Speaker 1: Hey, fam I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Speaker 1: Red Table Talk podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
Speaker 1: Facebook watch show in audio produced by Westbrook Audio and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts. Red Table Talk is back. I am
Speaker 1: so disappointed in you. It used to be my perfect
Speaker 1: little angel. It's the story everyone is talking about. But
Speaker 1: now you're nothing more than a little slot up Flosi,
Speaker 1: all used up but no one knew. Add that to
Speaker 1: the list of things you are. Liar, conniving, evil, after
Speaker 1: use the suffering in silence, I Carly star Jeanette McCurdy
Speaker 1: joins the table for her first in depth interview to
Speaker 1: reveal decades of abuse, manipulation, torment, and betrayal. You're an
Speaker 1: ugly monster. Now love mom or should I say depth
Speaker 1: since I'm no longer a mother at the hands of
Speaker 1: her mother All while Jeanette starred in one of the
Speaker 1: biggest teen sitcoms of all time, My mom will be
Speaker 1: chasing my daughter on the house old a literal steak knife.
Speaker 1: How did the abuse with your mom affect your relationship? Who?
Speaker 1: That is a big juicy question. How she was finally
Speaker 1: able to set herself free. Oh my god, I'm already
Speaker 1: gonna get emotional. An unforgettable r T T not to
Speaker 1: be missed. Can you tell us about your last conversation
Speaker 1: with your mom? Hebre We are again, all right, we
Speaker 1: are back at the table or back at the table,
Speaker 1: back and fool, it's set. Well, you know what today?
Speaker 1: Back to a really deep one. Brave. There's no better
Speaker 1: way to describe our guest. For years, we knew her
Speaker 1: as Miranda Cosgroves, wise, cracking, lovable best friend on the
Speaker 1: hit show I Carly There's No Wrong Time to Eat
Speaker 1: and agrol and the spinoff Sam and Cat with Ariana
Speaker 1: Grande Come with Me. By the age of fifteen, it
Speaker 1: seemed like Jeanette McCurdy had it all, but at home
Speaker 1: it was a living hell. After years of suffering in silence,
Speaker 1: for the first time, Jeanette McCurdy is bravely sharing her
Speaker 1: story and our new bestselling memoir I'm Glad My Mom died,
Speaker 1: and it is striking a nerve with millions. Wow, let's
Speaker 1: welcome to Jeanette McCurdy. It looks so beautiful. We feel
Speaker 1: like you're our long lost niece. We've been talking about you.
Speaker 1: Welcome well, let's first say before you even start. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but this book, Okay, this book is sold out. I
Speaker 1: had no expectation of anything like this, and I think
Speaker 1: it's really a testament to how much people want to
Speaker 1: feel and connect with emotionally in deep ways. I just
Speaker 1: think that that hailing is so important. Reading your book
Speaker 1: it was really powerful, super brave. Thank you, and particularly
Speaker 1: in regards to your mom, because it's almost sacrilegious for
Speaker 1: us to speak out against your mom. You just don't
Speaker 1: tut with moms. There seems to be like a need
Speaker 1: to keep them up on a pedestal. Absolutely, and I
Speaker 1: had my mom on that pedestal and it was really
Speaker 1: detrimental to my own mental health. And recognizing the abuse
Speaker 1: was such an intense journey for me and something that
Speaker 1: I wanted and felt really compelled to speak about publicly
Speaker 1: because I had a feeling that a lot more people
Speaker 1: related to it than I hope. Did you start the
Speaker 1: book when you were six years old? Six? So tell
Speaker 1: us about your house and your family during that particular
Speaker 1: time of your life. Yeah. My mother was initially diagnosed
Speaker 1: with breast cancer when I was two years old. She
Speaker 1: had a bone maarw transplant camotherapy, radiation, astectomy implant. It
Speaker 1: was staged four. It was It was a really brutal
Speaker 1: time for our family, and you know it was too so.
