0:01

I definitely had a, his, a long history with the eating disorders, but my mom passed away when I was 21.

0:05

That same week was the first time that I had sex.

0:09

The first time that I made myself throw up bulemia, which I had for then years.

0:13

And the first time that I had a drink of alcohol.

0:15

So I think there's no denying that it was, you know, mom death and those coping mechanisms all kind of hit at once Am

0:23

Bialik and welcome to my breakdown. This is the place where we break down the things that make us break down Down.

0:31

She's going to break it down because she coming down, she's going to break it down today.

0:43

We're going to be breaking down in measurement grief and moms with Janette McCurdy.

0:51

And when I first heard her name, I didn't connect her with who I know her to be.

0:57

I'm going to get more into who she is in a minute, but you may know her because she was in nickelodeons I Carly, and also a spinoff of that salmon cat.

1:06

She's a writer. She's a director.

1:09

She's well, this is, this might be one of my favorite episodes.

1:12

I'm just going to say it, but I'd like to first introduce us all to my favorite episode, Jonathan Cohen, who was literally just texting on his phone while I was introducing him.

1:23

Cause that's how we roll over it.

1:26

Hello, my name, I was making a note on a sticky pad that I'm about to share with you, but it's good to be misperceived Dressed

1:34

a little bit like opposites today, which I think is fitting for her introduction.

1:37

That just happened.

1:38

I will have to take off my outer layer later in this episode because it gets hot in here.

1:46

It does. And just to continue a little bit of a trend, that's been happening in a redo my intro.

1:51

Cause I feel like they're not getting quite as much work as they used to get.

1:55

Another

1:55

thing

1:55

you

1:55

could

1:55

have

1:55

said

1:55

is

1:55

let's

1:55

welcome,

1:55

Jonathan,

1:55

I'm

1:55

empty

1:55

inside

1:55

without

1:55

him

1:55

as

1:55

a

1:55

nod

1:55

to

1:55

her

1:55

podcast

2:03

title. And I would have said I'm empty inside to Miami primarily because I didn't eat lunch.

2:10

Then what do you want to tell the folks at home before we talk to Janette McCurdy?

2:15

Well, I was also gonna say that we're breaking down cultural expectations versus what we truly want and what our authentic experience would be to make us happy.

2:28

That's not as easy to encapsulate, but yes, we talk about what's expected of us versus what we decide that we want for ourselves.

2:38

Yes. Before we get too much further, why don't we do a word of the day, which is exciting because today it is only a word, not a phrase.

2:48

Enmeshment. Enmeshment

2:49

is a term. It's not a good thing.

2:52

It's true. It is not a good thing.

2:54

It was actually originally described by Salvador.

2:57

Minutian who? This is interesting.

2:59

I didn't realize he only died a couple of years ago, but he was born in 1921.

3:03

So he was an old person.

3:06

He used this word to describe a relationship, typically in a family where personal boundaries are permeable and unclear.

3:16

First, you might think it's important to have permeable boundaries because you might think like, oh, well it's important for people to have access and for your family to get to know you and for you to be there for each other.

3:27

But that's not what inmeshment is in measurement is really the, like, I don't know where I end and you begin.

3:33

That's really inmeshment.

3:35

And when it's in a romantic relationship, we tend to think more in terms of like codependency, which is not the same thing, but in measurement is usually a term that is used to describe a dysfunctional family system.

3:47

It often happens when people feel each other's emotions, which again, you might be like, well, you're empathetic.

3:54

You want to feel someone else's emotions.

3:56

But the difference is is that if someone's having an emotion in a family system where there's enmeshment the entire system, then revolves around that person's emotions and everyone gets sucked in.

4:06

So Jonathan's right. You really do have to kind of think of this in the negative sense in measurement is when, for example, a mother is not able to separate her emotional experience from that of her daughter, even though they might say like, oh, we have boundaries in measurement between a parent and a child will often result in over involvement in each other's lives, which makes it hard for the child to become developmentally independent and responsible for her choices.

4:35

And this is going to come up a lot in today's episode.

4:37

So the notion that I actually, it's kind of interesting to think of this in terms of like a lot of moms, like I'm best friends with my daughter and many of us kind of old fashioned folks are like, you shouldn't be best friends with your child.

4:52

You should be their parent. And not just because we are lame and want to be that person, but exactly for this reason that that kind of best friendliness that often happens, especially between moms and daughters can lead to a set of expectations and a set of disappointments and can really induce, especially in a young child, a notion of a need either for secrecy or lack of privacy.

5:17

I hope that that's sort of like a, a good framework for enmeshment.

5:21

It's not a term to be used lightly.

5:23

It's not just like, oh, I don't like my mom she's.

5:26

So inmeshed with me. It is really something that is more of a clinical term.

5:29

It's completely fine also to feel connected to your parents, to feel a sense of obligation.

5:34

You know, especially if you come from like, I do a traditional family of a particular cultural or religious set of expectations about what children are expected.

5:43

Believe me, there's a lot of built-in stuff there that can very easily slide into enmeshment land and often does.

5:50

So yeah, we'll be talking about that.

5:52

Is it time to introduce our very exciting guests?

5:54

It's time I'm going to read Jeanette McCurdy's bio off her website, which also I highly recommend she spells her name.

6:01

J E N N E T T E and then McCurdy, M C C U R a D Y Jeannette mccurdy.com.

6:09

And her bio says Jeanette McCurdy got her start in child acting, which by her late teen years had brought her success.

6:15

She started Nickelodeon's hit show I Carly and her own spinoff of that show salmon cat.

6:21

She went on to star in the Netflix series between and had a short-lived country music career with Capitol records, Nashville, despite her outside success, McCurdy felt ashamed of 90% of her resume and ultimately unfulfilled.

6:34

So she turned to alcohol, but since that didn't work, she quit acting and began pursuing writing and directing in 2017, she's written and directed a pilot.

6:45

And for short films, her work has been featured in and on the Hollywood reporter, short of the week, Florida film festival salute your shorts and many more she's written articles for Huffington post and the wall street journal.

6:56

Those are two very reputable places.

6:58

That's not what her bio says. That's what I said.

7:00

Hence the weird voice that I used, her one woman show called wait for it.

7:05

I'm glad my mom died.

7:06

Had a sold-out run at the lyric Hyperion theater, which is a very, very fine theater here in silver lake.

7:12

She hosts a podcast called empty inside, which Jonathan and I are thrilled to also get to be on.

7:18

And she speaks with guests about uncomfortable topics.

7:21

She's incredibly articulate.

7:22

She's incredibly intelligent and she's lived a life that's really beyond so many people's wildest imaginations in, in positive and spectacular ways.

7:31

And also in really difficult ways. It's really a pleasure to welcome Janette McCurdy.

7:35

Hello, Jeanette Bray.

7:38

I

7:38

do

7:40

Just want to thank you for having me on, I've been a fan of yours for a long time and getting this through from, from my manager, I was, I made a very strange sound of excitement.

7:49

I saw this, which I had never make when I usually I'm like, Ugh, I don't want to do, but I was like, wow, like it was a weird, like I have been not only a fan of yours, but I'm so intrigued by your story and your path.

8:05

So I hope to be able to kind of ask you some of that too throughout and, and get in there.

8:10

And it's very inspiring, you know, for me to get to talk to you.

8:14

You've been very open about a lot of things that I am choosing to be more open about.

8:18

So I also find inspiration in what you've been forthcoming about, and I'm very intimidated by you because I feel like you, you know, you do well, a lot of things that, you know, that I'm still kind of learning, you know, to do well or to, to try and do well.

8:34

And, and one of those is really being honest and vulnerable and open.

8:37

Maybe you can tell us a little bit, you know, for, for people at home, sort of what your trajectory was like, where you're from and what your folks were like or what your family structure was like and sort of how you became an actor, you know, at such a young age.

8:55

Yeah, I guess my, my kind of history, I, when I was six, my mom put me in, in acting, I think to kind of, you know, she, she wanted, she had good intentions.

9:05

I think at the core of it, she wanted me to have a better life than she had.

9:09

She didn't have a very good one. It was a constant struggle financially, emotionally, mentally.

9:13

And I think she thought that that acting was an easy, you know, kind of early way out to kind of ensure that I had success and a better path than she had.

9:23

And I see it as something different, but that was kind of how I initially started acting.

9:30

And then, you know, within a couple of years was, was fairly successful.

9:33

And by kind of like 11 was the main financial support for my family.

9:37

And, you know, there were a lot of, it was a lot of pressure that came with that.

9:41

And I think with that pressure came kind of my resentments toward that career and frustrations with it as well as kind of resentments that were brewing for my mom, that I didn't identify as resentments at the time because, because of how much I absolutely adored her and found like my entire entire identity and her idea of me, we call That

10:00

enmeshment for those of you listening at Home

10:03

classic investment schema.

10:06

And I also grew up Mormon, which I think also played a, definitely a factor in kind of a lot of the issues.

10:14

The person that I made children with comes from a Mormon family.

10:16

And my mother-in-law also converted from Mormonism to Judaism as did my now ex-husband so yeah, I've done like the deep, deep Mormon dive over here.

10:27

I've been to Mormon funerals. I've been to, well, you can't really go to proper temple weddings, but I have been to ceremonies and I've visited one of the temples before it was dedicated.

10:37

So yeah, I've done like the deep Mormon dive into our connection as well.

10:41

We got all the things. Wow.

10:43

Wow. That's wild. That's a rare one.

10:45

That's a rare connector.

10:46

It's a pretty Rare connector.

10:48

So tell us where your folks in the industry at all or no, No.

10:53

Nobody was any in a thing in the industry.

10:55

My mom actually had a friend of hers who put her daughter in background work, which was like the way in, and my mom just, I kept hearing my mom be like academy kids, academy kids, which was the name of the background agency.

11:07

So that friend Cindy gave my mom the name of the background agency, who I then like auditioned for, to be, I was auditioning to be principal, but I didn't realize at the time, so like getting into background was technically a rejection that you're not getting into principal.

11:20

So it was like, it was the weirdest kind of version of rejection that I've, that I have then become very familiar with, which is like the soft letdown of like, well, you're kind of re you're semi rejected, but send me like you led into background work with the hope that someday you might be good enough kid, like the real deal, but for now you're just limited to non-speaking cause you have you, you don't, you don't, no one should hear you Speak,

11:42

but you're great. Keep going.

11:45

Exactly. We'll keep plugging along, maybe get some bangs and we'll see what we can do.

11:50

That's what you tell yourself every day. That's it, that's just floating on This

11:54

podcast. And if I do background long enough, I'll be able to speak, Keep

11:59

at it, kid, keep at it.

12:01

So give us kind of like the, the ages sort of that then your, your life kind of took this very, very different turn and you became a public person.

12:10

How quickly did that happen?

12:13

I, I started doing principal work at like, I guess six and a half.

12:18

And then by nine, I like the career was really heating up to the point that, you know, mom was getting some ideas of like, maybe we don't need so much God, when we got these dominoes residuals born in.

12:29

So kind of by, I would say by 12 we had kind of lost touch with our faith before then it had been very much a part of our lives.

12:37

And we went to church every Sunday and everything by 12 w I would say it was directly related to my career.

12:42

Breaking up was when the, the Mormonism kind of took a, took a backseat.

12:45

And then by 13, I was cast in a show in the show that kind of became the thing that made me more in the public eye and, and, and all that.

12:54

And that lasted until I was 20.

12:56

I think 21, hold On

12:59

one second. Now I'm pretty good at math.

13:02

How many years?

13:06

So it went from 13 until I was 20 ma close to 21.

13:10

Wow. I mean, that's a very different experience, you know, then for example, then I had right.

13:15

You know, so I'm just like, of course all about me.

13:18

No, I'm not trying to make it about me, but I'm trying to think about like, you not only grew up on the television, you went through, you know, transitioning from a, from a girl to a woman, and then you transitioned through your formative years as a teenager and then beyond, Right.

13:38

What were your, your kind of the pocket years?

13:42

So I started acting very late in life.

13:44

I was in middle school. I was almost 12 and people are like, but you were still so young.

13:49

But when I think about your experience versus mine, like I had 11 years just living with my crazy family instead of also being in the industry while living with my crazy family.

14:01

Yeah. And I was in school plays and I was like, I should do this because I'm comfortable on stage.

14:05

Which of course, there's still a huge amount of architecture that goes into getting a child into the industry, which believe me is not lost on me.

14:13

I was cast in beaches a year after I started acting.

14:17

Wow. Yeah. It was really crazy that came out, you know, then the next year, so beaches came out when I turned 13 and then blossom was 14 to 19.

14:25

I was two years out of high school, which felt like an eternity to wait, to get to like leave and like have this not be every day of my life, like on a set, you know, smiling, which is fine.

14:38

And I had a very, I actually had a very positive experience, meaning I worked on a clean set.

14:42

I never said drugs. I never say alcoholic.

14:43

People were kind, you know, but the, you know, I'm sure you can imagine, like the person inside of me was like, is not like where's the rest of my life.

14:53

Like, I'm a person also, not just your objects.

14:57

You know, I would go in for these auditions, like this like fast talking New York kid who like, you know, kind of like shifted in her weight.

15:03

Cause I was just so interested in anxious kid.

15:05

And that was like constant note.

15:07

She speaks too fast, too fast, too fast.

15:08

And also one thing that I, I did not have on my side was I couldn't do commercials because I didn't look like anyone on television and no one was going to be like, oh, that child with the chin and the nose let's put her in a Domino's commercial.

15:22

Like it wasn't happening. It was like, what is happening with this face?

15:26

So yeah, I did like character roles.

15:28

I was like on eight episodes of Webster.

15:30

And I like did Miguel. I did like all these like weird, you know, fun character roles, Jim MacGyver.

15:34

I said, I did three episodes in my diver just saying MacGyver The

15:38

reruns on TV land. Come on. It's the Best? Well, you'll find my three episodes, which I filmed in Vancouver.

15:43

Did you get saved from an explosion? I Did

15:45

get saved from an explosion. I thought you saw my episodes.

15:48

I got saved from several explosions and from a truck hanging off the side of a mountain by MacGyver, just like your religious, like my real life.

15:58

Anyway, let's get back to Jeanette.

16:00

So sorry that math blew my mind that you had a huge portion of your life.

16:05

So here's a dumb question. I'm going to ask you a lot of dumb questions because I want you to have the opportunity to speak to them.

16:13

My dumb questions.

16:15

That's a long time to be in the industry for how long did you want out?

16:24

I think that initially once the show started getting like it got kind of just to a crazy status that I don't think it was possible to imagine it would get, I think for the first year having people come up to me and recognize we felt it was a former validation, I think it felt really nice.

16:41

And it felt like, you know, I had always been the homeschooled kind of weird Mormon kid on the outskirts.

16:46

You never quite fit in who was always like more naive than everyone around me.

16:50

So to have that form of validation felt really good.

16:53

And then it very quickly shifted.

16:56

And I think a big part of that was how much more my mom responded to it positively, even as she saw what it was doing to me emotionally and how difficult it was for me to handle and how, I mean, I didn't want to go outside.

17:09

I was sort of paranoid of, of it.

17:13

Cause it just constantly led to this hypervigilant.

17:15

I was already anxiously kind of wired and then I just became constantly hypervigilant.

17:20

I've let walk out of the house and I'd be like looking around and like, oh, is there a paparazzi here?

17:24

Is there somebody here who's been recognized me? And what are they going to say?

17:26

And what are they going to want? And what are they? It was, it was really hellish, like to be honest and not at all fun.

17:32

And I resented it, I would say within probably a year and a half was like definitely when I had started resenting it.

17:39

And then of course my mom was all the more kind of into it and like take the pictures, do the thing, do the whatever.

17:44

Like, why don't you love this? Why aren't you grateful?

17:46

You're so ungrateful, why would you not? This is what everybody's dream.

17:49

It's like, mm, this was your dream, not mine.

17:52

So here's the, my second stupid question.

17:54

Or maybe I've already asked more than one and I'm asking this, first of all, I, I already am super into you.

18:01

Like I think you're, I think you're awesome. And I think I'm really enjoying talking to you.

18:05

And I just, I just feel like a nice connection with you because we've been through a lot, like we were in the same work, but I know that it's important also for you to answer this is kind of like also asking someone like, why did you stay in that abusive relationship?

