Chrissy Teigen is known for being brutally honest about her life, even though she's one of the most famous celebrities out there.
She is a New York Times best-selling cookbook author, a model, and the host of Lip Sync Battle. She's also well-known in today's world of celebrities as being relatable and "real."
Chrissy is married to singer John Legend. Last year, the couple welcomed daughter Luna into their family.
Since then, Chrissy has been even more open, sharing honest stories about her struggle with fertility, the backlash she's gotten as a mom in the spotlight, her stretch marks and body insecurities, and how she really feels about being a working mom.
Now she's tackling another tough subject: postpartum depression.
Moms everywhere can relate to Chrissy. Like most of us, she loves pizza, sometimes forgets to shower for days on end, hangs around in food-themed onesies with her husband, and adores her daughter more than anything in the world.
For Glamour's April 2017 issue, Chrissy wrote a candid essay about one of the things she's struggled with most since the birth of Luna: postpartum depression and anxiety.
[H/T: BuzzFeed]
After giving birth, Chrissy noticed that she was kind of in a funk.
She attributed her mood change to the stress of living in a hotel and having a new baby, but it was actually something more.
When Chrissy was finally diagnosed with postpartum depression and anxiety in December 2016, she was able to get back on the path to mental and emotional wellness.
In her Glamour essay, Chrissy wrote:
A year ago, in April, John and I started our family together.
We had our daughter, Luna, who is perfect. She is somehow exactly me, exactly John, and exactly herself. I adore her.
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?
After I had Luna, our home was under construction, so we lived in a rental home, then a hotel, and I blamed whatever stress or detachment or sadness I was feeling at that time on the fact that there were so many odd circumstances.
I remember thinking: “Maybe I’ll feel better when we have a home.”
But I was different than before.
Getting out of bed to get to set on time was painful. My lower back throbbed; my shoulders — even my wrists — hurt.
I didn’t have an appetite. I would go two days without a bite of food, and you know how big of a deal food is for me.
One thing that really got me was just how short I was with people.
I couldn’t figure out why I was so unhappy.
I blamed it on being tired and possibly growing out of the role: “Maybe I’m just not a goofy person anymore. Maybe I’m just supposed to be a mom.”
When I wasn’t in the studio, I never left the house. I mean, never. Not even a tiptoe outside.
I’d ask people who came inside why they were wet. Was it raining? How would I know — I had every shade closed.
Most days were spent on the exact same spot on the couch and rarely would I muster up the energy to make it upstairs for bed. John would sleep on the couch with me, sometimes four nights in a row.
I started keeping robes and comfy clothes in the pantry so I wouldn’t have to go upstairs when John went to work.
There was a lot of spontaneous crying.
Before, when I entered a room I had a presence: head high, shoulders back, big smile.
Suddenly I had become this person whose shoulders would cower underneath her chin. I would keep my hands on my belly and try to make myself as small as possible.
By December I had started my second cookbook.
With the first, I was in the kitchen the whole time. I stirred every pot, tasted everything. Had genuine excitement for Every. Single. Recipe.
This one came at the height of my losing my appetite, and the idea of having to test and taste recipes actually made me vomit. I was still on the couch a lot.
Before the holidays I went to my GP for a physical. John sat next to me.
I looked at my doctor, and my eyes welled up because I was so tired of being in pain.
Of sleeping on the couch.
Of waking up throughout the night.
Of throwing up.
Of taking things out on the wrong people.
Of not enjoying life.
Of not seeing my friends.
Of not having the energy to take my baby for a stroll.
My doctor pulled out a book and started listing symptoms. And I was like, “Yep, yep, yep.”
I got my diagnosis: postpartum depression and anxiety. (The anxiety explains some of my physical symptoms.)
Before this, I had never, ever — in my whole entire life — had one person say to me: “I have postpartum depression.”
Growing up in the '90s, I associated postpartum depression with Susan Smith, with people who didn’t like their babies or felt like they had to harm their children.
I didn’t have anything remotely close to those feelings.
I looked at Luna every day, amazed by her.
So I didn’t think I had it.
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.
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.
But one thing I do know is that for me, just merely being open about it helps.
This has become my open letter.
Chrissy is truly a brave soul, and her inspiring words will help other women with postpartum illnesses everywhere feel less alone.
To read her full essay, go to Glamour.com.
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