Ariana Madix has dealt with a lot in the public eye. After learning that her boyfriend of nine years, Tom Sandoval, was having an affair with her close friend and “Vanderpump Rules” costar Raquel Leviss, Madix told People that her mental health took a sharp decline. “My anxiety at first was through the roof,” she said in a May 22 interview. “Those first few weeks . . . just the stomach ache, not being able to fall asleep, not eating and feeling sick even at the idea of wanting to eat. It was really so bad.”
For a while, she felt as though she had officially hit “rock bottom,” even having dealt with depression in the past. “I’ve gone through other stuff before on the show but nothing like this at all,” she said. “But there’s nowhere else to go from rock bottom except up. So honestly, realizing that really helped me come out of that.”
To help her through the scandal, Madix leaned on her friends, nicknamed the Madix Support Team, saying they did everything in their power to prioritize her mental health and check in throughout the day. “There was a spreadsheet that my friend Meredith made to make sure that I was taken care of and that I was upright because [for the] first few weeks there, I really was not,” Madix said. “She was planning, ‘Who’s going to be with me? Who’s staying the night? Have I eaten? Have I slept?’ — stuff like that.”
Now that she’s had some time to heal and process the news, Madix says she’s slowly starting to feel more like herself again. “It’s been a process to get there, and I know it’s not been very long, but it certainly feels like I’m coming out the other side and the trajectory is up,” she said. “I’m at a point now where I just feel like I’m amazing. And I don’t think I ever thought that was possible.”