Speaker 1: My earliest flashes of memories are of household was very
Speaker 1: weighted in tragedy. My grandparents moved in with us during
Speaker 1: my mother's illness, and my mother, as a result of
Speaker 1: her cancer, she became a hoarder. Jeanette was raised Mormon
Speaker 1: and lived at home with her mom, Deborah, dad Mark,
Speaker 1: her grandparents, and three older brothers, Marcus, Dustin and Scott,
Speaker 1: and what she describes as a hoarder house with a
Speaker 1: rat impossum problem. I remember a time when Marcus, Dustin,
Speaker 1: and Scott slept in their trundle bunk bed and I
Speaker 1: slept in my nursery. But now our bedrooms are so
Speaker 1: filled with stuff that you can't even determine where the
Speaker 1: beds are, let alone sleep in them. We don't sleep
Speaker 1: in the bedrooms anymore. Trifold maths were purchased from Costco
Speaker 1: for us to sleep on in the living room. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure the moths were meant for kids gymnastics exercises.
Speaker 1: I do not like sleeping on mine. This house is
Speaker 1: an embarrassment. This house is shameful. I hate this house. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Because she was so close to seeing her fate, she
Speaker 1: suddenly attached meaning and significance to the tiny I mean,
Speaker 1: she's say, well, you touched that clinic, so I need it.
Speaker 1: So she was keeping everything that me and my three
Speaker 1: older brothers touched, and it just overwhelmed our house. It
Speaker 1: really did not feel like a home. It felt like
Speaker 1: a place of chaos and turmoil and turbulence. So her cancer,
Speaker 1: she overcame it, but then it did come back quite
Speaker 1: a while later. In the years between her first with
Speaker 1: cancer and her and her second, she put me into
Speaker 1: child acting and she had always dreampt aving an actress,
Speaker 1: so I sort of was the vessel for her dreams.
Speaker 1: She did a lot of living bacariously through me, and
Speaker 1: that really wasn't your dream, No, no, no no. I
Speaker 1: was a shy, sort of uncomfortable kid. It's so surprising
Speaker 1: for me to hear that wasn't your dream to be
Speaker 1: an actor because I was on I Carley, I was
Speaker 1: on the sand Cat Vibe, and I just loved your character.
Speaker 1: Thanks me watching you on the screen. In my head,
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, she's killing it thanks very happy.
Speaker 1: When she was just eleven, Janette became anorexic. Soon disordered
Speaker 1: eating consumed her life. In her early twenties, she weighed
Speaker 1: less than ninety pounds. Wow, how did those food issues start?
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you asked. I feel for anybody who
Speaker 1: relates to this. It's quite unfortunate. But my mom taught
Speaker 1: me and arexia. She taught me cali restriction. When I
Speaker 1: was eleven, I had felt a lump in my breast
Speaker 1: that I thought was, oh, well, my mom had cancer,
Speaker 1: so I'm probably getting cancer. And she said, no, not,
Speaker 1: that's just boobies. And I said, well, can I stop
Speaker 1: boobies from happening? I don't want boobies. I don't want
Speaker 1: to grow up. And I knew that my mom really
Speaker 1: wanted me to stay young. She really really made that
Speaker 1: clear to me. She would sob and really clutched me
Speaker 1: intensely and say like, I don't want my baby to
Speaker 1: grow up. And I knew me growing up would be
Speaker 1: no separating and I didn't want that to happen. So
Speaker 1: I asked if there was a way that I could
Speaker 1: stop the boobies from coming in, and she told me,
Speaker 1: there's a thing called calt restriction, and it became our
Speaker 1: sort of secret and our code, and something that, as
Speaker 1: disturbing as it has, really bonded us. It was our thing.
Speaker 1: No one else got this thing. We got this thing.
Speaker 1: I can look at it from across the room and no,
Speaker 1: you got me, and I got you, And we were
Speaker 1: just in the disease, in the sickness. But there was
Speaker 1: a connection that the sickness created that I, of course
Speaker 1: couldn't see at the time. Jeanette paints a heartbreaking picture
Speaker 1: of her life at age eleven. I probably show my
Speaker 1: half eaten portions to Mom after every meal she beams.
Speaker 1: Each Sunday, she weighs me and measures my thighs with
Speaker 1: a measuring tape. I learned the value of eating water
Speaker 1: dense fruits and vegetables like kikuma and watermelon. I learned
Speaker 1: how helpful cayenne and chili peppers are for increasing and metabolism.
