Speaker 1: You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and
Speaker 2: waters that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 1: And I know from being around people in my life
Speaker 1: when I've been well who were in the position that
Speaker 1: I was then it is hard to be around someone
Speaker 1: with an eating disorder because they are so wrapped up
Speaker 1: in their head they don't have time to consider your
Speaker 1: feelings a lot of the time in my experience.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome Tivdai. You're Happy, the podcast that asks
Speaker 2: the questions you've always wanted to know from the people
Speaker 2: who appear to have it all. I'm Claire Stevens and
Speaker 2: today's guest is Lucinda Price, also known as Rooms. She's
Speaker 2: an author and a comedian and a broadcaster and an
Speaker 2: Internet personality, and you might know her from being Really
Speaker 2: Bloody Funny on Instagram. She's performed at some of Australia's
Speaker 2: largest live events and stages. She's written for TV, she's
Speaker 2: got a cult following, and she's just released her debut book,
Speaker 2: All I Ever Wanted Was to Be Hot, which is
Speaker 2: essentially about the body image problem that every woman who
Speaker 2: has grown up in Australia in the last thirty years
Speaker 2: has been subjected to, and it's essentially about that soup
Speaker 2: that we swim in when it comes to Western beauty
Speaker 2: standards and the damage it does and for her the
Speaker 2: journey of breaking out of it. Froom's is particularly fascinating
Speaker 2: talking about the absurdity of the beauty standards that we
Speaker 2: grew up with and how everyone wanted to be a
Speaker 2: Victoria's Secret Angel. Everyone wanted to look the same way,
Speaker 2: and if you were out of those boundaries, you felt
Speaker 2: like there was something wrong with you and that you
Speaker 2: needed to desperately change something about yourself. I was really
Speaker 2: looking forward to having this conversation because before I started
Speaker 2: in media, I was doing a Masters of research in psychology,
Speaker 2: specifically looking at public health messaging around obesity and eating
Speaker 2: disorders and how they entirely conflict. And it looked at
Speaker 2: the overlap between obesity and eating disorders and the insidiousness
Speaker 2: of fat phobia and the way it's damaging not only
Speaker 2: for a person's mental health but also for the goal
Speaker 2: of physical health. So many women have had their lives
Speaker 2: and their joy stolen from them because of the noise
Speaker 2: around eating, shape and weight, and it's a conversation I've
Speaker 2: wanted to have on this podcast for so long, and
Speaker 2: I knew that Frooms would be the person to have
Speaker 2: that conversation with. I started by asking her about her childhood.
Speaker 1: Oh, I love that you just get straight into it.
Speaker 1: That's great, I would say, yeah, for sure. I was
Speaker 1: actually thinking on the way here, my sister and I
Speaker 1: are like everything to our parents, and there's nothing that
Speaker 1: they wouldn't do for either of us, Like their life
Speaker 1: revolves around us really, and not in like a coddled way,
Speaker 1: but rather like I could sit in my hands and
Speaker 1: clap and my mum would be like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's iconic, so I could do it again. So I've
Speaker 1: definitely been enabled. But yeah, I would say any kind
Speaker 1: of like unhappiness that I felt was just purely in
Speaker 1: my own head, because I feel as though I've really
Speaker 1: had a pretty good trot in terms of things that
Speaker 1: have been given to me and stuff like that. But
Speaker 1: definitely from a young age, I think I had a
Speaker 1: few demons in my brain.
Speaker 2: You have talked a bit about experience depression. When was
Speaker 2: your first experience with it?
Speaker 1: So my first experience with it was probably, funnily enough,
Speaker 1: what I feel kicked it off. In my memory was
Speaker 1: when I went to a party when I was fifteen
Speaker 1: and I greened out. Yeah, so we're passing it around
Speaker 1: and I'll never forget. I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: like if I'm allowed to talk about this, but I
Speaker 1: was like fifteen, so that's fine. We were passing around.
Speaker 1: They made this joint that was like a cross and
Speaker 1: it was someone's parents. Weit it literally looked like that. Anyway.
Speaker 1: I took a puff and like I really inhaled it
Speaker 1: like twice, and then straight away I was like, I've
Speaker 1: made a massive mistake. And it always happens, and you're
Speaker 1: like in a circle of people. Yeah, And I looked
Speaker 1: across me. I was looking at someone and behind them
Speaker 1: was this red cartoon going like this, like this, like this.
Speaker 1: And then we went inside and we watched my favorite
Speaker 1: ever movie, Austin Powers, and it was like I was
Speaker 1: watching it and eternity dragged on, but it it'd only
Speaker 1: been a second. Like I was wigging out. I went
Speaker 1: to the bathroom and I vomited and I vomited up
Speaker 1: blood and I was like I'm dying. But then my
Speaker 1: friend was like, no, it's strawberries. Like I had strawberries
Speaker 1: earlier that day.
Speaker 2: I had that once when I got really drunk and
Speaker 2: I was like vomiting blood and they're like, you've exclusively drank.
Speaker 2: What do you use that? Like vodka?
Speaker 1: Raspberry raspberry?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I was like, it's Vodara, but I'm still drunk.
Speaker 1: I'm still drunk and it's probably bloody in my head.
Speaker 1: So that actually really rocked me, and thus I don't
Speaker 1: touch anything like that anymore because it rack. I remember
Speaker 1: feeling so bad that I was like, I'm never going
Speaker 1: to do this again. And I often talk about how
Speaker 1: I get migraines as a kid, and I'd be like
Speaker 1: praying to whatever imaginary god that I believed in, be
Speaker 1: like please, I'll eat vegetables and fruit if you just
Speaker 1: make it stop. Make it stop. So my whole thing
Speaker 1: was like I never want to feel that again. I
Speaker 1: think it tipped me over into like I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's called derealization or depersonalization or whatever, but it's
Speaker 1: like nothing felt real. It was like I was in
Speaker 1: a glass box for a few months, and it was
Speaker 1: that feeling of like I've done this, I can't rectify this,
Speaker 1: Like I'm going to be stuck in this forever. But
Speaker 1: before that point, I had bad anxiety and OCD since
Speaker 1: I was really young, so I was used to kind
Speaker 1: of feeling that real sinking feeling of like I'm stuck,
Speaker 1: I'm stuck, I'm stuck. But it just added like a
Speaker 1: little bit of like flair to it, where I was
Speaker 1: seeing a glass box now feeling it.
Speaker 2: I have heard a lot of women talk about that
Speaker 2: experience with weed. I don't enjoy it, and I don't
Speaker 2: even know why I don't enjoy it, but it's probably
Speaker 2: a similar thing. I just don't like how I feel,
Speaker 2: And I'm a bit the same with like doing anything
Speaker 2: that I'm then like, I don't want to not feel
Speaker 2: in my body. You're writing your book about how your
Speaker 2: dad has bipolar Were you conscious of trying things like
Speaker 2: weed and thinking that it might be more risky for
Speaker 2: you because of that predisposition.
Speaker 1: Literally one hundred percent. And I've got friends who have
Speaker 1: parents who have schizophrenia or bipolar one. So my dad
Speaker 1: does bipolar one. And why I always put one on
Speaker 1: the end is because there are two types of bipolar
Speaker 1: one bipolar two. And I'm really passionate about I feel
Speaker 1: like that word gets like thrown around so much like
Speaker 1: they're bipolar. I'm like, it's such a complicated, interesting experience
Speaker 1: people who have it. But that's kind of a side note. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: And I grew up like dad self medicated, like did
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff, and I just I didn't want
Speaker 1: to have that. I knew like the reality of it.
