Hannah Murray recalled having a psychotic breakdown after joining a wellness cult in 2017.
“It’s easy to go, ‘Well, that would never happen to me,’ but we do ourselves a disservice when we start saying that, because you don’t know,” the “Game of Thrones” actress told the Guardian in an interview published on Saturday.
Murray — who talks about her harrowing experience in her forthcoming memoir, “The Make-Believe: A Memoir of Magic and Madness” — said she “had no idea [she] was going to go through any of the things in the book.”
“I would’ve assumed I couldn’t, that I was safe. I was well educated, from a middle-class family; everything should have been fine,” the “Skins” alum told the outlet.
“I thought, ‘I’m smart. I make good choices.’ Well, I made terrible choices. But it’s important to understand why people do these things, rather than going, ‘Oh, they must be idiots.’ Or, ‘How stupid could you be?’” she added.
Murray, 36, said she was first introduced to the alleged cult by an “energy healer,” whom she met through her personal trainer while on the set of “Detroit.”
“My own experience felt highly eroticized, without anything explicitly physical happening. There was just this charge to the energy in the room. I think there often is in these hierarchical spiritual organizations,” she recalled.
“I found it interesting that it was a primarily quite female space — the teachers, the healer — and then this man walks in and he’s incredibly confident and magnetic,” Murray, who would name the cult or the leader, added.
“The first thing he says is a joke about sex. From this quite floaty, quite gentle, wishy-washy energy, it was suddenly, like, ‘Hey, I’m here,’ and, ‘Let’s f–k.’ I think he was doing that deliberately.”
Murray said she spent thousands of dollars trying to obtain “wisdom and specialness,” but was rather admitted to a psychiatric unit after having a psychotic episode. She was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Now, the “Charlie Says” star is staying away from anything connected to the wellness industry.
“Even the tame stuff can feel quite distressing. I don’t meditate any more. I wouldn’t go into a crystal shop. I don’t do yoga, because I don’t quite know what might come up that might feel a bit too woo-woo for my personal threshold,” she told the Guardian.
“But I realize now how pervasive it is. How often people you don’t know will offer it as a remedy. You’ll say, ‘I’m not really sleeping,’ and they’ll say, ‘Have you tried meditation?’ It’s everywhere, seen as an inherently positive solution,” Murray shared.
“And there are harmless or positive versions. But as someone looking for something to fix me entirely, a magic wand or silver bullet, the promise felt seductive and addictive.”
Murray, best known for her roles as Cassie Ainsworth on “Skins” and Gilly on “Game of Thrones,” has retired from acting.
“The Make-Believe: A Memoir of Magic and Madness” will be released on June 23.
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