Believe Me

by Yolanda Hadid

  One day while shooting an episode of Dutch Hollywood Women, I look in the mirror and notice that the right side of my face is drooping very slightly combined with a strange numbness and pressure in the area. I google these symptoms, and they seem like Bell’s palsy, a condition that causes facial paralysis, but I brush it off. Could this be from Botox? I should be fine in a couple of days. I massage my cheek trying to get blood flow to the area. This is just another example of my turning a blind eye to reality and trying to be a hard ass. Although “hardheaded” is more like it!

  Beginning in October, I notice that my once very strong and distinct handwriting looks like scribble, and anything I read no longer sticks in my formerly photographic memory. This is starting to upset me, because reading and writing are two things I’ve loved doing my whole life. Spiritual guidance and health books are always stacked on my bedside table and in my library, and writing has been a source of comfort and a way of expressing myself—especially through difficult times in my life.

  It is starting to be really hard to stay on task and focus on the smallest details for our upcoming November wedding, like the guest list and table settings, things that the old me could do in my sleep. I also notice that watching TV is getting harder because somehow the light bothers me and little things like soft music or noise at a restaurant become irritating. Yet I keep Piro’s words in the back of my mind. Maybe he is right. Maybe I burnt out my fuse. I am not sure how to deal with it, so I do my best to go to bed early and eat healthy. Sometimes, when I try to talk, I have difficulty with word retrieval. I can’t find the proper words to express what I feel. It’s subtle, but it’s starting to alarm me, so I call Dr. Piro again.

  “I know we discussed this, but I’m telling you, my brain isn’t working properly. I feel like I have an infection in it,” I say.

  “Hmmm. What do you mean?”

  “When I try to talk, the words are floating out there somewhere, but I can’t nail them,” I say. “It’s like I’m a computer and my browser is defective.”

  “Can you elaborate?” Dr. Piro asks. Of course, I can’t elaborate. My problem is trying to find the right words! A wave of frustration washes over me as I feel lost.

  “I’m scared that I’m losing my mind,” I say. Something is growing in my brain. I can feel it. “Plus, I have so many crazy symptoms, like joint pain, cramps in my toes and fingers, exhaustion, insomnia, and anxiety—all of it is overwhelming my entire system.”

  “You’re probably just pushing yourself too much,” says Dr. Piro. “But let’s get you in to see a top neurologist. I’ll make an appointment.”

  “I don’t see anything wrong with your brain,” the neurologist says kindly after doing an array of tests. Then she scribbles a prescription for Adderall, medicine for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

  “But you just said you don’t see anything,” I reply, feeling confused. Why give me medicine when nothing is wrong?

  “Well, maybe we just need to activate the part of the brain associated with focus. The medicine can help. Give it a try,” she urges.

  “I’m also giving you a prescription for antidepressants,” she says. Antidepressants?

  “I’m definitely not depressed,” I tell her.

  “Why do you say that?” she asks.

  “Because I’m happy and I know what depression feels like. I experienced it when I broke my back giving birth to my son twelve years ago. I had a double-fusion and the pain medication really affected my mood,” I say. “Back then I was definitely depressed. This doesn’t feel the same at all.”

  Still, I fill both prescriptions. Although they seem like one-size-fits-all solutions for my unique problem, I’m so desperate for an answer that I want to believe the neurologist. I don’t love the idea of taking medication, but I love that there is a solution. I was also raised to believe that doctors are like gods, all-knowing and brilliant, so you listen to what they say rather than question it. But taking the Adderall just makes me feel like I’m having a panic attack. My nervous system feels completely overwhelmed and overstimulated. For a typically Zen and balanced person like myself, this is horrible, so I stop taking it after two days. I stay on the antidepressants for several weeks, but they don’t help either.

  “Give them a little longer,” Dr. Piro says when I ask his advice. “They can take time to kick in.” I don’t know what is wrong with me, but Adderall and antidepressants aren’t the answer. I wean off the antidepressants and continue to see different doctors.