Speaker 1: So I think I don't think mental health was like
Speaker 1: discussed in my family in the way that it is now.
Speaker 1: It was just a kind of reality that my dad
Speaker 1: has bipolar one and he's kind of crazy, and it's
Speaker 1: we call him, and I've said this, we call him center,
Speaker 1: like he's the center of our family. And it actually
Speaker 1: has ended up being quite fun, Like I look back
Speaker 1: quite fondly now, even at the things that necessarily weren't.
Speaker 1: It's a serious mental illness, Like there's things that aren't
Speaker 1: fun about it. But yeah, I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: like nostalgia. Yeah yeah, but because that's like a relatively
Speaker 1: serious mental illness, any kind of experience that I had
Speaker 1: didn't feel as scary. Yeah, but it didn't also related
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. But I think later on
Speaker 1: in life, when I was medicated and really kind of
Speaker 1: like trying to work through it. Then I would kind
Speaker 1: of draw parallels.
Speaker 2: You had OCD when you were really really young. What
Speaker 2: did you used to do? Like how did that manifest?
Speaker 1: Oh? My god, so it started when I sing you
Speaker 1: think kindergarten. I'm smiling even though it's like so shit,
Speaker 1: And I just remember, like I couldn't wear socks, like
Speaker 1: Mum would have to put on and off my socks
Speaker 1: again and again and again, and she just thought that
Speaker 1: I didn't like the way they felt, and I thought
Speaker 1: that that was the same. But I realized it would
Speaker 1: be because I was like going into this new environment
Speaker 1: and I didn't feel in control. But it really flared
Speaker 1: up and became a serious problem when I was in
Speaker 1: year seven. Again. Change it happens, and it still comes
Speaker 1: up to me whenever something's changing.
Speaker 2: And it's weird. Often you can't tell in the moment,
Speaker 2: you don't have the self awareness. In the moment, you're like,
Speaker 2: but everything's fine and normal, that hasn't been anything, And
Speaker 2: then you look back on it and you're like, yeah, year.
Speaker 1: Seven, Yeah, Yeah, isn't that weird how it works like that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like that's the real hardest part of it. I
Speaker 1: feel is this unawareness even if you feel like you're
Speaker 1: a self aware person. But oh my god, it was
Speaker 1: so bad in year seven. I just I felt like
Speaker 1: I didn't fit in and I couldn't like find my
Speaker 1: bearings at this new school. And so I would be
Speaker 1: so hyper vigilant about everything that I did and every
Speaker 1: way that I behaved, and I became obsessed with thinking
Speaker 1: that I was offending people. So like i'd brush past
Speaker 1: someone on the bus and like my bag would hit
Speaker 1: their blazer, and for the whole day, like that'd be
Speaker 1: in the morning, For the whole day, I'd be thinking
Speaker 1: about it again and then ruminating, being like I did
Speaker 1: this thing. Oh my god, am I a bad person?
Speaker 1: Then I'd catch the bus home and Mum tells me, now,
Speaker 1: she's like, it'd be like you were busting to use
Speaker 1: the toilet. You'd sit in the car and then have
Speaker 1: to wait, wait till we get home. Walk into my
Speaker 1: room with my mum. She'd sit on my bed, and
Speaker 1: again and again and again, I'd have to say, I
Speaker 1: brush past Sarah on the bus today, Does that mean
Speaker 1: I'm rude? Mean or offensive? Does that mean I'm rude?
Speaker 1: Mean or offensive? And I'd say again, and again, I'd
Speaker 1: say it fifty times. And this is why I also
Speaker 1: think it's so important to like championing the people that
Speaker 1: are around people with mental illness, because like the patience
Speaker 1: that my mum showed in sitting with me, she had
Speaker 1: to say no in the perfect cadence. If I glinted
Speaker 1: in her eye that maybe she didn't mean it, we'd
Speaker 1: start the pattern again and this would go on for
Speaker 1: like an hour, sometimes after school, and she didn't really
Speaker 1: know what to do, like what do you do? So
Speaker 1: I didn't get therapy or anything for it, because and
Speaker 1: I speak about this in my book, it did eventually
Speaker 1: go away, like it comes in episodes. It's not like
Speaker 1: this constant thing like I feel fine right now, but
Speaker 1: it kind of all went away when I died in
Speaker 1: my hair blonde. And that's hence all ever wanted was
Speaker 1: to be hot. Yeah.
Speaker 2: You released your debut book in September, and I have
Speaker 2: read it twice. It's a bit of a memoir, a
Speaker 2: bit of a manifesto, and in one of the early
Speaker 2: chapters you tell a story about something that you chose
Speaker 2: to do, and that chapter ends with you seeing the
Speaker 2: results of that and writing it was one of the
Speaker 2: happiest moments of my life. That thing was a Nodes
Speaker 2: job and you were seventeen. Can you tell me exactly
Speaker 2: what that moment was like? And I've just realized you
Speaker 2: like to call it rhinoplasty. We did not use the
Speaker 2: casual lands plastic surgery rhinoplasty. Can you tell me exactly
Speaker 2: what that moment was like?
Speaker 1: Of course? And can I just say you reading my
Speaker 1: book so early on and giving me the most amazing endorsement,
Speaker 1: like made me feel so comfortable and excited about this
Speaker 1: book because it's so scary when you write something like this.
Speaker 2: It's so thank you, so oh, it's so brilliant. As
Speaker 2: soon as I saw the title, I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I have all the time in love with I'd thank you.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I can tell you exactly how it felt.
Speaker 1: It was summer, and I'd wanted this thing since I
Speaker 1: was eleven, and I thought about it so much, but
Speaker 1: in kind of like a good way, Like I was
Speaker 1: just so excited for when it was going to happen.
Speaker 1: I think it could have turned out looking any sort
Speaker 1: of way, and I would have been happy just for
Speaker 1: having that agency to change it. It just felt like
Speaker 1: it was akin to the feeling of like the life
Speaker 1: day of school or getting my license. It was around
Speaker 1: that time where all of those things were happening, so
Speaker 1: it really kind of like divorced me from a girl
Speaker 1: into a woman. Britney spears vibes and yeah, I just
Speaker 1: remember thinking, Okay, now I'm comfortable. Now I feel like myself.
Speaker 1: People speak about this, so I've spoken to There can
Speaker 1: be like a dysphoria or a dysmorphia, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like you don't feel yourself until you fix something. And
Speaker 1: I think that's where plastic surgery can be really helpful.
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes those stories aren't told enough because
Speaker 1: you either hear the like really happy success stories or
Speaker 1: the disasters where for a lot of people it kind
Speaker 1: of is this like quiet, grounding, peaceful experience when you
Speaker 1: fix something that you don't.
Speaker 2: Like, even if it's like a messy path of why
Speaker 2: you didn't like it in the first place. Would you
Speaker 2: write in the book about certain comments that you got
Speaker 2: or just certain moments where this insecurity kind of emerge
Speaker 2: and you're able to at once see that like it's
Speaker 2: sad and unfair that you felt that way, but the
Speaker 2: truth is you did feel that way. And once you
Speaker 2: saw the results, you were stoked. Yeah, and that's that's okay,
Speaker 2: Like you genuinely felt happiness in that moment, and we
Speaker 2: kind of shot on women a little bit for that.
