Savannah Chrisley Calls Brutal Boot Camp a ‘Gift’ That Gave Her ‘Time to Process’ Family Trauma (Exclusive)

Savannah Chrisley learned her limit on Monday’s episode Special forces: the toughest test in the world.

“I didn’t realize how emotionally difficult it would be,” he said Chrisley knows best alum, 26, tells PEOPLE about her decision to retire from boot camp-style competition. “The whole thing was hard, and the hardest thing was just being away from the kids.”

Chrisley took custody of her brother Grayson and niece Chloe after her parents Todd and Julie checked themselves into federal prison where they were originally sentenced to a combined 19 years for tax evasion and fraud. Their sentences have since been reduced.

“We’ve experienced so much loss in the last year and we don’t have mom and dad at home, we’ve created our own little safe place and we’re what we turn to,” says Chrisley. “When I was there, I got to the point where I wasn’t ready to be away from them.”

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Chrisley quit before the evening’s challenge, which involved the trust falling from an elevated platform into a lake. “I’m not going to do it,” she told one of the cast members on Monday’s episode. “I will not put myself in a situation where I know that I am not there mentally. And I just don’t want to get wet again.”

The reality star told PEOPLE that she “doesn’t feel good when she’s cold.”

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Earlier in the season, another challenge left her physically ill, and Chrisley jokes to PEOPLE, “Putting up on national TV, I said, ‘Dear God, you didn’t pay me enough for that.’

Despite leaving on the third day of the competition, Chrisley says she learned a lot from taking part in the Special forces.

“I think this experience came at the perfect time because I was just a mom, dad, sister, friend 24/7, and I didn’t get a break to myself,” she says. “And going into it, I said, ‘Okay, so I finally have five minutes to myself.’ It was such a gift because it gave me time to process some things that I had been putting off because I was so focused on the kids.”

Savannah Chrisley/ Instagram

Special forces Chrisley also showed something else about herself.

“I’ve always been such a perfectionist, and this whole experience has taught me that it’s okay to fail at certain things,” she says. “As long as you show up, sometimes that’s enough. You don’t have to be perfect.”

Chrisley would like to push through and move on Special forces “because I’m so competitive,” she says. “But at the same time I said, ‘OK, I’m ready to go home to the kids. I miss them so much.’ I was so worried about them and I was just ready to go home.”

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At the beginning of Monday’s episode, actor Brian Austin Green and former NBA star Robert Corry also voluntarily retired.

“Brian Austin Green, we hung out so much,” Chrisley says. “The cast was amazing and I’m grateful for that. I left with connections. We’re still texting. We are applying. If they are here, I am there. We’ll grab lunch or dinner, whatever. That made it all worth it.”

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Special forces: the toughest test in the world airs Mondays at 9pm ET on Fox.

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Source: HIS Education