Savannah Chrisley Opens Up About Mental Health and Past Suicide Attempt

etonline.com:

Savannah Chrisley is getting candid about her struggle with mental health issues, and how being the star of a reality TV show impacted her health journey.Savannah recently sat down with mental health advocate Patrick Custer for a new episode of her podcast, and she reflected on the toll her role on took on her and her family due to their sudden fame.«It really was, in a way, an acting gig.

We knew we had to show up, we had to be funny, that's what we did,» Savannah, 25, explained. «When we started… it was pitched to us that it would be a reality show.

And then it quickly changed. I think people, production companies, networks, took advantage of my dad's ability to approach a situation with humor.»«They took advantage of that to the point to where he always had to be funny.

Every situation had to be approached with humor,» she said of her father, Todd Chrisley. «He's used his humor to cope with a lot of things throughout his life.»Savannah said her dad has undergone «a lot of therapy» in recent years to learn how to openly discuss things instead of deflect with jokes and humor, and that she's had to seek help for her own issues — largely to do self-image problems.«Growing up the way that I grew up and how everything was this picture-perfect image and I had an older brother who struggled with mental illness, addiction, all of those things, and then I was on TV at 16 and I was being told what I needed to look like, what I needed to be,» she recalled. «It was like it created two [versions] of me.