Speaker 2: Was it something that once you had it, because obviously,
Speaker 2: like your friends would have known you had a partner
Speaker 2: at the time, who knew? Did you feel comfortable telling people?
Speaker 1: No? No, No, it was just like people in my
Speaker 1: immediate circle. But even until writing this book, like, I
Speaker 1: was so scared talking about it because it is an
Speaker 1: insecurity of mine, the fact that my nose looks different,
Speaker 1: Like I don't like sharing old photos of myself because
Speaker 1: I don't like giving people permission to shit on this
Speaker 1: little girl who felt self conscious. And yes, it's changed,
Speaker 1: but I'm still that person. The part of my nose
Speaker 1: is just in a bin somewhere. But no, it took
Speaker 1: me so long to even consider talking about this with
Speaker 1: people that I don't know, because yeah, like I said,
Speaker 1: there's still that like insecure part of me. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm so worried people and think, oh, she must be
Speaker 1: so naturally fuggly, Like I don't like giving people permission
Speaker 1: to like Bar's judgment, even though of course they are,
Speaker 1: but surprisingly writing about it and putting it out there,
Speaker 1: like no one seems very scandalized by it, and that's
Speaker 1: quite powerful for me, you know, it's kind of freeing.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh cool, I think one day I'll be
Speaker 1: able to share photos of myself and it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what you think, because and it's true, Like I look
Speaker 1: back at photos of myself now, and being honest about
Speaker 1: it has also changed the way that I see my
Speaker 1: old self. I see, oh, she wasn't even that bad,
Speaker 1: Like I think it really was very much in my
Speaker 1: head and that's why I'm glad I got it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely there's still a bit of feeling like I don't
Speaker 1: want to give people ammunition to judge me.
Speaker 2: It must be a little bit like exposure therapy, because
Speaker 2: if it's something so scary and something that you were
Speaker 2: certain was going to go a certain way once you
Speaker 2: share this truth and it hasn't, that must be especially
Speaker 2: for somebody who is predisposed to being anxious, that must
Speaker 2: be quite comforting. You write candidly in the book about
Speaker 2: wanting to be pretty unpopular, and you say you infiltrated
Speaker 2: the popular group just by going blonder. As someone who
Speaker 2: was never in the popular group. What does it feel
Speaker 2: like to me in that group?
Speaker 1: Oh my god. That was another thing that I was
Speaker 1: really scared about writing about because it's like, I feel
Speaker 1: like I got my wish, Yeah, and I'm like I
Speaker 1: can see. I mean, I don't know, because I never
Speaker 1: didn't have it like I did have it for like
Speaker 1: a year and a half. I've felt so like a floater,
Speaker 1: like I didn't have friends, and it really affected me.
Speaker 1: So I think I don't know what it would have
Speaker 1: been like if I just stayed like that forever. I
Speaker 1: think I would kind of be a different person, to
Speaker 1: be honest. Oh my god, it felt good.
Speaker 2: Is it competitive? Like when everyone you talk about like
Speaker 2: the cheerleader effect and the fact that like everyone's hot
Speaker 2: and then everybody seems hot because you're all hot together.
Speaker 2: What does that power feel like? And especially being able
Speaker 2: to compare it with when you didn't have that social capital.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it's kind of not dissimilar to work now,
Speaker 1: Like it's a popularity contest what we do in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. So it kind of probably primed me
Speaker 1: for that. For me, I don't think it changed you
Speaker 1: I was as a person, but I think it made
Speaker 1: me a better person actually, because it meant that I
Speaker 1: felt like I could. I've felt a lot of agency,
Speaker 1: and I think I'm my best self when I feel
Speaker 1: a bit more in control. And I felt accepted even
Speaker 1: though it was this thing that, yeah, it is kind
Speaker 1: of complicated because there's like haves and have nots, right,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I definitely still knew that it was conditional,
Speaker 1: so I definitely had to work towards it with the
Speaker 1: blonde hair and looking a certain way and behaving a
Speaker 1: certain way in front of boys. But I think I
Speaker 1: was still myself in a lot of ways. It's like
Speaker 1: survivors guilt because I'm like, I know what it was
Speaker 1: like to really feel like I didn't fit in.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like fitting in being hot, being blonde?
Speaker 2: That having that safety net gave you per to be
Speaker 2: who you were, like I think you say in the book,
Speaker 2: like to be a weirdo, to be crazy, funny and
Speaker 2: out there and follow whatever instincts you had. Do you
Speaker 2: think because you had the safety net of hotness, but
Speaker 2: you could do that.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent? Because I remember when I didn't. When
Speaker 1: I was in year seven and we had this like
Speaker 1: drama class and I did this whole performance, and I
Speaker 1: remember at the end of it, I like slid across
Speaker 1: the floor in my tights and everyone was like whoa
Speaker 1: because it was kind of like good, like it was
Speaker 1: kind of like a really good move, and I was
Speaker 1: like whoa. But again, I felt like a freak. Everyone
Speaker 1: thought I was like this weird girl running around the school.
Speaker 1: I think as well. When I'm anxious, I blink a lot,
Speaker 1: so i'd kind of bounce around the school like blinking
Speaker 1: and like kind of being really oh hey, like kind
Speaker 1: of dorky because I hadn't really come into being a
Speaker 1: proper teenager yet. And people used to say to me,
Speaker 1: like I remember in drama class, one guy was like,
Speaker 1: I thought you were hot, but then I got to
Speaker 1: know you, so was that kind of vibe, which is.
Speaker 2: Actually kind of and you're kind of like that's what
Speaker 2: I want. Yeah, I feel like that kind of And
Speaker 2: it's weird in that sometimes it's like, did you only
Speaker 2: get to know me because I was hot? Like did
Speaker 2: somebody only bother to get to know your funniness because
Speaker 2: you'd lued them in fully?
Speaker 1: Fully? Catfish?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well yeah I didn't even take it. I
Speaker 1: took it as a compliment because I'm like, I'm glad
Speaker 1: that you are seeing me for who I am, which
Speaker 1: is like this exactly how I present, I guess and
Speaker 1: the things that I find funny. So yeah, definitely gave
Speaker 1: me permission. And I feel like sometimes as young girls,
Speaker 1: we need something to give us permission. And that's what
Speaker 1: it was. For better or worse.
Speaker 2: After the break, Froom shares her experience in what was
Speaker 2: supposed to be a dream media role but instead left
Speaker 2: her feeling increasingly dissatisfied with her appearance. A moment that
Speaker 2: sticks out to me as a time the world told
Speaker 2: you you'd be happy and you weren't, or when you
Speaker 2: thought you'd be happy and you weren't, was when you
Speaker 2: got your job at Pedestrian. Can you tell me about
Speaker 2: the role and what it involved.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. So yeah, I got a job a
Speaker 1: Pedestrian as a health and fitness editor when I was twenty.
Speaker 2: Got an editor at twenty, I know, how what the hell?
Speaker 1: That's why I was like, yes, like I'm killing it.
Speaker 1: So I really was happy when I got that job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like obviously felt a lot of pressure because
Speaker 1: I felt like, oh, I've really got to make this work.
