On my way back from LA in December, I saw a beautiful woman with her head looking down, holding hands tightly with a man at the airport. She had long hair that bounced, skin that glowed and clothes that fit like a glove. Once I realized the dude was John Legend, I realized I also just saw Chrissy Teigen.
They were without their daughter Luna and followed by a couple of security guards. I almost missed them staring down at my cell phone.
Like Beyonce, I feel like you can’t really say you don’t like Chrissy especially if you are a mom. She says what she thinks, she’s pretty open and gets a lot of shit on social media for it. To be honest, I admire her openness and quick one liners. She doesn’t care if people agree with her. For the record, I like and respect both ladies.
Teigen is on the cover of Glamour Magazine this month and has something to confess… she has postpartum depression.
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.” During pregnancy, what I thought were casual comments about IVF turned into headlines about me choosing the sex of my daughter. And I can already envision what will be said about me after this admission. But it’s such a major part of my life and so, so many other women’s lives. It would feel wrong to write anything else. So here goes.
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I also just didn’t think it could happen to me. I have a great life. I have all the help I could need: John, my mother (who lives with us), a nanny. 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: I felt selfish, icky, and weird saying aloud that I’m struggling. Sometimes I still do.
You can read her full essay here.
I did not have postpartum depression but between days 5 and 10 I definitely had the baby blues bad. They did continue for about a month or two but to a lesser degree. My entire world changed overnight and I resented the fact that Nick’s felt barely changed at all. I didn’t have help and I no longer could come and go as I pleased. It was a tough transition and I felt chained to my house. It all subsided once Tommy was 12 weeks and I was able to go longer stretches without nursing him and could put him in babysitting at the gym for some me time.
I think exercise personally really helped me. That and getting outside. I was lucky not to have a terribly cold winter the year Tommy was born.
I think it’s interesting to hear how someone like Teigen who had all the help, had/has postpartum depression. I think it’s easy to throw shade at people while sitting behind a computer, but it’s just as easy to portray a perfect life.
It just goes to show, PPD really can happen to anyone.
