For a while, Shailene Woodley was everywhere.

The Secret Life of the American Teenager actress broke through with 2011’s The Descendants, then scored the coveted leading roles of Hazel in The Fault in Our Stars and Tris in Divergent.

That was 2014, but as we all know, things change on a dime in Hollywood. In 2015, Woodley—who seemed on top of the world—”hit a wall” with acting, as she said in 2018. “I felt it was time to do something different. I called my agents and said, ‘Please don’t send me any more scripts; I need to explore other avenues,'” she told Porter Edit. “They respected me and didn’t send me anything for almost a year until Big Little Lies. I didn’t know what it was or who was involved, I just said, ‘Thanks, I’m still not interested.'” But a call from Laura Dern led her to change her mind, and Woodley has been starring on Big Little Lies since 2017.

Now, she’s finally talking about the context of what happened that year, starting with a recent interview with The New York Times. “I haven’t spoken much about this yet publicly, and I will one day, but I was very, very sick in my early 20s. While I was doing the Divergent movies and working hard, I also was struggling with a deeply personal, very scary physical situation,” the now-28-year-old star said.

“Because of that, I said no to a lot of opportunities because I needed to get better, and those jobs ended up going to peers of mine who I love. They went on to a lot of success,” she added.

Woodley wasn’t specific about what happened to her, but whatever it was set her off course. “Am I going to survive what I’m going through right now and ever be healthy, or even have the opportunity to work on projects I’m passionate about again because of the situation I’m in?'” she remembered thinking. “I was in a place where I had no choice but to just surrender and let go of my career, and it brought out this negative voice in my mind that kept spinning for years and years afterward.”

Fortunately, it seems that Woodley’s found her way to a more stable place. “Now I’m on the other side of it, thank God. A lot of the last few years has been about focusing on mental health for me, and it’s a slow process. But because of that work, I feel very grounded and rooted in who I am and very clear about everything in my life, whether it’s my career or my relationships or my own internal worth,” she said.

Woodley has previously opened up about how important therapy has been to her. “So many things are changing for me at the moment,” Woodley said in 2019. “I recently started therapy, and it has dramatically altered my life.” She continued, “A few months ago I was the least confident in my self-worth. I don’t beat myself up over it anymore, but I still feel like I don’t fully trust myself to say no to certain things, to trust my discernment. But I will be, very soon.”

Woodley’s next film is Endings, Beginnings, a romantic drama in which Woodley plays a woman stuck between two men who just so happen to be Jamie Dornan and Sebastian Stan. Currently, Woodley is social distancing at home alone except for her dog. This is the first time she’s been home this long since she was 17, and she told The Times that “this feels like heaven in a lot of ways because I don’t have to talk to people, I don’t have to deal with people, I don’t even have to look at people. I can play the game of being an extrovert when I need to — it’s a big part of my job — but my happy place is honestly being alone.”

Woodley also told the newspaper that she’s explored isolation before. “When I was 18, I moved into a cabin in the middle of the woods with no cellphone, no Wi-Fi,” she said. “I’m a loner.”

In the past, relationships have been destructive for the actress. “In my late teens, I had a strong idea of my identity and the meaning of my life, but then I went through an abusive relationship,” she said. “That combined with, honestly, the commercial success I had in this industry began to wear on my strength. My 20s felt a little bit like being in a washing machine, where you’re being thrown all over the place.”

Now, though, she’s on solid ground. “I feel very grateful to have walked that line of fire,” she said, “because now I know what I don’t want to ever go back to.”