Arnold Schwarzenegger’s daughter addresses how mental illness can present itself in new mothers.
Katherine Schwarzenegger has addressed the reality of postpartum depression in new mothers, along with Nikki and Brie Bella.
After welcoming their baby boys just a few days apart, the sisters told Schwarzenegger that they still find it difficult to adjust to the “realities” of postpartum depression (PPD), and what it entails, during an interview on I live on Instagram.
Brie, in particular, was hit a lot more with DPP compared to her sister. During her conversation with Katherine Schwarzenegger, she said “‘You get this fear of losing your old self, that who you were before the pregnancy, who you were before your child came into your life.”
However, “you’re too embarrassed to say it out loud, because then everyone will say, ‘Oh, do you hate your baby?’ And you say, ‘No, I just miss my old life.’ “
Brie went on to say, “I think I was trying to keep up with my sister so as not to lose that part of me when I should have just let go and enjoyed motherhood with Birdie more, as I am now with Buddy, rather than trying not stop being who I was before Bird came into my life. “
Nikki stepped in at the time, admitting how she began to better understand her sister’s struggles after becoming a mother and that although she “is better now,” she still has “days where I struggle” with bouts of postpartum depression.
However, she is grateful to be “out of the dark hole. I was like on a cliff, about to be pushed to go to a super place, but now I am in a place that is much better. “