Jennette McCurdy on Reclaiming Her Voice

as the person around her can't meet her standards. Growing up in that religion, there's a lot of inherent guilt to the culture, sexual guilt and just kind of almost a guilt for existing, challenges build character. I could afford less character.

Like, I need to be resilient. I can afford less character. Let's go, baby. I feel these interviews just, it's so serendipitous. Like, everything that you are saying is feeding directly into my soul.

Welcome to How To Fail. The podcast that believes all failure is a portal to self-discovery.

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That's 15% off at one skin.co with code fail. After you purchase, I'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show, and tell them we sent you. Jeanette McCurdy's novel "Half His Age" tells the story of a 17-year-old girl called Waldo, embarking on an affair with Mr. Corgi, her 40-year-old creative writing teacher.

It is an astonishing book, partly because of its empathetic refusal to judges protagonists, but also because, in her observation of adolescent female anger and insecurity,

McCurdy takes Waldo on a journey through her discomfort to a place of powerful agency

and self-determination. In McCurdy's hands, rage transmutes into power. It's an impressive feat for a debut novelist and unsurprising that the book has been a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, becoming a Sunday Times number one bestseller in its first week of publication. But McCurdy did not start out as a writer. Growing up moremen in Orange County, California, McCurdy was six when her mother decided her only daughter would become an actor.

Soon, she was supporting her mother and three brothers full-time through work. It was a difficult and abusive upbringing. A story told with unflinching honesty in her 2022 memoir "I'm glad my mom died," which spent more than 90 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Writing, she says, "has been such a profound source of identity for me. It's been the place where I have found myself."

Jeanette McCurdy, welcome to How To Fail. Thank you for having me. What a beautiful intro. "I'm so honored to have you and thank you so much for the gift of your words. You have this rare ability to be courageous enough to tell the truth and to help readers see themselves and their

What's so easy that the courage to tell the truth because I feel that it is honestly something that people say a lot about my writing and I've kind of been thinking about that recently. We're like 90% of my thoughts or things that you really shouldn't say out loud and any sort of social setting or capacity. And yet writing them down, they're then sort of hailed as like so brave, where if I'd just were to say the same things at a dinner, the forks would stop. Everyone would

look at me and be like, "Okay, no, that's not what we say here." Yet, you know, in writing it's sort of not only allowed but really, really reward it and it's just interesting. It's so interesting. And I wonder if that truthfulness has felt like such a liberation for you, because I mean, as many women do, we've set up been raised so many of us to please others and to be nice. Yes, 100% be accommodating at the expense of your own feelings. Make everybody else in the room

“feel okay. Who cares how you're feeling. Just all you have to do is be there for everybody else.”

Show up for everybody else, get them to feel the way that they need to feel. I'm really sick of that. I think it's time that women start speaking out for ourselves in any capacity, not worrying about, you know, we're told, "Oh, don't be difficult. Don't be too much and, you know, you want to get ahead." So, but it's really actually counterproductive and I think this messaging keeps us down. I think often times a woman is perceived as difficult as the person around

her, can't meet her standards. What has been the most surprising thing for you about the reception

to half his age? To be totally honest, the amazing critical response. I really, really

don't know how to jinx it. But I thought there would be a lot of pushback. I guess just because of the success of the memoir, I thought there would be kind of a real, you know, kind of arms cross skepticism and kind of a, like, okay, little girl, let's see what she got, kind of snarky attitude, and that hasn't been the case at all, and it's, I stay away from reviews, but people send me nice stuff. So, that's been, you know, seeing reviews in the New York Times and the Atlantic and,

you know, Sunday Times and all these places where it's really, my work is being respected and appreciated has been, like, beyond meaningful to me. I want to sit here and go, "Oh, reviews don't matter," and, you know, and I definitely don't write from that. I'm never writing going, what are the reviews going to say? That would be disastrous. But just to feel that the work is

understood is ultimately meaningful, it does mean something to me. I am getting those articles framed,

like, yeah, that's the, that's the, that's the reality. You really deserve it. There's no seamless link to this next question, but you grew up warm. Go for it. I wanted to talk about warmness, um, because

“the bricks have a long-standing fascination with warmness. Really? Well, we don't really get it, okay?”

I thought the play is going here. The play is going, yeah, Book of Mormon has, you know, huge it, because we want it to understand more. And yes, I feel like Mormonism is having such a cultural moment in the most unexpected way. Like the real secret lies of Mormon wise. I've heard about this. I haven't seen it, but is this, so this is something, it's here as well. Okay, okay. That's here as well. It's not on TikTok or something, or exactly. Like it started as mom talk,

because I was a swingist scandal involving these Mormon women who were all in their early 20s, but like married with kids. More months have really changed. If there's like swingers happening, that is like quite the opposite of what the premise is, but but can I ask you about Mormonism and whether you think that has shaped in any way you'll create about it? Wow, what a, what a deep question. I, I think it has shaped, um, certainly it is, it is really kind of

shaped who I am or the way that I think about things. And by that, I mean, guilt. You know, there's a lot of sort of growing up in that religion. There's a lot of inherent guilt to the culture, sexual guilt and just kind of almost a guilt for existing. I think a lot of those people pleasing tendencies specifically as a woman really can be traced back to that, though I think we've all kind of been told that one way or another Mormon or not or wherever we've grown up.

