Sharna Burgess has been vocal about her “intrusive mom thoughts” after welcoming son Zane — and she’s grateful for boyfriend Brian Austin Green’s support.
“I felt called to share that because I went through the experience of thinking, ‘Is it just me? Is it just me that has these [thoughts?] Is there something wrong with my brain? Am I heading into postpartum depression?’” the Dancing With The Stars pro, 37, told Entertainment Tonight on Friday, December 16. “I would ask, ‘Is this normal?’ and I did get assured by my family, by [Brian] that these sort of thoughts are normal.”
Burgess — who gave birth to Zane, now 6 months, in June — revealed via Instagram earlier this month that she had been constantly thinking about all the terrible things that could happen to her son.
“Honestly I thought it was something wrong with my brain at first. These super dark thoughts of all the things that could go wrong,” she captioned a candid December 9 Instagram post. “All the ways I or life could accidentally hurt my baby. Falling down stairs holding him, sickness, a car accident … the list is long but I won’t share it. If you know you know.”
The Australia native admitted that she’s “learned to tame” her dark thoughts, crediting therapy for helping her realize that she’s “not alone.”
“I got to a point where I was having thoughts of Brian not making it home from work or my mom not making it back to her house from leaving our house,” Burgess told ET on Friday, referring to mother Lucy Burgess, who recently moved to Los Angeles to help care for Zane. “And I had one panic attack and that’s when I went, ‘I absolutely need to see someone about this because it’s escalating.’”
The choreographer added: “I realized that every mom goes through this in some degree and then I also read that 94 percent of people — men and women — have intrusive thoughts. It’s a real term, intrusive thoughts, and whether that is you don’t deserve that job or to the way more dramatic end, more violent versions of those thoughts, everybody needs to understand they’re not alone. … It is not just you in your own world of horrible thoughts.”
Sharna and Green — who have been dating since December 2020 — welcomed their first son earlier this year, the 49-year-old Beverly Hills, 90210 alum’s fifth. (Green also shares son Kassius, 20, with ex Vanessa Marcil and sons Noah, 10, Bodhi 8, and Journey, 6, with ex-wife Megan Fox.)
“We couldn’t be happier, and everybody’s extremely healthy right now, which is a blessing,” the Masked Singer alum exclusively told Us Weekly in September, gushing about Zane’s arrival into the blended brood. “I always say that the easiest part is to become a mother or a father. Almost anybody can have a baby, but to be a parent — that’s the work. Getting up in the morning, making breakfast, making lunch for school, bedtime rituals and bathtime … that’s when the real work comes in.”
He added at the time: “[Sharna’s] amazing with that. She’s been so hands-on with him. At this point in my life, to have a partner that is as hands-on, and in love with the process as she is — even when she’s exhausted — It’s so nice to have a partner that shares in that duty.”
If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or considering suicide, call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.
