Reese Witherspoon opens up about her battle with depression

Reese Witherspoon just opened up about her experience with depression.

She suffered from the mental health condition as a teenager as well as when she entered motherhood and gave birth to her daughter Ava.

THE Morning show The star also shared how her grandmother, Dorothea, also suffered from depression

Reese’s mother warned her that she might run into the family. “She was this well-educated woman who was then left alone with two young children while her husband went to work,” Rees told Harper’s Bazaar.

“He got really depressed. My mom was honest with me and said, ‘You have to be careful. This may be genetic,” he added.

After Ava was born, Reese said the depression was “really bad” as her mood fluctuated up and down. “For the first six months, I was happy and depressed at the same time. I was just crying all the time, I was up all night, I was exhausted. It was a hormonal drop that I didn’t expect, which I experienced immediately after the birth and again when I stopped breastfeeding six months later,” she said.

“Everyone has their opinion. It’s hard being a young mom and having people tell you how to be, how to react, how to give birth, how to breastfeed and how to feed your baby. It’s overwhelming,” Legally blonde explained the talent.

Eventually, Reese confided in a good friend who encouraged her to seek professional help.

“I had the connections and the means to go to a doctor, a mental health specialist, but a lot of people don’t. They struggle alone and hide it,” she said.

Now she credits the experience with her success, in part. “I was probably successful because I was so stressed. They go hand in hand,” she said.

“I had pushed myself to extreme levels to show up to work in a perfect way. We all know now – perfect is not possible. It is not sustainable. I put myself in the service of my work and it took me far. I am being rewarded for my stress and perfectionism,” concluded Reese Witherspoon.