It's just we're told to to be accommodating to others. In that culture growing up, it was really, you know, these are the expectations of a woman and it's that you stay home, you have kids, you do the dishes, you make your husband dinner and you have it on the table at six. And you smile

“while you're doing it and you're grateful that that's what you were able to do, what you were”

allowed to do. And if that's what somebody wants to do, amazing. That is beautiful. But if it's not

what you want to do and you're just being constantly told that that's what you've got to do, it's really, really, um, frustrating. But you're not allowed to be frustrated. You know, you got to be as a Mormon, you've really got to be happy and grateful and just show up sort of with

and everything. You know, and I think finding realities far more important and far more beneficial and then you can find the positive from there, but just kind of living in a world where you're

“pretending everything's fine when something's really or not. I think it's a way to just kind of”

keep a person down. And I see this actually with, with a certain tenderness for the religion, because it did, um, feel like a safe environment for me. Now I see this completely not that, but growing up, you know, in a household with so much chaos, there was something quite peaceful about just being in a pleasant, clean space. And I really appreciated that and I did appreciate the sense of community. I did appreciate, um, the morals, though, of course. Now I see this, there's such a kind of

complexity there, because how can you have certain morals while you're doing things that are so kind of harmful to certain groups? And that makes zero sense. But it's certainly shaped who I am and how I think, um, and, but I don't think it has shaped my sort of creative output other than just, I mean, there's a character in half as age was Mormon. Yes. That's really, yes. I couldn't help but do a little nod. Do you still carry the guilt? Um, let me think. Let me check in with my body.

“I think in some instances, and like, I don't really have an example off the top of my mind,”

but, um, certainly not, you know, there's not sexual guilt. And, you know, sex is really a theme that comes up in this, in this book a lot in writing sex. And an honest way was so important to me. Maybe I, I'm, you know, maybe there's some element of that that, that, um, that early sexual guilt that sort of led to this path, but there's no kind of direct line that I can see. And then generally, I would say I don't, I don't have a lot of guilt. I think I live in a way

that I have values that I try to make my choices offer. I try to let those values guide my life, but beyond that, um, if I'm doing that, then I don't think there's really much room for guilt.

Yes. My best friend is a therapist, and she always says that guilt is a signal that you've

done something wrong. So if you haven't done something wrong, that's no need to feel guilty. Yes. Yeah. I'm curious if she, there's, there's something I hear from a therapist, which is, um, if you feel resentment, it's time to set a boundary. Oh, that's so good. Is that beautiful? Is that so good? That's so good. And can I just say, how much I love hearing you answer questions? Oh, thank you. We were talking, I was like, I was so long. We're doing with a more than thing. I'm already judging it.

No, there was guilt. Yes. Let me relieve you from a new judge. That was an incredible answer. And so nuanced. And we were talking before we started recording about how as writers, we feel that it's better to, or easier to express ourselves on the page, because we can be dropped. But when we're in the moment and talking, it does that in a critic, honestly, saying you could have said that better. I hate 90% of what I say. Literally, after I leave here, I will go, oh, why did I say that?

That was to, I could have said that differently. I wish I would have done that. Oh, and it's, it's exhausting. And I find writing so freeing in a way, because you can just get it right. You can say it the way that you want to say it. You can revise it until it's exactly how you want it to be said. And that's not the case with with anything else. I also just want to acknowledge that in talking about your work, you are often asked by interviews like me to troll over

really difficult trauma. And I just wanted to sort of say that, because I know that it doesn't come without a cost. Well, and I don't want you to feel that any of your experiences are being cheapened here, and I want you to feel held. I'm quite moved by your saying that. Oh, originates. Well, I'm moved by your response, and I just want you to know that I see you, and it's important. No, please take your time, honestly. I really appreciate you saying that.

“You look so pretty when you cry. Is I inappropriate for you, I think, does that?”

What are you doing? That is so kind, and it is so felt that it is so felt from you,

the generosity and the depth and encycliness that you ask with us. It's not always the case.

And I understand that this is a part of the job, and I really want my care about my work. I put my heart and soul into half as age for years. And this is a part of the job. And I want and I'm grateful to have a platform where I'm able to do this, these various press interviews and things to be able to have a platform for the book. I want people to read it. I care about people reading, and I think it's worth their time, and I don't think people really ought to value their

time most of all, and I do think this is a book worth their time, but it can be challenging when things can get personal, or when people ask questions about the memoir, which I wrote years ago, and it's something I'm so proud of, but ultimately it's like to sometimes be kind of touted out,

just like, so that abusive mom of yours, it's like, yeah, can we just, not for a second? Yeah,

because your first one is about the novel. Yes. Because you were writing a different novel, and this is your first failure is that you didn't finish it. So it's kind of also about that

“novel that you didn't finish. I was, and I think this is such a key kind of element of the creative”

process, and I hope it's useful for somebody for any creative out there, but I was working on another novel that I really, really liked. I was about, you know, six months in, pretty deep in, I had had, you know, multiple drafts at this point, and was really in the thick of it, and I think this thing happens with creative ideas where initially, you tell me if you feel this way, if you're great, right? Initially, they're so attracted. Yeah, they're so sexy. You're such a good

way of expressing that. It's the honeymoon phase. Yeah. You're dating, you're having sex a lot, like, it's great. And then it becomes work. And evidently, it becomes work, and the honeymoon phase kind of fades, and it's like, okay, now we're really in the thick. We've got our, you know, pants pulled up or in there. And then every other idea you have ever had starts to look real hot. And you think, if I could just not be in this, if I could just date that other one for a little bit,

