Reese Witherspoon reflects on postpartum depression and why
Reese Witherspoon believes in the need to be brutally honest when it comes to mental health.
The actress and producer opened up about her postpartum depression and anxiety in an intimate profile for Harper’s Bazaar UK published on Sunday, telling the magazine how those experiences taught her that you can’t “beat around the bush” when it comes to untangling emotions.
Witherspoon recalled that things got “really bad” after the birth of her daughter, Ava Phillippe, in 1999 and how she struggled in silence for longer than she should have.
“For the first six months, I was happy and depressed at the same time,” she remembers. “I cried the whole time, I was up all night, I was exhausted. It was a hormonal drop that I didn’t expect, which I experienced immediately after the birth and again when I stopped breastfeeding six months later.”
Hormones were only part of the equation for Witherspoon, who also said she felt stifled by all the judgment young mothers face.
“Everyone has an opinion,” he explained. “It’s hard to be a young mother and have people tell you how to be, how to react, how to give birth, how to breastfeed and how to feed your baby. It’s overwhelming.”
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It wasn’t until the New Orleans native told a dear friend about her challenges that she understood it was time to seek medical help, an option she told Harper’s she knows can’t be taken for granted.
“I had the connections and the means to go to a doctor, a mental health specialist, but a lot of people don’t,” the “The Morning Show” star and executive producer said. “They fight alone and hide it.”
While Witherspoon’s postpartum journey reinforced how important it is to have someone safe to talk to, she also told the magazine that she felt blessed to have been raised by someone who refused to approach emotions with shame.
“My mom never talked about mental health in a way that made it seem untouchable or unspeakable or taboo; she was almost clinical about it,” Betty Witherspoon, who worked as a pediatric nurse, said of the mother.
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“I don’t mince words,” the “Big Little Lies” actor continued. “If I have something on my mind or I’m worried, I will always be that person who goes above and beyond and asks the hard questions.”
Witherspoon also reminded readers how the unique ways our brains are wired can offer challenges and strengths, telling Harper’s, “I probably succeeded because I had a lot of anxiety. They go hand in hand.”
“I had put pressure on myself to extreme levels to show up at work perfectly. Now we all know: perfect cannot be achieved. It is not sustainable. I stressed myself out for the sake of my job, and that took me very, very far.”