Resilience: Starting Over
- Chef and lifestyle expert Sandra Lee, 58, is recalling the moment she knew her 14-year relationship with former New York City governor Andrew Cuomo, 66, was finished forever.
- The breast cancer survivor, who was diagnosed with the disease in 2015, four years before her break up with the controversial politician, says she is still healing from the “heartbreak” of the “most challenging decade of her life.”
- Whether you are going through a cancer journey or a challenge in your life taking time to focus on yourself can be a process. And there are a number of different paths people might take to help them cope, such as traditional therapy, support groups, meditation, and sometimes medical intervention.
“I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will never get over the heartbreak of loss of the last 10 years,” the former Semi-Homemade host shared with Us Weekly in a new cover interview. “The grief has been endless but I will use it to fuel and feed me and make me wiser and stronger.”
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A spokesperson for Cuomo, who said that Cuomo did not see her during the time period of the incident mentioned, shared a statement with the magazine about the overall time spent with Lee:
“Governor Cuomo has always been totally supportive of Sandra through good times and bad. She partnered with him, spent time with [his] girls, and handled functions as first lady very well. Sandra and the Governor had separate and busy lives and grew apart over time.”
The statement continued: “Breakups are always difficult and there are always two sides of the story, but the Governor chooses to focus on the positive and he wishes her nothing but success and happiness in the years ahead.”
Purging Her Pain
In 2023, Lee’s uncle became terminally ill and she wound up going out to Los Angeles to take care of him. She remembers getting violently ill from all the aftermath. “I went into the bathroom and just started throwing up,” she said.”I think that was my body just purging that five years of time. Actually, that had to be the lowest point of my life, leaning over a toilet, vomiting from sadness and grief.”
Around the same time, a public scandal involving Cuomo broke in the media (he has denied allegations) and it was simply too much for her. Lee even lost work due to the level of scrutiny.
“When I got sick, I was so stressed out and overwhelmed that when the Food Network canceled me, I didn’t have the energy to fight them.”
A Fresh Start After Health and Relationship Suffering
Now, after spending years of time processing those feelings and purging her pain, the resilient Lee has actively regained control of her career and love life.
The Santa Monica, Calif. native has a new TV project, Blue Ribbon Baking Championship, and is overjoyed with her boyfriend (now fiancé) of three years Ben Youcef, 45, an Algerian actor and director.
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“Loving makes life worth living,” Lee shared as a final comment in her Us interview.
Healing And Focusing On Yourself
For Lee and for many in the SurvivorNet community putting yourself first is not easy, but an important step in achieving better mental health.
Whether you are going through a cancer journey or a challenge in your life taking time to focus on yourself can be a process. There are a number of different paths people might take to help them cope, such as traditional therapy, support groups, meditation, and sometimes medical intervention such as antidepressants. And when going down these different paths it’s important to make sure the mechanisms you have to care for your mental health continue to work throughout the process.
“I think flexibility is really a core of how to manage it,” Dr. Samantha Boardman, a New York-based psychiatrist and author, tells SurvivorNet. “Are your coping strategies that you’re using now, are they helpful in the way that they were in the past?”
How to Be Realistically Optimistic: Coping With Mental Health Long-Term
Dr. Boardman encourages people who may be struggling with their mental wellbeing to “take stock of their belief system” and ask themselves the following questions:
- Could these beliefs be harming me (like feelings of self-doubt or negativity)?
- Is my mindset holding me back from positive steps forward?
- Dr. Boardman suggests working to recognize any negative thoughts that may be making the process of cancer treatment more difficult, and trying to dismantle those to be more “realistically optimistic.”
Don’t Be Afraid To Reach Out For Help
We all want to think we can do things by ourselves without the help of others. But acknowledging when you do need help and asking for it can prove to be an even harder task.
“Some people don’t need to go outside of their family and friends circle. They feel like they have enough support there,” New York-based board certified psychiatrist Dr. Lori Plutchik tells SurvivorNet. “But for people who feel like they need a little bit more, it is important to reach out to a mental health professional.”
In this video, Dr. Plutchik is speaking mostly about how to get support after a cancer diagnosis. However, the conclusion remains the same, no matter what you may be dealing with, you are entitled to ask for help and to seek out all mental health resources.
SurvivorNetTV’s series SN&You features survivors who share how they handle their mental health and cope with their emotions after undergoing cancer treatment.
SN & You Presents Mental Health: Coping With Emotions
“People that are strong cry, it’s the weak ones who try to hold it in,” says Evelyn Reyes-Beato, a colon cancer survivor.
In this episode, you’ll hear several women, all of whom are cancer survivors, talk about their experiences dealing with cancer and navigating life after a diagnosis.
Many of these women get very emotional about what they have gone through. It just goes to show that crying and being open with your emotions is part of the healing process.
Sandra’s Breast Cancer Journey
Lee was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer in 2015. Cuomo was the first person she called, along with her mother. Luckily it was early stage DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ), which is noninvasive. This means it had not spread outside the milk duct of the breast.
Still, the TV personality chose to have a bilateral mastectomy to remove the breast tissue in both breasts. Lee’s grandmother had had stomach cancer, and having witnessed her recurrence, she didn’t want to face the same fate or be plagued with worry.
Plus, with the mastectomy she didn’t have to do radiation or chemotherapy. (It is important to note that the Lee also tested negative for BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic mutations that increase your risk of breast cancer.)
“The doctor who did the biopsy said I had medium-aggressive DCIS. ‘The concern with yours is that it’s in 3 different places. It’s at 10 o’clock, it’s at noon, and it’s at 2, and none of them are connected, so we’re going to keep an eye on you, but you’re going to have to make a decision as to what we should do,’” Lee explained, also sharing the feeling of “betrayal” by her own body.
“It takes away a form of innocence that you didn’t even know you had,” she said in 2018 on Good Morning America. “That innocence, when it’s gone, is really startling, and that is what still brings the tears after the fact.”
“For the most part I’m really resilient, but there are times even now that I get really overwhelmed with what happened,” she added.
When Should You Consider a Mastectomy?
Lee previously shared in an Instagram post that she meant to have her hysterectomy after her mastectomy years ago, but she “had repeatedly put it off and then Covid hit.” It was probably for the best, since she was already going through enough when she had her breasts removed.
The TV chef had complications with her surgery and unfortunately had an infection. She finally finished her breast reconstruction in 2020 and set an intention to get as healthy as possible and take control of her physical and emotional well-being, which she undeniably has.
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
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