Speaker 1: Like I wanted to work there so bad, but it
Speaker 1: was so out of the realm of possibility in my mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it involved me like going on runs, trying smoothies, writing
Speaker 1: about health and fitness, and at that point I'd never
Speaker 1: gone on a diet. I thought diets were ridiculous. Again,
Speaker 1: that was kind of a privilege, to be honest, because
Speaker 1: I'd never been teased for my weight. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: kind of had the privilege of not knowing what it
Speaker 1: was like to have to worry about that. So I
Speaker 1: think in a way it helped my writing because I
Speaker 1: came from a very layman's approach. But what I find
Speaker 1: funny looking back is it eventually writing about health and
Speaker 1: fitness every day all day really actually started to affect me.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a really good tale of the
Speaker 1: fact that like, what you consume can consume you, and
Speaker 1: what you consume even if you think that you're above her,
Speaker 1: even if you think intellectually that you can outthink it.
Speaker 2: Or you're doing it ironically or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yes, the ironically thing is a big one, especially if
Speaker 1: you pride yourself on being someone who's self aware. I
Speaker 1: think it can get you even more so. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: role involved trying different things, changing my appearance for a story,
Speaker 1: doing stuff like that, which again I was twenty. I
Speaker 1: thought it was amazing. I was like, I get to
Speaker 1: do all this stuff for free. Before that as well,
Speaker 1: I'd worked at Lululemon, and part of that was going
Speaker 1: and doing exercise classes for free. So I always was
Speaker 1: enabled to do these things that I thought were really
Speaker 1: positive for me, the context of that being actually a
Speaker 1: bit strange when I look back.
Speaker 2: What's fascinating about your story is this fact that the physical,
Speaker 2: and especially when it comes to eating disorders, the physical
Speaker 2: and the mental feed into each other. So a lot
Speaker 2: of people, basically you don't really develop an eating disorder
Speaker 2: unless you diet. That's how the psychopathology starts, because it's
Speaker 2: your brain becoming so hungry that then like it stuffs
Speaker 2: up all the signals and the whole relationship between your
Speaker 2: brain and your body. And so you get this job
Speaker 2: and you're doing diets or smoothies or thinking obsessively about
Speaker 2: health just because that's what you have to do. You
Speaker 2: tell a story about a friend coming to visit you
Speaker 2: in Sydney and you felt weird after he left, and
Speaker 2: then he said, I just don't know if we can
Speaker 2: be friends, because that whole time was really weird. What
Speaker 2: do you think you were behaving like? In that time?
Speaker 1: I remember very clearly everything pissed me off. I found
Speaker 1: everyone annoying, being around people for extended periods of time,
Speaker 1: extended periods of time, being like one whole day in
Speaker 1: one whole night, like you'd piss me off. I thought
Speaker 1: I was better than people, to be honest, I thought
Speaker 1: I was smarter. I thought everyone wishes they had my
Speaker 1: will power. You know. I was really up my own ass.
Speaker 1: But I think I had to be because I was
Speaker 1: putting everything into it. So I felt entitled to feel
Speaker 1: all of those things, because if I didn't feel all
Speaker 1: those things, what was I doing it for. I think
Speaker 1: the way it manifested in a social way was everything
Speaker 1: having to be my way. I decide when we go out,
Speaker 1: I decide what we eat, I decide when we go home.
Speaker 1: I don't have time for small talk. Yeah. What I
Speaker 1: remember from it was just being really stringent and having
Speaker 1: absolutely no spontaneity. And I know how wild that is
Speaker 1: now because I'm really spontaneous now. If you call me up,
Speaker 1: I'll come do whatever with you or on the weekend,
Speaker 1: or like I'm happy to just sit in bed all
Speaker 1: day on the weekend if it means we're going to
Speaker 1: have a fun time a friend and I together. And
Speaker 1: I know from being around people in my life when
Speaker 1: I've been well who were in the position that I was,
Speaker 1: then it is hard to be around someone with a
Speaker 1: neat disorder because they are so wrapped up in their
Speaker 1: head they don't have time to consider your feelings a
Speaker 1: lot of the time in my experience, but that was
Speaker 1: a wake up call in a lot of ways. It
Speaker 1: was embarrassing, Like I walked away from that conversation that
Speaker 1: I had with him feeling so embarrassed because I didn't realize.
Speaker 1: I hate the idea that I made someone feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone would liked that idea, to be fair,
Speaker 1: but it did make me feel really small and really
Speaker 1: really bad. But it still took me a few more
Speaker 1: years to think that the problem was that I was
Speaker 1: hungry and not that I was depressed.
Speaker 2: Was your initial reaction to that to blame that person
Speaker 2: and think like, uh, you just don't get me. Maybe
Speaker 2: we're not meant to be friends anymore, or did you
Speaker 2: kind of see some of the truth in it at
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: I think, judging on the fact that I remember being embarrassed,
Speaker 1: I think I definitely saw truth in it because we've
Speaker 1: been friends since we were like fourteen, him and I.
Speaker 1: His name's Ben.
Speaker 2: Were you able to repair the friendship?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, oh yeah, Like he was one of my
Speaker 1: best friends in high school, like drama kids together, and
Speaker 1: now like he came to my launcherit I did in
Speaker 1: Melbourne and like wrote this beautiful thing for me, being like,
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of the woman you've become. Like he's
Speaker 1: really he's really like earnest and other stuff, which I like,
Speaker 1: he is very in touch with his emotions. So yeah,
Speaker 1: and that kind of makes a friendship like that stronger.
Speaker 1: Like he's someone who would just say it how it is,
Speaker 1: and I probably needed that in a lot of ways
Speaker 1: from someone like him.
Speaker 2: I think the way that you describe the reality of
Speaker 2: having an eating disorder is so vivid. And I studied
Speaker 2: psychology and about ten years ago I worked in a
Speaker 2: residential treatment facility with people with eating disorders in the US.
Speaker 2: I was only there for such a short time, but
Speaker 2: it has stuck with me like nothing else because I
Speaker 2: just could not believe how rigid and scary this mental
Speaker 2: illness was. I remember we were doing like art therapy
Speaker 2: and one girl woman. It's weird, I say, girl, but
Speaker 2: like quite important, especially with eating disorders where it can
Speaker 2: be quite paternalistic.
Speaker 1: Woman.
Speaker 2: She was a young woman, but she was just crying
Speaker 2: and crying and saying, I don't know what I meant
Speaker 2: to do because I feel so disgusting and I'm putting
Speaker 2: on weight and I'm eating this food and I feel
Speaker 2: so disgusting in my body. I can't recover because I
Speaker 2: can't live like this. And I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: what are you meant to do? What can you remember
Speaker 2: that it felt like to be in the throes of that.
Speaker 1: Yes, it feels like that. It feels like you've got
Speaker 1: two options. I can, yeah, gain weight, which isn't an option,
Speaker 1: but okay, we're going to say it's an option. Or
Speaker 1: I can die, you know, which also isn't an option.
Speaker 1: And that's why I think you can get really stuck
Speaker 1: when you're at your lowest. I think there's different degrees
Speaker 1: with the eating disorder as well. There was times where
Speaker 1: I was definitely still clinically. I hit all the markers
Speaker 1: for having an eating disorder, but it didn't feel as severe.
Speaker 1: And then there were times where it was really like
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do and I'm stuck, like
Speaker 1: you said that woman, really rigid and really stuck.
