Teddi Mellencamp is getting candid about her mental health as she continues her cancer journey.
“What a difference 4 months makes,” the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum, 43, captioned side-by-side photos of her long blonde hair before her cancer treatment and her shaved head after beginning treatment earlier this year.
“Sometimes I am so focused on ‘being strong’ that I forget I am allowed to be sad, cry it out, and feel very alone,” Mellencamp wrote alongside the post, shared via Instagram on Thursday, April 10. “I love my kids, friends, and family so much and am forever grateful to them, but dang, today is one of those days.”
“If you are having a day where you can’t wait for it to be bedtime so you can start over tomorrow leave me a ❤️ We are not alone,” she concluded, asking her followers for Netflix and Hulu recommendations.
Mellencamp first revealed in February that she was being treated for multiple brain tumors. She underwent surgery and had radiation treatment. In late March, doctors found four more tumors on her brain.
“I’m fighting for my life,” she told Us Weekly exclusively in our recent cover story, “But also for my family’s life and all the people I love.”
“This is definitely the hardest thing [I’ve faced in my life], but now it feels less hard,” Mellencamp added. “When I was in the ICU, it was incredibly difficult because I had no memory. One day, I realized it was my daughter’s birthday, and I couldn’t be there for it; it was really sad. It’s still sad when I can’t be there for my kids the way I’d normally be.”
The former RHOBH star recently opened up about how her sex life has changed since her treatment began on the Wednesday, April 9, episode of iHeartRadio’s “Diamonds in the Rough” podcast, which she cohosts with Erika Jayne.
“After going through all of this, they’ve changed my medication, I have a sex drive. It’s really hard for me,” Mellencamp said. “Not to TMI, but I even tried myself, and I was like, ‘This is f***ing exhausting. This is exhausting.’”
She continued, “I tried it the night before last, and I was like, ‘Well, I can’t do this again.’ I achieved, but I had to achieve it in a way that wasn’t the way it was set up to achieve.”
The discussion came while the two Bravo stars were discussing the FX drama Dying for Sex. In it, Molly (Michelle Williams) is diagnosed with terminal cancer and leaves her husband to explore her sexuality before she dies.
The show led Mellencamp and Jayne, 53, to go deeper into a discussion about how one’s sex life can evolve throughout marriage and aging. Mellencamp said that after a while, sex between the same two partners can become “procedural.”
“If you don’t speak up for what it is that you want or what it is that you’re looking for, most likely your partner is going to do it wrong,” she explained. “And not just sex, but, like, intimacy or comfort.”
