It's Okay to Not Be Okay​

Transcription:

Brooke Shields: When I went through my first very difficult period of time with postpartum, no one was talking about it and everybody was ashamed to talk about it. And I wasn’t ashamed that I went through something, I just felt like I was alone because nobody else made me feel like it was normal.

So I thought to myself, the only reason that you’re… if you are famous, if you have anything to give back, it has to be in at least honesty and going out publicly and saying, this is something that I went through.

Then you look at the statistics and you look at how many people suffer. When you start delving into it and you start delving into what postpartum depression is, what depression is at the mental health in and of itself. I realized that for me, it was my only way of justifying who I was with what I was experiencing.

So I did it really because I wanted my kids to know, God forbid they experience anything like that, that it’s, it’s normal. It’s common, it’s, um, treatable and there’s no shame in asking for help or saying, “I feel broken, I can’t do this on my own.”

And that was the first time in my life that I realized, I couldn’t handle something.

Jaclyn Wainwright: For all the people that are looking for role models and looking, you know, for guidance as they navigate their way through, you know, this world that we live in, if we don’t share our stories and if we are not willing to be vulnerable and, and talk about the good times AND the bad times, then we aren’t telling, preparing our children for the life that they face.