Big Brother season 19 houseguest Megan Lowder made the decision to leave the game early because it triggered her post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms from her time in the Navy.
“When I was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, I was sexually assaulted and I got really bad PTSD from it,” Lowder, 28, told The Desert Sun on Friday, June 30. “So in the house… I had a lot of guys yelling at me and attacking me and it started really affecting me and making my anxiety severe and I was starting to get physically ill. I was throwing up, I had diarrhea, I was nauseous all the time.”
On the Thursday, June 29, episode, which was the second part of the CBS reality series’ two-night premiere, Lowder was verbally attacked by fellow houseguest Josh Martinez during the Head of Household competition. He called her a “snake and a bully.” Martinez, 23, apologized later in the episode.
Lowder, who accepted Martinez’s apology, was caught off guard by the outburst. “I have no idea still to this day, [I] do not know why he went after me like that,” she told the newspaper before noting that Head of Household Cody Nickson also attacked her when he nominated her for elimination.
“I knew I couldn’t handle it anymore and I went into the diary room where I started having a panic attack,” the dog walker told The Desert Sun. “They wound up taking me to the hospital a couple hours later.”
Lowder told the paper that she was hospitalized for a few days before she returned home to Cathedral City, California, to be with her family. “I was expecting to have one of the funnest summers of my life,” she said. “I did have fun. I had a great time until all that just got the best of me.”
Big Brother airs on CBS Sundays and Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET, and Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET.
