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player ready...Reese Witherspoon has a lot to say about mental health.
The “Big Little Lies” star is opening up about her own struggles with anxiety and depression, as well as postpartum depression, which she experienced differently following the births of each of her three children.
“I’ve had three kids and then after each child, I had a different experience,” Witherspoon, 44, said on Jameela Jamil’s “I Weigh” podcast Thursday. “One kid, I had kind of mild postpartum and then 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.”
Witherspoon shares 20-year-old daughter Ava and 16-year-old son Deacon with ex-husband and “Cruel Intentions” co-star Ryan Phillippe. With current husband Jim Toth, she has 7-year-old son Tennessee James.
The Oscar winner noted the surprising “hormonal roller coaster” she experienced when she stopped breastfeeding.
“I was 23 years old when I had my first baby and no one explained to me that when you wean a baby, your hormones go into the toilet,” she said. “I felt more depressed than I’d ever felt in my entire life, and it was scary. … I didn’t have the right kind of guidance or help. I just like white-knuckled that.”
The “Wild” star said she’s been in touch with her mental health since adolescence, having started therapy at either 15 or 16.
“I definitely have anxiety. My anxiety manifests as depression, so I would get really depressed and it’s like my brain is like a hamster on a wheel and it won’t come off,” Witherspoon said. “And I’ve been managing it my entire life.”
The “Legally Blonde” actress noted her grandmother had similar struggles, which left her ostracized from her community.
“I feel really fortunate that I am able to get help,” she said. “At times that I’ve needed it, I’ve been able to take medicine and, yeah, it’s something that I’ve learned coping mechanisms around my entire life.”
Now, she tries to help other women struggling with the “very real” issue of postpartum depression, and points to online clinics as a resource.
“There just isn’t enough research about what happens to women’s bodies and the hormonal shifts that we have just aren’t taken as seriously as I think they should be,” explained Witherspoon. “”[I’m] really always trying to help, you know, the people that I’m in touch with and even my audience on Instagram and everything, connect to people over that.”