The 31-year-old actress - who left home at the age of 15 and then applied for legal emancipation from her parents so she could work without their consent - admitted she often saw herself as "losing all the time" because she had no life skills. She said: "Whenever I think about that period of time, I just think it`s amazing that I`m as intact as I am. For the longest time I felt like I was just losing all the time, flailing, losing, flailing, losing. Like I just couldn`t manage life because I was trying, but without any life skills or guidance for it. "I know it seems like an obvious thing, but I didn`t know you had to go see the dentist. I didn`t go to the dentist for 10 years. I couldn`t make anything when I moved out. I remember learning how to boil water and splashing my face with it when it was scalding hot." After portraying Jen Lindley in teen drama `Dawson`s Creek` for five years, the `My Week With Marilyn` star explained she found the role "abrasive" as her alter-ego didn`t have to cope with the "struggles" in life that she did. Michelle added: "I felt it really strongly at the time: this isn`t what it`s like to be a teenager, this isn`t really what it`s like to struggle. And that was abrasive to something in me. "After that, all I wanted to do was make work that felt as though you could reach out and touch it, relate to it. I wanted to make things that looked as close to life as possible, nothing that had a gloss on it."