'I'm not coping': Grant Denyer's wife, Chezzi, reveals her marriage crisis after post-natal depression nightmare

Chezzi Denyer has opened up about how her debilitating battle with post-natal depression and anxiety almost ended her eight-year marriage to Grant Denyer.

The 38-year-old spoke emotionally as she described how she battled PND and PNA after welcoming her eldest daughter  Sailor, now seven. 

The couple also have a two-year-old daughter, Scout.

'Poor Grant kind of copped the brunt of it a bit. He would go away and then come home, and I would just fly off the handle for no reason at him,' she told Channel Ten show, Studio Ten.

In a message also shown on the show, Grant revealed how frightening her behaviour was for him. 'Just watching her struggle was incredibly painful,' he said. 'Because I couldn't provide the relief that she needed, nor did I know what was wrong, and nor could she tell me. It was a stressful period. It was a tough period.'  

Chezzi said she found herself in the middle of  'a mini-breakdown' after she stopped breastfeeding.

'Grant came home from being on the road, and I screamed at him for about an hour,' she revealed. 

'I gave him the baby, and I just broke down and said, "I can't do it anymore. I'm a failure. I don't have the mum gene. I'm not coping with this at all." 

'Together, we went to see a health professional after that, and that was the path to recovery.'

Brave Chezzi, 38, has been very open about her fight with depression and anxiety after having Sailor.

In a post on her blog, The Chezzi Diaries, back in June, she admitted she refused to admit to anyone, or even herself, that she was suffering.

'I was NOT OK. I was telling myself that I WAS OK. Everyone I was talking to was encouraging me, and telling me that what I was experiencing was NORMAL. But nothing felt "normal",' she wrote.

'Over the next few months, my anxiety would increase until I would literally explode and yell at my husband mostly. Sometimes I would be so tired or so full of emotion I would yell at my daughter. Sometimes I would shout things in my mind. I would be so quick to anger. It was so unlike me. I felt out of control sometimes and then totally in control and enjoying life at other moments. It was a see-saw of emotion, and I knew it couldn’t last like that.'

Chezzi admits that she has seen counsellors and been in therapy and admits that being honest about her condition has helped her enormously.

'I feel totally indebted to the support from my loving husband and family and professional counsellors and doctors. I knew about Postnatal Depression, but had no idea that there was such a thing as Post baby anxiety. I didn’t even recognise that I was suffering from anxiety. '

If you would like to talk to someone about post-natal depression or post-natal anxiety, call Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.

You can take their Mum's Mental Health Checklist here