Reese Witherspoon opens up about her battle with postpartum depression

Going through pregnancy and giving birth is just as much a challenging experience as it a beautifully rewarding one. Along with the challenges of giving birth some times lies the grueling experience of postpartum depression. Recently, Hollywood actress Reese Witherspoon chose to break away from the shackles of taboo and shared her experience with postpartum depression honestly. 

The 44-year-old shared that she had very different experiences with every child she had. She has three children–Ava, 20, and Deacon, 16, with ex-husband Ryan Phillipe and seven-year-old Tennessee with husband Jim Toth.

Her personal struggle with mental health
In a podcast interview, she shared about her on-going battle with mental health that she experienced for years. She also went to admit that she started going to therapy sessions since the age of 16.

Witherspoon said: “I definitely had anxiety. My anxiety manifests as depression so I would get really depressed. My brain is like a hamster on a wheel and it won’t come off, I’ve been managing it my entire life.”

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What was her personal struggle with postpartum depression like?
“I was 23 years old when I had my first baby and nobody explained to me that when you wean a baby, your hormones go into the toilet. I felt more depressed than I’d ever felt in my whole life. It was scary.”

Talking about “different experience” after each child, she said: “One kid I had kind of mild postpartum, and one kid I had severe postpartum where I had to take pretty heavy medication because I just wasn’t thinking straight at all, and then I had one kid where I had no postpartum at all.”

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The “Legally Blonde” star explained how she was “completely out of control” after Ava was born.

She said: “We don’t understand the kind of hormonal rollercoaster that you go on when you stop nursing. No one explained that to me”.

Postpartum depression has often been a subject that is either swept under the carpet or talked about rarely making it a taboo. So when women go through it, it seems like a confusing exhausting experience with no name. It makes the feel even more isolated. Herefore, conversations like these are of utmost importance to help build a community around those suffering it and spreading awareness about it.