Actress Hayden Panettiere recently opened up about struggles she faced at the peak of her fame especially while filming the hit TV show “Nashville.” She told ABC News show “Nightline” that she’d “been struggling for a long time.” She added that she “needed a break.” That’s why she took 4 years off from acting, but she “didn’t expect it would be that long.”

Panettiere told The Messenger that she especially needed a break after “Nashville” because filming the show was “very traumatizing because I felt like I was acting out my own life.”

She explained, “Straight from the beginning, it was like, I’m dating a football player, Juliette dates a football player. And then they turned her into an alcoholic. Then they turned to her leaving her daughter and going to this crazy [place] in Europe, and it was very obvious … They weren’t doing their homework. They weren’t creating new storylines. They were just looking at my life and going, ‘Oh, let’s just take what she’s going through and put our little spin on it.’ And then, ta-da! It’s done and done.”

After her break from acting, Panettiere’s first role back was in the latest edition of the film franchise “Scream.” What was it that caused Panettiere to feel so strongly that she needed a break in the first place? She was struggling with drugs and alcohol, and she knew she needed to do something about it. She explained, “When you see a happy go lucky girl for years suddenly on the floor in a puddle of mess and alcohol, you gotta know something’s wrong.”

One of Panettiere’s co-workers introduced the actress to what she called “happy pills” when she was just 16 years old. At the time, she didn’t know what the pills were, but now, she believes “they were a form of adderall.”

Besides the “happy pills,” Panettiere also admits that after her daughter was born she would turn to alcohol as a form of self-medication. It didn’t help that she also experienced postpartum depression.

Panettiere felt extreme depression after her daughter was born, and she felt that the only place she could turn was “the bottle.” She explained that people didn’t really believe how she was feeling and thought she was “an overly emotional female.”

What helped Panettiere recover was “going to treatment” and “making a lot of great friends in treatment.” Now, Panettiere is sober and “good.”

Panettiere is excited and ready to be working again. She wants to “keep that ball rolling.”

Watch the video below to hear more of what Panettiere had to say about her struggles, her recovery and where she is now.