Reese Witherspoon is sharing her journey from postpartum depression and anxiety to now feeling calm and enough.
Reese welcomed her first child, daughter Ava Philippe, 26, at the age of 23 in 1999. The actress experienced “really bad” postpartum depression as a new and exhausted mom.
The Legally Blonde star noted that the condition runs in her family, and that her mom warned her about it.
“It was really bad,” Witherspoon told Harper’s Bazaar. “In the first six months, I was simultaneously happy and depressed. I just cried all the time, I was up all night, I was exhausted.”
“It’s hard being a young mom,” she said, adding that she was “overwhelmed” by everyone sharing advice and opinions about parenting.
“I had the connections and the means to get to a doctor, a mental-health specialist, but a lot of people don’t,” she told the outlet. “They struggle on their own and hide it.”
The Big Little Lies star also suffered anxiety around her work, which she thinks allowed her to puch herself.
“I stressed myself out in service of my job, and it got me really, really far,” Reese told the publication. “I’m rewarded for my anxiety and perfectionism. But I’m getting older, and am starting to relax into the idea that I’m enough.”
“I mean, I’ve had an abundance of good fortune, great work opportunities and worked with some of the greatest people on Earth,” she said.
Reese Witherspoon alos shares son Deacon Philippe, 22 — with her ex-husband Ryan Phillipe, and son Tennessee James Toth, 13, with her ex-husband Jim Toth.