“it'd be so nice, or there's so beautiful. If I could just, um, and so that's what happened here,”

where I was six months into this other process, and I was so deep in the project, and half as age was just really pushing itself up on me. And it was so intense that it got to the point where it was undeniable. And I said, okay, I will give half as age a week. I will, because I can't stop thinking about it, I will put the breaks on this other idea for a week, a work on half as age. I figured I would get it out of my system and then return to the other one sort of going, oh, I'm so grateful

to be in this long term relationship. And we are meant to be together. Yeah. That is not what happened at all. And 30 days later, I had a first draft of half as age. I just physically could not return to the other one. I'm very much a bodily writer, and so I'm clearly I'm emotional. And so I kind of have to just work with it. I can't work against it. It doesn't work for my life I've learned. So I had to go OK, the excitement's in half as age. When we get this out,

I got the first draft out. And then I went back into the second, you know, every subsequent draft from there. And now, you know, nearly whatever 20 drafts into years later, this is clearly the one that was meant to be because it's the one that is so fascinating. So much I want to ask you about that. That idea of feeling it in your body and having learnt that you have to pay attention to

that instinct is so powerful. Do you think that part of the reason you couldn't ignore this

is because you'd spent so many years in a kind of controlled dynamic where you weren't able to follow your instincts? Oh, my God, the only person who's put that that is so brilliantly said, such a such a, wow, insightful connection. Yes, I think that's exactly it. I, you know, I had eating disorders from age 11 through my early kind of 20s. And there was so much body

“denial. And I really, you know, that's what I had to do for the time. It's an important part of”

recovery is really accepting. Like, you know, you did what you had had to do. And that's what it was for me. But it is so sad to me looking back on it. The amount of, um, it was a real betrayal to my own body and a real denial because of feeling things so intensely and knowing if I would have literally come into contact with any of my emotions, all they would have been telling me would be to get out of all the situations I was in. And you can't do that when you're 14. So then, you know,

thank God, I had some sort of defense mechanism, some sort of coping mechanism. It might sound strange to say, given that it was such an unhealthy one. But, um, it really was important to getting me through kind of that phase. It was all that I had. But there was so much body betrayal. And now, you know, as a 33-year-old woman who is in touch with her emotions, um, being fully

and, like, so in touch with her emotions, it is so clear to me that there is nothing more powerful

than a woman's intuition. I believe that about all of us. I believe our bodies have inherent knowledge that if we try to kind of analyze our way, oh, and we can maybe if we get, no, our bodies know. And denying our bodies is nothing but a disservice to our, to a better life path for ourselves. If we could just accept our emotions, allow our emotions, let them in form our decisions. I think 100% of the time puts our, puts our, our lives on a, on a better path and that's definitely

something that I continue to kind of relearn over and over through the years. Wow. That is exactly what I believe. Thank you so much for speaking to us. When this idea kept pushing itself against you, so that's just that work. That phrase, yes, I think it does. Yeah. It's like it has to be, it had to be burst. Yeah. It was so, in my body, you know, it was just it's time. You had an age gap relationship when you were A.T. Yes. When you first had the idea,

did you think, is this another memoir? Was that ever a poem where you thought, am I writing

myself here? No, there was never, never a pointer or a question in my mind about that because

Waldo, and really her voice was feeling very clear to me and who she is and, and what she wants and how she operates. And it is, you know, she's entirely her own character and the novel is entirely its own sort of story and I'm aware people will project me onto it because I just know that's going to happen. I do think it would be a mystery to that if people do that, but I get that that's kind of part of it. Although I will say to your point of being in an early age gap relationship

when I was 18, I do find it really important that there's some sort of significant personal connection

“to whatever it is that I write, especially fiction I would say. I think it's so important. There's”

something deep in my bones that I really, really understand about kind of the core of the subject matter that I trust myself to tell that story, I trust myself to carry that kind of story and then also it's just so much more fun to be able to build out and expand and get into various characters points of view and it's quite liberating to not be limited by life experience. And I read somewhere that you had in a later draft had included more from Mr. Corgis perspective, not in his words,

but you were kinder to him in later draft even though he comes across brilliantly, but ultimately

is this kind of pathetic figure. It's modo has the power by the end of it. There's this one scene it's just so telling where he's left his marriage and he's able to blue tack up his poster of a clockwork orange and there's one corner of it that just keeps flapping down. And modo sees

“it and it's such a metaphor for just how his life is just sort of flapping down. What was that”

light fee, sort of setting yourself that challenge of seeing of not demonizing him? I'm glad you mentioned this because I think it does go back to kind of not being fingerwagging or more realistic. In earlier drafts he was a bit more mustache twirly, fell in a bit more on the nose, right? And I would read those drafts back and feel I could feel myself kind of writing defensive, both wanting to defend WALDO, protect WALDO rather, protect WALDO and then also I think

wanting to defend myself. This is how I feel about this. This is a bad situation. This is how I the writer feel about this, right? And I could feel myself kind of intervening and it's did not read well. You know, it didn't read well. He wasn't believable. He wasn't grounded.

Ultimately, I do believe that people are trying their best and failing miserably,

“everybody. I think that is just a part of life. It's who we are. It's who I am. It's who”

everybody I believe is. And I also think nobody ever thinks they're the bad guy. So I know we're going to be reading this and we're going to be most of us. If not 100% of us, we'll be viewing Corgi a certain way and putting placing that judgment on him. But he doesn't feel that about himself. He believes he is making the best decision that he can at any moment and that he has the best of intentions. And so I wanted that to kind of come through and so I really had to sit with the point

of view of what is it like to be a 40-year-old man who has really not fulfilled any of the things that he thought hoped or expected that he would. And I did feel for him. As uncomfortable as that

is to say, I do think it was important to writing him believably and ultimately to believe in

Waldo because she has to be a reliable narrator. The moment we discredit her as a narrator is the moment we're off knowing that we're all older than her. We're reading this thing from somebody 10, 20 years younger than us. You know, how do we make sure that we don't discredit her? And if she's painting him a certain way, we're going, well, then why did you fall for him in the first place? And it was so important to really make sure that Waldo was reliable. That's such a great point.

