We've always admired Adele for her honesty, especially when it comes to discussing motherhood experiences that few people talk about as candidly. And now, in a recent interview with Vanity Fair, the singer is opening up about her experience with postnatal depression following the birth of her son, Angelo, and how she learned to cope with it.
When asked whether she'd have another child, Adele said no: "I’m too scared. I had really bad postpartum [postnatal] depression after I had my son, and it frightened me."
She added that she didn't seek professional help or take antidepressants to treat it. In fact, she told the magazine, "I didn’t talk to anyone about it. I was very reluctant... My boyfriend said I should talk to other women who were pregnant, and I said, 'Fuck that, I ain’t hanging around with a fuckin’ bunch of mothers.'"
But, Adele soon learned, it was her fellow moms who most identified and sympathised with her feelings: "Without realising it, I was gravitating towards pregnant women and other women with children, because I found they’re a bit more patient... My friends who didn’t have kids would get annoyed with me, whereas I knew I could just sit there and chat absolute mush with my friends who had children, and we wouldn’t judge each other."
She explained that things started to change when she opened up about her feelings: "One day I said to a friend, 'I fuckin’ hate this,' and she just burst into tears and said, 'I fuckin’ hate this, too.' And it was done. It lifted."
Adele also described the pressure she felt as a new mother and how that contributed to her postnatal depression:
"My knowledge of postpartum — or postnatal, as we call it in England — is that you don’t want to be with your child; you’re worried you might hurt your child; you’re worried you weren’t doing a good job. But I was obsessed with my child. I felt very inadequate; I felt like I’d made the worst decision of my life."
Last year, Hayden Panettiere spoke out about how postnatal depression doesn't look the same for everyone, calling it a condition with a spectrum of experiences. "It’s something that needs to be talked about," she said. "Women need to know that they’re not alone, and that it does heal."
Adele's story is an important reminder of that, as well. She told Vanity Fair that it indeed did get better, but only after she decided to ignore the pressures of being the perfect mother and just do what she needed to do for herself.
"I just said, I’m going to give myself an afternoon a week, just to do whatever the fuck I want without my baby. A friend of mine said, 'Really? Don’t you feel bad?' I said, I do, but not as bad as I’d feel if I didn’t do it. Four of my friends felt the same way I did, and everyone was too embarrassed to talk about it; they thought everyone would think they were a bad mom, and it’s not the case. It makes you a better mom if you give yourself a better time."
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