Speaker 1: I learned that coffee is an appetite suppressant, so I
Speaker 1: start drinking decalf black alongside Mom. Drinking coffee in any
Speaker 1: form is technically against the Church's rules. Well it's decalf,
Speaker 1: so I'm sure God would make an exception, Mom says,
Speaker 1: and I nod like I agree, even though I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure that God I've learned about doesn't make exceptions. The
Speaker 1: thinner I get, the stricter I get with but al
Speaker 1: and jest because it seems like my body is trying
Speaker 1: to hold onto whatever I eat. I noticed that most
Speaker 1: foods out a little body weight to me, four tents
Speaker 1: of a pound or so. I know this because I
Speaker 1: weighed myself five times a day. Wow. It was when
Speaker 1: I heard her saying things to the doctor that I
Speaker 1: knew to not be what was happening behind the closed doors.
Speaker 1: But I thought, maybe, oh, something's really doesn't feel right
Speaker 1: in my bones here. Because my doctor saying, your daughter's
Speaker 1: really underweight, and I would like you to keep an
Speaker 1: eye on her behaviors because sometimes when girls develop intorexy,
Speaker 1: they're very secretive their partents. And my mom saying, I'll
Speaker 1: definitely keep an eye on that, but I don't see
Speaker 1: anything off about it, And I'm thinking she measured my
Speaker 1: breakfast today, she made sure that I had let us
Speaker 1: with no dressing on it for dinner last night. Like,
Speaker 1: what does she mean she does she'll keep an eye
Speaker 1: on it. She is the eyes on it. You know,
Speaker 1: it was confusing to hear, and I kind of started peacing, Oh,
Speaker 1: the things that she's saying outwardly don't match what's happening
Speaker 1: in our house. In the house, yes, And what was interesting,
Speaker 1: Willow reminded me she said that your character on this
Speaker 1: show was obsessed with food. Food. It was so confusing
Speaker 1: at the time, being caught up in interrexy or ben
Speaker 1: eating sort or bulimia, and then while playing this character
Speaker 1: who's like slinging a fried chicken, like painting people with
Speaker 1: a ham sandwich. It felt like my life was mocking
Speaker 1: me in a lot of ways, and it was really difficult.
Speaker 1: I'd have to say. One of the heartbreaking aspects of
Speaker 1: the book was this is one of them. Was your
Speaker 1: mother having you and your sixteen year old brother in
Speaker 1: the shower bathing you both Yeah, and you were what
Speaker 1: a leven? So do you want to read the eggs er? Sure? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that shower time, Mom shouts from another room. My whole
Speaker 1: body freezes. Oh no, not shower time. I've dreaded showers
Speaker 1: for a while five years or so. Whenever it was
Speaker 1: that I started to feel uncomfortable that mom still showers me.
Speaker 1: She doesn't mean to make me uncomfortable. I don't think.
Speaker 1: She says she has to shower me because I wouldn't
Speaker 1: know how to shampoo and condition my own hair. She says,
Speaker 1: maybe if it wasn't so long or such a specific texture,
Speaker 1: that she wouldn't have to, But because it is those things,
Speaker 1: and since she was a professional hairstylist, it just makes
Speaker 1: sense for her to do it. Mom showers me with
Speaker 1: Scotty sometimes he's almost sixteen. At this point, I get
Speaker 1: really embarras us When she showers us together. I can
Speaker 1: tell he does too. Usually just look away from each other,
Speaker 1: and Scott distracts himself by drawn Pokemon in the fogged glass.
Speaker 1: He does a pretty good sharers arc When she showers
Speaker 1: us together. Mom says it's because she's got too much
Speaker 1: to do. Scott asked me if he could shower himself once.
Speaker 1: Mom sobbed and said that she didn't want to grow up,
Speaker 1: so we never asked again after that, whether or not
Speaker 1: Scott's there with me. Mom gives me a breastand front
Speaker 1: butt exam, which is what she calls my private parts.
Speaker 1: She says she wants to make sure I don't have
Speaker 1: any mysterious lumps or bumps because those could be cancer.