Speaker 2: And I think sometimes it's actually during the recovery process
Speaker 2: that you're like, oh, I can't live like this because
Speaker 2: I don't know how to live in this body. And
Speaker 2: that's when it all hits you. Because eating disorders have
Speaker 2: the highest mortality rate out of any mental illness. And
Speaker 2: I think that's why this book in your story is
Speaker 2: so important, because it's telling that truth about how trapped
Speaker 2: you feel and you Originally they kind of diagnosed it
Speaker 2: as depression. And do you think that was because you
Speaker 2: were just so low?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think, to be honest, that misfire
Speaker 1: from a psychiatrist was because of my family history of
Speaker 1: mental illness. It's convenient. She was a kind of doctor
Speaker 1: that diagnosed me with a disorder. That was her whole
Speaker 1: job was to look for signs of that. She didn't
Speaker 1: know what I was like before, I said on the questionnaire.
Speaker 1: When she was talking to me, I definitely said that
Speaker 1: I was dieting, which should have set off red flags
Speaker 1: to be honest, but I think it's important, yeah, to
Speaker 1: address the fact that eating disorders do have the highest
Speaker 1: mortality rate. And it's not because someone's dying of being
Speaker 1: really skinny and they're mal nourished. It's because they're taking
Speaker 1: their own lives, and it's not discussed enough. It is,
Speaker 1: I feel because of that feeling of being stuck. I
Speaker 1: know you've discussed experiencing mental illness, and it's that feeling
Speaker 1: where it's I'm stuck. I've got two options, and if
Speaker 1: you're someone who's really impulsive, then yeah, you got two options.
Speaker 1: And I think it's important. It's so funny. I doled
Speaker 1: out that statistic on my Instagram a couple months ago
Speaker 1: and someone said, oh, yeah, I know they're pretty bad,
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't say they're the most lethal.
Speaker 2: As though it's like a subjective, I personally wouldn't say,
Speaker 2: it's okay, do you like the data?
Speaker 1: What the hell give me the tea? What's going on here?
Speaker 1: And I think that was just indicative of the way
Speaker 1: that we look and the way that we think. I
Speaker 1: think we think that women are dramatic because yes, people assume, oh,
Speaker 1: eating disorders are a thing for young women, and they're
Speaker 1: being dramatic and they wouldn't do that. They wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: It's not about that, it's something they can snap out of.
Speaker 1: People aren't talking about that with suppression.
Speaker 2: And I think because it does disproportionately affect young women,
Speaker 2: people do see it as almost narcissistic. I've actually seen
Speaker 2: some interesting commentary online about kind of accusing people who
Speaker 2: are talking about any disorder recovery or talking about their experiences,
Speaker 2: accusing them of being fat phobic, and it's like, no,
Speaker 2: that is the mental illness though, that's what's making that
Speaker 2: person incredibly sick. Have you found that interesting the kind
Speaker 2: of way that people engage with this story of you
Speaker 2: having an eating disorder, that like, there can be a
Speaker 2: bit of a misunderstanding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I wanted to explore the nuance in
Speaker 1: the book, which was saying that, Yeah, when I developed
Speaker 1: the eating disorder, I was prime for what you think
Speaker 1: someone with an eating disorder is young, white, wealthy woman
Speaker 1: given everything pretty much affectionists perfectionist decides to go on
Speaker 1: a diet, doesn't like the way her body looks even
Speaker 1: though she's a standard size. Oh no, she shouldn't eat
Speaker 1: disorder Now, what I wanted to explain was that when
Speaker 1: it's an eating disorder, and even when you diet, I
Speaker 1: think dieting is weird and it shouldn't be normal. But yeah,
Speaker 1: when you have an eating disorder, it tips over into
Speaker 1: something that you can't control. So yeah, I was controlling
Speaker 1: it at the start. Yeah, I decided to diet. Did
Speaker 1: I decide to develop an eating disorder? Nah? But it happens,
Speaker 1: and that's not discussed enough. I feel like we say
Speaker 1: it's either you see the person who's really sick and
Speaker 1: it's very obvious to everyone that this person has an
Speaker 1: eating disorder, or you have these other gray areas, which
Speaker 1: was what was really important for me to try and
Speaker 1: get across in the book, because I think there's so
Speaker 1: many people who don't fit the diet diagnostic criteria, who
Speaker 1: fly under the radar, who will be sick for the
Speaker 1: rest of their lives, will be stuck in diet culture,
Speaker 1: and so much of the life and excitement and spontaneity
Speaker 1: is stripped out of their life in a way that
Speaker 1: they might not even be aware of. Because I think
Speaker 1: that it's so important to show that you can go
Speaker 1: back to having this like childlike wonder and sense of excitement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's something that I think is hard to tap
Speaker 1: into when you're on a diet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it's weird with eating disorders. I
Speaker 2: think because thinness is so valorized in our culture, we
Speaker 2: can almost look at people with eating disorders with contempt.
Speaker 2: Like even I don't know if you had this, like
Speaker 2: at school or when you're a young woman and there's
Speaker 2: somebody in your orbit who has an eating disorder, you
Speaker 2: almost gossip about it as though it's malicious, Like it's
Speaker 2: the weirdest thing. If what I'm saying is through that
Speaker 2: person is suffering and I don't see it as suffering.
Speaker 2: When you have an eating disorder, do you feel that,
Speaker 2: Like do you feel people looking at you in that
Speaker 2: strange contemptuous way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I remember being on the side of the
Speaker 1: person who's contemptuous, and I write about it in the book,
Speaker 1: these girls who were clearly going through something, and they
Speaker 1: would be spoken about like, uh, like of course, like
Speaker 1: everyone was kind of jealous. Yeah, in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: So fucked up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so fucked Then as an adult, Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was definitely times where if someone not necessarily criticized me,
Speaker 1: but called it out. I'd be like, Okay, you're jealous
Speaker 1: because and a lot of the time people were dieting
Speaker 1: and I was like, you're just jealous that I'm doing
Speaker 1: it way better than you and I'm the boss of dieting.
Speaker 1: But mostly honestly, I was just complimented all the time,
Speaker 1: and like i'd go try on outfits, like the people
Speaker 1: working at the stores would be like, oh wow, like
Speaker 1: you could wear anything like that look so good on
Speaker 1: you to me, And I see it now. I feel
Speaker 1: like it was obvious that I had an eating disorder
Speaker 1: when I was definitely a low weight. There's also I
Speaker 1: don't know, this is like my gut telling me to
Speaker 1: say this. I'm not sure if it's true or not,
Speaker 1: But like if I saw myself as someone who's gone
Speaker 1: through it, it would be very clear to me very
Speaker 1: quickly what I was going through the way that my
Speaker 1: body looked, my energy, my aora in a room. So
Speaker 1: the idea that people were seeing that and kind of
Speaker 1: not and thinking that it was normal or something to
Speaker 1: be jealous of is crazy to me now. But I
Speaker 1: think it's also normal to be jealous of something like
Speaker 1: that will valorize as you say, skinniness.
Speaker 2: Yeah. When I worked in that residential treatment center. The
Speaker 2: other thing I noticed, and you talk about this in
Speaker 2: the book, is that these women who were dealing with
Speaker 2: a variety of eating disorders, they had all the knowledge,
Speaker 2: they had read all the research about their disorder how
Speaker 2: to recover from it. Like they were like clinical psychologists
Speaker 2: with what they knew, yet they weren't recovering. And I
Speaker 2: think sometimes with mental illness, there's this difference between knowing
Speaker 2: something and actually feeling it. When did that emotional shift
Speaker 2: come for you, because there has to be some other
Speaker 2: You can know everything, but there's this moment of like,
Speaker 2: oh this actually has to change that almost comes out
Speaker 2: of your control. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh. I love talking to you about these because I
Speaker 1: just feel like you completely get it. You're so yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's what a lot of people. When you're
Speaker 1: experiencing a mental illness, you go real deep into it.
