Leah McSweeney 'Healed Some Wounds' on 'RHONY' and Now She's Ready for Her Next Chapter (Exclusive)

etonline.com:

Leah McSweeney calls her experience on  «karmic destiny.» «I mean, I was so triggered so much of the time,» she tells ET of her two seasons on the Bravo hit. «I'm like, 'I'm 13 years old again on the Upper East Side, feeling weird.' That's what it was like.»«I think I did get to heal some wounds there, I really did,» she adds, reflecting on the parallels between her time with the women of  and her childhood spent in Manhattan's private schools.

An independent misfit, Leah's spent much of her life seeking out (and often struggling to find) community in the strangest of places.

It's the subconscious reason why she likely said «yes» to  in the first place; the show was another «why not?» moment for the 39-year-old unconventional entrepreneur, many of which she unpacks in her new memoir, ."[The book] opened me up," she says. «Having to relive my expulsion from [my school] Sacred Heart, my drug addled years in Connecticut, torturing my poor family and having them throw me out, and having to make my way on my own to then creating [my brand, Married to the Mob], having [my daughter] Kiki, still struggling with alcohol… I forgot how much I had been through, and it broke me down writing the book.

I've had to build myself back up, but it's great because once you break, you can build yourself back more beautifully.»«The book helped break me, in a good way,» she adds. «I think that I often take for granted that I didn't die during those years.