Eva Amurri Martino has an important message about mental health: Not everything is always on the inside as it appears on the outside.
In a candid, heartfelt post on Instagram Thursday to honor World Mental Health Day, the third-time mother-to-be shared a smiley throwback photograph of herself, husband Kyle Martino and their two children — son Major James, 3 this month, and daughter Marlowe Mae, 5 — from when Major was a baby.
“I look at this photo and it reminds me how easy it is to hide being mentally unwell — and how important it is to really check in with the people around you,” Amurri Martino, 34, captioned the sweet family image. “The truth was, this photo was taken during the peak of my mental health struggles.”
The actress and lifestyle blogger then recalled the 2016 incident in which her family’s night nurse “fell asleep while holding Major and dropped him, and he cracked his head on the hardwood floor,” as she previously described.
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Eva Amurri Martino Hits Back at Critics After Sharing Her Pain Over Son’s Head Injury
While Major was okay after emergency treatment and follow-up care for “a fractured skull and bleeding on his brain,” the scary incident stuck with Amurri Martino and “triggered a six month long battle with PTSD, PPD and PPA,” she revealed Thursday — and according to the star, “It was all a secret, except for my closest circle.”
“The depths to which it effected [sic] me were secret even to the people closest to me,” continued Amurri Martino, who is the daughter of Susan Sarandon. “I experienced extremely dark intrusive thoughts daily, and lived in fight or flight, with zero appetite, for months at a time.”
She went on to recall that “at the peak” of her struggles, “I shared with my husband that our children deserved somebody better than me … that their lives would be so much better if they didn’t have me as their mom.”
“To this day, I’m so thankful I shared those words with him that day, since they gave him the fear and clarity he needed to get me in to treatment,” wrote Amurri Martino. “I’m so grateful to be in a much better place today, but it didn’t happen by luck or chance. It happened because I asked for and accepted help, and I’ve worked hard every day since for almost two years.”
Today, Amurri Martino still has “ups and downs” in regards to her mental health, she explained in her Thursday post, “But I know now that my value as a mom and as a woman is greater than my worst day.”
“I feel compelled to share today on #mentalhealthawarenessday in case anybody needs a little extra encouragement to seek the help they need,” the star concluded.
Amurri Martino and her NBC Sports analyst husband, 38, revealed they were expecting baby No. 3 last month, sharing eight days later that the new addition would be a boy.
“Our family is ecstatic to share this ‘collab’ that has been brewing now for several months!” the mom-to-be wrote in her blog post announcing the big news.
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