Speaker 1: Like it's a warning sign. When I'm going on Reddit
Speaker 1: to research how someone's feeling about something, Yeah, that's when
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm deep in it, yeah, and I don't
Speaker 1: even realize. Yeah. I think that's also why I enjoyed
Speaker 1: writing the book, because I was so obsessed with eating
Speaker 1: disorders when I had one that I kind of had
Speaker 1: the knowledge based, so.
Speaker 2: Like I've read all the studies about the experiments where
Speaker 2: people were hungry, so they did all these behaviors that
Speaker 2: people with even disorders then do, like you know, all
Speaker 2: of that stuff. What I find interesting about your story
Speaker 2: is that it was kind of a shitty thing that
Speaker 2: happened to you that really opened the door for recovery,
Speaker 2: which was getting let go from pedestrian. Can you tell
Speaker 2: me about that period of your life and how that
Speaker 2: kind of evolved into starting a different phase.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was so surprising when I got made redundant.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you work in the media or any
Speaker 1: kind of job like that, that happens quite a lot.
Speaker 1: Doesn't really matter who you are or how good you
Speaker 1: are at your job. I'd worked for the company for
Speaker 1: four and a half years, and that's a pretty long
Speaker 1: time in your twenties, I think, So just to be
Speaker 1: let go over Zoom during COVID, I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, my life is a nightmare, Like how did
Speaker 1: this happen? And it's easy for me to kind of
Speaker 1: laugh about myself back then now because it's worked out
Speaker 1: well for me. But it gave me a moment to
Speaker 1: look out of myself and be like, this can be
Speaker 1: taken away from me at any moment, this career can
Speaker 1: be taken away from me at any moment. I'm tailoring
Speaker 1: my whole life around this job, and now it's gone.
Speaker 1: So where am I going to get that sense of self?
Speaker 1: It was such a weird time. It was all kind
Speaker 1: of serendipitous. This happened during COVID because all the gyms
Speaker 1: were closed. You couldn't socialize, so everyone kind of contracted
Speaker 1: kind of closer to my world in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: which again, yeah, I think it like opened up the
Speaker 1: door for me to recreate myself. I think it could
Speaker 1: have gone either way, Like it was sad getting a
Speaker 1: major john, and I think I could have gone more
Speaker 1: deeper into restricting as a means for control. But I
Speaker 1: think I was at that point where I was open
Speaker 1: to the idea of relaxing my rules. It was giving
Speaker 1: the end of the world vibes.
Speaker 2: If the world's ending, I'm not going to be fucking hungry.
Speaker 1: I got to enjoy this, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And so once you relaxed those rules,
Speaker 2: then what happened?
Speaker 1: Yes, So I gained weight, and mentally I became more relaxed.
Speaker 1: To be honest, what happened was I went back into
Speaker 1: binge eating, which is what I'd experienced prior to the
Speaker 1: restrictive eating disorder that was really hunting and upsetting. The
Speaker 1: mentality is similar to a binge itself, which is I thought,
Speaker 1: all week I've been so good, or like all the
Speaker 1: last two or three years, I've been so good, and
Speaker 1: now it's the weekend and I'm sending it and I
Speaker 1: could have just been eating normal the whole time. That's
Speaker 1: how it felt. Felt like I'd wasted all this time.
Speaker 1: So you've got a lot of competing things that are
Speaker 1: upsetting and disturbing. What I read and even when it
Speaker 1: was happening to me, I didn't want to believe it
Speaker 1: is that weight gain is so important. Weight gain is
Speaker 1: the number one key. Eating is the number one key.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until I got help from a specialist who
Speaker 1: understood that that I could actually reap the benefits of
Speaker 1: that eating, which is getting more fuel to your brain,
Speaker 1: being able to make more rational decisions. But that's always
Speaker 1: the hardest bit because you're facing your biggest fear and
Speaker 1: when you are really sick and you and it manifestos
Speaker 1: being depressed. You're like, well, I don't want to be
Speaker 1: fat and depressed and now going to be fat undepressed
Speaker 1: rather than skinny and depressed. And because skinny being skinn
Speaker 1: is the number one thing in my life, I'd rather
Speaker 1: skinny and depressed. But what happens if you finally have
Speaker 1: enough guardrails in your life that you can push yourself
Speaker 1: a little bit and like take one step forward and
Speaker 1: do the thing, gain the weight or eat a bit more,
Speaker 1: then everything starts opening up. You take a step, SciOne
Speaker 1: said the other day, and it's a bit woo woo,
Speaker 1: but like when you take one step forward, the universe
Speaker 1: takes a step forward too. Yeah, that mental image really
Speaker 1: resonated with me because that's how it felt. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to write a book that was from a place
Speaker 1: of total recovery where I'm talking about loving yourself and
Speaker 1: it's crazy to diet. That is kind of what I say,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to keep enough detail in there for
Speaker 1: people to know. No, I think I know how you feel.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say that I do, because everyone's different,
Speaker 1: but just know that I feel like I know what
Speaker 1: you're going through right now, and I want to be
Speaker 1: not an example necessarily, but I just want to show
Speaker 1: a certain life that I've cultivated post eating disorder. It's
Speaker 1: like it's in a whole different realm. It's not way better,
Speaker 1: it's completely different life that I always wanted since I
Speaker 1: was a little kid, and I've got it now.
Speaker 2: And you also say in the book that for a
Speaker 2: lot of people, you hear that you can never fully
Speaker 2: recover from an eating disorder. That you partially recover or
Speaker 2: I think some research as it takes like seven years
Speaker 2: to recover. And from the work I did, you would
Speaker 2: see people come in and out and in and out
Speaker 2: of residential treatment of impatient treatment, and that must be
Speaker 2: a kind of scary feeling when you're doing this really
Speaker 2: hard thing and then thinking, well, I'm not even going
Speaker 2: to fully recover from this, or I could do all
Speaker 2: this work and then I'll be back here anyway. What
Speaker 2: do you think were some of the really clarifying moments
Speaker 2: for your recovery that allowed you to recover fully.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're always going into it being not one hundred
Speaker 1: percent sure how it's going to turn out. And again,
Speaker 1: it's easy to look back now and see the really
Speaker 1: specific moments where I was making really big leaps, but
Speaker 1: at the time it's like you're in the dark trying
Speaker 1: to feel around. Yeah. I always found that narrative that
Speaker 1: full recovery is not possible really upsetting, and because I
Speaker 1: remember when I was especially when I was binge eating,
Speaker 1: and I talk about this in the book. I found
Speaker 1: out that my mom did the same thing at the
Speaker 1: same age, which was super illuminating and crazy to me
Speaker 1: because when I was binging. When I first started, I
Speaker 1: thought I'd invented binging and purging. I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I found his cheek code. I didn't need
Speaker 1: anyone to teach me how to do that. I did
Speaker 1: it myself. Oh my god. My mum would say to me,
Speaker 1: God bless her. She didn't mean this to kind of
Speaker 1: keep me trapped, but I struggled with it. She was like,
Speaker 1: one day I just woke up and it stopped. It's
Speaker 1: like if there was a switch that was flicked, and
Speaker 1: that really I struggled with that because I never felt that.
Speaker 1: Looking back, I can see moments where the switch was
Speaker 1: actually flicked, but it's so important. I think you can
Speaker 1: wait around and think, oh wait, no, I'm going to recover.
