Evangeline Lilly gets real about her personal struggles: 'I often feel alone and unseen'

Evangeline Lilly is getting real about feeling lost. 

The 40-year-old actress Friday shared two intimate pictures of herself taken by her four-year-old son when she was in a "dark place" a year ago. She accompanied the images with a personal message about overcoming a tumultuous year in her life. 

"I had such a rough year last year but I didn’t want to share all of it with you because i didn’t want to be a dark cloud in your world," she wrote on Instagram. "But I struggle deeply with feeling that all I ever am is what I feel everyone else wants and needs me to be. I often feel alone and unseen."

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Lilly, known for work on the TV series "Lost" and the "Ant-Man" films, said she unsuccessfully attempted to internalize all her "pain" because she believed she was strong enough to handle it.  

"Publicly, I hid and made light of my deepest traumas and laughed in the face of my most profound pain," she wrote. "Until, last year, I broke. Suddenly I was forced to face my weakness and my limitations, my trauma and fears. I was left with no choice but to accept that I am limited or… carry on down a road of perfectionist denial that would inevitably kill me."

Lilly revealed she is "coming out of that deep place, slowly," but she still struggles with meaningful connection through her "darkness."

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In one photo, Lilly sits on the floor in a black tank top in shorts as rests her hand on her forehead. The next photo shows her looking dejectedly at the camera.

Lilly's message about her personal struggles comes months after she underwent a big transformation in her look. In November, the actress shared Instagram videos that showed her cutting and shaving her hair off. 

"#homecut," she captioned the videos. "Stop or keep going?? (For those of you that follow me on @thesquickerwonkers...you already know. 😉🤙🏼)"