Melissa Rycroft is perhaps best well-known for being proposed to and then dumped by "Bachelor" Jason Mesnick in favor of his runner-up. Since then, however, Rycroft has made the most of her unfortunate initial 15 minutes of fame, finishing third on "Dancing with the Stars," marrying the boyfriend she had before "The Bachelor," Ty Strickland, and, in 2011, starring in a reality show on CMT about their life together with baby daughter Ava, born in 2009.
But in the new issue of Us Weekly, Rycroft opens up for the first time about her battle with postpartum depression, telling the magazine that it started as soon as Ava was born. “Almost immediately I didn’t feel right,” she says. “I had just given birth to this perfect baby, but absolutely nothing made me happy anymore. I had no idea what was wrong. I had these great blessings, but I felt empty. I’d put Ava in her crib and go outside and scream for a minute.”
After three months of suffering, she finally decided to seek help. "I told Tye, ‘I don’t know how to make this better. I need help,’" she reveals. "Now Tye and I go once a week [to therapy]. We talk about getting over my guilt, and the tears really flow. She reaffirms that what’s going on is chemical. But talking to someone is only going to help so much until my body gets back to the way it was."
Postpartum depression sounds totally heinous—talk about the best birth control ever -- but it's always refreshing to see a person in the public eye open up about such a personal struggle, especially one that affects so many women. Statistics show that 10 percent of mothers experience it.
Melissa isn't nearly the only celebrity to talk about postpartum depression. After the jump, other stars who've opened up about their mental state after giving birth.
