ABC/Tyler Golden(LOS ANGELES) — Model, Lip Sync Battle co-host, and author Chrissy Teigen has opened up for the first time about her secret battle with postpartum depression and anxiety in a personal essay she wrote for Glamour magazine.
“I didn’t think it could happen to me. I have a great life. I have all the help I could need. But postpartum does not discriminate,” Teigen wrote. “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.”
Teigen gave birth to her first child, daughter Luna Simone Stephens, on April 14, after she and her husband, singer John Legend, tried unsuccessfully to conceive for several years.
Teigen told Glamour that she was tired of being in pain, she couldn’t sleep throughout the night, she felt like she couldn’t leave the house and that she was unable to enjoy life or see her friends. She’s now getting treatment for her condition.
“As I’m writing this, in February, I am a much different human than I was even just in December. I’m over a month into taking my antidepressant, and I just got the name of a therapist who I am planning to start seeing. Let’s be honest though — I probably needed therapy way before Luna!” she wrote.
“Like anyone, with PPD or without, I have really good days and bad days,” she adds. “I will say, though, right now, all of the really bad days — the days that used to be all my days — are gone.”
About one in nine women experience postpartum depression, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Teigen wrote that she is focusing on getting better, both for herself and her daughter.
“More than anything, I always want to have enough energy for Luna,” Teigen said in Glamour. “As she gets older, she’s becoming more and more fun. Her eyes are getting so wide, and I want to be there for those wide eyes.”
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