Celebrity Moms Share Experiences With Postpartum Depression, Anxiety

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Celebrity Moms Sharing Their Postpartum Depression and Anxiety Experiences: Reese Witherspoon and More

Sharing their tales. Reese Witherspoon, Behati Prinsloo and extra movie star mothers have spoken brazenly about their postpartum despair.

The Big Little Lies alum had “a different experience” after every of her kids’s births, she instructed Jameela Jamil in April 2020. “[With] one kid, I had kind of mild postpartum, and [with] one kid, I had severe postpartum where I had to take pretty heavy medication because I just wasn’t thinking straight at all,” the actress mentioned throughout an episode of Jamil’s “I Weigh” podcast. “And then I had one kid where I had no postpartum at all.”

The Whiskey in a Teacup creator shares daughter Ava and son Deacon together with her ex-husband, Ryan Phillippe, in addition to son Tennessee together with her husbannd, Jim Toth. After she stopped nursing her little ones, she went via “hormonal roller-coasters.”

Witherspoon defined on the time: “No one explained that to me. I was 23 years old when I had my first baby and nobody explained to me that when you wean a baby, your hormones go into the toilet. I felt more depressed than I’d ever felt in my whole life. It was scary.”

Without “guidance or help,” the Oscar winner “white-knuckled” her approach again to herself regardless of “reaching out to [her] doctors for answers.”

The Little Fires Everywhere star mentioned, “I think hormones are so understudied and not understood. … There just isn’t enough research about what happens to women’s bodies and the hormonal shifts that we have aren’t taken as seriously as I think they should be.”

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As for Prinsloo, the Victoria’s Secret Angel obtained assist from her husband, Adam Levine, whereas battling PPD.

“My husband was so incredibly supportive and always got me out of it,” the mom of two mentioned on a June 2019 Today look. “I think it’s very normal, though, as a young mom and a new mom to feel helpless and to feel overly emotional, you know.”

The mannequin added, “I think I got lucky not to have it to an extreme case, but you can see yourself spiraling.”

Keep scrolling for particulars on how different movie star moms have overcome their PPD, from Brooke Shields to Shay Mitchell.

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Mena Suvari

The American Beauty star opened up about feeling off following the April 2021 beginning of her son Christopher, revealing that she nonetheless battles postpartum despair “every day.”

“I remember sitting on our balcony saying, ‘I have to get out of the house. I have to get out of the house.’ My husband, [Michael Hope], he said, ‘You can go. You can go for a walk,’ and I was like, ‘But I don’t think I [can],'” Suvari instructed Rachel Bilson throughout her November 2022 episode of the “Broad Ideas” podcast. “I used to be going loopy. I used to be like, ‘I’ve to do one thing for myself however I am unable to go.’ I needed to be taught [to let go].”

While the Loser actress admitted that being away from her toddler can nonetheless be a “struggle,” she’s discovered that “I do not must be in [my son’s] face 24/7 to lift a very good being.”

Suvari additionally received candid about determining easy methods to ease the guilt after needing an emergency C-section. (She and Hope deliberate for a pure at-home beginning.)

“I still suffer from that, and I’m entitled to those emotions,” she defined. “We as mothers are entitled to those emotions and just because I have a beautiful baby who’s perfectly healthy, my husband’s wonderful and we made it out of the hospital, I still feel like I’m allowed to hold some space for being sad over not having that birth.”

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Carey Mulligan

The actress recalled struggling after giving beginning to daughter Evelyn in October 2015, telling Vanity Fair that she was almost unable to do press for her film Suffragette. “It was either cancel the whole thing or just get on and do it,” she instructed Vanity Fair in October 2022. “And that — and a combination of lots of other things, and help and support from everyone around me — was my light.”

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Ashley Iaconetti

When requested about her postpartum anxiousness in an April 2022 Instagram Story Q&A, the Bachelor in Paradise alum wrote that her intrusive ideas “got worse” after her son Dawson’s beginning. “For the first few weeks, I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘My life is perfect, when is someone in my family going to die? It’s got to happen soon because I’ve got it too good,'” she explained. “I also got pretty OCD at night checking the security of his Snow Sack a ton of times. … I’m always thinking of him.”

