Lisa Vanderpump has had a difficult last few years as lost her brother Mark to suicide, her mother Jean passed away, and she left The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills.
So it makes sense that the 60-year-old Bravo beauty sometimes gets a case of the blues.
On Wednesday the restaurateur told the Not Skinny Not Fat podcast on Dear Media that she struggles with depression and has gotten therapy and medication to deal with it.
Hard times: Lisa Vanderpump has had a difficult last few years she told the podcast Not Skinny Not Fat on Dear Media
‘I can get depressed or suffer with depression,’ said the brunette beauty who added she is on medication and does get therapy.
‘Mainly more circumstantial things. When things get too hard. Like when I lost my brother two years ago, and then my mother, I can kind of, flounder a little bit like I did then.’
‘And for the first time in my life, I took antidepressants and I went to therapy, never seen a therapist in my life. It was made me laugh when you’ve put in a form in American, they’d say, who’s your family therapist. I’m like, we don’t have one. It’s just like, so, and I, I needed to see somebody.’
She said the first words they told her, she suddenly got it. ‘They said there is light at the end of the tunnel with grief, you are walking towards a bright light, just it take you, it would take your time to get there, but it will get better with grief, she said.
‘You’ll never get over it. You’ll get used to it, but you will walk towards that light,’ added Lisa.
So hard to say goodbye: The beauty lost her brother Mark to suicide in April 2018
She found it overwhelming.
‘Wallowing in my own kind of misery is going to go away. And I, and, and I’m a very proactive, productive, supportive, optimistic person, but I just couldn’t see my way forward. And I think suicide. It’s a very different situation. I think now I just encourage anybody.
‘If you see anybody struggling, even if you can’t see them on you’re isolated, reach out, face-time talk to them, and I think this has to be a recalibration as well of what’s gone on in this world in the last year about putting things in perspective.’
She said getting natural lights and keeping her home inviting is ‘very important to me.’
And she keeps working. ‘I think just really have a discipline about your life. Because it is crazy out there and it is difficult,’ added the Vanderpump Rules star and producer.
‘And I think it’s been extraordinarily difficult for people just in COVID being at home all the time, virtually, I mean, if you’re at home and here. It’s fine. Okay. Yeah, of course.
‘It’s a lot of work, but it’s like, you’re living, there’s no claustrophobia.’
And her home gives her comfort.
So hard to say goodbye: Then the TV star’s mother Jean died in June 2019
‘We’ve got amazing views. It’s we can eat somewhere different every day of the week. There’s so many different scenarios. It’s fantastic. I’m so blessed to be in this house.’
Lisa, who stays a slender size two, says working out helps keep her spirits up.
‘Got to exercise. Exercise is fundamental to, I think happiness, even if you are multitask, I thought I find it so boring, but I really, always do something when I’m on the treadmill. I’m either watching something or listening or on the phone. so at the time it goes by quickly, but I think all those things are absolutely essential for your mental health.’
Lisa also touched on her final breaking point on RHOBH.
Family life: Here Lisa is in black as she is seen with her brother and parents
‘I’ve been married Ken since I’m 21 years old. The success of our relationship always is that he’s had a lot of confidence in everything I do. And his encouragement, he’s never tried to stifle me, but he’s also been very supportive and he knows me. He knows who I am.
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‘And when they’re constantly saying you did that, or you did that on Housewives… And you’re like, no, I didn’t.’
Then came the end.
‘The final straw with Kyle [Richards] in that scene, when I said to her I swear to you on my children’s life. That should be enough, that’s, that’s enough.’
But it wasn’t for Kyle and Lisa gave up.
‘Ken just got frustrated with, constantly being the target on that show.’
The timing was tough too.
‘At the time I was in a real, emotional kind of dilemma. I was really struggling after my brother died. There’s nothing that I’ve ever experienced, anything like that,’ she said.
‘My only sibling to suddenly commit suicide unexpectedly. I was just beyond devastated.’
And she wonders if she could have saved him.
‘Should I have spoken to him when I texted him the day before? Should I have, I know he didn’t want to kill himself, I know it was just a cry for help that went wrong. So, we were 16 months apart. I met Ken through him, And, it was actually, Ken had a bit of an emotional breakdown a few months after my brother died because we were sitting every, the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas, the first birthday, the first, the first everything.’
Too much trouble: When she told Kyle Richards to believe her and she did not, Lisa gave up
It took a toll on her work.
‘I struggled through Vanderpump Rules and then I went into Housewives and I did suggest that I did take that season off ’cause I felt that I, I just wasn’t strong enough to, and I had been the subject of.
‘A few gang ups before season four, in Puerto Rico, season six. So I knew I had another one coming pretty soon, but I just wasn’t strong enough. And before I’d sat at the reunion two or three times with them all against me and just being indignant and resolute and vociferously.
‘My defense and this time I just thought, f**k it. I can’t do this anymore. I’m searching for happiness. And there they were all against me over this nonsense.
‘It was not of any benefit to my foundation to be out in the open anyway, about one of our dogs ending up in a shelter.’
‘So when I was just like, I swear to you, and then I suddenly thought, what, something inside me clicked and I thought I’m done, that’s it. I’m done. And people like, how can you walk away from the show? And I thought it’s not, I wasn’t in the space then. So I do think it’s probably lost maybe a bit of its gravitas in terms of a lot of people thought I was the anchor on the show and the narrative in terms of, maybe.
She lives well: Vanderpump also talked about her beautiful home gives her peace
‘Being somebody that was kind of, not an incendiary character, but somebody that kind of ignited, conversation, but I’m also somebody that saw things in a very down to earth fashion.’
She added: ‘Yeah, I take full responsibility for not being strong enough to complete the series. I was not in a space where I felt that I could go on my own mental health. I was. Crying every single day, it was just wasn’t a healthy situation.’
She also said others could be jealous when promoted.
The host offered: ‘I think that there’s an elephant in the room with you where it’s like people were jealous and that’s, as a viewer, people were jealous of a lot of things. They were jealous of. Your house, they were jealous of your life, but most of all, they were jealous that you got your own show.’
Lisa then admitted: ‘I’ve never said that, but you’re right in the second season to be given Vanderpump rules, that was a huge, because a lot of other Housewives tried for their own spinoff and they did pilots and it didn’t come to fruition.’
She had to quit: She added: ‘Yeah, I take full responsibility for not being strong enough to complete the series. I was not in a space where I felt that I could go on my own mental health. I was. Crying every single day, it was just wasn’t, it, wasn’t just, wasn’t a healthy situation’
Source: Daily Mail
