In an interview this week, Portia de Rossi opened up about her struggle with her sexuality and an eating disorder

Who said the road to accepting one’s own sexuality is always smoothe sailing?

For actress Portia de Rossi it wasn’t.

In an interview with “The Conversation With Amanda de Cadenet.” Portia said “I just didn’t want to be a lesbian. I’d never met one for a start and I just thought they were strange and that they hated men and they were very serious and I had these ridiculous images in my head and there were no out celebrities or politicians or anybody that I could look to and go, ‘Oh, I could be like that”.

de Rossi added “There was nobody that I could say, ‘I could date her and I want to be like her.’ I just kind of thought I don’t want to live like this. I don’t have to, I don’t need to, I just shut down the emotional life … I didn’t like people thinking of me as a sexual being, and I was just terrified that people would know that I was gay.”

As a result of hiding her sexuality Portia struggled with an eating disorder “The thing that kept me company was my eating disorder. It was like a lover; it was like somebody who never ever left me. Like a thought that would always keep me excited, interested and focused. It’s adrenaline,” de Rossi explained.

In 2008 Portia de Rossi married Ellen DeGeneres in 2008 and is now an advocate for those figuring out their own lives stating “I really, honestly think that anybody who is openly gay and visible is powerful, it doesn’t matter what you do, you are impacting people.”