Lana Wachowski at the Los Angeles premiere of "Cloud Atlas" over night. Credit: Getty Images

Speaking at a Human Rights Campaign gala in San Francisco, Lana told the audience that she almost committed suicide as a young adult due to her identity struggles.

"In the absence of words to defend myself, without examples, without models, I began to believe voices in my head -- that I was a freak, that I am broken, that there is something wrong with me, that I will never be lovable," she told the audience.

In high school, Lana said she wrote her parents a four-page suicide note before heading to a subway station to end her life, explaining: "I really wanted to convince them that it wasn't their fault, it was just that I didn't belong."

Lana made it as far as the subway platform before she was halted in her tracks by an elderly man who wandered into the station.

"He stares at me the way animals stare at each other," Lana told the audience. "I don't know why he wouldn't look away. All I know is that because he didn't, I am still here."

Lana was at the San Francisco Human Rights Campaign gala to accept the LGBT organisation's visibility award. The famed director and producer (one half of the former Wachowski brothers), went public for the first time as a woman while promoting their latest film, "Cloud Atlas" in July this year.