Witherspoon Withered By Divorce

That's why it's so hard to now learn — after nearly a year of silence - how Witherspoon was so completely overwhelmed by her split from fellow actor Ryan Phillippe.

"Right around Christmastime I was sitting in a parking lot and I felt like I just couldn't get out of the car," she says in the October issue of Elle magazine. "And I thought, OK, half of the parking lot has dealt with [a breakup]."

"There's this moment in Walk the Line where June Carter says, 'I was never aware of how much I was seen.' I was very aware of how much I was seen. It was this moment of self-discovery and loss of identity and who was stepping out of the car — you know?"

It's easy to recommend wearing divorce like a loose garment, but the impracticality of that exercise only hits home when we hear of someone as strong as Witherspoon wilting under the pressure.

On top of all the lawyers, the fighting and the bitterness, there's that realization that divorce has become part of your identity — ingrained in your being. Sure, Witherspoon literally had the world watching on, but divorce, as her experience shows, can overwhelm even the best of us.