Speaker 1: It's going to come to me. It's going to come
Speaker 1: to me. When in actuality, it's continually taking steps and
Speaker 1: steps and steps, and then the time you take the
Speaker 1: biggest step, then you start going like this and it's fine.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think the idea that it's never possible
Speaker 1: to recover, I just think that keeps people from taking steps. Yeah.
Speaker 2: What should you not say to somebody who's recovered from
Speaker 2: an eating disorder?
Speaker 1: You look healthy? No more? Yeah, that's the classic that's
Speaker 1: been around forever. You look healthy. Yeah, thanks for nicing.
Speaker 1: Thank you for pulling me out of myself and reminding
Speaker 1: me that I have a body that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: not prioritize so well meaning I still get it to
Speaker 1: this day. I still have family friends who stop me
Speaker 1: after lunch and say, hey, you look really.
Speaker 2: Good, and you're like, I, that's not the points the
Speaker 2: point do you think you just don't comment on appearance?
Speaker 1: I think you have to, and I think it's something
Speaker 1: that is a muscle that you have to. I stop
Speaker 1: myself all the time. I even said it to your
Speaker 1: beautiful producer. I couldn't help myself. It's such nice hair,
Speaker 1: and even then I was like, don't think I should
Speaker 1: be saying this, So I said, haircut? Is that something
Speaker 1: you can change? But you know, even that, I'd really
Speaker 1: try not to. I've been around people in my life
Speaker 1: who've shown me a different perspective and been like, say,
Speaker 1: someone wears like really outrageous clothes or something that other
Speaker 1: people deem outrageous. If you say whoa, If you're like
Speaker 1: someone who doesn't dress like that, and you say, WHOA,
Speaker 1: you look great, it doesn't feel sincere. There's so many
Speaker 1: different You don't know where someone is in their life
Speaker 1: and there how they feel about themselves to do it
Speaker 1: in a way that's not dangerous. I feel I was
Speaker 1: very sensitive when I had my eating disorder, and so
Speaker 1: I just try not to do it. My rule is
Speaker 1: you compliment things you can take on and off, and
Speaker 1: only if you really mean it.
Speaker 2: So even if there was somebody in your life who
Speaker 2: you knew was trying to lose weight, and you knew
Speaker 2: enough to think that maybe it was just for health
Speaker 2: reasons and there was nothing sinister about it, would you
Speaker 2: still not say anything.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that if it's for health reasons, then
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be relevant that they look different. But also,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's people who want to lose weight and
Speaker 1: it isn't a full blown eating disorder, and they probably
Speaker 1: want to hear that. But I just think that we
Speaker 1: can't divorce the piousness of being thin from anything else.
Speaker 1: So it does feel like a character judgment when you say, oh,
Speaker 1: you're losing weight. Yeah, because ninety seven percent of diets
Speaker 1: don't work in the long run, So they're going to
Speaker 1: gain it back and they're going to feel bad because
Speaker 1: they're going to remember that if you're going to compliment
Speaker 1: them on the way down when I'm on the way
Speaker 1: back up, you must think I'm insert derogatory term.
Speaker 2: More of my conversation with rooms after the break Right now,
Speaker 2: you have a very loyal following and you share really
Speaker 2: really funny content. You've been doing that for a long
Speaker 2: time in internet years. Sharing on the internet comes with feedback.
Speaker 2: Now that you've been through that whole ex experience of
Speaker 2: going through recovery for a mental illness and working on
Speaker 2: self esteem and self worth, do you get affected by
Speaker 2: what people write about you on the internet?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: What are the comments that actually hurt?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Totally know what you mean. For me. The thing
Speaker 1: that actually affects me, and this happened last night with
Speaker 1: a guy. It's when men comment on my body. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're never really saying anything bad. Yeah, it's always
Speaker 1: about my figure, my big boobs, this or that. That
Speaker 1: affected me, especially prior to the book coming out, because
Speaker 1: I have breast implants and so when I had them out,
Speaker 1: when I wore a top that wasn't a fucking Hessian bag,
Speaker 1: that would affect me because I'd feel like I'd ask
Speaker 1: for it and I felt like an idiot. I just
Speaker 1: made me feel so small, and it was annoying because
Speaker 1: people would be like, oh, like it's just men, of
Speaker 1: course they're going to do that. But I was like,
Speaker 1: it makes me cry and I don't know why because
Speaker 1: it shouldn't. Like there's other stuff that people say that
Speaker 1: should make me cry. But I think I'm pretty. I
Speaker 1: have a lot of self esteem about my ability to work.
Speaker 1: I like myself as a writer. I think I have
Speaker 1: a good eye for things, so I can sit quite
Speaker 1: comfortably in that. But when it comes to my body,
Speaker 1: it really affects me. It's weird. And yeah, when men
Speaker 1: make comments about my mummy, milkeruse, Oh.
Speaker 2: It's such the mummy milk is thing.
Speaker 1: It is so intense, like horrible. It's comments like that
Speaker 1: that really affect me again because it makes me feel
Speaker 1: like an idiot, and especially because I have breast implants.
Speaker 1: It plays into this narrative that I have in my
Speaker 1: head that I've asked for it, So that affects me.
Speaker 1: I just hate it because it pulls me out of
Speaker 1: myself because I think to myself, Oh, I'm having fun
Speaker 1: on the internet. I've just got fun. People that get
Speaker 1: it are watching me, and then I remember, oh, no,
Speaker 1: there's this whole silent audience of people who don't give
Speaker 1: a fuck what I have to say. They don't think
Speaker 1: I'm funny. They just see this woman on the internet
Speaker 1: who has big boobs. Yeah. Yeah, So comments like that
Speaker 1: upset me because.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get that. There's a weird kind of like
Speaker 2: I don't know what's shame is the word, but you
Speaker 2: feel like sexualized when it's like I have not been
Speaker 2: complicit in this sexualization, Like no, and I think women
Speaker 2: you do feel silly. Like I remember I was working
Speaker 2: once in a bar and just wearing something I thought
Speaker 2: was totally normal, and a guy just stared at my
Speaker 2: boobs and made a really vulgar comment, and I felt
Speaker 2: like sick. Oh, and I think it was the same thing.
Speaker 2: It's like, did I do this? Am I complicit because
Speaker 2: I'm not wearing a turtleneck? I think maybe I asked
Speaker 2: for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the weirdest thing. It's so bad. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: feel Yeah it's shame.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if.
Speaker 1: It's a shame or yeah, it's shame. Oh. And then
Speaker 1: I think about it. I'm like, wait, no, bitch, I'm
Speaker 1: going to the beach. Yeah. And you wouldn't be making
Speaker 1: this comment if I you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Working in this industry, do you experience jealousy
Speaker 2: or competitiveness and what does that look like? Yes?
Speaker 1: I do. I always have in a way, kind of
Speaker 1: in a silent way. I remember when I was in UNI,
Speaker 1: there was a woman who was really smart and she
Speaker 1: was kind of the best in the class, would always
Speaker 1: get really high distinctions. And I don't think I'm a
Speaker 1: competitive person, but clearly I am. Yeah, I remember, I
Speaker 1: remember I won't dox her name, but she was just
Speaker 1: really just effortlessly good. And it became like a topic
Speaker 1: in my psychology sessions because I was so hung up
Speaker 1: on it, and it plays into that obsessive personality, the
Speaker 1: rumination thinking, oh, like she's just so good, Like I
Speaker 1: don't know what to do, and so yeah, when I
Speaker 1: feel jealousy, especially in this career path, it shows me
Speaker 1: where to go when I can take enough of a
Speaker 1: step out of it for a second and not let
Speaker 1: the emotion overtake me. I say that person, I'm so
Speaker 1: jealous of them because they're doing something that I want
Speaker 1: to do. Then I go into planning mode. I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how can I do what they're doing? What part of it?
