Actor and television personality Valerie Bertinelli recently opened up about her emotional struggles via social media.
Taking to Instagram on Friday, the "One Day at a Time" star published a candid post addressing "some of the most emotionally excruciating eight months" of her life.
"And I still got my exhausted, sleepless ass up in the morning, put on a good face, and showed up, when all I wanted to do was stay in bed and sob," Bertinelli wrote. "This is not to say I feel sorry for myself because I don't."
After her divorce from Tom Vitale in 2022, Bertinelli started a relationship with writer Mike Goodnough in January 2024, though they ended things in November of the same year, according to Entertainment Weekly.
"Nobody has the market cornered on grief and heartache," Bertinelli wrote. "People go through hard [expletive] all the time. You just do what you have to do to get through what you have to get through."
Bertinelli, 65, shared the wisdom she gained.
"If I could give you anything of value from my experience it would be this: Don't let the challenging days make you forget how far you've actually come," she wrote. "No matter what, always believe in your core self. Do not allow the opinions of others or their experience with you color what you think of yourself. You did your best with what you knew at the time."
Concluding her post, Bertinelli urged her followers to learn to love themselves.
"And if/when we fall or get pushed down again, we can either wallow, navel-gaze and be a victim or we can get our [expletive] back up and live our big, beautiful life. Do that," she wrote.
In March, Bertinelli reached out to Goodnough on Instagram to wish him well, writing in a since-deleted post that he would "always hold a very special place" in her heart.
"I look at life with a different perspective and caring because of my experiences and conversations with him. And he's been a big part of helping me heal from some old childhood wounds I never knew what to do with, or even where to start," she wrote, according to Entertainment Weekly.
"We may no longer be a couple, but you'll always hold a very special place in my heart," she concluded. "Love you."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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