Sydel Curry-Lee Talks About Mental Health During Pregnancy

While many people talk openly about postpartum emotions, mental health struggles during pregnancy are not often discussed.

Currently pregnant with her second child, Sydel Curry-Lee knows how it feels to be happy and scared at the same time. The mom to Daxon, 17 months, and wife to Phoenix Suns star Damion Lee, recently took to Instagram to share her thoughts on the subject of focusing on mental health while pregnant, and not just postpartum.

"Let's normalize being able to talk about something without it negating the positives of the same situation," the mental health advocate began her Instagram video caption. "Pregnancy can be beautiful. It can be joyous, the happiest time in your life. While AT THE SAME TIME be really scary and confusing."

She continued her caption by explaining that it's not just about physical discomfort, but also about "your mind and emotions."

"Feelings that are unexplainable but so so valid. Speaking on these things doesn't make you ungrateful it makes you HUMAN," she continued. "Each and every feeling that we experience is part of this miraculous journey. You're doing great mama!"

In her video, she shares a personal story. While at the park with a fellow neighborhood mom, a conversation came up about mental health during pregnancy, and the other mom asked Curry-Lee how her mental health is doing.

"Everyone talks about postpartum, but no one talks about during pregnancy mental health. They just talk about like oh you're moody or you have mood swings. No one talks about the mental, mental part of pregnancy mental health," she said.

"I went to try to explain to her how my mental has been and I just settled on the description of I'm going through the motions. I try to not feel deeply about anything because I have fear of where that will lead to."

She continued to explain that she's scared to be too happy about something because the emotions will start and will lead to sadness.

"For some reason I'm afraid to cry. I don't know why I'm really scared to really feel a deep intense emotion that will lead me to crying," she continued. "And I feel like any type of emotion will lead me to cry that I won't be able to return from - happy, sad, stressed, frustrated, anxious."

Feeling numb to a lot of emotions is something Curry-Lee experiences, as well as being in "self preservation mode" when it comes to emotions.

Many of Curry-Lee's followers could relate to her thoughts on mental health during pregnancy. And many thanked her for being so transparent and sharing her journey.

"This is real. I was so terrified the duration of my pregnancy to where I couldn’t fully 'enjoy' it. It was a constant battle of checking my mental. Thank you for your transparency and sharing another side of pregnancy," one follower wrote.

Another added, "I applaud this. I try to encourage fellow women being safe spaces for fellow women. It's so important. 🙌"

One follower shared her personal story with mental health during pregnancy.

"I’m so glad your speaking on this. During my last pregnancy I use to have anxiety attacks and I didn’t know why. It was to the point where my Dr. made me get help. It was like being pregnant wasn’t fun and that really made me sad because it was my 4th pregnancy. I would’ve thought by now I would know what to expect. But the exercises I learned in therapy really helped me for the duration of my pregnancy."

Another follower talked about her anxiety over getting pregnant and agreed that this topic should be discussed more often. "THANK YOU. This is one of the biggest sources of my anxiety about getting pregnant. How will it affect my mental health? What if I’m unable to pick myself up out of being down? 100% agree this should be something we can all talk about and learn from each other."