Naomi Osaka’s latest message is a show of strength beyond her abilities on the tennis court.
In a new clip of her upcoming documentary, “Naomi Osaka: The Second Set,” that was obtained by People, the 27-year-old reads a letter she wrote about her deeply personal experience with postpartum depression in the aftermath of giving birth to her daughter, Shai, in 2023.
“Honestly, I also had extremely bad postpartum and I didn’t know how to deal with it that well,” she begins.
“I like to write things, but also I don’t like to say things out loud because I’m an emotional person and sometimes it’ll make me cry,” she then explains before turning to read the letter.
The athlete, who has four Grand Slam titles, says in the clip that she was aware of the challenges that many women face postpartum. Nearly 1 in 8 women with a recent live birth reported postpartum depression symptoms, according to research of 2018 data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Still, Osaka shares, she thought her awareness of the disorder meant she would be affected differently.
“Prior to giving birth, a bunch of different people had told me about postpartum, but truthfully, I had thought that since I was so aware of it, I could somehow avoid the symptoms altogether,” she says.
Osaka explains the inner conflict she felt of being a new mother with depression: “In no world would I ever want my daughter to think that her birth is nothing less than the biggest gift I have ever received. But during those early months, I felt like a shell of myself at all moments of the day.”
Osaka, who has been proactive about focusing on her mental health in the past, describes the symptoms she experienced postpartum.
“I no longer knew who I was anymore,” she reflects. “It felt like everyone else had moved on, and they were living in color. Meanwhile, my world was stuck in gray.”
Osaka shares Shai with her former boyfriend, rapper Cordae. In January, she announced that they had gone their separate ways after several years of dating.
In 2021, Osaka addressed her mental health while opening up about her decision to drop out of the French Open earlier in the year.
“It’s OK to not be OK, and it’s OK to talk about it,” Osaka wrote in an essay for Time magazine.
“It has become apparent to me that literally everyone either suffers from issues related to their mental health or knows someone who does,” she wrote. “The number of messages I received from such a vast cross section of people confirms that.”
“Naomi Osaka: The Second Set” premieres on Tubi on Aug. 24.
AloJapan.com