  Besides some food allergies and heavy metal toxicity, there is no concrete explanation for how and what I’m feeling. Every doctor I see seems to focus on my symptoms instead of their underlying cause. I have one hundred reasons to be grateful, so I motivate myself through the motions of my life and fake my well-being. I put a smile on my face for my children and make sure David has his coffee in the morning and the candles are burning in our home by evening. I always have food on the table for our six o’clock family dinners, a ritual that I was raised with and am determined to maintain. It’s a sacred time to talk and connect with my children after everyone’s busy days out in the world. My life feels uncertain, but I want to make sure that my kids’ and David’s lives keep humming along perfectly.

  I do this with the help of Alberto and Blanca, an amazing couple who worked with me in Santa Barbara for five years before they moved with us to Malibu. Because they originally worked for our good friends, the Davis family, and our children played together, Alberto and Blanca have known Gigi, Bella, and Anwar since they were born. They saw me in action as a single mom and know how I run my children’s lives like clockwork. Alberto and Blanca are part of our family, and there is a great trust between us. I am so grateful to have them by my side.

  With our wedding coming up, David and I are training hard to get into top shape. We work out with a personal trainer, Dale, who comes to the house and cracks the whip three days a week. I have always loved living a healthy and sporty lifestyle and really enjoy inspiring David to get fit, too. Not long ago, intense workouts of burpees, jumping jacks, stair running, treadmill sprints, and push-ups made me feel invigorated, but lately my energy to exercise has seriously declined. A couple of weeks before the wedding, we’re in the gym, and as I am mid-push-up a profound and paralyzing wave of exhaustion comes over me and I drop to the floor.

  Not sure what happened to me, but I can’t do this one more minute. Not even one more second.

  “I’m done,” I say.

  Dale and David exchange puzzled looks. “What happened to our ball-buster athlete?” they joke.

  “I don’t know. I just can’t do it anymore. I’m exhausted.” At that moment, I stop working out. I cannot ignore my body one minute longer.

  Although this is the first memorable moment of realization, the one that breaks my heart involves my son, Anwar, who is now twelve years old. Ever since he was a little boy, we’ve had a nightly ritual of lying on his bed before he goes to sleep to talk about his day while I scratch his back. But before that, we play a game where I sit on top of him, lock his arms under my knees, and tickle him endlessly while he squeals with delight.

  “Who do you love the most in the world? Who? Who?” I say while Anwar laughs those deep, wonderful belly laughs that are only reserved for children. If he says anyone else’s name than mine, which he does on purpose, I tickle harder. Then finally, breathless from all the laughing and wrestling around, he says, “My mommy. My mommy. I love my mommy the most.” This is the sign for me to stop tickling, and we both collapse on the bed laughing with joy. But one night that laughter abruptly ends. Bedtime starts like always, with Anwar brushing his teeth, putting on his pajamas, and calling me into his room. I shuffle slowly down the hall to him.

  “Let’s play our game, Mommy,” Anwar says excitedly. “Let’s play!” But my exhaustion is so severe that I don’t have an ounce of energy. Something as simple as the effort required to sit and tickle my sweet boy overwhelms me. This silly game tha
t requires so little of me is too much. I’m devastated.

  “Tomorrow night we’ll play. Okay, my love? Tomorrow,” I say, trying to hide the knot in my throat. I walk out of his room so he won’t see the tears filling my eyes, then get into bed and pull the covers over my head. The next night, Anwar asks to play again, but I still can’t muster the energy. The same thing happens the next night and the next and all the nights after that until eventually Anwar stops asking. These childhood games and special moments with our children fly by so fast. And now this one is over. The thought breaks my heart.

  It’s the night before our wedding, and I’m supposed to finalize the seating chart. All I need to do is put cards with the guests’ names around drawings of the tables. Organizing has always been my strength, and previously I’d just do it in my head, type it out, and be done. But in this moment, this simple task is impossible. I am overwhelmed. It feels like the lightbulb in my brain has turned off.

