For Pamela Anderson, revisiting her past was an immersive — and emotional — experience.

At the premiere of her new Netflix documentary Pamela, a love story on Monday night in Los Angeles, the 55-year-old actress told PEOPLE that going back in time was an essential part of the process for telling her story — for the film and for her Love, Pamela memoir, both out Tuesday.

"Of course it's emotional for me," Anderson says. "It's just all these wonderful memories and hard memories too. But I wanted to go back into those feelings and feel those feelings."