Reese Witherspoon wants women to feel less alone.
The Little Fires Everywhere recently got real about her past with postpartum depression while on Jameela Jamil‘s podcast.
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Reese Witherspoon has always been candid about her life.
Last week, the actress appeared on Jameela Jamil‘s podcast, I Weigh with Jameela Jamil .
While there, she got real about her 2013 arrest.
To refresh your memory, the Little Fires Everywhere star and her husband, Jim Toth, had been arrested for disorderly conduct after disobeying orders from a police officer.
At the time, Witherspoon released a statement that said:
“Out of respect for the ongoing legal situation, I cannot comment on everything that is being reported right now. But I do want to say, I clearly had one drink too many and I am deeply embarrassed about the things I said.”
In the end, Reese pleaded no contest and was ordered to pay a $213 fine.
Her husband’s charges were much more extreme, as she pleaded guilty to his DUI charge.
Now, in 2020, Reese is owning up to her mistakes.
“It was so embarrassing and dumb,” she said on the podcast.
“But, you know what — [it] turns out I breathe air. I bleed the same way. I make dumb decisions. I make great decisions. I’m just a human being.”
“We’re all just the same as each other and we’re all trying to find what our special skills are. My special skill is storytelling but that doesn’t mean I’m a special person,” she added.
“Talent doesn’t make you a good person. But a big value in my family was, ‘Are you a good person?’”
During the same interview, Reese got candid about another emotional subject:
The actress has three kids: Ava, 20, Deacon, 16, whom she had with ex-husband, Ryan Phillippe and Tennessee, 7, who she has with husband, Jim Toth.
“I’ve had three kids. After each child I had a different experience,” she said.
“One kid I had kind of mild postpartum, and one kid I had severe postpartum where I had to take pretty heavy medication because I just wasn’t thinking straight at all,” the Legally Blonde star said.
“And then I had one kid where I had no postpartum at all.”
Going through postpartum wasn’t the first time she experienced severe anxiety and depression.
Reese told Jamil that she’s been managing anxiety her whole life.
“I definitely had anxiety, my anxiety manifests as depression so I would get really depressed. My brain is like a hamster on a wheel and it won’t come off,” Witherspoon said.
“I’ve been managing it my entire life.”
She even began going to therapy when she was 16.
Witherspoon then opened up about feeling “completely out of control” after having Ava.
“We don’t understand the kind of hormonal roller coaster that you go on when you stop nursing. No one explained that to me,” she said.
“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.”
She continued:
“I felt more depressed than I’d ever felt in my whole life. It was scary.”
To top it off, she didn’t feel like she had a lot of guidance during this time.
“I just white-knuckled back,” she said, adding that she couldn’t even turn to her mother back then.
“There wasn’t the type of communication we have now.”
Because of this, Reese explained why it’s so important for women to talk about mental health issues so that we can break down the stigmas.
“I think hormones are so understudied and not understood,” she said.
“I have deep compassion for women who are going through that,” she added. “Postpartum is very real.”
To listen to the full interview, you can check it out here .
