"I'm happy," she told People during the RHOC Season 11 premiere party in Los Angeles on Thursday. "It's been almost a year since Brooks [Ayers] and I broke up, and a lot can happen in a year. I'm trying to mend my heart. I got my heart broken, but it was in God's timing you know I just believe that what is to be is to be, and it wasn't meant to be, so I'm at this new place and I'm happy. I'm really fortunate to have good people in my life right now. Really good people."
Last season featured Ayers' controversial cancer diagnosis following his statement in November where he admitted to fabricating medical records to make it appear that he had been a patient at cancer hospital City of Hope.
After the whole ordeal with Ayers, the reality star felt as if there was a target on her back when she returned for the new season.
"When I was going through that I would have expected compassion, hugs, 'Whatever you're going through, Vic we're here for you. We love you,'" Gunvalson explained. "If that happened to them, one of their husbands or boyfriends was lying to them or not telling them the truth, I wouldn't get mad at them, I'd get mad at the person not them. So, it really was confusing to me and I was in a really dark place for a long time. I'm out of it. I'm good."
"It took a lot of prayer, a lot of good friends that would be there for me that really said, 'You know what you're going to get through this. This is just a life lesson. It's a bump in the road. In the big picture life, nobody died,'" she added with a laugh. "I mean, what is everybody so worried about? It's my life. But we got through it. We're good now. It was hard. It was hard."
The reality star did admit that it's never going to be the same within the group.
"I don't think we're ever going to get through what I went through with them and what they went through with me last year, and be 100 percent okay," she said. "But I'm okay with it. I'm really okay with it and they're going to think what they want to think, and I'm going to think about them what I want to think, and I hope everyone's good and happy, and we work together basically. You know we are friends, and I am not in their business the way that they were in mine. I really don't care. They care a lot. I always think this, 'If they're not talking about you. You got something to worry about.' So they're talking about me, so I'm okay with it."
Gunvalson admits that during that time was hard for her, in especially when her mother suddenly passed away.
"I just had a lot of losses last year," she said. "A lot of betrayal. Brooks betrayed me. The girls betrayed me. My mom left me. It was like, Who's left?"
"I've cried more being on reality TV than I have my whole life, and I'm 54 years old so it's not easy," she added. "You got to really be tough and you got to take punches, but I've chosen not to read social media. I have a publicist that helps me, and he'll send me a lot of positive things, and I said, 'Don't show me any negative because if I read negative things I will then start thinking that about me or my circumstance.'"
The OG of the OC has moved on from last years ordeal and is focusing on her new relationship with Steve Chavez and making sure she doesn't let her daughter down by messing it up.
"Briana loves Steve," she said. "She's really happy. She says, 'Mom don't mess this up.' And I'm like, 'Okay! I won't. I'll try not to!'"
Photo Credit: Bravo