  “Please help me,” I ask my sister-in-law, Liseth. She calmly sits me down and tells me I need to take a deep breath and leave it in her hands, which I do. My brother, Leo, opens a bottle of wine and we sit in front of the fireplace with the whole Dutch crew and laugh as we share childhood memories.

  On the day of the wedding, 11-11-11, the adrenaline of getting married and having my entire family here from Holland gets me through. I do a good job of holding it together and enjoying it the best that I can. After all, it’s an extraordinary day filled with love and many special moments shared with ninety of the most important people in our lives.

  That night, when we finally get back to our room, I’m thoroughly exhausted and every inch of my body hurts. I tell myself it’s from carrying my beautiful hundred-pound beaded wedding gown around all night, but as the days pass after the wedding, my body feels worse, not better.

  Chapter Two

  SOME PEOPLE ARE MADE WHEN THEY ARE BROKEN.

  As the year ends and 2012 begins, my condition has declined gradually and life becomes a roller coaster of good and bad days. Determined to figure out what is wrong with me, I continue to go to different doctors but their basic diagnostic testing shows absolutely nothing. No answers. It’s mind-boggling because I know something is really wrong as I have experienced declining brain function and am now starting to lose the ability to be social. I used to like being at parties and could speak to dozens of people at the same time, but even the smallest gatherings feel like too much. The moments of brain fog continue to catch me off guard. Like at an event for one of the many charities that David supports when a petite, dark-haired woman walks over to me. She smiles warmly and gives me a double kiss.

  “Yolanda, darling. How are you?” she says with a clear sense of familiarity.

  “Good. Good,” I say, faking a smile. I know her face, but for the life of me I can’t remember her name.

  “And the kids?” she asks.

  “Busy, but great,” I respond, unclear what else to say or what to ask her. I don’t want to give away the fact that all details about her totally escape me. I know that we have socialized with her and other people here many times. This happens throughout the night and it becomes more frequent at other social events we attend. I used to have the memory of an elephant. What happened? I also can’t even remember the telephone numbers that have been ingrained in my brain for years. It’s worrisome but I don’t really know who to turn to.

  Even though I still wake up for my kids every morning and see them off to school, it becomes harder and harder to participate in their after-school lives the way I used to. Both Gigi, age seventeen, and Bella, sixteen, are competitive horseback riders with jam-packed show schedules that keep them busy every day after school and on weekends. Gigi’s horse is still at Sunny Brook in Montecito so she drives back there after school to practice and Bella has moved her horse to Far West in Calabassas. We’ve been at horse shows for fourteen years and I’ve never missed one in their lives, but now, sadly, I rarely have the energy to attend. Luckily, we have built a big horse show family over the years and the girls are well supported. Still, I carry great guilt for not being able to be there. I still drag myself to Anwar’s basketball games because his school is only ten minutes away from the house. I am starting to feel inadequate and struggle with the inability to do me.

  Until this time, I have been the anchor and the sole engine of our family, always a strong force juggling my children’s lives and planning their futures. I used to love doing art projects with them and helping with homework, but this is getting difficult, not only because of my brain issues but also because, when it comes to school stuff, my kids are much smarter than I am. Gigi is a high school junior and very driven, but she needs help with college applications and test prep. A friend introduces her to Nicholas Lindsey from Malibu Tutors. This prestigious young man is a godsend for me and saves the academic side of my family. I honestly don’t know what I would do without his help and guidance during this college prep stage.