How much if at all did that process help you recategorize or or reanalyze your own age gap relationship? Hmm. Oh, I'm thinking now, I'm like, I don't even know if I was, I think I was so kind of in the thick of it that I wasn't really processing my own. I think ultimately some processing did wind up happening. Some closure was kind of found through the writing of it. But I wasn't

really putting my own experience on it or kind of reflecting back. To me, I might have been distracting or or limiting, you know, in a way, maybe I would have put more judgment on it or something. I don't know. I'm working this out in real time here, but it really did feel like I was operating from, you know, I believe Mr. Corgi is, he really feels real to me. Waldo feels so, so real to me. And so it's kind of just working out the dynamics through who these people are.

The other relationship that I find so compelling in this novel is the relationship between Waldo and her mother. I think you paint that really beautifully. Why was that important for you to explore?

explore just wouldn't know how to write, you know, clean kind of healthy family dynamics. Like I would have not the first idea. Yeah, I'm literally like trying to think of what a line would be with the healthy thing. Here's your dinner sweetheart. I'm going to have a great night. Tell us school. I'm bored. Yeah, I'm bored. Yeah, I think this is sort of so much more juicy and interesting and it's also just, it's what I know and I think it is writing is oftentimes away

for me to kind of find closure and and work through things that I don't have the answers to myself. Sit with those uncomfortable aspects of of families. And so I think that's just something

always right. Yeah. I'm so, if I can ask, why are you so interested in failure? I'm really curious.

Oh, lovely question. I think the short answer is that I think failure has stripped me of mild certainties about how I thought life was going to be and introduced me to the truth of who I

“really am. Wow. And what I mean by that is like so much of life is driven by ego and also by social”

conditioning. Yeah. We've inherited from our parents. What we've inherited from society or culture or the amount of romcoms we've watched. And so I grew up with this very sort of conventional notion of what my life might be like and it did not go according to that plan by some metric. And so I found myself feeling like such a failure at the age of 39. I got through a divorce. I tried and failed

to have children and online at that stage. It felt like everyone had perfect lives on Instagram.

And so I was interested in the disconnect because it also made me feel alienated. Wow. Wow. And since then, I've kind of become obsessed with it. I've learned so much through it who talking to people like you who are so brilliant and wise and smart. I learn every time I have a conversation like this. Wow. So it's sort of a switch at about 39 and just kind of life events. Wow. Yeah.

“Yeah. That's why I think you're so ahead of your time. You're 33 and you are way ahead of where I was.”

I mean, thank goodness. Oh, I don't know about that. That's why it makes so much sense. And I really, I completely agree. I love sort of the premise of the podcast. They do think that the universe, whatever you want to identify it as does know more than we do. And I think there are so many things. And I'm so sort of this, I'll set my sights on something. I'll set my eyes on one thing. And I'll just go, that's what it has to be. And it needs to be this. And I think I know best.

And I never do literally, I can trick anything in my life where I have thought this is what's

going to be best for me. Life goes, actually, no. And it shows me what is going to be best for me. Absolutely. So move by that. You've totally nailed it. And my not having the baby that I thought I always wanted has actually been. I think the uncovering of my life purpose. Wow.

“Well, I now strongly feel that part of my purpose is to speak for those people who don't”

and can't. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So things like that. Yeah. Just so meaningful and profound. Yes. You never really know why things are happening until after they've happened. So true. The thing that you do know is that you can have more faith that you're going to survive it. Yeah. Because of how much you've survived already. Yes. Yes. You, oh, I can navigate this. Oh, you know what? I'm more adaptable. I'm more this word can be kind of cringy or I find it kind of

kind of cringy, but resilient. Yes. Because I was like, well, I'd rather not have to be fucking, or can I say a piece while I love so. Okay. Yeah. I'd rather not have to be resilient. You want to be great or like, oh, you know, challenges build character. I could afford less character. Like, I don't need to be resilient. I can afford less character. Let's go, baby. Yeah. But you know, so I guess these are these are these just happen. You know,

connect my curly could afford less character. It's the best. It's just the best light. You know, those times late at night when you're scrolling and you see something online that you've been looking for and you just need to buy it right there and then you click on the link. You add it to cart before hitting check out. But then that's sinking feeding. As you realize, you don't have your card anywhere near and don't want to get out of bed. But that's when you see it.

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“We're Malian Tom and we're getting married. At a finding love on Lov Island, we are now navigating”

real life and wedding planning. On Nilly Weds we share the honest highs, lows and the chaos of getting hitched. From budgets to guest list to family dramas and the things no one prepares you for. We'll have new episodes every Tuesday so make sure to subscribe to Nilly Weds on YouTube. And listen wherever you get your podcasts. Notella. Let's get on to your second failure and I want to

preface this by saying how grateful I am that you are going to talk about it. I know it will speak to so many people. As you put it in quotation marks, slips or failures. Can we go back to the genesis of your disordered eating? Yes. And the first memory you have of it. I woke up when I was 11 years old and I had a lump in my breast and I thought, oh no, my mother had cancer when I was two years old. She eventually recovered and she passed away when I was 21.

But she had breast cancer when I was two. And so I was always kind of hyper-hyper-hyper-aware of

breast cancer is the scary looming thing. It's hereditary. I could get it at some point. So I'm 11.