18:20

But I'd like, I'm asking not because I don't understand, but I want you to speak to if you're comfortable, why you didn't get out, meaning, you know, obviously you're not going to get out, you know, at 10, at 12, even at 15, even at 18.

18:36

Right. But I guess that would be a question.

18:38

I mean, for me, I know that there's a point when you're, so in that you can't get out, was that your experience?

18:44

Was it something else?

18:47

I mean, I appreciate you asking because I do think it's an important one to clarify and speak to when I say my identity was like what my mom thought of me, that it was a hundred percent that so the idea of pulling away getting away wasn't even, it wasn't even something that came into my mind to be honest, it was just like, I would be completely lost.

19:05

I would be nothing without her. Also I had been fed that messaging my entire life of, you know, you're completely incompetent.

19:11

You're completely, you are not smart.

19:13

You can't do anything without me. You need me.

19:15

I'm the thing that keeps you from just completely being derailed and in a loose cannon and unable to handle yourself.

19:22

Like I'm, you know, it was, it was all this, all that messaging for so long of my life that led me to think that I was kind of incompetent and helpless and didn't know right from wrong.

19:29

Didn't know good from bad couldn't make decisions on my own without her.

19:33

So that was, that was definitely what kept me from getting away sooner.

19:37

And then I do think, so my mom had cancer for the first time when I was two.

19:40

So it was always kind of aware of the fragility of her health.

19:42

And I think that played a part of thinking, like I just had this, this weight on me all the time and we'll shoot.

19:48

She could go at any time, she's constantly with stage four metastatic breast cancer, somehow miraculously, she recovered.

19:52

But knowing that, you know, she was in doctor's offices every three months to get these checkups and, you know, constantly, you know, she had a bone marrow transplant and constantly having these different surgeries and checkups and everything.

20:04

It was just like the awareness of her death was always weighing on, on not just me, but the entire family, you know, and then her cancer recurred when I was 18.

20:14

And I actually think that would have been exactly the time.

20:18

That was like four years, five years into the show.

20:21

That would have been exactly the time that I would have been like, fuck you, mom.

20:23

I don't want anything to do with you. I'm leaving you where I would've started.

20:27

Really just, I think rebelling like full, like very intensely, but because of her cancer, then I felt kind of roped back in with that guilt and, and that obligation and just all those overwhelming feelings that come with the imminence of death.

20:44

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20:47

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21:10

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23:47

Your mother has passed, correct? Yeah.

23:49

Yeah. So, yeah, with, with all due respect to your mother, I think it's important to talk about for exactly what you said, the complexity of, of why we stay, whether it's in a romantic relationship, in a friendship in our family, like it's an incredibly complicated and elaborate system that is directly linked to our emotional capacity to tolerate the discomfort of what happens when you try and get out.

24:20

And I think, and I think, well, and I think this kind of, you know, I think that this likely will resonate with a lot of our listeners because there's a lot of kind of symptoms, you know, of this and you'll, you'll kind of see it and it'll come out in different ways.

24:35

And for people who stay, I don't know, what's easier or harder, you know, in some ways it's easier to stay and in some ways it's easier to leave and there's not a right or wrong.

24:47

And I also really am a strong advocate of, you know, not making rash decisions and especially if there's addiction or if you have addiction as one of your coping mechanisms, not making rash decisions in that addiction, you know, but that does lead to my next question though, which is when you do decide to fill that God-shaped hole with a substance and was that in place of food and kind of that managing and controlling, like, do you want to talk about food stuff?

25:16

You don't have to talk about food stuff.

25:19

I always want to talk about food stuff, but I'd love to hear more about your food stuff.

25:22

I always find each person's kind of history with it.

25:26

So there's definitely that connection, but every person's story is so specific and it's always interesting to find, well, what were the dots?

25:31

What connected those dots for you and what led you to that path and all that?

25:35

Yeah, I find, I find it very fulfilling to talk about, but the week that my mom died was the first.

25:41

So my mom introduced was the person who introduced me to anorexia.

25:44

Actually I had a lump in my breast, which was my boob developing, and I was scared that it was cancer because of my mom's cancer.

25:52

I thought, well, she got cancer. Now I've got cancer.

25:54

I'm going to, I've got breast cancer at 11, like I'm doing, and I told her, and she said, you don't have breast cancer, just developing boobs.

26:00

I said, well, how can I not develop boobs?

26:02

I don't want those. And she said, well, there's a thing called calorie restriction.

26:05

Does her exact words? She did not say the word anorexia.

26:08

I did not hear the word anorexia until a doctor.

26:10

I heard, I overheard a doctor talking with my mom a year later when I had lost X amount of weight and was rail thin.

26:17

And it sounded like a dinosaur to me.

26:19

I remember that distinctly thinking like, Hmm, somebody is talking about me.

26:21

Like I'm a dinosaur, but it was them taught, you know, her talking to my mom about my eating disorder, which my mom denied in order for her to be able to support it, all pieces of the puzzle that I've kind of put together later in life.

26:31

Didn't realize at the time, at times at the time, just thought my mom's looking out for me.

26:34

Mom wants me to not have breasts so that I don't have breast cancer.

26:37

Mom wants me to look young so I can book more roles so I can support the family and do the thing.

26:41

I definitely had a, his, a long history with, with eating disorders, but my mom passed away when I was 21.

26:46

That same week was the first time that I had sex.

26:49

The first time that I made myself throw up bulemia, which I had for then years, a few years.

26:55

And the first time that I had a drink of alcohol.

26:58

So I think there's no denying that it was, you know, mom death and those coping mechanisms all kind of hit at once.

27:04

Hold on. Let's let's just slow it down for everyone at home.

27:07

Were you raised in a non-drinking family for religious reasons?

27:12

Yup. Nobody drank. Yeah.

27:14

Right. Well, just a lot of people don't know about Mormons.

27:17

Right? Right. No, I appreciate. And you mentioned That

27:18

that certain aspects of faith and observance did fall away, but did you grow up in a, like a no caffeine home?

27:24

Did you grow up in a strict Mormon home that way?

27:28

What a good question. We were, what I call second rate Mormon.

27:31

Got it. So there are the first rate Mormons.

27:33

Those were the hot Meyers in the Salazar's.

27:34

They sat and literally the first fuse, they had the five kids who all serve the missions, who they adhered to every single Mormon rule that ever has and never will exist.

27:42

We were the ones who were like pawing at first rate status, but never made it.

27:46

We were half an hour late to every service. We were like, definitely slipping in the McDonald's the Mickey, you know what I'm saying?

27:52

So that was a okay. But,

27:54

but you did, you did grow up in a home that didn't drink.

27:56

And so, so some people might be thinking and look, the fact is, I'm not, I'm not happy that I, that I know exactly what you're talking about.

28:06

Meaning like this is not like, oh, this is so much fun.

28:09

I guess it's like, it is hard earned how deeply I understand what happened to you that week.

28:16

I think it's really, really valuable also for people to hear that, you know, the surface reading is like, she was finally free, you know, like what, what actually, and if you don't mind me sort of like dipping into, you know, it sounds like you've done a tremendous amount of work on yourself, which is extremely admirable.

28:34

But what happens is when you take away the kind of primary measurement attachment, and you, you take away that the only thing that felt safe, even when it was dangerous, the sense of a lack of control is really, really unbearable.

28:53

And the release of that person, it is a hole that nothing can fill.

29:00

And so we try and fill it.

29:02

And that's not to say that having sex was that, but I mean, obviously there's a program for that as well, if that is the solution, but the notion is whatever I'm feeling, I would like to feel something else.

29:18

I hope that everybody will go back and relisten to that and save that.

29:22

I will go back and listen to what you've just said.

29:25

You just summed it up so eloquently.

29:27

That's like exactly. I think that's exactly exactly it.

29:31

Well, thank you. And, and again, like, I'm not, I'm not happy that I summed it up like that, but I think also what people don't often understand about the, of eating disorders or disordered eating is first of all, for those of us who are female in particular in the industry and young, we don't even think of it as disordered eating.

29:53

It's just the way a lot of people eat.

29:55

Meaning I'm not saying that everyone who restricts their eating is anorexic.

30:00

I'm not saying that, but what I'm saying is the general climate, even if you didn't have the concerns you had about breast cancer, you know, like, which is, of course, it's a child trying to make sense of a very scary world, but it is so pervasive, especially in Los Angeles and in New York and other cities that would like to claim this.

30:21

It is so pervasive, this notion that there's really not more than one body type, meaning there's the ideal body type.

30:30

And then there's everyone else trying to have that ideal body type.

30:35

And there's the lumps of the rest of them. Exactly.

30:37

And I like to point this out when I was young, when I was a teenager, when I was in my twenties, like there were closed that you wore, if you had a certain body, and then there were the clothes that the other people wore that felt good.

30:48

I look good on them. And now it's kind of like, everyone must fit into a skin tight dress, but there was a very short period of my existence when I could wear a skin tight dress, literally, without even thinking about it, because that was my body type before I became a grown ass woman.

31:07

But the notion that we live in a culture now, and in particular in the city that you know, that I live in and the city that essentially you grew up in that that's a normal thing in culture that like, here's the body type and everything else is not okay.

31:22

And when you go places like Europe, and this is still true, it's not as true as it used to be.

31:26

Like when I went to Europe in the nineties for the first time, I was like, oh my God, there's different shape people.

31:31

What is happening?

31:33

And I remember I would look at the billboards or the commercials on TV and I'd be like, oh, they let people like that be income.

31:40

Right.

31:40

Because

31:40

even

31:40

when

31:40

I

31:40

would

31:40

go

31:40

to

31:40

Canada,

31:40

when

31:40

I

31:40

go

31:40

to

31:40

camp,

31:40

I'd

31:40

be

31:40

like,

31:40

oh

31:40

my

31:40

God,

31:40

people

31:40

look

31:46

normal. Like, why are their teeth like that on a billboard?

31:49

You don't have to have teeth like that.

31:51

And it was just totally normal person team.

31:53

So I think that the notion is not just that, like everyone gets shoved into an eating disorder.

31:59

It's that the consciousness around food and body type is dysmorphic in the first place.

32:04

I mean, is that sort of, was that your experience 100%?

32:09

Yes. When did the eating disorder first hit?

32:13

So for me, I have a funny story.

32:16

Cause I'm terminally unique.

32:18

There's no one like me, my problems are the worst.

32:21

No one is worse than me.

32:23

I did not acquire an eating disorder proper until I was 40.

32:30

Now this is an unusual story.

32:33

I was coming out of a, of a relationship that I was in at the time and my solution to feeling whatever I was feeling, which was usually lonely and neglected, which wasn't necessarily because I was being neglected or left alone.

32:48

It was a feeling, not a fact, but for me, the solution became, I was a compulsive overeater and then a restrictor to kind of balance it all out.

32:57

But as I go back and as I start to, you know, recover, uncover discard, whichever order those go in, what I discovered is that I've had an anorexic brain, really my whole life and I will restrict food.

33:17

Yes. I will restrict money.

33:19

I'll restrict love.

33:20

You know, I will withhold, restrict like all languages.

33:24

I mean, down to, and this is something that's really fun to share in the rooms because it's the kind of thing that you're like, oh my gosh, please let someone nod their head.

33:32

I will restrict with like, even like body lotion or, or perfect.

33:38

Okay. You get, literally My wife's in half, like my makeup remover wipes and have some like, well, this is 10 cents, Right?

33:44

So for me, that's both kind of like that financial anorexia, which also comes from what I, I literally didn't even know.

33:50

It's a term financial trauma from like making money when you didn't have it, but not knowing why you're making it and feeling guilt about it.

33:57

And then like having the rest of your life, be everyone being like, well, you're so rich.

34:00

And it's like, but I I'm gonna tear this wipe in half a million percent.

34:05

Just makes sense. Remember when you throw out my dental floss, I

34:09

did it throw out your dental floss.

34:10

I said, if it's accidentally been all pulled out, you don't need to wind it back up.

34:15

I'll buy you a new one.

34:16

Anyways, My

34:18

emergency travel dental floss. And then I got into a situation where my dental floss ran out and I didn't have my back Because

34:24

I threw it out anyway. So for me, the, the pattern of disordered distribution of resources went back probably.

34:33

I mean, probably my whole life.

34:35

And for me, like the beauty products thing is like, it's also, it's hilarious and disturbing that the more I love something, the less I'll use it.

34:44

It

34:44

reminds

34:44

me

34:44

of

34:44

do,

34:44

you

34:44

know,

34:52

Deep, deep cut here, Macaulay Culkin is talking to the pigeon woman.

34:57

And he gives a speech about how he she's talking about like, not sort of a SIM, you know, adjacent to what you're talking about here.

35:03

I think if I remember correctly from the last time I saw it, approximately two weeks ago, Macaulay, Culkin then goes, he's like, oh, I once had these rollerblades.

35:12

And I love him so much that I didn't use him, but you know what happened?

35:15

I grew the rollerblades and then they didn't fit anymore.

35:17

And I never got a new set of him. He says it was brilliant McCullough.

35:20

Yeah. I mean, I've had that happen literally with products that I loved so much when I finally went to use them for that one special time, it had spoiled or the scent had gone away and it's like, but here's the thing.

35:32

Some people will have that happen once and they'll never do it again.

35:34

I will do that over and over and over because that that's my brain.

35:41

I mean, like that's, and that's when we talk about it being a disease, like that's my disease of perception and I've also, you know, had never identified body dysmorphia really until probably into my twenties.

35:53

And that's a huge component of my disorder.

35:55

Eating also is literally not, you know, like I say that it's not just my eyes work fine, but what they see and how my brain perceives that it's simply not true.

36:06

And so I, I can't, and don't trust it, which makes it very, very confusing to exist.

36:11

So that's kind of my story.

36:15

And I've been in recovery for two years and I will also say that it's kind of like the graduate school of recovery to dip into your eating and to dip into your body image.

36:29

It's sexuality. You know, if anyone has sexual trauma, this is where it's likely going to come out.

36:35

So, you know, while I have a lot of interest in the money program, as it were there, there is a program for people who have financial trauma or challenges with finances.

36:45

Even if they're not someone who's going bankrupt, there is a program it's called debtors anonymous that actually deals with the financial side of it.

36:52

But for me, the best way to get at it, you know, has been, you know, to have this kind of rigorous honesty surrounding food and eating.

36:59

And it's one of those things, you know, with alcohol, with drugs, you, the rule is you put it down and you don't pick it up no matter what, you don't take a drink, no matter what you do a one day at a time.

37:09

But I have to pick up food three times a day and twice for snacks, you know, we live in our disease.

37:15

So that's, you know, I'm, I'm accountable to someone else.

37:20

That's my, one of my solutions.

37:21

You know, I pray to see myself the way my higher power sees me.

37:25

And I literally have to do it one day at a time, Miami

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40:08

So tell us, like, kind of, did you start in recovery after you also began drinking?

40:13

Like what was your kind of path of recovery?

40:17

It was, yeah, it was definitely a few years into post my mother's death.

40:22

I had found out some things about her that threw me for a loop that completely derailed what my image of her was and the pedestal that I had had her on some things that were kind of like undeniably that undeniably knocked her off that pedestal in my eyes.

40:38

And that I think drove me more to my coping mechanism.

40:42

I mean, definitely drove me more into my coping mechanisms.

40:44

Things kind of definitely got worse before they got better.

40:47

And then it was my sister-in-law actually, I was in Canada working on a project and we had had a Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant and I had gone off to the bathroom to purge as per usual.

40:57

It was at that point, I was doing it five to 10 times a day.

41:01

It was pretty much a constant, literally any, any time that I wasn't purging, I was thinking about my next time purging.

41:06

That was how my mind was just oriented.

41:07

I walked to the bathroom and my sister-in-law was standing there and she goes, this has to stop.

41:12

Like we have to find a way to get you help.

41:14

I can't stand by and watch somebody that I love hurts themselves like this.

41:17

Like, this is, this is, this is really not okay.

41:19

And I think it was, it took so much courage from her.

41:22

Like it makes me emotional. It took so much courage from her to say that and to do that.

41:25

And I really appreciate it. I think that was really the turning point for me.

41:28

And also knowing, knowing that somebody else knew that I couldn't, I had not told my brothers had not told anybody else.

41:33

It was like, oh, the secret's out.

