“My biggest problem is working through trauma that I had in my life,” the RHOC star tearfully shared with her Two Ts in a Pod cohost, Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave.
update at 3:30pm PT on 10/15/24
After getting backlash for revealing she’s “on the spectrum,” Judge took to Instagram to post a lengthy statement explaining why she shared her diagnosis. Read it in full below.
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Tamra Judge is opening up about her mental health.
On the latest episode of her and Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave’s Two Ts in a Pod podcast, The Real Housewives of Orange County star emotionally revealed that she was diagnosed as being “on the spectrum.”
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“I just did my first therapy session … Let’s just say I found out something pretty big about myself that I didn’t know,” Tamra, 57, told Teddi, 43, who replied, “Now I need to know. Like, what?”
“I am on the spectrum,” Tamra added.
“Oh my gosh, Tam,” Teddi said, to which Tamra replied, “Don’t make me cry.”
“On the spectrum” means that someone has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder or has some form of autism.
The National Institute of Mental Health defines autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as a “neurological and developmental disorder that affects how people interact with others, communicate, learn, and behave.”
The reality star became emotional as discussed her diagnosis, before sharing how some of her past experiences appear to match up with symptoms of autism.
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“My biggest problem is working through trauma that I had in my life,” she said tearfully. “I have a really hard time processing stuff. I have a lot of sensory issues sound, light, touch. But she says that’s not my biggest problem. My biggest problem is working through trauma that I had in my life.”
“I just thought that things were black and white to me that, you know, I grew up with a family that didn’t have a lot of empathy or love or whatever, so that just transpired that onto, you know, my adult life,” she continued.
“But after talking and going through everything and my emotions, and I have a hard time with empathy and feeling other people’s feelings … there’s a reason why,” Tamra said, adding to Teddi that she’d “share” it with her cohost when they weren’t recording.
The Bravo star added that she had yet to tell her husband, Eddie Judge, about her diagnosis, alluding that she had just received the news.
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Teddi voiced her support for her cohost, telling her that it’s “huge” that Tamra now has this “information” about herself and her behaviors.
“It’s not a bad thing,” she assured. “You can continue using this to elevate yourself in such a positive way.”
The ex-RHOBH star — who shared that she has family members with similar struggles — stressed that she wanted Tamra to remember that how much “you are loved.”
Tamra went on to share that there are going to now be “a lot of huge changes” in her life.
“[My therapist] asked me, ‘You have really bad social anxiety, and you are very much like, I just wanna be at home’ … And it’s because the anxiety that I have when I talk to people and how I make it through the show is drinking,” she said through tears. “And all [this] suppressed s–t that’s going on within me comes out when I drink because my guard is down.”
“I just learned so much stuff, the reason why — I don’t want to say the reason why because it brings in another person — but I see things very black and white and when somebody’s wrong, I need to expose them. I need to,” Tamra continued. “It’s like something inside of me just has to, ‘You’re lying. You’re horrible,’ because I am a brutally honest person.”
“And honestly, it has to do with not having control in my previous marriage,” she added.
Tamra was previously married to Darren Vieth — with whom she welcomed her son Ryan — from 1985 to 1990, and Simon Barney — with whom she shares Sidney, 24, Spencer, 23, and Sophia, 18, — from 1998 to 2011. She and Eddie tied the knot in 2013.