“I feel lump in my breast. I think I've got breast cancer. I'm dying.”

Of course, it was just breast tissue. It was just a little bit of breast tissue developing. And my mom kind of told me that I was, oh, you're getting boobs and it was a very hysterical intense reaction. She really had a lot of fear around me growing up. She didn't want that to happen. I think for a number of reasons. That's its own podcast. But so she taught me calorie restriction. And she was really, she really struggled herself. I didn't know this at the time. Of course,

I just thought my mom had very specific eating habits, which included not eating most of the time. She'd just have a tea with nothing in it for breakfast every day. Yeah, she had these sort of quirks around her eating that she then really taught to me. And it was as gross as it is to say it was a bonding opportunity for us. I proceeded as a bonding opportunity. For me, it was like that like a fun sequence in the parent shop where they're doing

hand drives, but we're like counting calories together. And it just seems like this little secret that we have that nobody else knows about. And we do it in private and how great because that makes us even closer and we're best friends and we're so enmeshed and and codependent. And so I learned, you know, how to calorie strict and was really, really intensely restricting my calories and very quickly developing a rexian was hyperhypermonitoring everything that went into my

body until eventually I was a doctor. And, you know, the doctor pulled my mother out of the room and said that she was, you know, concerned that I may have anorexia. It's first time I've heard this word and I thought literally my first thought was like, oh, that sounds like a dinosaur like anorexia. But I could tell by the tone of her voice and I should be speaking with my mom that something was wrong.

“Because I think, you know, as kids were so perceptive when we pick up on these emotional cues,”

better than many adults. Because by adulthood, we've stifled and suppressed and we're blocking, we're just avoiding at all costs so many times, so much of the time. But as kids were just hyper and tuned with these cues. So I knew something's wrong, but I also couldn't

go near the reality of what that wrong thing was because my mom would never do that. And I needed my

mom on that pedestal to survive. So it took a long, long time before I was able to kind of recognize that this is something that I recognized, you know, after my mother passed the 21-22. This is not something that 11. I'm like, well, got anorexia, you know, I didn't, I wasn't piecing it together. I'm so sorry that you went through that. And this is not a podcast about your excellent memoir, which by the way, I listened to an audio. Oh, that was a whole experience,

and you, you didn't incredible job of narrating it. But that memoir opens with you at your mother's bedside, as she's dying, saying, "I've reached my goal weight because you felt like that was the thing that would most excite her and keep her alive." Believe that with our my, part, yeah. And it's also funny. It's also so darkly cold. And it's hilarious. Yes. I'm like mommy. I'm almost 86 whatever it was, but yeah. So your mother died and then you felt able to explore

I had kind of hit a rock bottom. It lost a tooth from at this point, the anorexia had morphed into bulimia. So yeah, from from 11 until 23. And it was really, really, that was incredibly intense. And and complicated because people don't really talk about this, but sort of bulimia to any

person with any sort of feels like a failure off the back. Like you've failed, you're never aiming

for bulimia. You're aiming for anorexia. You failed anorexia. You landed at bulimia. So you're constantly kind of just sitting in the cycle of shame. And there can be, um, you know, I say this with caution.

“This is, this is, there's truly nothing worse than an eating disorder. And I believe it is such a”

colossal waste of time. And often happens to really smart people who have so many better things they could be doing with their time. So I say it with this caveat. But, um, there could be a power to anorexia. There could be a real sense of, you know, accomplishment to it. That was, is, of course, grotesque and deeply disturbed. But, um, but bulimia, there was none of that. It is just you are mirrored and shame. You are walking around feeling like everything you do is just you are a loser

of failure. It is, it feels awful. And I think I could just, I couldn't tolerate that anymore. I lost a tooth from bulimia. This was on a, you know, a flight to do a really intense press trip. And and I, you know, a number of things that kind of collided at once. And I think it was just like, okay, I have to, I have to do, I can't avoid this anymore. I have to deal with it. It's time.

My body finally, finally, was just saying, like, I can't have you betray me anymore. Hey,

you're going to have to listen. I mean, thank God for my body. Finally said,

“we're done. We're done. Yeah. Can I ask you, what I hope doesn't sound like an ignorant question?”

When you were in the grip of your 18 disorders, did you feel physically weak? Yeah, exhausted. I'd also be sort of, you know, during the bulimia phase, it was, you know, I'd run 13 miles multiple days a week. And so it was constantly kind of in this state of exhaustion, which I think was helpful in avoiding emotion. Because there was no time. There was no space to kind of face anything. I'd feel the anxiety build up and then a purge. And then I'd feel kind of a relief.

And I'd feel so tired that I'd fall asleep, you know, and this would be, I mean, throughout, I would purge many times a day. This was, you know, but there was just, I was operating from such a place of phenomenal exhaustion that there was no time to go, oh, wow, I really don't like much of my life and how do I put it on a path that I do, like, and, you know, there was no space to consider anything else because it was just perpetuating the cycle, the addiction. Wow.