41:35

Did you think no one knew.

41:37

Yeah. And then I actually found out later on after kind of coming, you know, speaking publicly about it, I had gotten some emails from people that would be like, yeah, I found some like residue on my toilet seat, just so you know, which then I was like, oh God.

41:51

Then it was even honestly, it was more just like humiliation because I thought that I was like this gifted secret keeper.

41:58

I like, wasn't good at that.

42:00

That was like pretty much all I had during that time was hoping and cleaning to the fact that maybe, you know, my shame was my own.

42:06

But knowing that like, yeah, you actually weren't pulling the wool over anybody's eyes.

42:10

That was a, that was a bummer.

42:13

The Acronym for shame should have already mastered everything.

42:18

Right. That notion of like, you know, yeah.

42:21

Should have already mastered everything well.

42:23

And I think also, I mean, not to get too up in your business, but what struck me when you were talking about that is also this notion that like you were conditioned and raised to perform, you know, and to have this beautiful exterior, whatever beautiful, you know, looks like or feels like.

42:42

And so the notion that you essentially continued acting right, you continued keeping that exterior at any cost.

42:52

Right? Totally. I mean, I, I definitely see it as, I think I was acting as much, if not more in my regular life to my mom, to the people around me, as I was in front of the camera, it was just 100% across the board of facade, which is why ultimately I had to step away because I felt like it was just too damaging to my mental health, to my greater good to be.

43:11

So there was just too much baggage with it.

43:14

I just had to, like, I couldn't keep doing it.

43:16

So Since we're best friends, now I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you this question because, and I don't know if you resonate with this and I've spoken to a lot of people who grew up, you know, in the industry, but like, I've never, I've never met somebody who has so many like similar, you know, like little things.

43:33

So this is what I'm gonna ask you. Sometimes I feel like, what if I don't actually know who I am, because it was like, always told to me, like, do you know what I mean?

43:45

Yes. And it horrifies me daily.

43:47

So What is that like, who, who do you know who you are now?

43:51

I like To think so.

43:54

I, I, I, you know, I definitely still bump up on like questions of that at times, if I'm still like triggered by something and I have kind of an old pattern kick in and be like, well, maybe I should be doing blank.

44:03

You know, what are fill in the blank?

44:04

But I think a huge factor in helping me identify, I think, what, what I actually want and, and the life that actually means something to me versus other people was a type of therapy called, which I know it's like kind of annoying to be like, oh, this is this therapy.

44:19

I feel self-conscious to stay with their, we call DBT dialectical behavioral therapy.

44:25

Part of it is identifying your, your life worth living.

44:29

And I, and you have, you know, w works literal tangent, like physical concrete worksheets, which was the key factor in why I liked DBD or why I preferred it over other types of therapies.

44:38

I felt like talking was getting me nowhere. I don't wanna just talk in circles and not get anywhere.

44:42

I want like a paper to tell me where I'm at.

44:45

It really helps me to feel kind of more centered and grounded.

44:49

And this type of therapy did that for me.

44:51

And a big part of it is identifying your life worth, living in.

44:53

And with that comes locking down kind of your values and goals.

44:57

That actually means something to you and having those parts of life really kind of nailed down and pinned down in concrete ways was, was hugely helpful to me.

45:05

And of course it changes. It's not like, you know, just because I had a goal when I first created my goals, that I'm going to like, keep that for my life or something like that.

45:12

But it really helped me a lot.

45:14

There's something Extremely relatable beyond people in the industry who have that experience of not knowing themselves.

45:20

And when I first heard my mask, like, you know, do you know yourself?

45:23

My first question? I was like, well, let's unpack that.

45:25

Like, what does it mean to know yourself? And then you went right into it, which is what are your goals and value system outside of what you're told they should be.

45:34

And whether that's materialism, whether that's I should have this job or this car, or even this family.

45:40

I think everyone to some degree is questioning that from friends of mine who are female in their mid thirties who say, and everyone tells them they're supposed to be married and have kids already two men who are like, what type of partnership do I want?

45:55

And I think it's so applicable.

45:57

And so I wanted to just, you know, give that shout out so that it's not only like people in the industry who are dealing with this, because I think it is so relatable to a lot of people who are all questioning and then trying to establish a guidepost to understand how to build, like what feels true for them.

46:14

And it's not just like reading mantras.

46:17

And so, you know, whether it be DBT, but however we, whatever the process is to find out what are the core values and things that you can then build your decisions off of so that you ensure that you're meeting that criteria to satisfy yourself.

46:33

I think that, I think it's so important. And I also, I also think that a big thing that I loved about some of the worksheets that I was given through the DBT program that I, that I did, was it kept telling you to not do the value.

46:44

Like if you think that you're doing this value to please your boyfriend, your mom, your brother, like don't do that.

46:50

You really gotta be honest with yourself. And I think that's the key part to, to value.

46:54

Like charity might really mean something to some people it's like, not one of my, for like foremost values.

47:00

I know a lot of people get a lot of, kind of fulfillment out of it, but I would be lying to myself if I said that that was one that just like did it for me.

47:06

And it's, you know, definitely one that you're kind of inclined to put on a sheet because it might sound nice.

47:13

It might seem good. It might also, you're going to give all your money away because you don't deserve it.

47:17

Cause you're a piece of shit. If you don't give your money to charity, oh, that's not, oh, I'm kidding.

47:21

I'm getting, But

47:24

that talks about like how you actually go and say what means something to me versus what I think I will look good if I put on that sheet.

47:34

And that process, I think is exceptionally complex for a lot of people.

47:39

What they like if humans are horrible at actually doing what they want intrinsically versus what appears great outside.

47:48

And I think most people, and I don't want to over-generalize, but I see a lot of people trapped in that, in that vicious cycle and not really being, even when they do the work, they don't quite know how to separate what really feels true for them versus what they've either been told or what the appearance will be acceptable.

48:10

How do you, how do you figure that out? How do you figure that out?

48:12

I think, I think everyone is caught in some cycle of that.

48:15

If I've really questioning, what is it that I want if I really stripped away all of the external validation and feedback, and we don't live in a society where you can strip out that external validation and feedback, not To

48:29

give a shout out to iron Rand, but that's exactly what I in Rand, you know, was kind of trying to tackle.

48:34

And she wrote the Fountainhead and she wrote Atlas shrugged, you know, which are two kind of novels articulating a philosophy of like, what if everyone just did exactly what worked for them with no regard to anyone else's opinion and it's called objectivism.

48:50

But, but the fact is it's a very cold philosophy.

48:53

It does not leave room for the complexity of human interaction love and yes, in measurement, which, you know, sometimes happens.

49:01

But also I can't help being defensive over my new best friend, Jonathan, because while there is an absolute universality, like I do think that there's also something to like having this conversation of like, what if you literally don't know how you want to wear your while It's

49:19

extremely complicated for both of you.

49:22

I would say that he take away the financial pressure to take away everything else.

49:27

People who want to be a part of a family system, which is everyone, most mostly you, you, we want w you know, we're, we're wired and you can talk about this more.

49:36

So about our primal wiring to be connected to our PR early caregivers, we get that messaging of what is approval act like this.

49:45

And mom and dad will do more for us.

49:48

And so this is like part of the fundamental crux of view of the human existence is that we're wired early on whether it's on stage or whether it's part of the family system to act in order to receive that positive feedback.

49:59

And we are not taught how to connect with that intrinsic inherent thing that we want.

50:05

Everything's broken, and we're all going to die.

50:07

Thanks for listening.

50:10

I just do that part so that you can tell us how to fix it.

50:13

No, I look, I look, if I, if I knew how to fix it, would we be here right now?

50:18

No, I'd be living in Costa Rica.

50:21

You know, I think there's, there's a tremendous amount about us that is wired.

50:26

Yes. To please. And there's a tremendous amount about us that is wired to please a caregiver, but especially when there's any element of power struggle surrounding love.

50:36

You know, I mean, I think that's kind of like the simplest way to put it The

50:40

quote, if you're mean to your child, they won't grow up to hate.

50:44

You they'll grow up to hate themselves.

50:45

If we had someone researching, they would find that for us and tell us where it came from.

50:50

Anyway, Put a quote at the front of my planner each month that might make it.

50:55

You can just attribute it to me. I don't mind it Then

50:58

said that you have a really cool website.

51:00

Also having jealousy about that.

51:03

My friend designed it. So I'll tell him, he'll really appreciate that.

51:06

My friend, Brian, Well, I need to talk to your friend, Brian.

51:08

It's not so much. So there's a difference between jealousy and envy says the daughter of two English teachers.

51:13

And to me, I'm more, I'm more envious of it.

51:17

Jealousy feels like I wish she didn't have it.

51:20

She doesn't deserve it. Envy is like, I want that it's beautiful, but one of the things, I mean, I've just been having a really good time just being on your website, but you have this stuff link and I'm super into it and I'm super into it because it's a really great look.

51:36

It's a great little snapshot, you know, into you.

51:39

And you said that this is you kind of, you refresh it.

51:41

There's one thing I don't agree with. And that's the undoing because I started to read the book and my mother wanted me to read the book.

51:48

My mother likes really surprising, dramatic, like elaborate psychological, blah, blah, blah.

51:54

And I started reading. I'm like, what is this?

51:56

And then I started watching it and I was like, it's that book?

51:59

I didn't finish. That's what it is.

52:01

So that's the only one I was like, Hey, but I want to talk about, Did

52:05

we fear? I was, I was a little on that one too.

52:07

I was like, well, I watched the whole thing. So I need to like, kind of like take accountability for the fact that I watched every episode of this, but also I judged myself for watching every episode.

52:16

And, and also I want to say that on your stuff page, there's a lot, that's just like fun and good.

52:20

And I think that's something that I really appreciate about you.

52:23

You're very, very intelligent. You're very cerebral, but you also have a real sense of like fun and like that's, you know, so like it's a really good mix and I'm very pleased with you.

52:31

Okay. But you have a book on the, and I don't know when this will air, but you, you have a book that is on your stuff.

52:39

You've been enjoying and it's called the liars club and it is, it is a memoir by Mary Karr.

52:46

And it was given to me by one of my closest friends, my friend, Nancy, who's a writer and what Nancy Nancy gave this to me because I was working on my screenplay and not wanting to write a memoir.

52:56

Remember, mom, it's not a memoir.

52:57

But what I said to Nancy after I read this book is this is the most tragic story that I've read possibly in a memoir.

53:11

And like, I've read a lot of memoir.

53:14

This

53:14

is

53:14

one

53:14

of

53:14

those

53:18

books. That is, it is so terrifying and gripping the level of abuse and complexity.

53:25

I'm not just saying like, oh, it's like, if you like reading abuse stories, read this book.

53:29

That's not what I'm saying. And it's not so much the graphicness because what's exquisite about this memoir.

53:34

And for anyone who likes literature, this book is a must read it because it is told from really the perspective of a child, meaning it is written in a very choppy kind of disordered fashion, because that's how your experience is when you think back and try and, you know, but as things start being revealed, there comes this terrifying clarity and this really like almost emotionless outpouring of this realization, you know, and I know that sounds like the worst review for reading this book, but I want to know why you like this book and if it resonated with you the way it resonated with me, I

54:24

think the first thing that stood out to me that I enjoyed most and kind of appreciated most was her detachment from her story.

54:32

Like clearly she had had enough time away and done enough processing that she was able to find the valuable moments to share and share them in a valuable way so that it wasn't just like, I think the worst thing is when it's just like a self-indulgent trauma eating like little here's my problem, help me.

54:49

Like, that's nobody needs that. And we want that.

54:51

She, I think told her story so beautifully and eloquently and she edited it so well.

54:57

And then I also think she had really good moments of humor.

55:00

She had these little, little quips every so often that would just, just when you needed it, just when you'd be like, this is so heavy, I'm gonna put it on.

55:07

I'm gonna put her down, she'd come through with his little zinger, little quick little zinger that would, I would just be laughing out loud and to be able to do that, to have that skill, to have, have, have the reader so invested in.

55:18

So just engaged to the point that they feel like it's, it's overwhelming for me emotionally.

55:23

And then to just pull the rug out from under you, make you laugh.

55:27

I was, I was just completely taken with it.

55:29

I think she's so brilliant. So good.

55:31

My God. And you, I mean, that's, that's a beautiful, that's a beautiful description and you wrote a play, correct?

55:40

Yeah. Oh, a one woman show.

55:41

It's

55:41

just

55:41

like

55:41

a

55:41

cringey

55:41

term,

55:45

Maybe just in our, in our, in our final time with you tell us a little bit about sort of what that was like in terms of, you know, coming off liars club for a reason, you know, this notion of like, what part of our story do we tell, how do we tell it?

56:00

Is it for the viewer? Is it for the author?

56:02

You know, what, what, and especially for you to also be a performer in that, can you talk a little bit about really your decision to do that, or, you know, your fear about doing that?

56:16

That's a great question. It's definitely been a process.

56:18

My relationship with my mom is something that I'll be working through for sure, for a long time to come and like exploring, I think in some form of art for a long time, I think it kind of be impossible to, for me to, I have to feel a personal investment to things that I'm writing.

56:31

I admire people who don't have to have that personal investment and can just kind of like latch onto characters or a story and go to town.

56:37

But I have to, you know, I'm sure it comes from a place of selfishness.

56:40

I just have to feel like, oh, what am I exploring?

56:43

That's relevant to me and helping me work through something, or I feel like I can sense that sense, like that lack of personal investment.

56:50

And I don't, I don't like that, but I think it started for me with, I wrote a pilot script that our mutual friend Andy assertive was actually was in and was so wonderful.

56:59

And, and then I, I didn't do anything with that because it felt too personal.

57:02

It felt too close to the chest.

57:05

I felt like it was there wasn't enough distance from it to tell it properly to where it was worthy of other people's time.

57:13

I felt like it was something that should just be for, for me.

57:16

And to know that I had done and to hopefully get to the next thing.

57:18

Then I wrote a collection of essays, which my manager at the time had said like, this is great.

57:24

I don't really know what to do with books.

57:26

So I'm not sure what to do. Yeah. What did We do with a smart printing woman who writes so many words?

57:32

I was, I was completely disheartened, honestly.

57:34

I didn't. I was like, okay. So I guess, I don't know.

57:36

I don't know what to do then if, if I can't, if I can't write and I don't want to act, and I don't know what to do.

57:41

So definitely there was a big kind of hump to get over.

57:46

It's when you call your best and you're like, bitch, we're going to Costa Rica.

57:49

I'm like, okay. To Japan, To

57:52

Tokyo Disney. So, yes.

57:54

And, and so, so I left this manager because I, it was kind of another identity thing for me and feeling like it was more people wanting me to be something that I wasn't.

58:03

And if she, if they're not going to connect with this, then I don't know what they're going to connect with.

58:06

And this feels so fundamental to me, like all that kind of stuff, all that existential stuff, I took some time off.

58:12

And then I wrote a one woman show that was more around themes of control that I then completely scrapped, because that was, that just felt like it was too far removed because I think I did the pendulum swing.

58:24

We went from going way too personal, well, not way too personal, but too self-indulgent Like

58:30

right on the nose. It was right on the nose.

58:33

Right. Exactly, Exactly. And so then I swung the opposite way and it was too far removed and it felt like, well, that's not, that's not honest either.

58:40

And that's not totally what I'm trying to do.

58:42

So then I redid the one woman show, which felt like, oh, I think this is something.

58:45

And I think this could be something.

58:47

So then I started workshopping that, and that was, that was, I guess, I don't even know now a year and a half ago or so when I first started doing it.

58:55

Yeah, right before COVID and it shut down because of COVID, but it just kind of explores my relationship with my mom from childhood up until a few years after her passing kind of the revelations that I had in post her passing that helped me to find my own identity and establish my own.

59:07

And I think the tagline was something like, you know, how my mother dying turned out to be the greatest, what was it?

59:12

How did you say it? That the show's called?

59:15

I'm glad my mom did. And it's the, and it's like, oh, how my mom's just went from being the worst thing that ever happened to me to the best.

59:20

Yeah. I just, I really love that.

59:22

You also have a podcast that I believe Jonathan and I get to be on together in case you'd like a little more of both of us.

59:29

I'm so excited. I really want to talk more about everything.

59:31

I like, I've got so many mental notes.

