Chrissy Teigan opens up about postpartum depression

Delhi, India

Chrissy Teigan is famous in Hollywood circles. Among other accomplishments she's a Sports Illustrated cover girl, a New York Times best-selling cookbook author and a host of the Emmy-nominated TV series Lip Sync Battle. She is married to the famous American singer John Legend. After Teigan had her first baby it seemed she had everything, but it wasn't that way at all.  

In an open letter to US magazine Glamour, she writes about developing postpartum depression--her experience, why she kept it hidden and how she's coming out with it now. She begins by saying "it can happen to anybody".

She writes that for long periods of time she was unable to leave the house, shutting herself away in the dark and barely moving from “the exact same spot” all day. She realised that she was behaving differently only when she started working on the TV show Lip Sync Battle four months after giving birth to Luna. 

Teigan writes, "I had everything I needed to be happy. And yet, for much of the last year, I felt unhappy. What basically everyone around me – but me – knew up until December was this: I have postpartum depression. How can I feel this way when everything is so great? I’ve had a hard time coming to terms with that, and I hesitated to even talk about this, as everything becomes such a ‘thing’.”

But even when she realised that something was happening, she found it difficult to speak about it. In her letter, she calls the feeling “selfish, icky and weird” to admit she was struggling.

 

I'll just say it: I have post partum depression. So much love to @glamourmag for letting me share something that was eating me up inside for months and months. One of the most amazing things about social media is the ability to interact candidly with friends and fans and it felt so weird knowing what I was going through but not really feeling like it was the right place to speak on it. I've always felt genuinely close to all of you and I'm insanely relieved you now know something that has been such a huge part of me for so long. My full essay is on the @glamourmag bio. ?

A post shared by chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) on Mar 6, 2017 at 9:24am PST

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She writes that she has everything she needs in the world, a doting husband, a beautiful child and a good career, but depression did overshadow the feeling of happiness. She writes, "But postpartum does not discriminate. I couldn’t control it. And that’s part of the reason it took me so long to speak up."

In her letter, she explains that she is now taking an antidepressant and is also in therapy. "I’m speaking up now because I want people to know it can happen to anybody and I don’t want people who have it to feel embarrassed or to feel alone. I also don’t want to pretend like I know everything about postpartum depression, because it can be different for everybody."

She adds, “But one thing I do know is that – for me – just merely being open about it helps.”

As a message to all, she thanks her family, friends and fans for being there with her throughout her depression. 

(WION)