I thank you for explaining it like that. Yeah. So what was the first step in your recovery? Was it therapy? Or was it a decision that you made internally? It was, it was a therapist that wound up this, that it did not kind of work out with that therapist, which I also think is keys, get to find the right person. But then I, I did find the right person in, as on a shooting

Toronto, and I found an amazing therapist who did a blend of, um, dialectical behavioral therapy and

schema therapy or schema-based therapy. I don't know the exact name. Um, and that worked really effectively for me. It's very pen and paper. You're very much, you know, a scientist experimenting with your life and just getting it all out on the page. Um, in terms of, like, there's a lot of different methods and homework every day that you're doing and that, that was transformative for me. I don't know if I would have recovered. If I hadn't had those forms of therapy and I also,

unfortunately, don't think they would work for everyone. But I think if you have a personality type similar to mine, that's the way to go. I think I, I, I think that therapist and those forms of therapy were transformative. Was this the therapist who asked you to consider what good your eating disorder was day for you? Yes. That's exactly it. I found that fascinating. Isn't it so intriguing? Yeah. Very early on in recovery because I'm sitting there assuming, okay, or I've hated

sort of my body for so long and I've hated just, there's so much, there's so much complexity there.

“How do I then turn this eating disorder into the villain so I can get over it? That's what I thought”

would be the case. And instead he's saying, maybe a first session, you know, what value does your eating disorder bring you? And I'm sitting there going, I pay you good money to get over this. I don't want to know what the value it brings me like to help me get over it. And he's saying, well, it's actually very, very important that you find the value because we need to find something of equal or greater value to, to bring in because it's, it will, there will be a void.

There is going to be a void in your life when this goes away. And it is going to be, you're going to need something to fill it. And it was fascinating just that there and go, okay, what value has it offered me into peace that together and to really, I mentioned earlier sort of appreciating it and there was a key part of recovery. But is it appropriate? It's all skew what that was? Let's see if I can remember. Well, you know, I sort of touched on this, but

at that time. I don't think I was out of place where, you know, certainly at 11, 12, 13, if I'm

going, if I accept the reality, okay, my mom taught me an eating disorder. My mom's teaching me it is that is like, honey, you've got to leave. Where to? Where do you go at 11? So it was kind of a,

“it was a protection. I think it was protection from the, the weight of fame, from the confusion of”

having an identity that was not my own, that was so public facing and feeling like my own identity was faced by no one. I mean, no parent, no adult figure, no, there was, there was no one. I think that's, um, while anecdotal, I think it's very common for people who grow up in this spotlight, where it's just you are a product, you are a good and you are viewed as that, um, you know, even if people are well-intentioned, it's just really, really, it's tricky for people to separate

them from a person, like it's, it's tough. I'm very moved by that. Hmm, this failure, quote, unquote, specifically addresses your, your slip-ups in recovery. Yes. And I think that it's very

important for people to know this, that it's not linear, recovery, authentic recovery can never

be linear. So, um, tell us a little bit about those slip-ups and what they taught you. So this is another kind of aspect early on in recovery, um, therapist had said, he'd give me a pamphlet and told me the importance of not letting slips become slides. He said, this is not going to be, you know, one stop, shop, you say, you're, you're ready to recover and then that's all that it takes, it's just conviction and determination and strong, you're disciplined. Yeah. Yeah. But especially,

you know, to a person with an eating disorder, like there is, that discipline is so much a part of kind of the dysfunction of it that to assume that discipline is all you need and then

to have a slip-up. It's so common, also black and white thinking, it's really common for people

who experience disorder eating. Um, it's so common for that person to go, oh, I've had a slip. I'm a failure. It's all, it's all gone to waste. Okay. I'm off the wagon. So I might as well just have another slip and another and another because now I'm a failure. So this is how I identify so I'm a failure. So I'm a failure. So you're just, again, perpetuating that cycle and you're stuck in it and just kind of mired in it. Um, and he, he emphasized the importance of not letting slips

“become slides. So when you have a slip, you sit with yourself and you go, what can I learn from this?”

If you have a slip, a failure, you go, what is this telling me so that I can prevent it from happening again? How, what, what is all the information that I can glean from this? This is actually useful for me. That truly, yeah, changed my life. Um, there were slips. There were many slips. But being able to go, I don't have to let this become a slide every single time. What can I glean from this? I will take my slip. I would literally sit and I'd say, okay, I had four slips this week.

Let's, let's get to the bottom of them. And we would explore all of those slips in depth. And, you know, what were the vulnerability factors surrounding those slips? And why did this happen when? And, um, it was such a useful part of the process. All failure is data acquisition. I have to say the perfect example of it. Brilliant. Hey, there. I'm Kendra Adachi and my show The Lazy Genius Podcast helps you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that

“don't, and you get to decide what matters. I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm here to give”

you a new way to see episodes of the lazy genius podcast are full of compassionate time management tips and permission slips to do what makes sense for you. New episodes drop every Monday. Follow in listen to the lazy genius podcast on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you feel today? You are in alignment with your body. Hmm. Hmm. Checking in with my body. Sort of buzzing right now. It feels pleasant. It feels safe. That's great.

It feels really safe not. I notice, you know, if I feel constricted or if I feel, my, my body feels a no. Both. And so much of my life going back to kind of the accommodating and the people pleasing and all of that was about suppressing my no. And how can I, I feel, I feel the rage. Wow. I feel like my face. This is how I'm touching my body. I started listening to it and then it's like, it's tricky. When you start telling your bot, when you start really listening to it, it goes,

"Okay, here you go." And it like throws you so much and you go, "Oh, can I handle this?" Yeah. And we can, you know, we can, but it doesn't mean it's not intense. And so, you know, thinking back to those times and it would be so much about, you know, how can I turn my no into somebody else? It was more important to make my no into anybody else's, yes. Didn't even matter if I respect that person, liked that person. It was just about accommodating them

