The actress revealed her vulnerable side on this week’s SOM.
Every week General Hospital’s Maurice Benard sits across from a guest and peels back the layers on very personal topics on his video podcast, State Of Mind. Often, it is because he is real and honest with them that it inspires his guests to be open and honest as well. It is not always easy, especially when you are private and reserved as GH alum Rebecca Budig, who portrayed Hayden Barnes on the show, but she opened up about a subject that affects millions of women every day — postpartum depression.
Charlotte Jo was Rebecca Budig’s daughter, who was born in September 2014. It ought to have been the happiest period of her life, but she was helpless and wracked with fear. “I don’t know how it actually started, but the pressure of breastfeeding,” Budig mused. The actress tried to identify the source of her anxiousness. “I simply went down a rabbit hole because she wasn’t gaining enough weight and I wasn’t generating enough. The strain surrounding nursing was tremendous. They always try to encourage breastfeeding when you give birth to the baby in the hospital. The pediatrician encourages nursing. I simply apply that pressure to myself.
Budig pondered the causes of her anxiety. Apparently, I strive for perfection. I wanted to succeed in whatever I did. Acting. Everything. I therefore skipped any motherhood classes. That wasn’t anything I did. It, in my opinion, played a part as well. unsure of what to do. unsure on how to care for this infant.
She said, “I was kind of alone,” and she was in the same situation as many new mothers. “I had my husband, but my mother was unable to fly, so I did not. Due to the fact that she was born at the beginning of the year and that they all had children, they were unable to go to be with me. I therefore lacked a tribe of companions. I lacked a network of allies.
“My gynecologist never inquired about my mental health. How are you feeling on the inside? Budig said, “I just didn’t have someone looking after me in that sense. “I had anxiety in the past, but not to the point where I was contemplating suicide and sobbing uncontrollably.
Her birth occurred in September. Budig admitted, “By December, I knew I had a problem. She went on to chronicle her downhill spiral. I wasn’t feeling like me. When I saw my therapist, she advised me to make an appointment with a psychiatrist. He handles postpartum issues. You must sprint; do not walk. I’m not sure what I said to her, but it’s clear that she noticed something.
She kept going and tried to control her shifting emotions like a good soldier. Because of how effectively I appear, many people I knew were unaware, according to Budig. Another characteristic of postpartum depression is that you present very well because you frequently hear comments such, “You have a healthy kid. You have no reason to be depressed. Everything in the world is yours. Your hubby is fantastic. You have no reason to be depressed. It reduces how you feel in the process.”
The actress didn’t find a way to express the emotions she repressed until 2019, in part because her GH co-star Michael Easton (Hamilton Finn) caught her at her most vulnerable. She explained to Benard, a common acquaintance of her ex-castmate, “How Michael Easton found out about it was one day I had a really rough day with her in the morning and I came into work. And because of his personality, you can always count on him to ask you a question that is sincere. When he asked me how I was, I immediately started crying. I’ve just had a terrible day. And I just started telling him what had happened. He advised me to write it all down at that point because we work together. On a project called About a Girl, which Budig authored and Easton directed and was based on her experiences, the two co-stars and friends collaborated. The short film, which also stars Sherri Saum (ex-Keri Reynolds, One Life to Live) and Trevor St. John (Tucker McCall on Young and the Restless), has swept the festival circuit and won five honors, including the Boden International Film Festival and the IndieFEST Film Awards.
Benard concluded by saying, “You don’t know, and I don’t know who out there is on the verge of doing something they shouldn’t do and because of that film or what you just said here or what I have said they won’t do it,” before assuring his lovely guest that what she had to say would benefit many others. The situation is how it is.
More Ground Covered
The beloved actress had so much more to say about growing up in Cincinnati and Kentucky, the perils of being the youngest of eight children, attending a performing arts school from 4th grade through the 12th grade, and the burnout that followed.
Learn about how she almost gave up on acting to become a veterinarian, but a move to Los Angeles changed everything with steady work in commercials. Budig dishes about her early gigs in music videos for Aerosmith and REM, as well as her first on-screen kiss with Chris O’Donnell in Batman Forever, and she shares stories about her time on Guiding Light, All My Children, and General Hospital.
See what she regarded as the experience of a lifetime and what it was like to collaborate with Alicia Minshew, Josh Duhamel (ex-Leo, AMC), and Cameron Mathison (ex-Ryan, AMC) (ex-Kendall, AMC). She even shared some insider information about her significant victory on Skating with the Stars. Watch the complete State of Mind episode right here.
*Note: To learn more and find out how to get assistance, visit The Mayo Clinic online if you or someone you know is experiencing postpartum depression.
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