Former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Yolanda Hadid is out promoting her new book this week. Yolanda sat down with Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts to talk about her Lyme memoir, Believe Me. Yolanda gets candid about her suicidal thoughts as she battled Lyme disease, how her three kids, Bella, Gigi and Anwar, helped her through the journey and more.
On her current health today, Yolanda shared “I’m doing actually really great. I’m about 90%. I mean I still have some brain issues, like where my scanner is on, like sometimes I have trouble with word retrieval and things like that.”
When Robin comments that people didn’t believe her because she ‘looked fine’, Yolanda explains, “This is such an invisible disability that didn’t just happen to me, it happens to everybody that suffers from Lyme, including my own daughter who is on the cover of magazines. People don’t know how much you really struggle behind the scenes.”
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Robin mentions Anwar, “And your son as well, how severe is it for them?” Yolanda says, “Anwar is okay, he’s been treated for two years and he’s really good. But Bella still, it’s something that she deals with every day of her life. In so much pain and joint pain and brain fog and severe exhaustion. It’s a nightmare.”
On joining The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Yolanda explains,”the minute I got on the show, I got sick. I never worked on that show with a normal brain. I was struggling and trying to just hold on and keep my job.”
Robin comments on how open Yolanda is about her battle and mentions that in the book Yolanda reveals how she thought about taking her own life. She shares, “you know, I think in that moment I was just so desperate, in so much pain, sweating on the bathroom floor in some hotel in Florida trying to please other people. I remember laying in the ocean and just going like ‘just take me’ like I just cannot live one more day and in the same moment I thought that, the picture of my kids came up and I’m going like ‘what are you thinking?’ I’m sure there’s many people who get to moments where you’re just throwing your hands up in the air and go ‘I’ve tried everything, i just cannot go one more minute.”
Why does she think there’s such a misunderstanding about Lyme? “I think there’s so much misunderstanding because there’s no education. I think that people have judgement of things that they don’t understand. The first case of Lyme Disease was diagnosed in 1975. We’re now in 2017 and there’s still no cure. The CDC says that chronic Lyme doesn’t exist. Well, I’m here to tell you it does exist.”
Robin mentions the vast resources Yolanda had to try different Lyme treatments and that Yolanda doesn’t want people to waste their money on something that doesn’t work. Yolanda says, “We all deserve to get the same treatment and the same chances in life. Feeling that you’re more privileged than other people and can get certain treatments that others can’t get. That makes me emotional because that is the worst feeling of all.”
How have Gigi and Bella helped her through the journey? “There were nights that Gigi was in the car driving me to the hospital, two kids holding me in the back. It’s brought us closer, it’s made us stronger and we’re out on the other side and it’s just enjoying that closeness of our family.”
What does she want people to walk away feeling and knowing after they read her book? “Just hope. Hope and education. Life isn’t perfect. We all struggle every day and that’s just normal. everyone has the same struggles but that’s okay, that’s life.”
If you’re interested in reading Yolanda‘s new book, it’s out now. Believe Me: My Battle with the Invisible Disability of Lyme Disease. Mary will be sharing some bits from the book later today.
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