That is so fucking incredible. I feel, these interviews just, it's so serendipitous. Like,

everything that you are saying is feeding directly into myself. Oh my god, I'm so glad to hear it. Oh my god. Oh, thank you. I feel like, not only do we speak the same language, you elevate the language that I try to speak. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Is there a no coming to my, whether or not, you want to share it, but is there something coming back? Okay. Okay. So, well, for years, I didn't have a voice. I thought I did, but it wasn't my voice. And I was in a very dysfunctional,

emotionally abusive romantic relationship and I used to get tons of lighters a lot. And it was only afterwards that I made the connection that I was like, "Oh, that's because I literally kept losing my voice." And recently, I was lucky enough to go bear with me to this Swiss wellness clinic. Okay. I mean, and this woman, she was a biogenic medical expert. Yeah. I don't know what

that means, but she was amazing. And I walked into her room and she said, "Oh, you're very tight here

and she'd like clutched her own neck." She was like, "You're so tight here. You're breathing from your chat. You're not breathing properly." And she basically identified something that I'd live with all of my life without knowing, which is that I wasn't sufficiently in my body. I wasn't fueling my body with enough air in order to be able to speak. She said, "You actually have a very deep voice." And she got me to do these rounds of breathing. And my voice literally, I became like

old man river. I was like, "Let's go!" But it felt so rooted, embodied, embodied as the word. Yes. I was like, "This is my voice and I feel so at one with the earth." Wow. It was an extraordinary

“revelation. Wow. It was always your voice quite different. But what was it sort of?”

Yeah. Well, I feel like it's got deeper. Maybe one of the reasons I can tell me what it has. But it just felt in my trap to my chest. It was like I was scared, literally scared of going deeper. It's like coming from a sturdier kind of place. Wow. Wow. And like you, although we have different life paths, I was just an extreme people, please. And it meant that I lost all connection with my own desires. And I ended up saying, "Yes, to really unhealthy things." And spoiler alert, that ended

in divorce. Like all of that sort of stuff. And now I'm remarried to someone who I really feel able to communicate with. And I haven't had tons of lighters, much would sense. Wow. Wow.

It's incredible what our body is to us. Wow. And that piece around rage. Yes. Again,

I thought I was sad for so long. And then my best friend, the therapist, was like, "Do you think you're sad, or do you think it's an acceptable mask for what you're actually feeling?" Yes. Which was anger. Yes. Certain things are allowed. But heaven forbid, a woman feel rage.

“There's always hell, hell, what is it held? What is it? No fury like a woman's school?”

Yeah. It's like, yeah, damn fucking straight. I know. Yes. Watch out. Watch out. Watch out. Yes. Exactly. Instead, it's just this thing that's like, "Oh, we can't be a scorn woman." No, we are scorned. Yes. We're angry. Yes. Fucking right. Okay. Oh, Genet, this is the most amazing conversation in all time. Thank you. Your final failure is relationships. Yes. I can't wait to get into this because it's got such a happy ending. Spoiler alert.

But failed relationships. What did they teach you? Oh my God. Well, the time, you know, there's so much I would have this kind of this feeling when I would be at the on the cusp of a new relationship where it'd be this instant attraction. And it was this all-consuming I have to be with that person now. Now, now, now, more, more, more, more. Please, please, please. And the relationships would really start out with a deep, deep intensity. There's also a little kind of certain kind of

person I would tend to fall for. But there was just so much dysfunction, so much dysfunction,

“like an amount that's embarrassing to admit. But I think actually think a lot of us”

experience this level of dysfunction, but I think again, we're kind of just tiptoeing around it and not really talking about it. But it was real chaos and real kind of shameful behavior. I think on both of our parts, certainly on mine, all-own mine. But I just had this feeling like something's not right. Ultimately, like underneath, I just like, this is not how I want a relationship to look. This, this, this is too reminiscent, not, you know, not where my parents relationship.

It didn't go that far, but it went too far. And it didn't feel like what I wanted from a relationship, even remotely. I wanted something healthy. I wanted something sturdy. I wanted something that felt really, like, we were both growing separately as individuals and together. And that was not the experience. I finally just started getting, like, honestly, self-help books. And I

taming your, I think it's one called like taming your outer child and books on, whatever, co-dependency, all these different kind of potential issues and relationships.

“And I took that really seriously. And as I remember the relationship that I was in,”

when I kind of started getting all these books, and I could really feel the fear and him as I was getting these books because it was like, oh, you could sense kind of a threat. Oh, what does this mean? And I completely understand that. And I empathize with that. It can be

all this person's changing, will I be safe, you know? But ultimately, I remember taking kind of,

I love a list. And I had taken a list of him of, like, here's the things that I wish were different. I wish it was this, this, this, I wish I were more this way. I wish we were more this way. And, and then he said, well, I kind of see a path too for the relationship. And he just, like, drew me a little figure. And it was like, it sounds really, it's, I mean, I'm just going to say it sounds worse than it then it was. But maybe it's not the case. It was literally like a doodle

of just like a rainbow. And it's like, and then, you know, where they're at the end, we kind of a pot of gold, he's, he's not doing worse than he was. He was really, really, really, he was a deeply kind person. But right then it was just like that sinking feeling in my gut. And I know, okay, this has got it. This is not going to, this is not somebody who wants to do the work who's willing to work with me. I'm not saying that a relationship has to be from the get-go

perfect, lazy, roses and daisies. But I'm saying it has to be somebody who's willing to find a

“common, a common language, and a common engine that will get us through conflict. You have to be able”

to resolve conflict effectively as a couple, or it's just not going to work. Because there is going to be

conflict. And if people say, there's people who I know who say, like, oh, we never accomplished your

height in shit. You're suppressing. You are, you are indignant. You are lying. And also there's this element of, you heard of walk away wife syndrome. No, tell me more. Okay, it's sort of this idea that you have cried so many tears throughout the course of the relationship that by the time it, you were ready to leave your wife down. You're almost stone cold. Oh my God. Right. I was a walkaway wife. Right. I feel like it's so common for us women because we've tried, we've tried everything.