59:34

Should I say that? I invited myself to that podcast.

59:36

He invited Himself it's okay.

59:37

But tell us a bit also about just your podcast journey, because you know, there's not, I don't want to say there's not a lot of women in this space.

59:46

Cause there are women in this space, but in particular you have a very, you have a specific angle and a specific kind of, you know, expertise that you're able to help people draw upon.

59:58

So how did that come about?

1:00:00

COVID completely.

1:00:03

It was Because of COVID. I had toyed, I'd had to do a podcast for awhile.

1:00:06

I had been a fan of podcasts for awhile.

1:00:08

I listened to, I listened to Sam Harris for a long time.

1:00:13

I listened to, I loved your episode was Emeris.

1:00:16

It was great. I had listened to Pete Holmes and I had done his podcast and I did his like years ago.

1:00:23

And as soon as I left, I was like, I got to do a podcast.

1:00:25

Like, it seems so fun.

1:00:26

I am so thankful.

1:00:28

I didn't do it then. Dear Lord, my God.

1:00:31

But once COVID happened, I was like, well, I can't do it.

1:00:33

I was distraught honestly, about the one-man show.

1:00:35

It was really helpful for me personally.

1:00:37

And it was starting to, you know, professionally, it was doing good things too.

1:00:41

And I was excited about that and it just felt I was completely devastated and I felt like I needed some sort of outlet and I needed some way to kind of explore things honestly, and in a vulnerable way.

1:00:51

And that's how it happened.

1:00:53

Here's the most obnoxious question. But I want you to know that, like I've been asked this a gazillion times in my life and I want to kick people in the face, but I'm not asking it like those people and I hope you don't want to kick me in the face.

1:01:03

No, the question like what's next for you is not like, tell us what's next.

1:01:09

Like, that's not what I mean. Or like you do so many, like people always say to me, like what's left to do, you've done it all.

1:01:15

And it's like, really people like I can't with that.

1:01:17

So what I'm asking you is like really in terms of like, it's kind of like when I said, like, who are you?

1:01:24

Like, do you know who you are?

1:01:26

I'm curious what you look forward to meaning, you know, are you a person who do you want to keep writing?

1:01:33

Do you, could you see yourself in front of a camera again?

1:01:37

Do you want to settle down and have kids like, do you know those kinds of things that you want for yourself yet?

1:01:44

Well,

1:01:46

Th you know, I, I actually, this was, this was a fortunate thing to happen over COVID, but I I've been writing a book for that was based on the one woman show and something happened with that.

1:01:57

So that'll be coming out kind of soon, but I've been working on that and kind of getting the stories out in a fuller.

1:02:02

I just think a book has the amount of space necessary to kind of cover the ground that I want to cover in the way that I want to cover it entirely.

1:02:10

So that's been incredibly fulfilling, but I will say that I think, you know, once this, this book process is done and, you know, and if the, I don't even know if I'd want to do the woman show at the timing, just because of the timing, it's like, well, it was so personal.

1:02:25

I don't know if it's going to feel as relevant to me then for me writing it as a kind of mentioned earlier, has to come from a personal place.

1:02:31

And I don't find much of an interest in if it doesn't.

1:02:34

I think it's, it's very much got to have that connection for me in order for me to feel motivated and compelled to do it.

1:02:40

I have been thinking about my future quite a lot recently because I'm, I'm not sure.

1:02:46

I don't think that I want kids and that's kind of, I thought back at 21, oh, well, it'll, I'll get to that point when I want them.

1:02:54

And I'm 28 and I'm like almost 29.

1:02:56

I'm like, oh, I don't know if it's, if it's coming, I had kind of a window where I thought I might have.

1:03:01

And then that window kind of quickly passed.

1:03:03

I definitely wanna get married is just, seems like a beautiful, like thing to me.

1:03:08

I still feel a lot of like hope and romance around that concept.

1:03:11

And I know a lot of people think it's very outdated, but that to me is just, seems very, Can't

1:03:17

take the Mormon out of this girl.

1:03:18

That's right, baby.

1:03:19

And I Also think it represents something to me so much because I, my parents had such a dysfunctional, chaotic, unhealthy relationship.

1:03:25

It, to me, it speaks more to kind of overcoming that and it just represents a whole lot more to me.

1:03:30

So I hope for that someday. And career-wise is I, I'm a very kind of career motivated person.

1:03:35

I don't think I don't want to go back in front of the camera.

1:03:38

I don't see that happening for me.

1:03:39

I'd love to kind of direct things that I didn't write at some point things that I just kind of connect with.

1:03:46

I feel a deep connection to actors and the vulnerability that it takes to do that.

1:03:51

And I respect it so tremendously that I love just kind of like communicating with them, but it's just too much for me emotionally, but so I guess, yeah, that's a very, all over the place answer to say.

1:04:00

I don't know. Totally.

1:04:02

That's totally, it's beautiful. And I have to say like, you know, while I'm old enough to be your mom, you know, at, at 45, I have to tell you, like, it's a lot of the same journey, you know, and I think that's one of the really gratifying things about doing this podcast and kind of sharing in this format, which is different than kind of like the YouTube format that I had been sharing.

1:04:20

And, you know, for years is like, I get to kind of talk that stuff out more and you know, Jonathan and I talk about this a lot.

1:04:26

Like I still feel 15.

1:04:29

Like if I close my eyes and think hard enough, I'm that kid I'm that teenager, like in my room of like, I don't want to do anything.

1:04:38

I don't want to go out. I don't want to see people, but like, why doesn't anybody call me?

1:04:42

You know? Like, it's still like, I'm still that person.

1:04:45

And, you know, like even after like having the wedding and having the kid and like doing all the things and it's like, okay, so then you get divorced and you just like put one foot in front of the other, you know?

1:04:55

And it's like, life just kind of keeps doing its thing.

1:04:57

But then at 40 you develop an eating disorder.

1:05:00

That really was just the evolution, you know, of all the other things that were laying dormant.

1:05:06

Right. So it's just this like constant process.

1:05:08

And if you were to ask me those things, I'd have a similar set of like, gosh, I don't know.

1:05:13

Like here's some things I want to do.

1:05:15

So I just, I think it's really beautiful. And I think the notion is that like, when I think when Jonathan and I were both, you know, around your age, it was this notion of like, I'm going to figure it out.

1:05:24

And I love that you don't have that notion of like, I can't wait to figure it out so that everything is perfect forever.

1:05:29

Like this is the journey like this is life.

1:05:32

And I just, I love all the parts of it that you have seized.

1:05:35

And also think it's really, really amazing that through your struggles, you've been able to create so much, you know, it's really beautiful.

1:05:43

Thank you. I did want to ask about your directing though, cause you're directing your first feature.

1:05:46

Is it soon? Is it, when is this happening tomorrow?

1:05:49

Very soon I asked because that seems like such a sort of, it seems like a way where like, you know, it's a very, it's clearly a sense of, you know, literal direction.

1:05:58

I hope That Dustin Hoffman and Candice Bergen are listening to this because as I was working on this script, I kept being like, okay, when are we going to hire the writer to come and write it?

1:06:08

Like, I'm ready. Where's the writer.

1:06:10

And they wouldn't give me a writer cause they're like, Nope, you wrote it.

1:06:14

And then I was like, okay, well who's going to direct it.

1:06:17

Then I'm directing it.

1:06:20

So I'm not saying it does not.

1:06:23

It doesn't feel accidental. Like everything has been very intentional, but my notion of myself is that I'm not competent.

1:06:29

I'm not competent to write and I'm not competent to direct.

1:06:32

And it turns out I do, I have, I have a lot of competency and I'm, I'm working on that, you know, sense of confidence.

1:06:39

It really feels like I'm, I'm living a magical realism experience because it's incredibly bizarre to me.

1:06:45

But yeah, that is my summer plan.

1:06:48

And you know, my feeling is I'd, I'd love to be off camera because you know, like my hair is starting to get more gray in here than I anticipated.

1:06:57

And I'm like, where did the, why is this part like this?

1:07:01

You know? And like I started obsessing about my forearms.

1:07:04

Why is there a little wrinkle when I bend my arm in just this direction?

1:07:10

Like things that no one should think.

1:07:11

So my feeling is put me in long sleeves and a turtleneck before I have to be on camera again.

1:07:17

But the, the, the notion also of being an unconventional, looking female in the industry is very, it's, it's exhausting.

1:07:25

You know, it's really exhausting.

1:07:27

I was speaking to a young, a young actress who also has a lot of strong producer and, you know, kind of production skills.

1:07:34

And she's kind of asking for like guidelines and stuff.

1:07:38

And it's like, it's very hard for me not to sound like that person of like, if you have any other passion or interest, please lean into it, do it, lean into it because there's, while there's a S there is a possibility that this might be an amazing journey to be an actor.

1:07:54

It's mostly a lot of complexity that I don't know if I recommend Jeanette.

1:08:00

You're really, you're S you're a really, really special person.

1:08:03

And I'm really, really glad that we got to connect like this.

1:08:08

Thank you. Same here. I have had an exponentially bigger, you know, strange squeal excitement inside during this conversation.

1:08:17

As I did, when I first got the email about it, it's kind of like, Let's

1:08:26

take my sweatshirt off.

1:08:27

Cause that interview was hot.

1:08:29

You

1:08:29

were

1:08:29

working

1:08:32

hard. It was very intense. I don't know.

1:08:34

It felt very special relationship with her.

1:08:36

She seems, I mean, wise beyond her years, I'm sure she's never heard that, but she really does.

1:08:41

She seems very, very wise.

1:08:43

I mean, she's lived through a lot.

1:08:44

I didn't know all those things about her.

1:08:47

I mean, I just didn't. I liked when she said liked is maybe not the right adjective when she talks about how her mom fell off the pedestal and the impact of that.

1:08:57

It's a tough process.

1:08:58

When someone who you've thought is protecting you and then you have to start to dig underneath what that relationship might have also Included.

1:09:07

Well, I think that's, you know, one of the cases where we can look to sort of, I mean, there was a lot about it's true.

1:09:13

Like I'm totally acknowledging. There's a lot about our stories that, that were very like locked into a very specific experience that I know only she and I, and a couple of other people can probably relate to specifically, but that's a great example.

1:09:26

Are there is a time in everyone's life where your parents fall off the pedestal that you've, that you've put them on parents in particular.

1:09:33

I mean, of course like it happens, you know, with anyone or anything that you make your higher power, as we say, like, you know, whoever or whatever you worship at some point will fall.

1:09:43

But in particular, when that, when that happens with your parent, it can be enormously complicated depending on kind of the terms in your family, by which you had to keep that person on a pedestal, you know, and for what reason, and she's remarkably grounded.

1:09:57

I mean, she's been through a lot, but she's remarkably grounded for the complexity that her story has.

1:10:05

I mean, if her mother did not have this cancer diagnosis kind of looming over both of them, you know, I mean that altered the family as well.

1:10:13

And not necessarily from a malicious perspective.

1:10:17

I mean, I, I can't say, and I don't know, even if she can, but that hung over the whole family, no matter what, even if she hadn't become an actress, you know, and that thread of like, if I do this, she'll be okay.

1:10:30

Or if I do this, she might get upset and that might give her not okay.

1:10:33

You know, it's a Very

1:10:35

big complication to the individuation process.

1:10:37

And while you say that, like, you know, you and her have this very unique similarity, which you do, a lot of people can relate to that individuation process because we all have to sort of begin to re-examine our parents and who are they as people, not only as our parents who we've put on this pedestal.

1:10:53

And it also happens in relationships where people put other people on pedestals, and then you begin to be like, oh, wait a second.

1:11:00

They are also a human being and they have unique characteristics.

1:11:03

And

1:11:03

you're

1:11:03

just

1:11:03

silent

1:11:03

now

1:11:03

because

1:11:03

they're

1:11:03

like,

1:11:03

what

1:11:03

does

1:11:03

he

1:11:03

said

1:11:03

about,

1:11:03

what

1:11:03

has

1:11:03

he

1:11:03

seen

1:11:03

about

1:11:03

me

1:11:03

that

1:11:03

he's

1:11:03

now

1:11:03

not

1:11:03

thinking

1:11:03

I'm

1:11:03

the

1:11:03

greatest

1:11:15

I was actually thinking about this last night. You know, my father my father died six years ago and I was very, very close with my father.

1:11:23

Like I was his mini me, you know, we were very, very twinned and, you know, I was very, very close with him.

1:11:31

You know, we had the same body language.

1:11:33

Like we even had the same physical ailments, like, you know, we literally had like the same body, like was like, I got his body and, you know, our brains worked a lot of the same way.

1:11:42

Like we liked the same music. We had the same sense of humor.

1:11:45

We had the same sense of, you know, a critical eye.

1:11:48

Like we were very, very similar.

1:11:50

And you wonder, like, it was I similar because that was the way to earn his attention.

1:11:53

You know? Like it's, who knows. That's what I'm thinking.

1:11:56

Keep going, nevermind.

1:11:58

My arms are folded for those of you who are listening cross.

1:12:03

My point was that even as much as I felt like I knew my father, I was thinking just last night, like I had some experience and I was like, something about, like, it was something about my kids.

1:12:15

Like, just like thinking about like, whatever something happened.

1:12:17

I was like, my dad had to go through this because he was a human and he was like a dad.

1:12:23

Right. And there's something to when someone dies, that allows a completely different sense of revelation.

1:12:31

And I think part of it is because you know that you can't talk about it with them.

1:12:38

Now, the hippies among you might be like, of course you can still talk to him.

1:12:42

And that's not what I mean, people, I don't mean can I commune with him?

1:12:46

I don't mean, can I go to a psychic?

1:12:48

I don't mean, can I like to talk because some in his energy, I mean, I can't say, Hey dad, how would you do this?

1:12:56

What was this? Like? Or did you feel trapped?

1:12:59

Like you can't have that.

1:13:02

So there's something about also that her process really began when her mother passed away.

1:13:08

You know, of saying, not just like, let's have sex, I want a drink.

1:13:12

I want a purge. Right.

1:13:13

But of like, oh, here's a whole new identity I have now that this person's not there to reflect it.

1:13:19

You know, it's so interesting.

1:13:21

I think, I think she was very interesting Mine

1:13:24

before we do an ask my anything, we're going to let people know that if they want to ask you anything they can do.

1:13:30

so@bialikbreakdown.com, that's BIA Breakdown.com.

1:13:35

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1:13:39

And thank you so much to everyone who has a, you can also find amazing articles.

1:13:43

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1:13:49

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1:13:51

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1:13:59

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1:14:07

We do drop things on Tuesdays and sometimes on Thursdays, we'll surprise you drop it.

1:14:12

Like it's hot.

1:14:12

The

1:14:12

days

1:14:12

ask

1:14:12

my

1:14:12

him,

1:14:12

anything

1:14:12

comes

1:14:12

from

1:14:18

Bridget. It's about relationships.

1:14:19

Why do I feel a tendency to self-sabotage and feel some insecurity, even though the relationship is wonderful and healthy, I'm

1:14:32

not laughing at you. I'm laughing with you because you can relate to Bridget.

1:14:35

I think you chose this question specifically because you want to hear me answer it.

1:14:40

I just want to talk, have you talk all about yourself sabotage?

1:14:44

Well, first of all, I, I don't love the term self sabotage.

1:14:47

Not because I don't believe that it exists, but I think it's often masking other things.

1:14:53

So, you know, what I like to say is sometimes, and this is really like, this isn't necessarily a neuroscience perspective per se.

1:15:02

This is more kind of from my experience, my strength and my hope.

1:15:05

I hope a lot of times there are things that challenge us that we're afraid of.

1:15:11

And sometimes when we're in a relationship, especially if it's getting more intimate, more, you know, closer to commitment going into territory, you haven't gone into before.

1:15:23

And that could mean a lot of things. It could mean you're thinking of traveling together or moving in together, a meeting each other's parents.

1:15:29

A lot of times those things, and it doesn't have to be directly related like, oh, he asked me to meet his parents.

1:15:34

Now I'm going to self-sabotage. It could be a week later.

1:15:37

It could be a month later. All those things brew in your consciousness and in your experience.

1:15:42

And sometimes that fear of closeness and of moving along can be terrifying because it holds a lot of possibility.

1:15:52

That's new and scary.

1:15:54

And we tend to like novelty, but only in certain, in certain doses.