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Jordan Pruitt

“I remember my PP depression/anxiety kicked in around 6ish months,” the Voice alum wrote through Instagram in March 2022. “I couldn’t smile and didn’t know why. I didn’t sleep a lot thinking [my daughter] could possibly suffocate in the middle of the night. Motherhood is no joke, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

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Janet Von Schmeling

When an Instagram consumer requested Drake Bell’s spouse whether or not she was “on pills” in a March 2022 Instagram Live, the Florida native replied, “I’m not on pills. I should be actually because I have really bad postpartum. But I’m not. Thanks for your concern.”

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Olivia Munn

“My hips still feel wonky from pushing out a human being, my postpartum anxiety is still here (and horrible), but I got myself up and took my first capoeira lesson today,” the actress told her Instagram followers in March 2022, nearly four months after welcoming son Malcolm. “Getting again to martial arts made me really feel a bit of extra like myself. Hope I can stick with it.”

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Jade Roper

“I was fighting a dark depression for the first six months after Brooks was born and no one would have known it,” the Bachelor in Paradise alum told her Instagram followers in January 2021. “I’m fumbling via, studying as I’m going and leaning in as I get to know my child and the brand new variations of my kids and husband as they evolve and adapt and develop as effectively. I suppose I share the imperfect moments in hopes of reaching throughout a social platform and sparking a human connection.”

The Bachelor alum “went back to work almost immediately” after having son Brooks in July 2019, solely telling Us two years later that she solely waited a few days earlier than returning to social media. “Because his birth was so crazy, everybody wanted to talk to me. And I remember being like, ‘OK, I guess this is my job. This is what provides for my family. I guess I have to just do this,'” Roper defined in March 2022. “But I had postpartum depression after him, and I really think a lot of that pressure of feeling like I had to go back to work contributed to it.”

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Rachel Platten

The singer skilled an “incredibly painful battle with [her] mental health” after welcoming daughter Sophie in September 2021, she wrote via Instagram in March 2022. Platten explained, “The postpartum period … [included] long days that felt impossible and tears that wouldn’t stop coming and nights that felt never ending when my poor scared body wouldn’t let me sleep. I tried every tool possible, even ones I was previously scared of, and finally now I’m feeling consistent joy, ease, power and real hope again. Actually … it’s not even hope, it’s bigger. It’s a KNOWING. I know my strength. I know my worth. I know who I am and I love myself.”

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Lauren Burnham

“This time around has been pretty difficult if I’m being honest,” the Bachelor alum wrote through Instagram Stories in January 2022 of her postpartum journey. “I’ve experienced some PPD and I’ve had a hard time figuring out how to divide my time and energy. I’m starting to feel a lot better though.”

The Virginia native solely instructed Us in February 2022 that she skilled “some struggles” with “intense” postpartum despair after welcoming Senna and Lux. “I think my hormones were just so out of whack, after having the twins,” Burnham defined. “They had been, like, up right here after which got here crashing down actually shortly. So it was exhausting for me to deal with issues that usually can be straightforward for me to deal with.”

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Jamie Chung

“I was so resentful, and I had anxiety and I was angry,” Chung told Ashley Graham of her “loopy” postpartum depression in December 2021. “I was going through it. So I think because I was pretty open to my family and friends [through] this transition period and I was so upset, they were walking on eggshells. They didn’t give me any unsolicited advice.”

The following month, the Dexter: New Blood star solely instructed Us about her “real” postpartum despair expertise, saying, “It rocks your world having children. This transition generally results in anxiousness, despair, angst, resentment, the entire spectrum of emotions. … You work on that by ensuring that you just give your self time, you’re type to your self and delicate to your accomplice as effectively.”

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Jamie Otis

The Married at First Sight alum was “scared of looking weak” after being recognized with postpartum despair in July 2020, writing through Instagram: “When I consider the particular person I need to be, it isn’t a depressed Debbie-downer. I need to be the comfortable one all the time encouraging others and making them smile.⁣ When I consider the form of MOM I need to be, I need to be the attentive one who by no means tires of getting down and enjoying with my kiddos.⁣”

While fighting postpartum despair, Otis did not really feel prefer it was “fair” to attempt for an additional child, she solely instructed Us Weekly in December 2021. “If your brain isn’t working properly, there should be no shame taking care of it before you put more strain on it. So I did put trying to conceive [on the back burner],” she defined.

