Mena Suvari Celebrates A Year Of Parenthood, Warns Of Postpartum Depression

Mena Suvari is battling postpartum depression after having her son, Christopher, last year. She is struggling mentally and physically.

The actress first came to the attention of the masses in American Pie but she is now a mom and onto a different phase in her life. She shared those details with Rachel Bilson on her podcast, “Broad Ideas”.

She openly spoke about her postpartum depression admitting to Bilson that she, is tired of “sugarcoating” her depression as if it is something to be ashamed of. “I struggle with postpartum [depression] every day,” she says confidently.

“I’m just getting my hormones tested next month, so yeah, it’s all very real. I deal with this every day.” One of her biggest struggles was allowing herself to do things outside of being a mom. It’s “Okay to get out of the house,” she realized.

“It’s okay to have those emotions no matter what your circumstances are.” She validates herself more now.

Suvari admits she had to convince herself to walk outside of her home. That it was okay to move around out there. “I remember sitting on our balcony saying, ‘I have to get out of the house. I have to get out of the house.’

Her husband Michael Hope pushed her along the way. “My husband, he said, ‘You can go. You can go for a walk.’ But I didn’t think I could.” She said she felt like she was “going crazy” after giving birth to Christopher.

“I still struggle with that. That I don’t need to be in [my son’s] face 24/7 to raise a good human being because of my fear. It’s a lot of work,” she confesses and “wishes” she didn’t have these feelings.

In “Great Peace: A Memoir” the actress wrote about her anxiety and stress around her birth. She was in labor for 48 hours and got two doses of epidural only to be “forced” into having a C-Section.

She felt robbed of her moment. “We as mothers are entitled to those emotions and just because I have a beautiful baby who’s perfectly healthy, my husband’s wonderful and we made it out of the hospital, I still feel like I’m allowed to hold some space for being sad over not having that birth.”

Suvari was initially unsure about being pregnant and becoming a mother. She had shared that in the past, she was sexually abused, and she was not unsure of the responsibilities that come along with motherhood.

“I never got to have a healthy expression of [sex]. My choice was lost. And that, compiled with already not feeling seen and heard, established a concept that I would have of myself. That, that was my value.”

When she and Hope announced they were going to be parents she told People that she was extremely emotional. “It's still this process for me of believing it and accepting that something this beautiful could happen for me.”

She admits that trying to have a baby at 41 made her feel somewhat hopeless and she just assumed after a while of trying that it wasn’t going to happen. "At first I thought I was having jet lag because I'm really sensitive," she recalls. "By the end of July, I had a couple of other symptoms and I decided to take a test, and there it was. It was a huge surprise, an absolute miracle!"