  That same year, Bella goes from being a vibrant, funny, energetic, and outgoing child to a quiet, anxiety-driven teenager with intense symptoms such as severe pain along her spine, extreme fatigue, and difficulty focusing on school work. She is often really sad because she doesn’t have the energy to join her friends in activities. At first, I blame all of this on puberty and hormonal changes. Don’t all teenagers have some of these symptoms at one point? Well, maybe not, so I take her to the doctor for checkups and her basic blood tests show that she is healthy. Something doesn’t sit right with me so a couple of weeks later, I take her to the doctor again. This time we discover that she has mononucleosis, which has been going around her high school. Rest and a healthy diet is about all you can do to treat this but she continues to have other symptoms that can’t be attributed to mono, and it’s harder and harder for her to focus in class. This is upsetting and frustrating to Bella, and, as her mother, it’s heartbreaking to see my baby girl struggle. Even though I don’t know exactly what the issue is or how to fix it, in my heart I know she needs my support. I think that taking away the physical and academic pressure of eight-hour school days will help so I decide to have her homeschooled for the rest of the year. It’s a big decision that definitely feels right to me, but Mohamed and David are totally against the idea. They think Bella is just being lazy and looking for an easy way out. But neither one of them is raising her day to day so they don’t truly understand what she is experiencing. It’s in these moments of motherhood that I learn to trust my own instincts about my child and not let outside noise influence me. I believe that taking Bella out of a traditional and high-pressure learning environment will not only be less stressful for her failing health but also will give her more time to spend with her horses. She loves being at the barn. It’s her happy place and she has always wanted to become a professional rider. It’s very normal for kids with this goal to be homeschooled and focus the majority of their time on training. I hire Nicholas to guide her, and she works hard to impress her dad with straight As.

  During this time, I finish filming Dutch Hollywood Women after season two and am approached about being on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

  “I’m not sure that it’s right for me,” I tell David when we discuss the opportunity.

  “First get the job and then decide if you want it or not,” he says. He’s right, so I go through a long casting process.

  “Congratulations,” says Alex Baskin, one of the producers, when he calls to offer me the job.

  “I’m thinking about it,” I respond. “When do you need to know?”

  “Look at joining the cast from a business perspective,” he says, aware that I’m creating a product line based on love and romance that includes candles, greeting cards, and a unique flower service. Somehow I’ve always been fascinated by love and romance and how it can ebb and flow in a long-term relationship. Why is the divorce rate so high? I think these products can help rekindle the falling-in-love stages if both parties make the effort. “Many of the hou
sewives have used their platforms to launch successful businesses and succeeded because of the show.”

  “What do you think?” I ask David that night at dinner.

  “I’m hesitant, but it’s a great way for you to promote your line and remain financially independent,” he says. I married David for love and not to be taken care of. He’s been married three times, so I understand his sensitivity around finances. Of course, he doesn’t want to provide for my children. That’s Mohamed’s job and my job and exactly the reason why I am very driven to keep working.

  “Gigi, Bella, and Anwar,” I say. “Please come down to the breakfast table.” We gather around and discuss this opportunity. It’s important for me to ask the kids what they think. Although they’re not thrilled about the thought of having cameras in our home, they understand my motive and say they’ll support whatever choice I make. In the end, my decision to be on the show is a family-based one. I call Alex the next day and say yes to joining the Housewives and agree to sign a four-season contract.

  When I begin filming around March, I have no clue about the vortex of drama I’m about to step into. I am asked to watch the previous seasons of the Housewives to get up to date on the story line but I choose not to. I want to meet each woman in an authentic way and form my own impressions, not come with preconceived ideas of who I think they might be from what I see on the screen. Looking back, this is a mistake, because it takes me a long time to catch up in real life. As Lisa Vanderpump said, “You wouldn’t make a reservation at a hotel before you look at the pictures of it, would you?” Lesson learned! The dynamics in this group of women are challenging because they have a lot of history that doesn’t include me. I’ve met Lisa two or three times at Mohamed’s house, but I’m not actually friends with any of the women. Interestingly, none of them really care about interacting with me off camera. This will change. We just need to get to know each other. I’m stunned when I learn how argumentative they are and feel as if I’ve been thrown into the shark tank and forced to swim. Usually, I can hold my own, but I feel off balance and obviously am not functioning at full capacity.