Speaker 1: I say, okay, because I definitely don't want cancer, and
Speaker 1: since mom has had it and all, she would know
Speaker 1: if I do. How did that affect your dynamic with
Speaker 1: your brother? Yeah? What a beautiful question, um that I
Speaker 1: appreciate for my brother. I'm so close with all three
Speaker 1: of my brothers, and they have been such a source
Speaker 1: of love and support and consistency in my life where
Speaker 1: there really wasn't much anywhere else. Isn't it amazing we
Speaker 1: have such a beautiful bond and there's such an understanding there,
Speaker 1: I think because of the things that we through together
Speaker 1: and the things that we saw together. I love hearing
Speaker 1: that you guys are close to Yeah, me too, because
Speaker 1: this kind of abuse can be so I am glad
Speaker 1: to hear that you guys have a wonder have you
Speaker 1: ever talked to them about your mother's mental state before
Speaker 1: you were born? Whatever continued to take Worsen was already
Speaker 1: and before I was born, and she had this seven
Speaker 1: year affair with another person A year after her mom's death,
Speaker 1: Jeanette's life was spinning out of control as she battled
Speaker 1: a raging eating disorder, alcoholism, and insurmountable grief. Her dad, Mark,
Speaker 1: the man who raised her, dropped a bombshell he was
Speaker 1: not her biological father. Deborah's seven year affair with a
Speaker 1: man named Andrew while she was married to Mark produced
Speaker 1: three children, Dustin, Scott and Jeanette. Wow. My brothers sort
Speaker 1: of have memories and flashes of the affair and the
Speaker 1: tumultualist nature of my mom navigating that, And they have
Speaker 1: a couple of pieces of the puzzles that I was
Speaker 1: too young to have and that I couldn't get from
Speaker 1: the adults around me. Do you know anything about your
Speaker 1: mother's history, like did she have any history before you
Speaker 1: were born or something with her mom as well? Yes,
Speaker 1: there was a very intense dynamic between her and her mother,
Speaker 1: and I saw that firsthand because my grandmother and my
Speaker 1: mom's I lived with us. Also, my mom did kind
Speaker 1: of recount experiences of sexual abuse and she never went
Speaker 1: to therapy. My dad and my grandpa would would plead
Speaker 1: with her and bank her and say, you know, please
Speaker 1: do something about this. Yeah. I was wondering like did
Speaker 1: they ever try to be like, hey, like this is
Speaker 1: really not right. They bang bang, you know, my mom
Speaker 1: would be chasing my dad around the house with a
Speaker 1: literal steak knife, and he'd say to have you have
Speaker 1: to get help, you have to get a handle on this.
Speaker 1: You can't be doing this. She wouldn't, she didn't want
Speaker 1: to change or couldn't face that she needed to change.
Speaker 1: And then eventually in therapy, after just sort of sharing
Speaker 1: the stories of my relationship with my mom, they suggested
Speaker 1: that she might have had some combination of bipolar disorder
Speaker 1: and borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder, maybe all three,
Speaker 1: all three together. Yeah, the steak knife thing, that was
Speaker 1: a frequent situation. There weren't many many versions of the
Speaker 1: steak knife, and and other tools she would grab sort
Speaker 1: of whatever was on hand. And our neighbor did threatened
Speaker 1: quite often to call social services. Our neighbor Bud. He
Speaker 1: would always pound on the door in the middle of
Speaker 1: the screen fights, and then my mom would hand him
Speaker 1: a box of caes candies and bribe him out of
Speaker 1: calling social services. And what was your grandmother's response to
Speaker 1: these outbursts. She was always sort of erratic and kind
Speaker 1: of histrionic, like it seemed like she was just if
Speaker 1: there was any sort of history isn't a good word.
Speaker 1: I love that like that, I don't want to grab it.
Speaker 1: If there's any any sort of emotion, she then meet
Speaker 1: it with like ten times that emotion. So if my
Speaker 1: mom's crying, she was like chaos on chaos on chaos
Speaker 1: with so much noise in our house. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: me and my thriller brothers were always just sort of
Speaker 1: quiet because there was so much noise from the adults
Speaker 1: in the in the house. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of children who experienced this function could probably relate to that.
Speaker 1: Did she know about the book your grandmother? Does your
Speaker 1: grandmother outlived your mother? Yes? Yeah, she's still outliving her.
