Camilla Luddington Recalls Fearing She'd Die Young as She Dealt with 'Intense' Postpartum Anxiety

In an interview with Wondermind, the Grey's Anatomy actress opens up about her experience with postpartum anxiety after welcoming son Lucas, now 2½

Camilla Luddington is getting candid about the dark moments she experienced while experiencing postpartum anxiety.

Speaking about her mental health journey with Wondermind, the Grey's Anatomy actress, 39, revealed that she experienced postpartum anxiety — a condition she wasn't previously aware of — after welcoming son Lucas Matthew with husband Matthew Alan in August 2020.

Admitting it's a "very British thing to not really seek therapy," Luddington recalled thinking she should give it a try after realizing how many people around her went to therapy.

"But I never felt like I needed to, and then my daughter was born. I now look back and realize I had postpartum anxiety, which I didn't know was a thing," she shared. "I knew about postpartum depression, and I knew I didn't have that, but I had so much anxiety."

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Related:Camilla Luddington Feels 'Bond' with Other Moms Who Wore Masks During Labor amid Pandemic: 'Intense'

Luddington recalled thinking, "I can't parent from this place of anxiety all the time."

"It's not going to be healthy for my kids, either. I don't want them to feel that constant anxiety from me. So I sought therapy," she told the outlet.

Noting that her mother died when she was young, she said that having her two children — Lucas and daughter Hayden, 6 — was "super triggering."

"It can bring up constant worst-case-scenario [thinking] for you, where you feel like, 'Oh, I will die young because that's what happened to me,'" she explained. "That's what I knew. That was my reality."

Luddington continued, "It was super intense, and I had never felt that way before. And so I was like, OK, I need to do this for myself. I need to gift this to myself, gift this to my family, and go seek therapy."

Asked what she hopes her own kids take away from her candid discussions of mental health, Luddington remarked on how different it was from her own upbringing.

"I don't think it's because my parents were trying to keep it a secret, but mental health just wasn't really talked about. I think it's really important for [my kids] to know to not be ashamed of seeking help or taking medication...any of those things that can reset your mental health," she shared.

"That's why I like talking about this because I feel like there's still a stigma, and I just want to be able to be open and [want them to] understand: 'Hey, mom has anxiety,'" she continued. "I had PMDD [premenstrual dysphoric disorder] after my son was born, which I had never experienced before and didn't know could happen. I want them to know that it doesn't [show] weakness to seek help."

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