1:15:59

And the other thing is, if you have any reservations about a relationship, when things also seem to be moving along the best way that you can articulate, it may be by what looks like self-sabotage when it could be that you actually have other concerns.

1:16:13

So this is really a great example of when doing some introspective work is important because it's important to be clear on what you want and what you need.

1:16:23

And if the other person is helping you fulfill that purpose, or if they're serving as an impediment and that's ask Maya anything, ask anything, which is it for us, It

1:16:39

is really hard to know what is self-sabotage and what is our instinct leading us to question, if there's an underlying issue in the relationship that needs to be addressed, which is our core instinct, sixth sense, and which is our like, wait a second.

1:16:54

I am having resistance to facing something that I personally need to work on.

1:16:59

And if you are not watching this on video, you're missing my literally dying with laughter.

1:17:06

Her face has never been, or Hey

1:17:11

for heartbreaks out to the one we hope you're never Appleseed Alex,

1:17:18

break down. She's going to break it down for you.

1:17:21

She's got a neuroscience, B H, D, or fiction.

1:17:25

Now she's going to break down, break down and she's going to break it down.

1:17:29

I definitely had a his a long history with eating with eating disorders, but my mom passed away when I was twenty one. That same week was the first time that I had sex. The first time that I made myself throw up, bulimia, which I had for the years, and the first time that I had a drink of alcohol. So I think there's no denying that it was you know, mom death and those coping mechanisms all kind of hit at once. Hi. I'm I'm Bialek, and welcome to my breakdown. This is the place where we break down the things that make us break down. It's mine. The Alex break down. She's gonna break it down for you because, you know, she knows it being ignored too. And now she's going to break down. She's going to break it down. Today, we're gonna be breaking down in measurement grief and moms with McCurdy. And when I first heard her name, I didn't connect her with who I know her to be, I'm gonna get more into who she is in a Jennette, but you may know her because she was in Nickelodeon's iCarly and also a spin off of that salmon cat. She's a writer, she's a director, she's well, this is I this might be one of my favorite episodes. I'm just gonna say it. But I'd like to first introduce us all to my favorite episode, Jonathan Cohen, who was literally just texting on his phone while I was introducing because that's how we roll over here. Hello, Mime. I was making a note on a sticky pad that I'm about to share with you, but it's good to be misperceived. We're dressed little bit like opposites today, which I think is fitting for her introduction that just happened. I will have to take off my outer layer later in this episode because it gets hot in here. It It does. And just to continue a little bit of a a trend that's been happening. Gonna redo my intro because I feel like they're not getting quite as much work as they used to get. Another thing you could have said is Let's welcome Jonathan. I'm empty inside without him as a nod to her podcast title, and I would have said, I'm empty inside Mayim, primarily because I didn't eat lunch. Jonathan, what do you wanna tell the folks at home before we talk to Jennette McCurdy? Well, I was also gonna say that we're breaking down cultural expectations versus what we truly want and what our authentic experience would be to make us happy. That's not as easy to encapsulate. But yes, we talk about what's expected of us versus what we decide that we want for ourselves. Yes. Before we get too much further, why don't we do a word of the day? Which is exciting because today, Im is only a word, not a phrase. Word of the day. measurement enmeshment is a term. It's not a good thing. That's true. It is not a good thing. It was actually originally described by Salvador Mnuchin who? This is is interesting. I didn't realize he only died a couple years ago, but he was born in nineteen twenty one. So he was an old person. He used this word to describe a relationship, typically in a family, where personal boundaries are permeable and unclear. First, you might think it's important to have permeable boundaries because you might think like, oh, well, it's important people to have access and for your families to get to know you and for you to be there for each other. But that's not what Im measurement is. In measurement is really the like I don't know where I end and you begin, that's really in measurement. And when it's in a romantic relationship, We tend to think more in terms of, like, codependency, which is not the same thing, but Im measurement is usually a term that is used to describe a dysfunctional family them. It often happens when people feel each other's emotions, which again, you might be like, well, you're empathetic. You want to feel someone else's You wanna feel someone else's emotions. But the differences is that if someone's having an emotion in a family system where there's measurement, the entire system then revolves around that person's emotions and everyone gets sucked in. So, Jonathan's right. You really do have to kind of think of this in the negative sense. In measurement is when, for example, a mother is not able to separate her emotional experience from that of her daughter. Even though they might say like, oh, we have boundaries. Im measurement between a parent and a child will often result in over involvement in each other's lives, which makes it hard for the child to become developmentally independent and responsible for her choices, and this is gonna come up a lot in today's episode. So the notion that I actually it's kind of interesting to think of this in terms of, like, a lot of moms. Like, I'm best friends with my daughter. And many of us kind of old fashioned folks are like, you shouldn't be best friends with your child. You should be their parent. And not just because we're lame and wanna be that person, but exactly for this reason that that kind of best friendness that often happens, especially between moms and daughters, can lead to a set of expectations and a set of disappointments and can really induce especially in a young child a notion of a need either for secrecy or lack of privacy. I hope that that's sort of like a good framework for Enmeshment It's not a term to be used lightly. It's not just like, oh, I don't like my mom. She's so enmeshed with me. It is really something that is more of a clinical term. It's completely fine also to feel did to your parents, to feel sense obligation, you know, especially if you come from, like, I do a a traditional family of particular cultural or religious set of expectations about what children are enmeshed? Believe me. There's a lot of, like, built in stuff there that can very easily slide into enmeshment land and often does. So yeah, we'll be talking about that. Is it time to introduce our very exciting guest? It's time. I'm gonna read Jennettes McCurdy's bio off her website, which also I highly recommend. She spells her name, JENNETTE, and then McCurdy MCCURDY, jeanette mccurty dot com and her bio says, Jennettes got her start in child acting, which by her late teen years had brought her success. She started Nickelodeon's hit show, I and her own spin off of that show Sam and Cat. She went on to star in the Netflix series between and had a short lived country music career with capital records, Nashville. Despite her outside success, McCurdy felt ashamed of ninety percent of her resume and ultimately unfulfilled. So she turned to alcohol, but since that didn't work, she quit acting and began pursuing writing and directing in two thousand seventeen. She's written and directed a pilot and four short films. Her work has been featured in and on the Hollywood reporter short of the week Florida film festival, salute your shorts, and many more. She's written articles for Huffington Post and The Wall Street Journal. Those are two very reputable places. That's not what her bio says. That's what I said. Hence the weird voice that I used. Her one woman show called, wait for it. I'm glad my mom I'm glad my mom died, had a sold out run at the Lyric Hyperion Theatre, which is a very, very fine theater here in Silverlink. She hosts a podcast called Empty Inside, which Jonathan and I are thrilled to also get to be on. And she speaks with guests about uncomfortable topics. She's incredibly articulate. She's incredibly intelligent and she's lived a life that's really beyond so many people's wildest imaginations in, in positive and spectacular incredibly intelligent, and she's lived a life that's really beyond so many people's wildest imaginations in Im positive and spectacular ways. And also in really difficult ways and also in really difficult ways. It's really a pleasure to welcome Jennette McCurdy. Hello, Jeanette. Break it down. I do just want to thank you for having me on. I've been a fan of yours for a long time and getting this through from from my manager. I Mayim a very strange sound of excitement when I saw this. Which I'd never make when I usually, I'm like, oh god. I'm like, I don't wanna do that. But I was like, wow. Like, it was a weird, like, a square type of sad. I have been not only a fan of yours, but I'm so intrigued by your story and your path. So I hope to be able to kind of ask you some of that too thorough. Sure. And and get an effect. And it's very inspiring, you know, for me to get to talk to it's very inspiring, you know, for me to get to talk to you. You've been very open about a lot of things that I I'm choosing to be more open about, so I also find inspiration in what you've been forthcoming about and I'm very intimidated by you because I feel like you, you know, you do well lot of things that, you know, that I'm still kind of learning, you know, to do well. Or to to try and do well. And and one of those is really being honest and vulnerable and open. Maybe you can tell us a little bit, you know, for for people at home sort of what your trajectory was like, where you're from, and what your folks were like, or what your family structure was like, and sort of how you became an actor, you know, at at such a young age? Yeah. I guess Mayim kind of history, I when I was six, my mom put me in in acting. I think to kind of, you know, she she wanted she had good intentions, I think, at at the core of it. She wanted me to have a better life than she had. She didn't have a a very good one. It was a constant struggle financially, emotionally, mentally. And I think she thought that that acting was an easy, you know, kind of early way out to kind of ensure that I had success in a better path than she had. And I see it as something different, but that was kind of how I initially started acting and then, you know, within a couple years was was fairly successful. And by kind of, like, eleven was the main financial support for my family. And, you know, there were a lot of there's a lot of pressure that came with that. And I think with that pressure came kind of my resentments toward that career. And frustrations with as well as kind of resentments that were for my mom, but I didn't identify as resentments at the time because because of how much I absolutely adored her and found, like, my entire entire identity in her idea of me. We call that in measurement for those of you listening in Oh, yeah. Classic and measurement schema. And I also grew up Mormon, which I think also played a definitely a factor in kind of A LOT OF THE ISSUES. The person that I made children with comes from a Mormon PERSON THAT I MADE CHILDREN WITH COMES FROM MOREIGN FAMILY AND MY MOTHER AND LAW ALSO CONVERTED FROM MOREMONISM TO JUDIISM AS did my my now ex husband. So, yeah, I've done, like, the deep deep Mormon dive over here. I've been to Mormon funerals. I've been to well, you can't really go to proper temple weddings, but I have been to ceremonies, and I've visited one of the temples before it was dedicated. So, yeah, I've done, like, the deep Mormon dive into our connection as well. We got all the things. Wow. Wow. That's That's wild. That's a rare one. That's a rare connector. It's a pretty rare connector. So tell us, were your folks in the industry at all? Or no. No. Nobody was any any thing in the industry. My mom actually had a a friend of hers who put her daughter in background work, which was, like, the way in And my mom just I kept hearing my mom be, like, academy kids. Academy kids, which was the name of the background agency. So that friend, Cindy, gave my mom the name of the background agency who I then, like, auditioned for to be I was auditioning to be principal, but I didn't realize at the time like, getting into background was technically a rejection that you're not getting into principle. So it was, like, it was the weirdest kind of version of rejection that I've that I have then become very familiar with, which is like soft let down of, like, well, you're kind of you're semi rejected but semi let like, you're letting the background work with the hope that someday you might be good enough kid for, like, the real deal. But for now, you're just limited to non speaking because you have you you don't. You don't worry. No one should hear you speak, but you're great. Keep going. Exactly. We'll keep plugging along. Maybe get some bangs, and we'll see what we can do. That's what I tell myself. That's what you tell yourself every day. That's it as just Jonathan Slope. Get on this podcast. And if I do background long enough, I'll be able to speak. Keep at Im, kid. Keep at it. So give us kind of like the the ages sort of that that then your your life kind of took this very very different in turn and you became a public person. How quickly did that happen? Yeah. I started doing principal work at, like, I guess, six and a half. And then by nine, like, the career was really heating up to the point that, you know, mom was getting some ideas of, like, Mayim we don't need so much God when we got these dominoes residuals born in. So kind of by, I would say, by twelve, we had kind of lost touch with our faith. Before then, it had been very much a part of our lives. And we went to church every Sunday and everything by 12 w I would say it was directly related to my you enmeshed every Sunday. And everything by twelve, what I would say was directly related to my career picking up was when the the Normaism kind of took took back seat. And then by thirteen, I was cast in a in the show that kind of became the thing that made me born the public eye and and and all that. And that lasted until I was twenty I think twenty one. Wait, twenty. Hold on. One second. Now Im pretty good at math. How many years of your life? So it went from thirteen until I was twenty close to twenty one. Wow. I mean, that's a very different experience, you know, than for example, than I had. Right? Right. You know, so I'm just like, of course, it's all about me. No. I'm not trying to make it about me, but I'm trying to think about, like, you not only grew up on the television. You went through, you know, transitioning from a from a girl to a woman, and then you transitioned through your formative years as a teenager and then beyond. Right. What were your your kind of the pocket years So I started acting very late in life. I was in middle school. I was almost twelve. And people were like, but you were still so young. But when I think about your experience versus mine, like I had eleven years just living with my crazy family. Instead of also being in the Indus while living with my crazy family. Yeah. And I was in school plays and I was like, I should do this because I'm comfortable on stage, which of course there's still a huge amount of architecture that goes into getting a child into the industry, which believe me, is not lost on me. I was cast in beaches a year after I started acting. Wow. Yeah. I was really crazy. That came out, you know, then the next year. So beaches came out when I turned thirteen and then blossom was fourteen to nineteen I was two years out of high school which felt like an eternity to wait to get to, like, leave and, like, have this not be every day of my life, like on a set, you know, smiling, which is fine. And I had a very I actually had a very positive experience meaning I worked on a clean set. I never saw drugs. I never saw alcohol. Like, people were kind. You know? But I'm sure you can Im. Like, the person inside of me was like, this is not, like, where's the rest of my life? Like, I'm a person also. Not just your object. You know, I would go in for these auditions like this like fast talking New York kid who like, you know, kinda like shifted in her weight because I was just so interested in anxious kid, and that was like constant note. She speaks too fast, too fast, too fast. And also, one one thing that I I did not have on my side was I couldn't do commercials because I didn't look like anyone on television. And no one was gonna be like, oh, that child with the chin and the nose, let's her in a domino's commercial. Like, it wasn't happening. It was like, what is happening with this face? So, yeah, I did, like, character roles. I was like, Im on eight episodes of Webster, and I like to I did, like, all these weird, you know, fun character roles. Im MacGyver. I said, I did three episodes in my diver just saying MacGyver said I did three episodes of McIiver. Just say I loved McIiver. The reruns on TV Land. Come on. It's the best. Well, you'll find my three episodes, which I filmed Vancouver. Did you get saved from an explosion? I did get saved from an explosion. I thought you saw my episodes. I got saved from several explosions and from a truck hanging off the side of a mountain by McIver. Just like your real life. Just like my real life. Anyway, let's get back to Jeanette. So Sorry, that math blew my mind that you had a huge portion of your life. So here's a dumb question. I'm gonna ask you a lot of dumb questions. Because I want you to have the opportunity to speak to them. My dumb questions. That's a long time. To be in the industry. For how long did you want out? I think that initially once the show started getting like it got kind of just to a crazy status that I don't think it was possible to imagine it would get, I think for the first year having people come up to me and recognize we felt it was a former validation, I think it felt really I think that initially Once this show started getting like, it got kinda just to a crazy status that I don't think it's was possible to imagine it would get. I think for the first year, having people come up to me and and recognize we felt it was a former validation. I think it felt really nice and it felt like I'd always been the homeschooled kind of weird Mormon kid on the outskirts. You never quite fit in who was always like more naive than everyone around me. So to have that form of validation felt really good. And then Im very quickly shifted. And I think a big part of that was how much more my mom responded to it positively even as she saw what it was doing to me emotionally and how difficult it was for me to handle and how I mean, I didn't wanna go outside. I it was sort of paranoid of of it because it just constantly led to this hyper vigilant. I was already anxiously kind of wired. And then I just became constantly hyper vigilant. I've let walk out of the house and I'd be, like, looking around and, like, oh, is there paparazzi here? here? Is there somebody here who's been recognized there somebody here who's gonna recognize me? what are they gonna say? And what are they gonna want? And what are Im was it was really hellish, like, to be honest, and not at all fun. And I resented Im, would say, within probably a year and a half was, like, definitely when I had started presenting it. And then of course my mom was all the more kind of into it and like take the pictures, do the thing, do the And then, of course, my mom was all the more kind of into it and, like, take the pictures, do the thing, do the whatever. Like, why don't you love this? Why aren't you grateful? You're so ungrateful. Why would you not this is what everybody's dream. It's like, this was your dream, not mine. So here's the second stupid question, or maybe I've already asked more than one. And I'm asking this first of all, I I already am super into you. Like, I think you're think you're awesome and think I I'm really enjoying talking to you and I just just feel like a nice connection with you because we've been through a lot. Like, we were in the same war. I hear you. But I know that it's important also for you to answer. This is kind of like also asking someone, like, why'd you stay in that abusive relationship? But I'd like I'm asking not because I don't understand, but I I want you to speak to Im you're comfortable why you didn't get out. Meaning, you know, obviously, you're not gonna get out, you know, at ten. At twelve, even at fifteen, even at eighteen. Right? But I guess that would be question. I mean, for me, I know that there's a point when you're so in that you can't get out. Was that your experience? Was it something else? I mean, I appreciate you asking because I do think it's an important one to clarify and speak to. When I