Ashley Darby first spoke up about suffering from postpartum depression just two weeks after giving birth to her first child, one-year-old Dean, in 2019.
The 32-year-old Real Housewives Of Potomac star, who shares her son with 61-year-old husband Michael Darby, reflected on her choice to seek professional help.
‘I had a hard time seeing that it was going to be better, in terms of feeling more comfortable with Dean being around people, and not worrying that everyone or someone was gonna hurt my child,’ the mother-of-one told The Daily Dish in June.
Doting mom: Ashley Darby, who shares her son with husband Michael Darby, 74, reflected on a rough transition into motherhood and battle with postpartum depression
The Paper Wristbands author admitted: ‘It was the most crippling fear for me. It was inexplicable. I don’t even know where it came from.’
While she noted she isn’t ‘usually a fearful person,’ she felt inundated with dread that her ‘innocent little being was so fragile’ could ‘accidentally’ get hurt.
At the time, Darby didn’t initially recognize she was experiencing postpartum depression.
‘I had a hard time seeing that it was going to be better, in terms of feeling more comfortable with Dean being around people, and not worrying that everyone or someone was gonna hurt my child,’ she told The Daily Dish back in June
‘I thought I was normal. I thought every single mom feels like this and it wasn’t until I started having some really dark thoughts about myself and feeling overwhelmed,’ she confessed.
She explained: ‘My pediatrician recognized it first by giving me this questionnaire and I answered the questions and they were even eye-opening for myself to know that I wasn’t, things were not as right with me.’
Ultimately, she began seeing a postpartum therapist, who helped ease her postpartum depression symptoms.
‘I thought I was normal. I thought every single mom feels like this and it wasn’t until I started having some really dark thoughts about myself and feeling overwhelmed,’ she confessed
‘I finally came out of that around six months and since then, it’s been so just fulfilling. It’s been a dream being Dean’s mom and he’s such a great kid,’ she revealed.
15 days after welcoming her little boy into the world, she opened up in a video on her Instagram Stories about battling her ‘first bout of postpartum blues.’
‘I just felt like I needed to do all these things around the house,’ she said. ‘I needed to do dishes; I needed to do laundry, straighten up the house, pump milk. And physically, I’m not feeling very well.’
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At the time, she explained she was ‘in quite a bit of pain’ and didn’t ‘physically’ feel herself.
As she recovered, she praised her man, who she said really ‘stepped up.’
‘I have to say that I said a huge prayer of thank you today for my husband because Michael really stepped up,’ she noted. ‘I didn’t really have to say anything — he saw in my face how upset and sad I was and so he took the baby this morning and let me sleep for a couple of hours.’
Source: Daily Mail