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Christine Quinn

The Selling Sunset star had a troublesome labor in May 2021 when each her and child Christian’s lives had been at risk. They each survived the emergency C-section, however Quinn revealed that she struggled together with her psychological well being after giving beginning.

“I was pregnant on top of dealing with postpartum depression,” Quinn, who shares her son with husband Christian Richard, instructed ET Canada in December 2021. “I did the best that I could with the emotions that I was dealing with at the time and that I’m still dealing with now.”

Aside from the drama of Selling Sunset season 4, Quinn additionally had hassle with on-line bullies. “The drawback that I used to be going through [was] everybody was saying, ‘Oh, well, you know, she’s so skinny. She’s so this. She’s in order that.’ But inside you realize, I used to be coping with PTSD,” she defined on the time.

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Lala Kent

The Vanderpump Rules star suffered from “heavy” prenatal despair whereas pregnant with daughter Ocean and “felt responsible” about it, she revealed in a November 2021 “Give Them Lala” podcast episode. “I received into this bizarre headspace. Luckily, it subsided.” While she was occasionally “a little down” during her postpartum journey, Kent noted that her placenta pills “absolutely helped.”

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Rachel Platten

“I have postpartum anxiety again,” the singer instructed her Instagram followers in October 2021. “This [is a] day by day psychological rollercoaster that I’m on. A wave of irrational fear or concern or despair comes and it may well knock me over if i do not use all of my instruments: compassion for myself is the most important. But It additionally takes breath work, meditation, train, acupuncture medicine (oh we’ll speak about this one later!!), remedy, large assist and vulnerability and braveness to experience these waves.”

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Ayesha Curry

“I can say without a shadow of a doubt [that] I had postpartum depression,” the Food Network character mentioned throughout an October 2021 “Because Life” podcast episode of welcoming daughter Ryan in October 2021. “But I didn’t know what that was at the moment. It’s not something we talked about with our mothers. It was this invisible factor. They didn’t expertise that? I don’t know. But it was fairly unhealthy once I look again at it.”

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Kaitlynn Carter

The Hills: New Beginnings star described her prenatal despair in October 2021, one month after welcoming son Rowan. “It was really bizarre and very confusing and upsetting to me because I had wanted a baby for so long,” Carter mentioned throughout a “Skinny Confidential Him & Her” podcast episode. “The hormones simply despatched me into this downward spiral. … The finest approach I can describe it’s all the things on this planet turned to black and white and there was nothing that might actually get me to really feel. I felt like I had no feelings. Like, my character disappeared. The scariest half for me was not figuring out how lengthy that was going to final. … For me, at 11 weeks precisely, it simply went away, and I felt a lot extra regular.”

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Lauren Bushnell

The Bachelor alum known as parenting “the hardest thing” she has ever completed in a September 2021 Instagram submit, writing, “Balancing work, a 3-month-old, [postpartum] anxiety and hormones, lack of sleep and finding time for me has been a challenge. I had a full-blown panic attack the other night and drove myself to the fire station thinking I was having an allergic reaction and my throat was closing [and my] legs were numb. … I’m heading to the doctor tomorrow to check a couple things and discuss my anxiety that has been through the roof.”

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Brandi Rhodes

“I tried to fight it or tell myself, ‘Hey, this isn’t real stuff happening, calm down,’ and recently, I finally just gave in and said, ‘You know what? I have postpartum depression for sure,” the Rhodes to the Top star exclusively told Us in September 2021, two months after giving birth to daughter Liberty. “I must be cognizant of it. I want to succeed in out once I need assistance. I simply have to take all the things at some point at a time. … It’s good to only speak about issues. There’s no disgrace in issues altering in your life, and it occurs.”

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Alanis Morissette

In October 2019, the singer battled PPD for the third time, however had set herself up “to win.” She defined in a weblog submit: “Support. Food. Friends. Sun. Bio-identical hormones and SSRI’s at the ready. Some parts of the care-prep have been a godsend, and well-planned. But for all of this preparation, PPD is still a sneaky monkey with a machete working its way through my psyche and body and days and thoughts and bloodwork levels.”

The songwriter’s postpartum despair received “progressively worse” with every youngster, she instructed Today Parents in August 2021. Morissette was “finally on the other side of it” two years after welcoming son Winter.

