Though she expresses relief that now she can openly speak about her battle with postpartum depression, Hayden Panettiere shares it wasn't always easy to open up.
But even before she entered a rehabilitation facility last October 2015. Hayden recalls she felt intense shame just simply admitting she had a problem.
Talking to Yahoo Style, the 26-year-old actress confesses, "I was just terrified that people weren't going to accept me."
But she got to a point where she just wanted to stop living in fear. “I finally just went, ‘I’m tired of living afraid...of what people are going to think, so, you know, I’m just going to put it all out there on the table and I’m not going to worry about the judgment.’ ”
She was blown away by the intense support from her friends, family, and fans. "The more open I was, the more acceptance I got from people," she marvels. "I got so much support and so much love."
Though she admits she feels "exposed", she's quick to clarify that it was in the best way.
Hayden Panettiere on postpartum depression
Portraying Juliette Barnes on the TV series Nashville, who also suffers from Postpartum depression, was an unplanned coincidence.
Having to play this part long after she had overcome her own personal battle with the condition was "strange" because she says it required her to get back to that "frame of mind".
“The way I do things is to pull from my own personal experience and sometimes even turn myself into what I’m portraying so that I can pull from my life and step into that person’s shoes by being able to relate," shares Hayden.
On the negative stigma surrounding the condition, she says, “It’s like you have no idea what you’re talking about. If you think for one second that a mother wants to feel that way toward her child, you’re outta your mind. It is one of the most debilitating, scary, guilty feelings that you can ever feel.”
She expressed her disappointment in people who would even think that any mum would make it up. And that it's a real battle many mums face daily.
Her daughter Kaya is nearly 15 months old. And Hayden couldn't be happier raising her with fiancé Wladimir Klitschko.
They recently spent a lovely afternoon on the beach and shared this photo on twitter, which for sure delighted her 717,000 followers who have been rooting for her ever since she made her struggles public.
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