At a Glance
- Tish Cyrus endured a 30-day period where she could not eat, sleep, or function after her mother died and her marriage collapsed
- She self-medicated with marijuana to numb the pain, then faced full-blown anxiety when she quit
- Therapy and her 2023 marriage to Dominic Purcell provided the safety needed to confront the trauma
- Why it matters: Her story spotlights how untreated grief and divorce can trigger severe, lasting mental-health crises
Tish Cyrus has detailed how the back-to-back losses of her mother and 28-year marriage triggered a month-long psychiatric breakdown that left her unable to eat, sleep, or “come out of my skin.”
The Double Tragedy
Speaking on the Jan. 14 episode of The Squeeze podcast with Tay Lautner, Cyrus traced the collapse to 2020, when her mother Loretta “Mammie” Finley died at 85 “during COVID.” The family has never disclosed Mammie’s cause of death.
- Mammie lived beside Cyrus’s home while Miley Cyrus filmed Hannah Montana from 2006-2011
- She accompanied Miley to set and was, in Cyrus’s words, “a massive part of our lives”
- “When she passed, not long after that, my marriage started falling apart,” Cyrus said
The Breakdown
Cyrus filed for divorce from Billy Ray Cyrus in April 2022 after 28 years of marriage. She told News Of Los Angeles in 2024 she was “literally terrified” to leave.
> “I thought I was going to be alone forever. And that was one of the times that I had the crippling breakdown of anxiety. I joke about it and say I had a complete psychological breakdown. There were 30 days where I was not eating, sleeping, just felt like I was just coming out of my skin. And it was really scary.”
She described the period to Lautner as “freaking rough … it was the roughest thing I’ve ever gone through.”
Self-Medication and Aftermath
Cyrus admitted she “was a major weed smoker” and used marijuana as “plant medicine” to numb the twin losses.
- “I think that I probably during the time I lost my mom and my marriage fell apart, that was like self-medicating in some ways, and I didn’t even realize that I was doing it for that reason”
- When she quit, anxiety hit full force: “I am just in full-on anxiety to the point, [of] like, not functioning. And I did not know what was happening”
Turning Point
Therapy and her 2023 marriage to Dominic Purcell created the stability needed to confront the trauma.
- Miley gave her The Body Keeps the Score, which explained how unprocessed grief stores itself physically
- “It was so safe … just no drama … I think it gave me this place to stand still and, like, feel all these feelings,” she said of her new marriage
- Still, she emphasized, “there was no less suffering for me … I was not functioning for that year – I was just trying to survive”
Ongoing Battle
Cyrus now considers herself “completely on the other side,” yet still faces bouts of anxiety.
> “This morning, I was really anxious – and about nothing really. But I’m learning to control it.”
Her experience has pushed her toward mental-health advocacy.
- “I want to get involved more” with organizations tackling mental-health issues
- “The worst part of it is you feel so alone. You feel like you’re the only person in the world dealing with it”
- “Hearing other people is so – it’s probably the most helpful thing”
Key Takeaways
- Sequential trauma – losing her mother followed by divorce – left Tish Cyrus in a non-functional, anxiety-ridden state for months
- Self-medicating with marijuana delayed the emotional reckoning until she quit
- Therapy, a stable new marriage, and peer stories provided the tools for recovery
- Cyrus now uses her platform to reassure others they are not alone in severe anxiety