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Sadie Robertson

The Duck Dynasty alum mirrored on postpartum anxiousness “creeping up” in a July 2021 “Whoa! That’s Good” podcast episode. “I didn’t even realize that those thoughts throughout the day were making me jittery, were making me have all these feelings of anxiety and were making my chest feel super tight, like, I couldn’t breathe,” she defined on the time. “I didn’t understand how I could be so happy and so joyful, yet also experience so much fear. I realized that you don’t have to choose just one of those feelings.”

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Katie Lowes

While the Scandal alum had beforehand mentioned postpartum despair with family and friends members, it was a “whole other thing” to battle it herself, she wrote through Instagram in May 2021. Lowes thanked her family members for “helping [her] through.”

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Shenae Grimes-Beech

“Given my anxiety, I was prepared for postpartum depression, but nope, prenatal depression got me and hit me like a ton of bricks,” the pregnant 90210 alum instructed The Bump in May 2021. “It was gone by the second trimester both times. But this time, I think it actually kicked in even before I realized I was pregnant. And it actually surprised me both times.”

The actress did not need different mothers to be “alone in this feeling,” explaining, “I believe the guilt related to each prenatal and postpartum is what leaves this stuff untreated, and leaves girls feeling fully alone and remoted of their emotions.”

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Danielle Brooks

“I gained a lot of weight during my pregnancy, and I think I did go through postpartum depression,” the Orange Is the New Black alum told Parents magazine in April 2021. “I used to be making an attempt to remain constructive when it felt like my entire world had flipped the wrong way up. Creating a human takes a toll on girls’s our bodies. Sometimes we do not give ourselves sufficient love or persistence about that. You might imagine you are going to bounce again miraculously, however that is not true for lots of people. I’m considered one of them. While I need to return to my pre-baby measurement, on the similar time, I need to love this pores and skin that I’m in now.”

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Bekah Martinez

“I learned from experience that becoming a mom can definitely take a toll on your wellbeing, especially during the postpartum period,” the Bachelor alum told Parents Latina magazine in March 2021. “In my case, I began having darkish ideas, obsessing in regards to the risks of the world and the vulnerability of my very own kids. All this was compounded by the extreme sleep deprivation from having two infants simply 16 months aside. It was excruciating and received higher solely as soon as I grew to become open to remedy.”

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Nikki Bella

“I didn’t realize at week seven, you kind of come out of your baby blues and … go two different paths,” the truth star mentioned throughout a “Total Bellas Podcast” episode in September 2020. “You go the trail of being wholesome otherwise you go down the trail of being depressed, and that despair path is usually a actually darkish, deep gap. I used to be beginning to really feel invisible. … It simply began to construct up. Being alone with [my son], Matteo, and simply feeling lonely and never cherished and invisible.”

In a January 2021 episode of Total Bellas, Nikki mentioned that she was approaching a “massive breakdown” and feeling jealous of her fiancé Artem Chigvintsev‘s Dancing With the Stars partnership with Kaitlyn Bristowe. “It’s not about her and him,” she defined. “Like, I haven’t got a concern of Artem going off. That’s not it. It’s wanting what she’s getting from him. Can he come house and snort with me? Can he come house and ask me how I’m doing? Like, I need to really feel needed and attractive.”

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Maren Morris

“I’m form of coming via the tunnel now,” the nation singer mentioned of her postpartum despair battle throughout a September 2020 CBS This Morning look. “I feel back to normal. Fortunately, I was able to do phone therapy during the [coronavirus] pandemic. … And [I have] people that love me around me that are like, ‘Hey, if you’re drowning right now, there’s help.’”

During an look on Sunday Today in December 2022, the “Middle” songstress shared that she skilled “a lot of identity crises” whereas coping with postpartum despair amid the COVID-19 quarantine, however credited husband Ryan Hurd for serving to her “find the light” once more.

“He kind of just helped me in song form, and in just conversation form,” she defined. 

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Loren Brovarnik

“I’ve experienced some postpartum depression and I’ve struggled with judgment and people sharing unsolicited advice,” the 90 Day Fiancé star captioned a May 2020 Instagram submit after welcoming her son, Shai. “I’ve been a nervous nelly.”

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Reese Witherspoon

“I have deep compassion for women who are going through that,” the Golden Globe winner told Jamil. “Postpartum is very real.”

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Amber Portwood

“It was more than medications,” the Teen Mom OG star instructed Us solely in March 2020 of her PPD restoration. “It was a mindset that I had to change.”