Speaker 1: You know? Because sometimes it happens with people who job
Speaker 1: I don't want and whose vibe I don't want to emulate,
Speaker 1: but I'm still thinking, oh, but they're doing this thing,
Speaker 1: like how do I So Yeah, I think it can ultimately,
Speaker 1: when you can take a step away, it can be
Speaker 1: a good motivating force. But definitely, when it's overwhelming, it
Speaker 1: just paralyzes you and I fully spiral.
Speaker 2: It can be really clarifying that. Yeah, you think, if
Speaker 2: I've got this feeling and it's an uncomfortable feeling, then
Speaker 2: it is telling me something about what I want. And
Speaker 2: if I didn't get that feeling, ever, I wouldn't be ambitious,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have goals and I feel exactly the same thing,
Speaker 2: feel the same, yeah, And I think, yeah, you look
Speaker 2: at you probably have it with a book, like as
Speaker 2: you were writing, like looking at people who have books
Speaker 2: and me like, well, that's done really well. Well, that's
Speaker 2: done really well. Why did that do well?
Speaker 1: They?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I want exactly what they have And
Speaker 2: it kind of paves a path for then you to
Speaker 2: do the same thing, literally, which is very exciting. When
Speaker 2: are you at your happiest at the moment?
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm at my happiest when I have so much
Speaker 1: in my to look forward to. That's always been the
Speaker 1: thing for me that's gotten me out of any phase.
Speaker 1: Is it just need one or two things that I'm
Speaker 1: genuinely excited about and there's always something. I think. I'm
Speaker 1: happy when I'm meeting you people and always just having
Speaker 1: someone to hang out. We have become a really social
Speaker 1: person after my eating disorder. Yeah, it's just for me
Speaker 1: whenever I've got something to look forward to.
Speaker 2: What are your challenges to happiness? Like, what keeps you
Speaker 2: from happiness?
Speaker 1: Comparison obviously procrastinating when I've got things to do. I've
Speaker 1: become a bit of a procrastinator also coming out of
Speaker 1: eating disorder, to be honest, which is a bit of
Speaker 1: a negative, Like I used to be super early to
Speaker 1: things and very RIGI and it helped away, but now
Speaker 1: I'm always running a little bit late. You know, when
Speaker 1: you've got something so meanial to do that you just
Speaker 1: put it off and then everything feels crab.
Speaker 2: That's interesting though, because it's almost like that's what happens
Speaker 2: when you prioritize joy a little bit, when you're like,
Speaker 2: hold on, I actually care about feeling good. I remember
Speaker 2: reading something about how people with eating disorders they don't
Speaker 2: like doing things that feel good, so they won't get massages,
Speaker 2: they won't like get their hair done because there's not
Speaker 2: that kind of self love. And that's interesting that you
Speaker 2: were probably prompt with things and because you didn't mind
Speaker 2: being uncomfortable because you were always so true, whereas now
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, I prioritize toy. Yeah thats me.
Speaker 1: My to do list will roll over week to weeks
Speaker 1: before I'm doing it second right now. That's kind of fun.
Speaker 1: And if it makes you feel weary in life, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think that's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you think about growing old, What do you
Speaker 2: still want in life in order for you to have
Speaker 2: lived a really happy existence.
Speaker 1: I want a community. I want like a big family.
Speaker 1: I want to have people around me that enjoy my company.
Speaker 1: I want to have young people around me and old
Speaker 1: people around me. I want to maintain this sense of
Speaker 1: excitement that I have, and that's kind of always been
Speaker 1: a hallmark of my life. Like I've always been kind
Speaker 1: of like an enthusiastic person. I don't even want that
Speaker 1: to go away. I think, yeah, really important relationships, really
Speaker 1: deep relationships. I've got a lot of like amazing soulmate friends,
Speaker 1: So keeping them, nourishing them feels really good to me,
Speaker 1: and it always has, and I know how lucky I
Speaker 1: am to have. Like my best friend Madison is a writer.
Speaker 1: We've been best friends since we were fourteen, and that's
Speaker 1: such something that is a little apple core that I
Speaker 1: just put in the ground and it just continues to
Speaker 1: grow and it's such a beautiful thing to watch. And
Speaker 1: every year that we remain friends adds a little corn
Speaker 1: to the tree. So exciting. So yeah, I think for me,
Speaker 1: I'm excited that the idea of getting older that I
Speaker 1: can like accumulate lovely possessions that I love and like
Speaker 1: beautiful clothes, and there's still that material side to me
Speaker 1: that I really can't get rid of. But yeah, having
Speaker 1: a community and people that I love is important to me.
Speaker 2: And right now in your life, are you happy?
Speaker 1: Yes? Yeah, you can say it right. That is so
Speaker 1: good to hear. I'm happy that you read my book twice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's enough to do me for the day.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for your time. I really
Speaker 2: appreciate it. That is all we've got time for. On
Speaker 2: today's episode of But Are You Happy? Frums's new book,
Speaker 2: All I Ever Wanted Was to Be Hot is out
Speaker 2: now and I highly recommend it. We will pop a
Speaker 2: link in the show notes this conversation with such a
Speaker 2: brilliant exploration of the pain of living through an eating
Speaker 2: disorder and the joy that comes with recovery, which we
Speaker 2: so rarely get to see. To sit in a room
Speaker 2: with frooms with enter Price is to see a person
Speaker 2: who is so full of life and so charismatic. And
Speaker 2: I sometimes need this reminder. So I'm just going to
Speaker 2: say it out loud that when you sit in a
Speaker 2: room with somebody and you really connect with them and
Speaker 2: you have a lively and vulnerable conversation. It just does
Speaker 2: not matter what they look like, what size they are,
Speaker 2: whether their hair or makeup or clothing is perfect, whether
Speaker 2: they have creases on their face, which I do and
Speaker 2: I think about way too much. You just feel their energy,
Speaker 2: and I think it's such a good reminder for all
Speaker 2: of us that we think about it so much more
Speaker 2: than we need to, given that it isn't what anybody
Speaker 2: else values about us. I really hope this chat was
Speaker 2: an insight into how oppressive beauty standards can be and
Speaker 2: how they steal our happiness and the freedom that can
Speaker 2: come from challenging them in our own small ways. The
Speaker 2: Butterfly Foundation is a great support service for anyone who
Speaker 2: struggles with disordered eating or body image issues. There's a
Speaker 2: link to them and other support services in our show notes.
Speaker 2: And if there's anybody who you think might get something
Speaker 2: out of this episode, I know there's a lot of
Speaker 2: people in my life who will please share it with them.
Speaker 2: And if you want to recommend someone for the show,
Speaker 2: you can always get in touch with me directly. I
Speaker 2: get the best suggestions from our listeners. You can message
Speaker 2: me on Instagram, and if you like the show, leave
Speaker 2: us a review. We always love your feedback and it
Speaker 2: helps people to find us. The executive producer of But
Speaker 2: Are You Happy is Nama Brown and the producer is
Speaker 2: Charlie Blackman. Audio editing by Scott Stronik. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Claire Stevens, and we'll see you next week