Zosia Mamet has "struggled with an eating disorder" since she was a child.
The 'Girls' actress - who plays Shoshanna Shapiro on the HBO series - says she was "waiting to die" before her father, award-winning playwright and director David Mamet, encouraged her to seek treatment at the age of 17.
The 26-year-old star wrote in her column for Glamour magazine: "I've struggled with an eating disorder since I was a child. This struggle has been mostly a private one, a war nobody knew was raging inside me. I tried to fight it alone for a long time. And I nearly died."
The brunette beauty, who started acting at the age of six, is still on the road to recovery.
She said: "Here's how I think of my eating disorder: I'm an addict in recovery. I was told I was fat for the first time when I was eight. I'm not fat; I've never been fat. But ever since then, there has been a monster in my brain that tells me I am -- that convinces me my clothes don't fit or that I've eaten too much.
"At times it has forced me to starve myself, to run extra miles, to abuse my body."
She added: "My dad eventually got me into treatment. He came home one night from a party, took me by the shoulders, and said, 'You're not allowed to die.' It was the first time I realised this wasn't all about me. I didn't care if I died, but my family did. That's the thing about these kinds of disorders: They're consuming; they make you egocentric; they're all you can see.
"During treatment I discovered that my disorder has never really been about weight or food -- that's just the way the monster manifests itself. Really these diseases are about control: control of your life and of your body."
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