say my identity was like what my mom thought of me, that's it was a hundred percent that. So the idea of pulling away, getting away, wasn't even Im wasn't even something that came into my mind, to be honest. It was just like I would be completely lost. I would be nothing without her. Also, I had been fed that messaging my entire life of, you know, you're completely incompetent. You completely you're not smart. You can't do anything without me. You need me. I'm the thing that keeps you from just completely being derailed and and a loose cannon and unable to handle yourself. Like, I'm you know, it was it was all this all that messaging for so long of my life that led me to think that I was kind of incompetent and helpless. And didn't know right from wrong. Didn't know good from bad couldn't make decisions on my own without didn't know good from bad, couldn't make decisions on my own without her. So that was that was definitely what kept me from getting away sooner. And then I do think my mom had cancer for the first time when I was two. So I was always kind of aware of the fragility of health. And I think that played a part of thinking like I just had this this weight on me all the time. Well, she could she could go at any time. She's constantly it was stage four metastatic breast cancer, somehow miraculously she recovered. But knowing that you know, she was in doctor's offices every three months to get these checkups and, you know, constantly, you know, she had a bone marrow transplant and constantly having these different surgeries and checkups and everything. It was just, like, the awareness of her death was always weighing on not just me the entire family, you know, and then her cancer when I was eighteen, and I actually think that would have been exactly the time that was, like, four years, five years into the show. That would have been exactly the time that I would have been, like, fuck you mom. I don't want anything to do with you. I'm leaving you where I would have started really just, I think, rebelling like full -- Yeah. -- like, very intensely. But because of her cancer, then I felt kind of roped back in with that guilt and and that obligation and just all those overwhelming feelings that come with the evidence of death. My unbalance breakdown is supported by better help online breakdown is supported by better help online therapy. As we begin to see light at the end of the COVID tunnel, a lot of people are finding themselves, still feeling down and emotionally out of we begin to see light. At the end of the COVID tunnel, a lot of people are finding themselves still feeling down and emotionally out of sorts. You may not feel like you're depressed or at a total loss, but if you're feeling off or if you think that maybe your relationships are suffering, it could be a sign that you should talk to somebody and online therapy can You may not feel like you're depressed or at a total loss, but if you're feeling off or if you think that maybe your relationships are suffering, Im it could be a sign that you should talk to somebody and online therapy can help. Therapy is as as we talk about a lot on this podcast, one of I think the most effective tools to understanding your inner world and really the world of of mental wellness. That we all revolve Im. And better help is not a crisis line. It's not self-help it's professional It's not self help. It's professional therapy. That's done securely on It's done securely line. You fill out a questionnaire to help them assess your needs and better fill out a questionnaire to help them assess your needs and better help. We'll match you with a professional licensed help will match you with a professional licensed therapist. Jonathan, how quickly can you start communicating with your therapist? You can start communicating in under forty eight hours. Schedule secure weekly video phone or even live chat appointments. Therapists have a broad range of expertise that may not be locally available in your Therapists have a broad range of expertise that may not be locally available in your area. You can log into your account any time you can send messages to your therapist, better help is also so committed to great You can log Im to your account anytime. You can send messages to your therapist. Better help is also so committed to great matches. If you don't like your therapist, if it's not a good match, it's easy and free to If you don't like your therapist, if it's not a good match, it's easy and free to change. It's more convenient and affordable than in-person It's more convenient and affordable than in person therapy. And as if that's not enough, financial Aid is available, our listeners get 10% off their first month@betterhelp.com slash And as if that's not enough, financial aid is available. Our listeners get ten percent off their first month at better help dot com slash break. That's That's better HELP dot com slash break. My NBLX breakdown is supported by athletic breakdown is supported by athletic greens. Jonathan, you know how I'm always bothering you about how busy your schedule is you know home always bothering you about how busy your schedule is? Always. What if we had a way? To tell all of our listeners about a way to fill nutritional gaps that are often made worse by all of our poor habits like the ones that I like to bother you about, that's where athletic greens comes in. Also, it is delicious, and I'm pretty picky. This stuff tastes This stuff tastes great. If Jonathan will drink it, you will drink Im Jonathan will drink it, you will drink it. it. It has 75 vitamins minerals and whole foods, sourced It has seventy five vitamins, minerals, and whole foods sourced ingredients. It's got so many things that are so good for you and they make it easy for you to fill those nutritional It's got so many things that are so good for you. And they make it easy for you to fill those nutritional gaps in one thing. That's really important. I used to take a million things now we just have athletic greens in our life. It is lifestyle friendly. I'm vegan. You can be keto, paleo, it's dairy free, gluten free, and there's less than one gram of sugar per serving. Support your immune system year round. They're offering our audience a free one-year supply of vitamin D, which is so important for your immune system, as well as five free travel packs with your first purchase, go to athleticgreens.com/breakdown, join us and all people who want to fill in the nutritional gaps in their diet go to They're offering our audience a free one year supply of vitamin which is so important for your immune system, as well as five free travel packs with your first purchase. Go to athleticgreens dot com slash breakdown. Jennettes and all people who want to fill in the nutritional gaps in their diet, go to athleticgreens dot com slash breakdown, get your free year supply of vitamin and five free travel packs today. Your mother has passed. Correct? Yeah. Yeah. She's So, yeah, with with all due respect to to your mother, I think it's important to talk about for exactly what you said. The complexity of of why we stay whether it's in a romantic relationship, in a friendship, in our family, like, it's an incredibly complicated and elaborate system that is directly linked to our emotional capacity to tolerate the discomfort of what happens when you try and get out. And I think and I think well, and I think this kind of I think that this likely will resonate with a lot of our listeners because there's a lot of kind of symptoms, you know, of this. And you'll you'll kind of see it and it'll come out in different ways. And for people who stay, I don't know what's easier or harder, you know. Im some ways it's easier to stay, and in some ways it's easier to leave. And there's not a right wrong, and I also really am a strong advocate of you know, not making rash decisions and especially if there's addiction or if you have addiction as one of your coping mechanisms, not making rash decisions in that addiction, you know. But that does lead to my next question though, which is when did you decide to fill that God shaped hole with a substance? And was that in place of food and kind of that managing and controlling? Like, do you wanna talk about food stuff? You don't have to talk about food stuff? I always wanna talk about food steps. I love to hear more about your food steps. I always find each person's kind of history with it. So there's definitely that connection, but every person's story is so specific, and it's always interesting to find, well, what were the what connected those dots for you and what led you to that path and and all that. Yeah, I find I find it very kind of fulfilling to talk about. But the week that my mom died was the first so my mom introduced was the person who introduced me to see it actually. I had a a lump in my breast, which was my boob developing. And I was scared that it was cancer because of my mom's cancer. I thought She got cancer. Now I've got cancer. I'm gonna I've got breast cancer at eleven, like, I'm doomed. And I told her, and she said, you don't have breast cancer. Just developing boobs. I said, well, how can I not develop boobs? I don't want those. And she said, well, there's a thing called calorie restriction. Those are exact words. She did not say the word anorexia. I did not hear the word anorexia until a I did not hear the word Enerxia until a doctor I overheard a doctor talking with my mom a year later when I had lost x amount of weight and was rail thin and it sounded like a dinosaur to me. I remember distinctly thinking, like, somebody was talking about me, like, I'm a dinosaur, but it was them taught you know, her talking to my mom about my eating disorder, which my mom denied in order for her to be able to support Im. All pieces of the puzzle that I've kind of put together later in life didn't realize at time at time at the time just thought, mom's looking out for me. Mom wants me to not have breast that I don't have breast cancer, almost gonna be look young so I can book more roles, so I can support the family and do thing. I definitely had a long history with eating disorders. But my mom passed away when I was twenty one. That same week was the first time that I had sex, the first time that I made myself throw up, bulimia, which I had for the years, a few years and the first time that I had a drink of alcohol. So I think there's no denying that it was, you know, mom death and those COVID mechanisms all kind of hit it once. Okay. So hold on. Let's let's just slow it down for everyone at Let's just slow it down for everyone at home. Were you raised in a non drinking family for religious reasons? Yep. Nobody drank. Yeah. Right. Well, just a lot of people don't know about Mormons. Right. Right? Right. Right. No, I I appreciate it. And you mentioned that that certain aspects of faith and observance did fall away. But did you grow up in a, like, a no caffeine home? Did you grow up in a strict Mormon home that way? What a good question? We were what I call second rate norm got it. So there are the first rate Mormons. Those were the Hoff Meijer's and the Salazar's. They sat in literally the first few's. They had the five kids who all served the missions, who they adhere to every single Mormon role that ever has and ever will exist. We were the ones who were, like, palling at first rate status. But never made it. it. We were half an hour late to every were half an hour late to every service. We were, like, definitely slipping the McDonald's and the Mickey D's. You know what I'm saying? So that was Okay. But but you did you did grow up in a home that didn't drink. And so -- Right. -- so some people might be thinking and look, the fact is I'm not I'm not happy that I that I know exactly what you're talking about. Meaning, like, this is not like, oh, this is so much fun. I guess it's like talk like, Im is hard earned, how deeply I understand what happened to you that week. I think it's really, really valuable also for people to hear that you know, the surface reading is like, she was fine, a leaf ray, you know. Like But What what actually and if you don't mind, me sort of like dipping into, you know, it sounds like you've done a tremendous amount of work on yourself, which is extremely admirable. But what happens is when you take away the the kind of primary in measurement attachment, and you you take away that The only thing that felt safe even when it was dangerous, the sense of a lack of control is really, really unbearable. And the release of that person, it is a hole that nothing can fill. And so we try and fill it. And that's not to say that having sex was that. But, I mean, obviously, there's a program for that as well Im that is the solution. But the notion is whatever I'm feeling, I would like to feel something else. I hope that everybody will go back and relisten to that and save that. I will go back and listen to that. What you just said, you just summed it up so eloquently. That's like exact I think that's exactly exactly it. Well, thank you. And and again, like, I'm not I'm not happy that I summed it up like that, but I think also what people don't often understand about the complexity of eating disorders or disordered eating is first of all, for those of us who are female Im particular in the industry and young, we don't even think of it as disordered eating. It's just the way a lot of people eat. Meaning, I'm not saying that everyone who restricts their eating is anorexic. I'm not saying that. But what I'm saying is the general climate even if you didn't have the concerns you had about breast cancer, you know, like, which of course, it's a child trying to make sense of a very scary world. But it is so pervasive, especially in Los Angeles and in New York and other cities that would like to claim this. Im is so pervasive this notion that there's really not more than one body type, meaning there's the ideal body type And then there's everyone else trying to have that ideal body type. And there's the lumps of the rest of them. Exactly. And I like to point this out when I was young, when was a teenager, when I was in my twenties, like, there were clothes that you wore, if you had a certain body, and then there were the clothes that the other people wore that felt good and looked good on them. And now it's kind of like everyone must fit into a skin tight dress. But there was a very short period of my existence when I could wear a skin tight dress literally without even thinking about it. Because that was my body type before I became a grown ass woman. But the notion that we live in a culture now and in particular in the city that that I live in and the city that essentially you grew up that that's a normal thing in culture that like, here's the body type and everything else is not okay. When you go places like Europe, and this is still true. It's not as true as it used to be. Like when I went to Europe in the nineties for the first time, I was like, oh my God, there's different shape be like when I went to Europe in the nineties for the first time, I was like, oh my god, there's different shade people. What is happening? And I remember I would look at the billboards or the commercials on TV and I'd be like, oh, they let people like that big commercials. Because it's even when I would go to Canada, when I go to Canada, I'd be like, oh my god, people look normal. Like, why are their teeth like that on a bill for it? You don't have to have teeth like that. And it was just totally normal person teeth. So I think that the notion is not just that, like, everyone gets shoved into an eating disorder. It's that the consciousness around food and body type is dysmorphic in the first place. Im mean, is that sort of was that your experience? One hundred percent. Yes. When did the eating disorder first first? Okay. So for me, I have a funny story because I'm terminally unique. There's no one like me. My problems are the worst. No one is worse than me. I did not acquire an eating disorder proper until I was forty. Well, now this is an unusual story. I was coming out of a of a relationship that I was in at the time. And my solution to feeling whatever I was feeling, which was usually lonely and neglected, which wasn't necessarily because I was being neglected or left alone. It was a feeling, not a fact. But for me, the solution became I was a compulsive over eater and then a restrictor to kind of balance it all out. But as I go back and as I start to, you know, recover, uncover, discard, whichever order, those go Im, what I discovered is that I've had an anorexic brain, really my whole life. And I will restrict Food. Yes. I will restrict money. I'll restrict love. You know, I will withhold restrict that you can My language. Yeah. I mean, down to and this is something that's really fun to share in the rooms because it's the kind of thing that you're like, oh my gosh, please let someone nod their head. I will restrict with, like, even, like, body lotion. Or or perfect okay. You get it. literally ripped my wipes in half. Like, my maker, removal Im wipes in half. So I'm like, oh, well, this is ten twenty. So Right. So for me, that's both kind of like that financial Enerxia, which also comes from what I I literally didn't even know it's a term financial trauma. From, like, making money when you didn't have Im, but not knowing why you're making it and feeling guilt about Im, and then, like, having the rest of your life be everyone being, like, well, you're so rich. And it's like, but I'd literally I'm gonna tear this wipe in half, million percent. Tearing wipe in half just makes sense. Remember when you throw out my dental floss? I didn't throw out your dental floss. I said Im it's accidentally been all pulled out, you don't need to wind it back up. I'll buy you a new one. Anyhow That was my emergency travel, dental floss. And then I got into a situation where my dental floss ran out and I didn't have my back and then I got into a situation where my dental floss ran out and I didn't have my backup because I threw it out. Anyway, so for me, the the pattern of disordered distribution of resources went back, probably. I mean, probably my whole mean, probably my whole life. And for me, like, the beauty products thing Im, like, it's also it's hilarious and disturbing that The more I love something, the less I'll use it. Yes. Oh my god. Oh my it were my Im you know in the home on two? You know, this makes that deep deep cut hair. We're in home on two. He's talk colleague, Olga, is talking to the pitch and woman. And he gives speech about how he she's talking about, like, not sort of a some, you know, adjacent to what you're talking about here. I think if remember correctly from the last time I saw it approximately two weeks ago. My colleague Hulk and then goes, he's like, oh, I once had these rollerblades, and I love him so much that I didn't use Im. You know what happened? I outgrew the rollerblades, and then they didn't fit anymore. And I never got a use out of them. He says Im was brilliant, my colleague called in delivery. Yep. I mean, I've had that happen literally with products that I love much when I finally went to use them for that one special time, it had spoiled. Or the scent had gone away, and it's like, But here's the thing. Some people will have that happen once and they'll never do it again. I will do that over and over. And over because that that's my brain. I mean, like, that's and that's when we talk about it being a disease. Like, that's my disease of perception. And I've also, you know, had never identified body dysmorpnea, really until probably into my twenties. And that's a huge component of my disordered eating also Im literally not, you know, like, I say that it's not my my eyes work fine, but what they see and how my brain perceives that, it's simply not true. And so I I can't and don't trust it, which makes it very, very confusing to exist. So that's kind of my story. And I've been in recovery for two years. And I will also say that it's kind of like the graduate school of recovery to dip into your eating and to dip into your body image. It's Im. It's sexuality. You know, if anyone has sexual trauma, this is where it's likely gonna come out. So while I have a lot of interest in the money program as it were, there there is a program for people who have financial trauma or challenges with finances, even if they're not someone who's going bankrupt, there is a program called debtors anonymous that actually deals with the financial side of Im. But for me, the best way to get at it, you know, has been, you know, to have this kind of rigorous honesty surrounding food and eating. And It's one of those things, you know, with alcohol, with drugs, you the rule is you put it down and you don't pick it up no matter what. You don't take a drink no matter what. You do it one day at a time. But I have to pick up food three times day and twice for You know? We live in our disease. So that's you know, I'm I'm accountable to someone else. That's my one of my solutions. You know, I pray to see myself the way my higher power sees me. And and I literally have to do it one day at a time. Miami Alec's breakdown is supported by one dream, Jonathan, you know how I love the great breakdown is supported by one dream Jonathan, you know how I love the Great Courses Plus. You love the Great Courses. You're doing Greek mythology with French. That's right. I love to learn new I love to learn new things and I I've been a fan of the Great Courses Plus for years. Well, now, you know how I don't like change. This is a change that I This is a change that I like. They are now dream. One dream is everything, you know, and love about the great courses plus, and so much Wondrium is everything you know and love about the Great Courses Plus and so much more. These are video and audio learning experiences with so much good content. You can stream all of your favorites from the great You can stream all of your favorites from the great courses. Videos created in partnership with national geographic, with the Smithsonian, the culinary Institute of America, plus a ton of new programs like Magellan created in partnership with National Geographic with the Smithsonian, the culinary Institute of America plus a ton of new programs like Magellan TV. Doesn't that sound Doesn't that sound amazing. There's crafty and exclusive There's crafty and exclusive documentaries. I can't wait for you to experience one dream, prepare to have your mind blown sign up now to get this great I can't wait for you to experience one dream. Prepare to have your mind blown. Sign up now to get this great A fourteen day free trial of unlimited access by going to our special URL. Go to one dream dot com slash breakdown. That's w O N D R I U m.com/b R E a K D O w N That's W0NDRIUM dot com slash one. dream.com/write dot com slash write down. Wow. Alex breakdown is supported by Ray breakdown is supported by con. Jonathan, what are you planning to do this summer Freak out that you said the first line of this Jonathan, what are you planning to do this summer? Freak out that you said the first line of this ad and also I'm gonna be listening to my music. While you drive to visit me, whether it's for work or play. A lot of us are going to be on the move this a lot of us are gonna be on the move this summer. And our advice to you is take Ray cons with And our advice to you is take Raycons with you. You get Chris powerful beats at half the price of other premium audio brands, re con wireless earbuds in your ears, make all the get crisp powerful beats at half the price of other premium audio brands. Raycon wireless earbuds in your ears make all the difference whether you're listening to music, a podcast. They come in a range of cool colors and they have customizable gel tips for a comfortable in ear fit. 