Hallmark star Nikki DeLoach just got personal in a moving interview with Parenting Magazine.
She discussed parenting through trauma and PTSD as she shepherds her son Bennett, 9, to doctor’s appointments to determine “whether he needs another open-heart surgery.” Bennett was born with “four severe congenital heart defects,” and DeLoach has become an ambassador for the cause, Parenting’s Lauren Brown West-Rosenthal wrote.
DeLoach told Parenting that she divides her life into before and after Bennett’s diagnosis. “It’s like everything that came before and everything that will come after. That marked my life,” says DeLoach. “I always say like, ‘Before Christ, After Christ.’ It really, really was that profound.”
DeLoach is starring in a new Hallmark Christmas movie called “Holiday Unplugged.” She plays a widow who is trying to find a lost family home video of her late husband. She is married to Ryan Goodell, who sang in a boys band in the 1990s called “Take 5.”
Nikki DeLoach Shared That She’s Struggled With PTSD ‘My Whole Life’
Bennett only faced an 11 percent chance of survival.
“I’ve struggled with PTSD my whole life,” she told the site. “What I have been feeling in my body in this last month, it just kept building and building. I finally realized: I had not dealt with that nightmare that was those years of open-heart surgeries.”
The recovery comes with fear. “You live with that constantly,” she says. “I will never not have a layer of two eyes like an eagle on him: Is he breathing OK? Why did he just grab his heart? Why is he leaning over? He’s out of breath. His skin doesn’t look the same. You will never not have that layer.”
But today he’s an athlete and she says, “He was born to live it big. And I have to take care of my own backyard inside of that.” She has put aside her own fears to help her child thrive.
Nikki DeLoach Has Opened Up About the Journey Before
DeLoach has shared details about her family’s journey before.
“There were two things that kept me going: my family and my faith. My son put a smile on my face every day no matter how upset I was and I had faith that everything was going to work out for the highest good of all. I truly believed that,” she told People in a moving 2017 essay about Bennett.
She revealed that the struggles brought her closer to her husband, telling People, “You need to reach out to others and let them hold you up, let them be an anchor for you when you cant be an anchor for yourself. For me, my anchor became my husband. We have never been closer than after going through this together.” She also stressed the importance of finding a community.
Nikki DeLoach Gets Candid About Overcoming Family Trauma