Speaker 1: She's in Kentucky in a senior citizens facility. I have
Speaker 1: very strong boundaries around my relationship with my grandma, and
Speaker 1: my my brother shared with me that she was not
Speaker 1: happy with the title, but I expected that. I'm not
Speaker 1: surprised at all. And you have strong boundaries around your
Speaker 1: grandmother just because of abuse. I tried to have a
Speaker 1: relationship with her, and it was very clear to me
Speaker 1: that she was incapable of honoring literally any boundary that
Speaker 1: I said. I mean things like, can you please not
Speaker 1: comment on my body? Um? It's really, you know, intrimental
Speaker 1: to me, and I want to believe you have the
Speaker 1: best intentions, but these comments are really harmful, and please
Speaker 1: can you stop? She'd say, sure, and then five minutes
Speaker 1: later another comment come out, and she just seemed incapable
Speaker 1: of honoring the boundaries sold to Milly. It was a matter, okay,
Speaker 1: I just can't have it, truly. Yeah. I also feel
Speaker 1: as though people who have grown up with you, people
Speaker 1: saw you on the screen as this character, and they
Speaker 1: saw you with this seemingly life you know, can you
Speaker 1: read that passes from your past. I started to thoroughly
Speaker 1: dislike fame by the time I was sixteen, but by now,
Speaker 1: at twenty one, I despise it. Millions of people dream
Speaker 1: of being famous, and here I am with fame and
Speaker 1: hating it. It doesn't help that I'm famous for a
Speaker 1: thing I started when I was a kid. I think
Speaker 1: of what it would be like if everyone was famous
Speaker 1: for a thing they did when they were thirteen. Their
Speaker 1: middle school band, their seventh grade science project, their eighth
Speaker 1: grade play. The middle school years are the years to stumble,
Speaker 1: fall and tuck under the rug as soon as you're
Speaker 1: done with them, because you've already outgrown them by the
Speaker 1: time you're fifteen. But not for me. I'm cemented in
Speaker 1: people's minds as the person I was when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, a person I feel like I've far outgrown,
Speaker 1: but the world won't let me outgrow it. The world
Speaker 1: won't let me be anyone else. The world only wants
Speaker 1: me to be Sampucket. I'm aware enough to know how
Speaker 1: annoying and whiny this all sounds. Millions of people dream
Speaker 1: of being famous, and here I am with fame and
Speaker 1: hating it. I somehow feel entitled to my hatred since
Speaker 1: I was not the one who dreamt of being famous.
Speaker 1: Mom was. I would have been content being a kid.
Speaker 1: Mom pushed this on me. Since it's not my dream,
Speaker 1: it's not my problem how I feel about it. I'm
Speaker 1: allowed to hate someone else's dream, even if it's my reality. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm aware of how whiny this sounds. I'm aware that
Speaker 1: this is what everybody wants and yearns for and hopes
Speaker 1: for and aspires to reach. But it was a really
Speaker 1: complicated experience for me. I think some people are really
Speaker 1: just equipped to handle fame and do it beautifully, and
Speaker 1: some people and some people want it. Yes, it's not
Speaker 1: what you wanted. My thought was I wanted to be
Speaker 1: a child when your grandfather pulled you up, and it's
Speaker 1: like you should be a kid. The fact that you
Speaker 1: were also the breadwinner at such a young age for
Speaker 1: your family that had to be a whole different added
Speaker 1: pressure in feeling like, oh my god, if I don't
Speaker 1: do this thing that I actually don't like doing. That's
Speaker 1: something I've exported a lot in therapy is how to
Speaker 1: release that pressure ingrained in my mind and to recognize
Speaker 1: that I don't have that anymore and I just have
Speaker 1: to support myself. How did the abuse with your mom
Speaker 1: affect your your relationships? Oh, that's a that is a
Speaker 1: big juicy question. So because I was in meshed in
Speaker 1: codependent and very anxiously attached with my mother, they found
Speaker 1: kind of relationships that reflected that dynamic, and so I
Speaker 1: fell into unhealthy relationships where then I was supporting the
Speaker 1: other person and I really felt like that's what I
Speaker 1: bring to the table, and it's it has been a
Speaker 1: lot of work to unpack. I learned to be really
Speaker 1: the lookout for narcissistic partners. I learned to be really
Speaker 1: on the lookout for in meshment and codependency. I'd be
Speaker 1: lying if I didn't like, there's still a part of
Speaker 1: me that's wired that way, and it's still like it
Speaker 1: can feel so like intoxicating and like comfortable, familiar. It
Speaker 1: feels like this is because it's like that's what you know,
Speaker 1: your foundation was built on that. You also ran away
Speaker 1: to Hawaii with your boyfriend. Yeah, that was pair rebellion.