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Like, what was your kind of path of recovery? It was, yeah, it was definitely AAA few years into post my mother's death. I had found out some things about her that threw me for a loop that completely derailed what my image of her was and the pedestal that I had had her on, some things that were kind like, undeniably that undeniably knocked her off that pedestal in my eyes, and that I think drove me more to my coping I mean, definitely drove me more to my coping mechanisms. Things kind of definitely got worse before they got better. And then it was my sister-in-law. Actually, I was in Canada working on a project, and we had a Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant, and I had gone off to the bathroom to purge as per usual. was at that point I was doing it five to ten times a day. It was pretty much a constant. Literally, any anytime that I wasn't purging, I was thinking about my next time purging. That was how my mind was just oriented. I walked out of the bathroom and my sister-in-law was staying there and she goes, this has to stop. Like, we have to find a way to get you help. I can't stand by and watch somebody that I love. Hurt themselves like this. Like, this is this is this is really not okay. And I think it was it took so much courage from like, it makes emotional. It took so much heard from her to say that and to do that and really appreciate it. I think that was really the turning point for I think that was really the turning point me. And also knowing, knowing that somebody else knew that I couldn't, I had not told my brothers had not told anybody me and and also knowing knowing that somebody else knew and that I couldn't I had not my brothers, I had not pulled anybody out. It was like, oh, the secrets out. Did you think no one knew? Yeah. And then I actually found out later on after kind of coming, you know, speaking publicly about Im. I I had gotten some emails from people that would be like, yeah, I found some, like, residue on my toilet seat just so you know, which then I was, like, oh god. Then it was even honestly, it was more just, like, humiliation because I thought that I was, like, this gifted secret keeper and I, like, wasn't good at that. That was, like, pretty much all I had during that time was hoping and clinging to the fact that maybe, you know, my shame was my own, but knowing that, like, yeah, you actually weren't. Pulling the wool over anybody's eyes. That was that was a bummer. The Acronym for shame should have already mastered for shame should have already mastered everything. Right? That notion of, like, you know, never heard that. Yeah. Should have already mastered everything. Well, and I think also, I mean, not to get to up in your business, but what struck me when you were talking about that is also this notion that, like, you were conditioned and raised to perform, you know, and to have this beautiful exterior. Whatever beautiful, you know, looks like or feels like, And so the notion that you essentially continued acting. Right? You continued keeping that exterior at any cost. Right? Yes. Absolutely. I mean, I I definitely see it as I think I was acting as much if not more in my regular life to my mom, to the people around me as I was in front of the camera. It was just one hundred percent across the board of the saw, which is why ultimately I had a separate way because I felt like it was just too damaging to my mental health, to my greater good, to be so there was just too much baggage with it. I just had to, like, I couldn't keep doing I just had to I couldn't keep doing it. So since we're best friends now, I'm gonna ask you Im gonna ask you this question because and I don't know if you resonate with this. And I've spoken to a lot of people who grew up, you know, in the industry. But like, I've never I've never met somebody who has so many, like, similar, you know, like, little things. So this is what I'm gonna ask you. Sometimes I feel like what if I don't actually know who I am because it was like always told to me? Like, do you know what mean? Yes. And it verifies me daily. So what is that? Like, who who do you know who you are now? I like to think so. III, you know, I definitely still bump up on, like, questions of that at times. If I'm still, like, triggered by something and I have kind of an old pattern kick in. Be like, well, maybe I should be doing blank, you know, whatever fill in the blank. But think a a huge factor in helping me identify I think what what I actually want in the life that actually means something to me versus other people was a type of therapy called which I know it's like kind of annoying to be like, oh, this this therapy. No. I know. I feel so conscious. I think that's it. It's a type of therapy called DVT, dialectical behavioral therapy, and a big part of it is We know it. Identify find your your life worth living, and I and you have, you know, works, literal, tangible, like physical concrete worksheets, which is the key factor in wildlife DBT, why I prefer to over other types of therapies. I felt like talking was getting nowhere. I don't wanna just talk in circles and not get anywhere. I want, like, a paper to tell me where I'm at. It really helps me to feel kind of more centered and grounded. And this type of therapy did that for me and a big part of it is identifying your life worth living and and with that comes as locking down kind of your values and goals that actually mean something to you and having those parts of life really kind of nailed down and pinned down in concrete ways was was hugely helpful to me. And of course it of course, it changes. It's not like, you know, just because I had a goal when I first created my goals that I'm gonna, like, keep that for my life or something that. But it really helped me a like that. But and really helped me a lot. There's something Extremely relatable beyond people in the industry who have that experience of not knowing relatable beyond people in the industry who have that experience of not knowing themselves. And when I first heard my ass, like, you know, do you know yourself? My first question, I was like, well, let's unpack that. Like, what does it mean to know yourself? And then you went right into it, which is what are your goals and value system outside of what you're told they should be. And whether that's materialism, whether that's I should have this job or this car or even this family, I think everyone Im some degree is questioning that from friends of mine who are female in their mid thirties who say and everyone tells them they're supposed to be married and have kids already to men who are like, what type of partnership do I want? And I think it's so applicable and so I wanted to just give that shout out so that it's not only like people in the industry who are dealing with this because I think it is so relatable to a lot of people who are all questioning and then trying to establish a guidepost to understand how to build, like, what feels true for them. And it's not just, like, reading mantras. And so, you know, whether it be DVT, but however we whatever the process is to find out what are the core values and things that you can then build your decisions off of so that you ensure that you're meeting that criteria to satisfy yourself. I love that. I I think that, I think it's so think that I think it's so Im. And I also I also think that a big thing that I loved about some of the worksheets that I was given through the DVD program that I that I did was Im kept telling you to not do the like, if you think that you're doing this value to please, your boyfriend, your mom, your brother, like, don't do that. You really gotta be honest with yourself, and I think that's key part to value. Like, charity might really mean something to some people. It's like not one of my four like, foremost values. I know a lot of people get a lot of kind of fulfillment out of it, but I would be lying to myself if I said that that was one that just, like, did it for me. And it's, you know, definitely one that you're kind of inclined to put on a sheet because it might sound nice. It might seem good. It might How else are you gonna give all your money away? Because you don't deserve it because you're a piece of shit? You don't give you money to charity. Oh, what? That's not oh, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But that talks about like, how you actually go and say, what means something to me versus what I think I will look good if I put on that sheet. And that process, I think, is exceptionally complex for a lot of people. Yes. What they like, if humans are horrible at actually doing what they want intrinsically versus what appears great outside. And I think most people I don't wanna overgeneralize, but I see a lot of people trapped in that in that vicious cycle and not really being even when they do the work. They don't quite know how to separate what really feels true for them versus what they've either been told or what the appearance will be acceptable. Howard Bauchner: How do you figure that out? Howard Bauchner: How do you figure that out? I think I think everyone Im caught in some cycle of that. If I'm really questioning what is it that I want if I really stripped away all of the external validation and feedback? And we don't live in a society where you can strip out that external validation and feedback. Not to give a shout out to Iron Rand, but that's exactly what Iron Rand, you know, was kind of trying to tackle. And she wrote the fountainhead and she wrote Atlas shrugged, you know, which are two kind of novels articulating a philosophy of, like, what if everyone just did exactly what worked for them with no regard to anyone else's opinion, and it's called objectivism, but But the fact is it's a very cold philosophy. Im does not leave room for the complexity of human interaction love. And yes, in measurement, which you know, sometimes happens. But also, I can't help being defensive over my new best friend, Jonathan. Because while there is an absolute universality, like, I do think that there's also something to like having this conversation of like, what if you literally don't know how you want to wear your hair? While It's extremely complicated for both of extremely complicated for both of you, I would say that take away the financial pressure, take away everything else. People who wanna be part of family system, which is everyone, most mostly. You you we want you know, we're we're wired and you can talk about this. More so about our primal wiring to be connected to our early caregivers, we get that messaging of what is approval. Act like this. And mom and dad will do more for and mom and dad will do more for us. And so this is like part of fundamental crux of of the human existence is that we are wired early on whether it's on stage or whether it's part of the family system to act in order to receive that positive feedback, and we are not taught how to connect with that intrinsic inherent thing that we want. Everything's broken and we're all gonna die. Thanks for listening. I just do that part so that you can tell us how to fix it. No. I look. I look. If I if I knew how to fix it, would we be here right now? No. I'd be living in Costa Rica Rica. You know, I think there's, there's a tremendous amount about us that is You know, I think there's there's a tremendous amount about us that is wired yes to please. And there's a tremendous amount about us that is wired to please a caregiver. But especially when there's any element of power struggle surrounding love, you know, I mean, think that's kind of like the simplest way to put it. Isn't there the quote, if you're mean to your child, they won't grow up to hit you. They'll grow up to hate A kind of If we had someone researching, they would find that for us and tell us where it came from. Anyway I put a quote at the front of my planner each month that might make it early You can just attribute it to me. Yeah. Jonathan said that. You have a really cool website also having jealousy about that. My friend designed friend designed Im. So I'll tell him he'll really appreciate that. My friend Brian. Okay. Your friend I need to talk to your friend Brian. It's not so much so there's a difference between jealousy and envy. Says the daughter of two English teachers. And to me, I'm more I'm more envious of it. Jealousy feels like, I wish she didn't have it. She doesn't deserve it. Envy is like, I want that. It's beautiful. But one of the things I mean, I've just been having a really good time just being on your website but you have this stuff link, and I'm super into it. And I'm super into it because it's a really great look. It's a great little snapshot. You know, into you and you said that this is you kind of you refresh Im. There's one thing I don't agree with and that's the undoing because I started to read the book and my mother wanted me to read the book. My mother likes really surprising, dramatic, like, elaborate psychological blah blah. And I started reading and I'm like, what is this? And I started watching it and I was like, it's that book I didn't finish. That's what it is. So that's the only one I was like, But I wanna talk about to Did we be fair, I was I was a little on that one too. I was like, well, I watched the whole thing so I to, like, kind of own like, take accountability for the fact that I watched every episode of this, but also I judged myself for watching every episode. No. And and also I wanna say that on your stuff page, there's a lot that's just like fun and good. And I think that's something that I really appreciate about you. You're very, very intelligent. You're very cerebral, but you also have a real sense of, like, fun. And, like, that's you know, so, like, it's a really good mix. And I'm very pleased with you. Okay. But you have a book on the and I don't know when this will air, but you you have a book that is on your stuff you've been enjoying and it's called the Myers Club. And it is it is a memoir by Mary iCarly it was given to me by one of my closest friends, my friend Nancy who's a writer. And what Nancy Nancy gave this to me because I was working on my screenplay and not wanting to write a memoir. Remember mom? It's not a memoir. But What I said to Nancy after I read this book Im this is the most tragic story. That I've read possibly in a memoir, and, like, I've read a lot of memoirs. This is one of those books that is it is so terrifying and gripping, the level of abuse and complexity. I'm not just saying like, oh, it's like Im you like reading abuse stories, read this book. That's not what saying. And it's not so much the graphicness because what's exquisite about this And it's not so much the graphicness. Because what's exquisite about this memoir, and for anyone who likes literature, this book is a must read because it is told from really the perspective of a child, meaning Im is written in a very choppy kind of disordered fashion because that's how your experience is when you think back and try and, you know, but as things start being revealed. There comes this terrifying clarity and this really like almost Im outpouring of this realization, you know. And I know that sounds like the worst review for reading this book, but I want to know why you like this book. And if it resonated with you the way it resonated with me, definitely, think the first thing that stood out to me that I enjoyed most and kind of appreciated most was her detachment from her story. Like, clearly, she had had enough time away and done enough processing that she was able to find the valuable moments to share and share them in a valuable way so that it wasn't just, like, think the worst thing is when it's just, like, a self indulgent trauma eking, like, oh, here's my problem. This will help me. Like, that's nobody needs that and nobody wants that. She, I think, told her story so beautifully and eloquently, and she edited it so well. And then I also think she had really good moments of humor. She had these little little quip every so often that would just just when you needed Just when you'd be like, this is so heavy. I'm gonna put it on. I'm gonna put it on. She'd come through with little zinger, low quick little zinger that would I would just be laughing out loud. And to be able to do that, to have that skill, to have have have the reader so invested in. So just engaged to the point that they feel like it's, it's overwhelming for me so just engaged to the point that they feel like it's overwhelming for me Im. And then to just pull the rug up front, do you make you laugh? I was I was completely taken with it. I think she's so brilliant. So good. My God. And you I mean, that's that's a beautiful that's all that's a beautiful description. And you wrote a play. Correct? Yeah. AA1 woman show. This is like a cringey term. Mayim just in our in our in our in our final time with you, tell us a little bit about sort of what that was like in terms of, you know, Im coming off Myers Club for a reason, you know. This notion of like, what part of our story do we tell? How do we tell it? Is it for the viewer? Is it for the author? You know, what what and especially for you to also be a performer in that. Can you talk a little bit about really your decision to do that or, you know, your fear about doing that? That's a great question. It's definitely been process. My relationship with my mom is something that I'll be working through for sure for a long time to come and like exploring, I think, in some form of art for a long time. I think it'd kind of be impossible to to for me to I have to feel a personal investment to things that I'm writing. I admire people who don't have to have that personal investment and can just kind of like latch on to characters or a story and go to town. But I have to you know, I am sure it comes from a place of selfishness. I just have to feel like, what am I exploring that relevant to me Im helping me work through something, or I feel like the I I can sense that sense, like, that lack of personal Enmeshment, and I don't I don't like that. But I think it started for me with I wrote a a pilot script that our mutual friend in a search was actually was in and was so wonderful. And and then I I didn't do anything with that because it felt too personal. It felt too close to the chest. I felt like it was there wasn't enough distance from it to tell it properly to where it was worthy of other people's time. I felt like it was something that should just be for me and to know that I had done and to hopefully get to the next thing. Then I wrote a collection of essays, which my manager at the time had said, like, this is great. I don't really know what to do with books. So I'm not sure what to Yeah. What did What did we do with a smart printie woman who writes so many words? I was I was completely disheartened, honestly. didn't I was like, okay. So I guess, I don't know I don't know what to do then Im if I