Alanis Morissette has a plan in place to deal with postpartum depression if she gets it again after the birth of her third child.
The ‘You Oughta Know’ hitmaker experienced the condition – which can cause new mothers to feel extreme sadness, anxiety and low energy – after the births of her first two children, son Ever Imre, eight, and three-year-old daughter Onyx Solace.
Alanis – who has her kids with her husband, rapper Mario ‘Souleye’ Treadway – now knows how to recognise the signs and will seek treatment immediately if she starts to feel down.
In a new article for Self, the 45-year-old Canadian musician said: "I had postpartum depression both times, both kids, just basically feels like tar had taken over my whole body and I was just underwater and I kept having that image of wanting to get above the wave.
"First time around I didn’t seek help for a year and four months … and the second time I waited four months. This time around I am not even waiting four minutes, I am going to be like, ‘OK, everybody, even if I say I am OK, I want you to resist believing me.’"
Speaking about her experience of depression, Alanis admitted that the mental health condition "clouds" everything in your life in a detrimental way.
She said: "Depression has a way of taking away self-perception in a way it clouds things. I am actually going to need support and I am not going to push it away."
Alanis has always been very honest about the realities of motherhood and child birth and she previously likened the delivery of her daughter Onyx to Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror film ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, infamous for its gory murders and scenes of cannibalism.
She said: "It was terrifying, but then once we heard her, and once she cried [and] I pulled her up and she started breastfeeding, I was just like, ‘Ah.’ It gets gnarlier and gnarlier. I think the words ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ were used when [my midwife and doula] walked in. It’s pretty gnarly, but it’s not meant to be all clean and perfect. We are animals. It’s like an 18-wheeler careening through your whole body. It’s beyond pain. I have a high tolerance for pain … this trumped all."
Alanis Morissette has plan to deal with postpartum depression
