Reese Witherspoon opens up about mental health in wake of divorce

Reese Witherspoon has opened up about a tough moment she experienced last year. Photo / Getty Images

Reece Witherspoon has opened up about her personal struggles during a difficult time last year confessing at one point she broke down and “cried and cried”.

The beloved Hollywood actress appeared as a key panellist at a charity event hosted by her own 2016 founded media company Hello Sunshine, this weekend and gave rare insight into her private life following her shock divorce from Jim Toth last year.

Speaking on stage, E! News reported the actress teared up as she recalled the difficulties that came with juggling her work and personal life.

“I’ve been trying really hard to find balance outside of work,” Witherspoon began. “I’m a person who fills my schedule with busyness, so that I feel less alone or less nervous or less unsettled. [But] I started to realise that isn’t going to work for me. About a year ago, I was like … I was a robot and the robot broke. I cried and cried.”

Waving her hands over her face as she tried to stop the tears from flowing, she told audience members, “It actually makes me feel very vulnerable sharing that with you all,” adding it’s “important” to share vulnerable moments as “we hold up so much for so many.”

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“My beautiful friend, Cleo Wade, just wrote this gorgeous poem … about the glue in people’s lives. And sometimes you are the glue in everybody’s life, whether it’s at work or being a mum or being a partner, but who is holding you together?”

Confessing she “burst into tears” after reading the poem, it was an ephiany moment as she realised she wasn’t “taking very good care” of herself and decided it was time to ask others for help.

“I feel like I’ve learned a lot because I did the work – the hard work – in my early 20s, and reading every book and every self-help book and going to therapy and really trying to understand myself and forgive the parts of myself that were broken and the parts of myself where I felt like a failure, because it was a huge part of it.”

The news outlet reported she went on to say Witherspoon admitted she has now changed her way of thinking and instead of looking at a moment as a “failure” she instead looks at what she learned from it.

“I just reward myself for the hard things that little Reese went through.”

Jim Toth, Ava Phillippe, Reece Witherspoon, Deacon Phillippe and Tennessee Toth. Photo / Instagram

It comes after the actress separated from her husband of 12 years in March last year with the pair citing “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for their divorce.

However, a source told The Sun that the reason for the split is actually because of Toth’s changing behaviour.

“Jim just isn’t the guy Reese married and had a son with any more.

“His personality, his attitude and his whole take on life really changed when he got out of the agency business and decided he was tired of that stuffy world and being in the service business in general.

“Call it a midlife crisis if you want but that’s when the tattoos, the chunky, weird jewellery, and dressing like somebody half his age really took hold,” the source revealed.

Witherspoon shares one child with Toth, 11-year-old son Tennessee as well as two older children Ava, 24, and Deacon, 19, with her ex-husband Ryan Phillippe.