Bryce Dallas Howard Opens Up About Post Partum Depression

Bryce Dallas Howard like many women suffered from severe post partum depression, and more importantly, like many, many women she was in denial about what was controlling her life.

E! first alerted us to the article that Bryce had written on Gwenneth Paltrow’s blog. It’s an incredible read. If you have ever suffered with this disorder or know someone who has you’ll cry in recognition. If not, it’s really something every woman should read because you don’t know if it could strike you.

“A friend invited me to a “pow-wow” of mothers (in a tepee nonetheless); there we talked about the trials and tribulations of motherhood. The woman next to me coined the phrase “post partum denial,” and hearing her story helped me to understand my own. When I shared, somewhat disconnectedly and inarticulately some of my own disappointments, my feeling of not measuring up to what Theo deserved in a mother, one woman responded, “It takes a long time for them to grow up. You’ll have time to discover the kind of mother you are.” Another woman suggested I read Brooke Shields “Down Came the Rain.” Her book was a revelation.

Then one day I was sitting in my home with my best friend and my sister, and out of nowhere I got this sudden feeling of summer. When I told them they looked at me curiously and chuckled a little. I searched for a better way to describe my feelings, “I dunno, I just got this feeling… like everything is going to be okay.”

My depression was lifting. Later that day, I saw one of my closest friends; the person who had performed our wedding ceremony and had also videotaped Theo’s birth. He looked at me and without skipping a beat he said, “My friend is back.” I smiled. “It’s like you’ve been abducted by ‘The Borg’ for a year and a half, and now you’re back.”

What’s the Twilight connection you might ask? Though not stated in this article, this was the point in time that they were casting the first movie and then shooting it. Full article is here (scroll down a bit)

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