can't write and don't wanna act and I don't know what to do. So definitely there was a a big kind of pumped to get over there. So when you call your best in, you're like, bitch, we're going to Costa Rica. Rica. I'm like, I'm like, we're back to Japan To Tokyo Tokyo Disney. So yes. And and so so I I left this manager because I it was a kind of another identity thing for me and feeling like it was more people wanting me to be something that I wasn't. And if Im they're not gonna connect with this, then I don't know what they're gonna connect with, and this feels so fundamental to, like, like, all that kind of stuff, all that existential stuff. I took some time off, and then I wrote a one woman show that was more around themes of control that I then completely scrapped that was that just felt like it was too far removed because I think I did the pendulum swing. We went from going way too personal. Well, not way too personal, but too self Like, right on the nose. It was right on the nose. Right? Exactly. Exactly. And so then I swung the opposite way and it was too far removed and it felt like, well, that's not that's not honest either and that's not totally what I'm trying to do. So then I redid the one woman show, which felt like, oh, I think this is something and I think this could be something. So then I started work dropping that and that was that was, I guess, I don't even know now. A year and half ago or so when I first started doing yeah, right before COVID and it shut down because of COVID. But it just kind of explores my relationship with my mom from childhood. Until a few years after her passing kind of the revelations that I had Im her passing that helped me to find my own identity and establish my own And think the tagline was something like, you know, how my mother dying turned out to be the greatest. What was it? How did you say it? The the show's cold. I'm glad my mom died. And it's the and it's like how my mom just went for me the worst thing that ever happened to me to best. yeah. I just I really love that. You also have a podcast that I believe Jonathan and I get to be on together in case you'd like little more of both us. I'm so excited. I really wanna talk more about everything. I've, like, I've got so many mental notes. Should I say that I invited myself to that podcast? He invited himself. It's okay. But tell us a bit also about just your podcast journey because, you know, there's not I don't wanna say there's not a lot of women in this space because there are women in this space, but in particular, you have a very you have a specific angle and a specific kind of, you know, expertise that that you're, you know, able to help people draw upon. So how did that come So how did that come about? COVID. Completely, it was because of COVID. I had toyed I'd wanted to do podcast for a while. I've been a fan of podcast for a while. I, you know, listened to I I listened to Sam Harris for a long time. I listened to I loved her. It was it was Sam Harris. It was great. I had listened to Pete Holmes, and and I had done his podcast. And I did his, like, years ago. And as soon as I left, I was like, I gotta do a podcast. Like, it seems so fun. I am so thankful I didn't do it then. Dear Lord, my God. But once COVID happened, I was like, well, I can't it. I was distraught honestly, about the one-man I was distraught, honestly, about one one show. I it was really helpful for me personally, and Im was trying to, you know, professionally was doing good things too, and I was excited about that. And Im just felt I was completely devastated. And I felt like I needed some sort of outlet, and I needed some way to kind of explore things honestly in a vulnerable way, and that's what happened. Here's the most obnoxious question, but I want you to know that, like, I've been asked this of gazillion times in my life and I wanna kick people in the face, but I'm not asking it like those and I hope you don't want to keep me in the future. No. The question, like, what's next for you Im not like a tell us what's next. Like, that's not what I mean or, like, you do so many. Like, people always say it's me like, what's left to do? You've done it all, and it's like, really people like, I can't with that. So what I'm asking you Im, like, really Im terms of, like, it's kind of, like, when I said, like, who are you? Like, do you know who you are? I'm curious what you look forward to, meaning, you know, are you a person who do you wanna keep writing? Do you could you see yourself in front of a camera again. Do you wanna settle down and have kids? Like, do you know those kinds of things that you want for yourself yet? Well, you know, I I actually this was this was a fortune thing that happened over COVID, but I I've been writing a book for that was based on the one on one show and something happened with that. So that'll be coming out kind of soon, but I've been working on that and kind of getting the stories out in a fuller I just think a book has the amount of space necessary to put a cover to the ground that I wanna cover and the way that I wanna cover it entirely. So that's been incredibly fulfilling. But I will say that I think, you know, once this this book process is done and, you know, and if I don't even know if I'd wanna do the woman show of the timing, just because the timing, it's like, well, I was so personal. I don't know if it's gonna feel as relevant to me then. For me, writing, as I kind of mentioned earlier, has to come from a personal place, and I don't find much of an interest in it. If it doesn't, I think it's it's very much gotta have that connection for me in order for me to feel motivated and compelled to do it. I have been thinking about my future quite a lot recently because I'm I'm not sure. I don't think that I want kids and that's kind of I thought back at twenty one, oh, well, it'll I'll get to that point when I want them and I'm twenty eight and I'm, like, almost twenty nine. I'm, like, oh, I don't know if it's if it's coming. I had kind of a window where I thought I might have and then that window kind of quickly passed. I definitely wanna get married. It just seems like a beautiful, like, thing to me. I still feel a lot of, like, hope and romance around that concept. And I know a lot of people think it's very outdated, but that to me just seems very can't take the Mormon out of this girl. That's try it, baby. And I also think it represents something to me so much because Im my parents had such a dysfunctional, chaotic, unhealthy relationship. To me, it's speaks more to kind of overcoming that and it just represents a whole lot more to me. So I hope for that someday. And career wise Im I'm a very kind of career motivated person. I don't think I don't wanna go back in front of the camera. I don't see that happening for me. I'd love to kind of direct things that I didn't write at some point things that I just kind of connect with. I I feel a deep connection to actors and the the vulnerability that takes to do that. And I respect it so tremendously that I love this kind of like communicating with them, but it's just too much for me emotionally. But I guess, yeah, that's a very all over the place, answer testing. I don't know. Totally. That's totally. It's beautiful. And I have to say, like, you know, while I'm old enough to be your mom, you know, at at forty five, I have to tell you, like, it's a lot of the same journey, you know. And I think that's one of the really gratifying things about doing this podcast and kind of sharing in this format, which is different than kind of like the YouTube format that I had been sharing Im, you know, for years like, I get to kind of talk that stuff out more. And, you know, Jonathan and I talk about this a lot, like, I still feel fifteen. Like, if I close my eyes and think hard enough, I'm that kid. I'm that teenager, like, in my room like, don't wanna do anything. I don't wanna go out. I don't wanna see people, but, like, why doesn't anybody call me? You know? Like, it's still like, I'm still that like, it's still, like, I'm still that person. And, you know, like, even after, like, having the wedding and having the and, like, doing all the things and like, okay. So then you get divorced and you just, like, put one foot in front of the other. You know? And it's, like, life just kinda keeps doing its thing, but then at forty, you develop an eating disorder that really was just the evolution, you know, of all the other things that were laying dormant. Right? So it's just this like constant process. And if you were to ask me those things, I'd have a similar set of, like, gosh, I don't know. Like, here are some things I wanna do. So I just I think it's really beautiful. And I think the notion is that, like, when I think when Jonathan and I were both, you know, around your age, it was this notion of, like, I'm gonna figure it out. And I love that you don't have that notion of, like, I can't wait to figure it out so that everything is perfect forever. Like, this is the journey. Like, this is life. And I just I love all the parts of it that you have seized and also think it's really amazing that through your struggles, you've been able to create so much. You know, it's really beautiful. Thank you. I I did wanna ask about your directing though, because you're directing your first feature. Is it soon? Is it Marlena this happening? It's like tomorrow. It's very soon. I asked because that seems like such a sort of that seems like a way where, like, you know, it's a very it's a clearly a sense of, you know, literal direction. Well, I hope that Dustin Hoffman and Candice Bergen are listening to this because as I was, like, working on this script, I kept being, like, okay, when are we gonna hire the writer to come and write it? Like, I'm ready. Where's the writer? And they wouldn't give me a writer because they're like, nope. He wrote it. And then I was like, okay. Well, who's gonna direct it? Then I'm directing it. So I'm not saying it does not Im it doesn't feel accidental. Like, everything has been very intentional. But my notion of myself is that I'm not competent. I'm not competent to write and I'm not competent to direct. And it turns out, I do. I have I have a lot of competency and I'm I'm working on that, you know, sense of of confidence. Im really feels like I'm I'm living a magical realism experience because it's incredibly bizarre to me. But yeah, that is my summer plan. And you know, my feeling is I'd I'd love to be off camera because, you know, like my hair's starting to get more gray in here than I anticipated and I'm like, where did the why is this part like this? You know? And, like, I started obsessing about my forearms. Why is there a little wrinkle when I bend my arm in just this direction? Like things that no one should think. So my feeling is put me in long sleeves and a turtleneck before I have to be on camera again. But the the the no also of being an unconventional looking female Im the industry is very it's exhausting, you know. It's really exhausting. I was speaking to a young a young actress who also has a lot of strong producer and, you know, kind of production skills. And she's kind of asking for, like, guidelines and stuff. And it's like, it's very hard for me not to sound like that person of, like, if you have any other passion or interest, please lean into it. Do it, lean into it because there's while there's a there is a possibility that this might be an amazing journey to be an actor, It's mostly a lot of complexity that I don't know if I recommend. Jennette, you're really you're you're a really, really special person and I'm really, really glad that we got to connect like this. Thank you. Same here. I have had an exponentially bigger you know, strange squeal of excitement inside during this conversation as I did when I first got the email about it. It was kind of like a school. I'd take my sweatshirt off because that interview was You were working hard. It was very intense. I don't know. It felt a very special relationship with her. She seems I mean, why is beyond her years? I'm sure she's never heard that, but she really does. She seems very, very wise. I mean, she's lived through lot. I didn't know all those things about her. I mean, I just didn't. I liked when she said liked is maybe not the right adjective when she talks about how her mom fell off the pedestal and the impact of I liked when she said, liked as maybe not the right adjective. When she talked about how her mom fell off the pedestal and the impact of that. It's tough process when someone who you've thought is protecting you and then you have to start to dig underneath what that relationship might have also included? Well, I think that's, you know, one of the cases where we can look to sort of I mean, there was a lot about it's true. Like, I'm totally acknowledging. There's a lot about our stories that, that were very like locked into a very specific experience that I know only she and I, and a couple of other people can probably relate to specifically, but that's a great a lot about our stories that that were very, like, locked into a very specific experience that I know only she and I and a couple other people can probably relate to specifically. But that's a great example. Our there's a time in everyone's life where your parents fall off the pedestal that you've that put them on. Parents Im particular. I mean, of course, like it happens you know, with anyone or anything that you make your higher power as we say, like, you know, whoever or whatever you worship at some point will fall. But in particular, when that when that happens with your parent, it can be enormously complicated depending on kind of terms in your family by which you had to keep that person on a pedestal, you know, and for what reason and she's remarkably grounded I mean, she's been through a lot, but she's remarkably grounded for the complexity that her story has. I mean, Im her mother did not have this cancer diagnosis, kind of looming over both of them. You know, I mean, that altered the family as well. Not necessarily from a malicious perspective. I mean, I I can't say, and I don't know even if she can, but that hung over the whole family. No matter what, even if she hadn't become an actress, you know? And that thread of, like, if I do this, she'll be okay, or if I do this, she might get said, and that might give her not okay. You know? It's a very big complication to the individuation process. And while you say that, like, know, you and her have this very unique similarity, which you do. A lot of people can relate to that Individuating process because we all have to sort of begin to reexamine our parents and who are they as people, not only as our parents who we've put on this pedestal and it also happens relationships. Where people put other people on pedestals and then you begin to be like, oh, wait a second. They are also a human being and they have unique characteristics. And you're just silent now because you're like, what has he said about what has he seen about me that he's now not thinking I Im the greatest human being. I still think that don't worry. Was actually thinking about this last night, you know, my father, my father died six years ago, and I was very very close with my father. Like, I was his mini me. You know, we were very, very twinned. And, you know, I I was very, very close with Im. You know, we had the same body language. Like we even had the same physical ailments, like, you know, we literally had like the same body, like was like, I got his body and, you know, our brains worked a lot of the same we even had the same physical ailments. Like, you know, we literally had, like, the same body. Like, it's like, I got his body. And, you know, our brains worked a lot of the same way. Like, we like the same music, we had the same sense of humor, we had the same sense of, you know, critical eye. Like, we were very very Im. And you wonder, like, it was I similar because that was the way to earn his attention. You know? Like it's, who like, it's who knows? That's what I'm thinking. Keep going. Never mind. My arms are folded for those of you who are listening. Cross. My point was that even as much because I felt like I knew my father. I was thinking just last night, like I had some experience and I was like, I was thinking about like Im was something about my kids, like, just like thinking about, like, whatever something I had. And I was like, my dad had to go through this because he was a human, and he was like a dad. Right? And There's something to when someone dies that allows a completely different sense of revelation. And think part of it is because you know that you can't talk about it with them. Now the hippies among you might be like, of course, you can still talk to him. That's not what I mean people. I don't mean, can I commune with Im? I don't mean can I go to a psychic? I don't mean can I like the time because some in his energy, I mean, I can't say, hey, dad, how would you do this? What was this like? Or did you feel trapped, you know, like, you can't have that. So there's something about also that her process really began when her mother passed there's something about also that her process really began when her mother passed away, you know, of saying not just like let's have sex, I wanna drink, I wanna purge. Right? But of like, oh, here's a whole new identity I have now that this person's not there to reflect Im. You know? It's so interesting. I think I think she was very interesting. Mayim, before we do and ask Ma'am anything, we're going to let people know that if they wanna ask you anything. They can do. so@bialikbreakdown.com, that's BIA do so at bialik breakdown dot com. That's BIALIK breakdown dot com. There's a submission form there. We love when listeners, submit audio and video, and thank you so much to everyone who has. You can also find amazing articles there related to the episodes well as all sorts of goodies on the episode pages. I I like when you say goodies, people can when you say goodies. People can get all sorts of goodies if they subscribe to the podcast. On their favorite podcasting platforms and feel free to give us a five star review Im you like what you're hearing. Additionally, Check out the YouTube channel and click the little bell notifications to get new episodes. We do drop things on Tuesdays and sometimes on Thursdays too will surprise you. Drop it. Like it's like it's Ask mine anything. Yeah. Today's ask mine anything comes from Bridget. It's about relationships Why do I feel a tendency to self sabotage and feel some insecurity even though the relationship is wonderful and healthy? I'm not laughing at not laughing at you. I'm laughing with you. Because you can relate to Bridgette? I think you chose this question specifically because you wanna hear me answer it. I just wanna talk have you talk all about yourself sabotage? Well, first of all, I I don't love the term self sabotage, not because I don't believe that it exists, but think it's often masking other things. So you know, what I like to say is sometimes and this is iCarly, this isn't necessarily a neuroscience perspective per se. This is more kind of from my experience, my strength, and my hope, I hope. A lot of times there are things that challenge us that we're afraid of. And sometimes when we're in a relationship, especially if it's getting more intimate, more, you know, closer to commitment going into territory you haven't gone into before, and that could mean a lot of things. It could mean you're thinking of traveling together or moving in together or meeting each other's parents, lot of times those things, and it doesn't have to be directly related, like, oh, he asked me to meet his parents, now I'm gonna self sabotage. It could be a week later, it could be a month later, all those things brew in your consciousness and in your experience. And sometimes that fear of closeness and of moving along can be terrifying because it holds a lot of possibility. That's new and And we tend to like novelty, but only in certain doses. And the other thing is if you have any reservations about a relationship, when things also seem to be moving along, the best way that you can articulate it be by what looks like self sabotage. When it could be that you actually have other concerns. So this is really a great example of when doing some introspective work is important. Because it's important to be clear on what you want and what you need and if the other person is helping you fulfill that purpose or if they are serving as an impediment. And that's ask mom anything. Ask mom anything. Yeah. Which is it for us, Jonathan? Im is really hard to know what is self sabotage and what is our instinct leading us to question if there's an underlying issue in the relationship that needs to be addressed which is our core instinct six cents and which is our, like, wait a second, I am having resist to facing something that I personally need to work on. And if you are not watching this on video, you're missing mine literally dying with laughter. Her face has never been red or ever. Oh my god. Hey, yay. Im From our exact to the one we hope you've never happened. It's gonna be y'all, like, to break down. She's gonna break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience BHD or two on fiction. And now she's gonna break down. It's a great down, and she's gonna bake it down.