Olivia Munn reveals she was 'not prepared' to deal with postpartum anxiety before cancer diagnosis

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Olivia Munn opened up about her battle with postpartum anxiety months before her shocking breast cancer diagnosis.

Speaking to People, the 43-year-old actress shed light on her postpartum struggles and challenges she faced in the aftermath of childbirth.

Olivia Munn says postpartum 'is really difficult'

Munn, who welcomed her now two-year-old son Malcolm with her partner John Mulaney in November 2021 said, "Postpartum is really difficult."

“I was not prepared for the kind of postpartum that I had. I had heard about postpartum depression. I had never heard about postpartum anxiety," she said of the experience.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, I would put my postpartum anxiety at 100," Munn stated. “I went through something challenging this past year, but I don’t think it compares to what I went through postpartum."

Olivia Munn recalls being in a 'tunnel of anxiety and darkness'

The 'X-Men' actress recounted experiencing anxiety attacks which began a month after her son's birth.

“I woke up out of nowhere. It’s 4 a.m., my eyes pop open, and I [feel] like I can’t breathe. My chest is tight, and it stays like that all day long,” she recalled.

“And it was like that every day for almost a year. There would be days where I’d be clenching John’s arm and walking from room to room," she added.

Munn shared that she was “in such a tunnel of anxiety and darkness” that she was unable to consider medication and eventually found relief after the condition gradually lifted. 

Explaining her struggles to stay fit after she gained 60 pounds during her pregnancy, Munn said, "The weight didn't just come off of me, and I took some more time to start to work out and to eat in a more healthy way after my postpartum lifted."

“I really didn’t have a moment to catch my breath," said Munn, who was diagnosed with cancer months after her postpartum struggle.

Inside Olivia Munn's breast cancer diagnosis

In March, Munn took to Instagram to share her diagnosis of breast cancer.

She recalled taking a gene test which also included Breast Cancer Risk Assessment and she tested negative for the test. 

"The same winter I also had a normal mammogram," Munn wrote.

However, two months later she was diagnosed with cancer.

Using the free online tool called the TyrerCuzick test, her OB-GYN, Dr. Thais Aliabadi, calculated her breast cancer risk assessment score and diagnosed the disease.

The 'New Girl' actress then took a biopsy that showed she had Luminal B cancer in both breasts.

"30 days after that biopsy, I had a double mastectomy," Munn said, adding, "I went from feeling completely fine one day, to waking up in a hospital bed after a 10-hour surgery the next."