We can. We've said what we need as many ways as we know how, as many times as we know how, we have set it and set it and set it and set it. Then we feel needy and we feel like we're too much for saying, ah, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can what if you just plead or how about and then you're trying to change yourself to be more commenting for him? I mean, well, no

changes are happening. I mean, not always the case, but a lot of times. And then it gets to point where

it's okay, you know what, I'm so emotionally exhausted and depleted that I have literally nothing left to give. So I guess now I have to leave because I feel nothing for you anymore. I feel nothing and that was the case for me, every relationship that I left. It got to a point where there were no tears left. There was no pain left. It was just a very kind of almost stoic breakup that was confusing to them because then they're going, wait, what's happened and it's what's happened?

The past year and a half has happened. Have you not been here? You were here, too. It's been so painful. It's been so painful. And of course, there are great moments as well. You wouldn't be in it, but it's there's so much pain that's just brutal. And so I think those realities, the walkaway wife syndrome and then that I need somebody who can kind of resolve conflict with me and be willing to be in the trenches with me was transformative and also somebody who's compatible like it's so basic. And

yeah, I think we overlook it and think that we can wedge ourselves in or maybe potentially get them to wedge into what we need and it just doesn't. It's just you've got to be similar in some

“key ways or it's not going to work. I believe that. The walkaway wife syndrome has explained”

something to me that I really struggled with in myself because I have felt shame around the fact that I was able to leave and you're so right to identify that numbness. It wasn't a lack of feeding. It was having felt too much for too long. Yeah, your wife doubt. Yeah, you're exhausted. Let me ask you something else about a therapy adjacent. Yeah, which I think part of my journey has been parenting my inner child. I think part of the reason I'm not a parent in the conventional

biological sense is potentially because I needed to do that work before I was ready for the romantic relationship that I'm now in, which is one of equals. Do you feel you went on that journey, too? 100%. Yeah, inner child work was key for me. Have you ever done the artist's way? I haven't. I've got an inner resistance to it and I'm not sure what. Really? Yes. I know you've done it several times. Yeah. Wait, I guess I'm so I've done it three times. I'm like embarrassed.

The third time I did it with a friend and she stopped, you know, six weeks in or something. She's like a high-stopped and I was like me too because I was too embarrassed to say that I was doing it for a third time. I think it's just that do you have to get up and write three pages? Yes. Yeah. The thing is

interesting. The resistance I have is interesting. Fascinate. That's another podcast episode.

“So I'm really curious. I hope to offline with you about that. But yeah, the morning pages are”

very much as like stream of consciousness. You can't, the ideas, if you can't even, just don't even pause your pen. Just kind of keep it flying. It can even be, it can be complete, you know, I took a sip of tea. Why am I writing this? I hate that I'm writing this. This is so boring. I have to, I have to write so much for work already. This is, you know, whatever. And you're just kind of getting, the idea being you're getting out of your system, the things that are rattling around all

day anyway. So mine is what get them out on the page. Yeah. Ultimately, the way I view it is

really a course in inner-child healing. What can you tell us about your partner, who you being with

“annoyingies? He's my best friend. I'll check in with my body. He's my best friend. I mentioned earlier”

sort of this instinct of that I'd had with with previous partners, it doesn't even be like the appropriate term to be honest. But with people that I'd been with, where there was that instinct of like I have to be with them now. It was this urgency. I met him through a mutual friend. And I was instantly extremely attracted to him, but had a sense of calm in my body. There was zero urgency. This is just from somebody who had a hijack nervous system, their whole life, like,

further than not be urgency is odd. So I noticed it. No urgency. And this sense of this person is very significant to my life. I don't know how. I don't have to know how. I don't have to know when. That's fine. This person is significant. And then, you know, we were friends and we'd kind of hang out in group settings. And then we'd actually lost touch for over a year. And then he'd called me out of the blue. I thought it was a butt that out because I hadn't heard from him

“and so I thought that's so random. And then he called me a second time. And I honestly can't”

remember whether I picked up when we spoke that or whether we reconnected later, but then we got coffee and we talked for like four hours. And we've been together for nine years. Hi, near, that's crazy. I'm so happy for you. Thank you. It makes me feel calm when you talk about him. Hmm. I'm not keen off to have met him because he's actually here. He does have a very calm aura. Doesn't he? Yes. Really, he's a really sturdy person. He's that person for all of us. He's the

person that every, every one of his friends goes to for like, I need advice. I need advice. Like, he's

everyone sort of rock. Genets. I've adored every second of this conversation. Thank you so much.

Thank you for trusting me. And for opening up in your beautiful eloquent, compassionate, heart-led way. I don't, for a second, take it for granted. And I am so grateful for the existence of you. Thank you. You too. You too. It's almost over the street. There's this schulfnashbick over the street. And then hoffn, this is stymed. Porn, nee, garney, wiso steuere is so my safe space. Hmm, do you mean,

dammit, that's all it's not here? Yeah, genau. wiso steuere is so di steuere app, which I just understand. Egalobstudium, job, or unzug, stymed. Cras, fühlt sich garney wiso steuere nann. Steuere nellied it. Save. Mit wiso steuere. Please do follow H.E.E. to fail to get new episodes as they land. On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day in Sony Music Entertainment, original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.