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Shay Mitchell

“As long as I can remember, I’ve heard about postpartum depression,” the Pretty Little Liars alum instructed Hatchland in October 2019. “However, to be depressed at the beginning came as a shock. The isolation and anxiety I experienced was crippling. I thought I was going out of my mind and questioned why nobody ever talked to me about this phase.”

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Behati Prinsloo

“It was difficult to get back into normal life,” the mannequin instructed PorterEdit in January 2019 of her first daughter Dusty’s beginning. “After the second one, [Gio], everything felt so much easier — it was easier for me to work out. … Breast-feeding was easier.”

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Cardi B

In February 2019, the rapper instructed Harper’s Bazaar that PPD hit her “out of nowhere.” She defined, “I thought I was going to avoid it. When I gave birth, the doctor told me about postpartum, and I was like, ‘Well, I’m doing good right now, I don’t think that’s going to happen.’”

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Ivanka Trump

“With every of my three kids I had some degree of postpartum … despair,”  the Apprentice alum mentioned on the Dr. Oz present in September 2017. “It was a very challenging emotional time for me. … I felt like I was not living up to my potential as a parent, or as an entrepreneur, or as an executive. I had such easy pregnancies that in some ways the juxtaposition hit me even harder.”

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Sarah Michelle Gellar

After the actress “made it through” PPD, “every day since has been the best gift,” she captioned a May 2017 Instagram submit.

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Chrissy Teigen

“I had everything I needed to be happy. And yet, for much of the last year, I felt unhappy,” the Cravings creator wrote in a March 2017 Glamour essay following her daughter Luna’s beginning. “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.”

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Hayden Panettiere

In January 2017, the Nashville alum mentioned on Today that she is a “better mom” due to her PPD expertise. “It takes you a while. You feel off. You don’t feel like yourself,” Panettiere mentioned on the time. “But, you know, women are so resilient, and that’s the incredible thing about them. I think I’m all the stronger for it.”

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Adele

After giving beginning to her son, Angelo, the Grammy winner instructed Vanity Fair she turned to different moms as an alternative of antidepressants to battle her PPD, explaining in October 2016: “One day, I mentioned to a good friend, ‘I f–king hate this,’ and she or he burst into tears and mentioned, ‘I f–king hate this, too.’ And it was completed. It lifted.”

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Brooke Shields

The There Was a Little Girl creator “really didn’t want to live anymore” after giving beginning to Rowan, she revealed in her 2014 ebook. “[I’d think], ‘I just want to leap out of my life,’ but then the rational side of me [would say], ‘You’re only on the fourth floor. You’ll get broken to bits and then you will be even worse.'”

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Gwyneth Paltrow

The Goop creator’s then-husband, Chris Martin, helped her notice she had PPD following their son Moses’ beginning. “I felt like a zombie,” she mentioned on an April 2012 episode of The Conversation With Amanda de Cadenet. “I felt very detached. I just didn’t know what was wrong with me. I couldn’t figure it out. It never occurred to me. My husband actually said, ‘Something’s wrong. I think you have postnatal depression.’ I was mortified. ‘No I don’t!’ And then I started researching what it was and the symptoms and I was like, ‘Oh, yes I do.'”

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Bryce Dallas Howard

In a July 2010 Goop essay, the Jurassic World star described her day by day crying classes, her lack of ability to go downstairs to eat and the way in which she lashed out at her husband, Seth Gabel.

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Lisa Rinna

“I had visions of knives and guns,” the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star wrote in Rinnivation in 2009. “I made [my husband], Harry [Hamlin], hide all the sharp knives and take the gun out of the house because I had visions of killing everybody. Now how horrific is that? I wanted share it because I think women are so shamed by this and feel so horrible. … I found help and got through it.”

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Amanda Peet

In an August 2008 Gotham interview, the New York native revealed she’d skilled “fairly serious” PPD following her daughter’s beginning. “It’s hard to find other people who are willing to talk about it,” she mentioned.

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Courteney Cox

“I went through a really hard time – not right after the baby, but when [Coco] turned 6 months,” the Friends alum instructed USA Today in July 2005. “I couldn’t sleep. My coronary heart was racing. And I received actually depressed. I went to the physician and discovered my hormones had been pummeled.”