicide attempt and is eventually diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
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Ryder said that she worked with "an incredible therapist" during that period who pushed her to imagine being kinder to her younger self.
"I remember, I was playing this character who ends up getting tortured in a Chilean prison," Ryder told Harper's Bazaar, referencing her character in the 1994 film adaptation of Isabel Allende's "The House of the Spirits."
"I would look at these fake bruises and cuts on my face, and I would struggle to see myself as this little girl. 'Would you be treating this girl like you're treating yourself?'" she continued. "I remembered looking at myself and saying, 'This is what I'm doing to myself inside.' Because I just wasn't taking care of myself."
Ryder said that her "The Age of Innocence" costar Michelle Pfeiffer also helped to get through the difficult period of her life, telling her that "this is going to pass."
"There's this part of me that's very private," Ryder said. "I have such, like, a place in my heart for those days. But for someone younger who grew up with social media, it's hard to describe."
The "Stranger Things" star was not called as a witness in Depp and Heard's recent defamation trial in Virginia, which ended in June with jurors finding both Depp and Heard liable for defamation against one another. On Friday, the judge presiding over the trial finalized the jury verdict, requiring Heard to pay just over $10 million in damages to Depp and and requiring Depp to pay $2 million in damages to Heard.
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