Model and TV presenter Chrissy Teigen has revealed she has been battling with postpartum depression since the birth of daughter Luna last year.
The US star, wife of singer John Legend, says how she has suffered with severe back and wrist pain, as well as struggling with eating and her work commitments since welcoming her “perfect” daughter in April.
In an open letter in US Glamour, Chrissy, 31, said she discovered she had postpartum depression in December and that she decided to speak out to let people know that the condition, also called postnatal depression, “can happen to anybody”.
She said that for long periods she was unable to leave the house, shutting herself away in the dark and barely moving from “the exact same spot” all day.
It was her return to work on TV show Lip Sync Battle four months after giving birth to Luna that made her realise she was “different than before”.
The 31-year-old wrote: “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’.”
Chrissy, also a Sports Illustrated model and author, is a prominent celebrity voice on social media and openly shares her views on topics including politics, food and her marriage.
But she found it difficult to come out and speak about her postpartum depression because she felt “selfish, icky and weird” to admit she was struggling.
She wrote: “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.”
She said she was taking an antidepressant for the depression and anxiety and was in therapy.
“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,” she wrote.
“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.”
Chrissy said she was “grateful” to those around her, including her husband, 38, and her colleagues, for helping her over the past year.
She signed off the letter: “Phew! I’ve hated hiding this from you.”
