Alyssa Milano writes a gripping account at Time Mag about her post-partum depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) that spiraled and eventually landed her in a psychiatric hospital.
“That first night, after we returned from the hospital [from giving birth], I suffered my first anxiety attack. I felt like I had already disappointed my child. I felt like I failed as a mother, since I was not able to give birth vaginally or nourish him with the breast milk that had not come in yet. My heart raced. My stomach seized up. I felt like I was dying.
I recovered. But a few months later, Milo spiked a very high fever and had a febrile seizure in my arms, and my paralyzing anxiety reared its head again.”
After many nights like this, Milano asked to be committed and checked herself into a public psychiatric ward for three days.
“At last, I began to feel as if my pain was recognized, but it wasn’t easy,” Milano continues. “Here’s the thing about mental illnesses: you don’t always look sick, and the answers are not always clear or black-and-white.”
She concludes her essay with a message for her fans, “And if you see me on the street, please come tell me that I am not alone.”
Here’s actor Ryan Reynolds, in a recent New York Times profile:
“I have anxiety, I’ve always had anxiety. Both in the lighthearted ‘I’m anxious about this’ kind of thing, and I’ve been to the depths of the darker end of the spectrum, which is not fun.”
Later, he said:
“I went to go see a doctor because I felt like I was suffering from a neurological problem or something. And every doctor I saw said, ‘You have anxiety.’ ”
He also said he regularly throws up before interviews.
Actress Kristen Bell, to Today, yesterday.
“It occurred to me that I was showing this very bubbly, bright persona, and that it was inauthentic. ”
It’s a joke if you think everybody’s not hiding some secret shame about being anxiety-riddled or depressed at some point,” Bell said with a laugh. “We’re all there, OK? ‘Everybody’s crazy. It’s not a competition.”
And actress Selma Blair on Instagram:
While “I am now winning that battle,” she wrote, it took work getting there. Her troubles included four years of postpartum depression after the birth of her son, whom she is now a single mom to, as well as “crippling anxiety. I fell apart.
The last moment being very public. I was sorry. I was humbled. I stayed humble.” But, like many, “I still struggle,” she added. Only, “I cry quietly so as not to wake my child. I am a good mother.”
Always good when high-profile people speak up. I wish more high-profile Christians would, but the stigma runs deep in the church.
