Love Island winner Cara De La Hoyde reveals having a baby helped her overcome depression
LOVE Island winner Cara De La Hoyde has revealed having a baby helped her overcome her 11-year battle with depression.
The reality star previously revealed the illness contributed to her split with boyfriend and father of her child Nathan Massey.
After giving birth in December she says their baby has not only brought them back together but also healed her mental health issues as she no longer thinks about herself.
Cara, 25, told Dan Wootton on Dan’s Dilemmas yesterday on talkRADIO: “We're just much more of a team now.
“So we help each other out and just other things, I'm such a calmer person.
“Like before I'd be all over the place and I said before I have suffered from depression, bi-polar and anxiety and I don't know what has happened but it is like just sorted everything out. Because there's someone there that's more important than me.”
Cara revealed last year how her anxiety was bad after she came out of the ITV2 show.
And she spoke about how Nathan, 27, struggled to deal with her mental health problems.
She said: “The worst point came after Love Island. Nobody trains you for how intense it is, and you’re constantly being judged.
“I really wish I’d have spoken to someone about it at the time, because I didn’t know how to deal with it, and I didn’t feel like me any more.’
“There would be times I’d lock myself in my bedroom for days, and just sit there and cry.
“Nathan has never dealt with mental illness before.
“If you’ve never been around it, you don’t understand it and he would get down about it, too.
“I’d say, “Just leave me, I’m fine”, then lock myself away, but he would take it personally.
“It got so bad that it put a lot of stress on our relationship. It’s hard when you’re with someone to not think it’s your fault, and that they’re down because you’ve done something, but it’s not – you just can’t help it.”
Cara and Nathan won Love Island 2016 and went on to announce their pregnancy shortly after they split in April last year.
But they reconciled in November just days before she gave birth to Freddie-George.
Now the couple have taken the next step and started to climb the property ladder.
Cara said: “We've just bought a house. That's stressful buying a house.”
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Asked by Dan if their baby brought them back together, she replied: “I think so yeah.
“I'll be honest, if we weren't having a baby we probably wouldn't have got back in contact and this and that.”
Listen to Dan Wootton and expert Linda Papadopoulos on Dans Dilemmas on talkRADIO on Sundays from 1-4pm.