Alanis Morissette

Alanis Morissette

Alanis Morissette on postnatal depression after each of her three pregnancies

Content note — this story covers a subject some people would rather choose when to read.

Alanis Morissette has talked openly about having postnatal depression after each of her three pregnancies. She has described it as something she came to expect and to prepare for, rather than something that took her by surprise the second and third time. She has drawn a distinction between the episodes. The first two, she has said, were more about depression: feeling everything very deeply, and days after the birth when she could not bring herself to leave the house at all. The third was more about anxiety, and about intrusive thoughts — thoughts that arrive uninvited and will not go. She has called those thoughts horrible. She has spoken about the sleeplessness, and about carrying on while feeling unable to. She has described pushing through it because her children needed her, and wanting to keep things looking as ordinary for them as she could. Asked what actually helps, she has given a short and unglamorous list: being medicated, being honest about how she is, and having a few people close to her who understand well enough to say that her mood going up and down is not a crisis. She has said she was taking an antidepressant at the time of one interview. She has talked about knowing, from having been through it before, roughly what to expect: that in her experience it lasted around two years, that it is postnatal depression and not a permanent state, and that there is an end to it. She has also said that after the first time she went into the later pregnancies expecting it, and ready to try whatever might help. Nothing here is medical advice. Postnatal depression is different for everyone, it is treatable, and a GP, midwife or health visitor is a good place to start.

• Postnatal depression