Speaker 1: You know. There were some paparazzi pictures and somebody had
Speaker 1: taken of us, and then my mom found those paparazzi pictures.
Speaker 1: The relationship had been a secret from her. I understand
Speaker 1: why she was disapproving, there was a significant age difference,
Speaker 1: but I don't respect how she handled it. She sent
Speaker 1: me many scathing emails, just telling me exactly how disapproving
Speaker 1: she was. Yeah, this is an email that my mom
Speaker 1: sent me. Dear net, I am so disappointed in you.
Speaker 1: You used to be my perfect little angel, but now
Speaker 1: you're nothing more than a little all caps slut of fluesy,
Speaker 1: all used up, and to think you wasted it on
Speaker 1: that deous ogre of a man. I saw the pictures
Speaker 1: on a website called t MZ. I saw you rubbing
Speaker 1: his disgusting, hairy stomach. I knew you were lying about Colton.
Speaker 1: I had told her I was with a friend. Colton.
Speaker 1: Add that to the list of things you are liar, conniving, evil,
Speaker 1: You look pudgier two. It's clear you're eating your guilt.
Speaker 1: Thinking of you with his dingdong inside of you makes
Speaker 1: me sick. Sick. I raised you better than this. What
Speaker 1: happened to my good little girl? Where did she go?
Speaker 1: And who is this monster that has replaced her? You're
Speaker 1: an ugly monster now. I told your brothers about you,
Speaker 1: and they all said they disown you, just like I do.
Speaker 1: We want nothing to do with you. Love mom, or
Speaker 1: should I say deb since I'm no longer your mother?
Speaker 1: PS send money for a new fridge? Ours broke the
Speaker 1: PF he has send money for a new friend. It
Speaker 1: was what was the age difference between you and Joe?
Speaker 1: I was eighteen years thirty two years? Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think it was no coincidence that he and I sort
Speaker 1: of began a relationship very shortly after my mom's recurrence
Speaker 1: of cancer. The way I see it now is sort
Speaker 1: of okay. I knew Mom's dying. I need to replace,
Speaker 1: but something I am grateful for in that relationship is
Speaker 1: that I was hearing for the first time how unhealthy
Speaker 1: my mom was. So when I would get an email
Speaker 1: like that, you know, my my instinct was to say,
Speaker 1: I'm this terrible person, how could I have done anything
Speaker 1: like this? I I would believe what she said about me.
Speaker 1: I would believe I must let him a lousy was
Speaker 1: helpful in getting me to see that there was another
Speaker 1: side to that and that this is really unhealthy. When
Speaker 1: did you first recognize something was what you were experiencing
Speaker 1: or had experienced. When I was eleven and my mom
Speaker 1: taught me castriction, a part of me knew something was off.
Speaker 1: So the fact that there was so much secretiveness around it,
Speaker 1: my gut knew it wasn't right, But I couldn't accept
Speaker 1: that it wasn't right because I'm a kid, and I
Speaker 1: need it's my mom exactly. I needed her to be
Speaker 1: the thing that I wanted her to be in order
Speaker 1: to survive. And then I saw the therapist who was
Speaker 1: the first person told my mother was abusive. I quit
Speaker 1: that therapist immediately. Couldn't handle that information. Felt like, oh no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I can't go anywhere near that. And then when I
Speaker 1: eventually went back to therapy. It was maybe a year
Speaker 1: later when I first started confronting it and accepting it,
Speaker 1: after even hearing the words abuse and then just piecing
Speaker 1: things together, it felt like I was finally making contact
Speaker 1: with reality and not living in the necessary delusion of
Speaker 1: my childhood. Necessary delusion of my childhood. Yeah, that's real.
Speaker 1: That really just gave me. And also just because I
Speaker 1: was abused, it doesn't mean that I don't love her.
Speaker 1: That has been so difficult to grapple with. I feel
Speaker 1: like how people identify with their mothers, like I came
Speaker 1: from you, Like I was sustained from you, and you're
Speaker 1: still treating me this. It's I think a little bit
Speaker 1: more like mentally and emotionally violent on the child's mind. Yes,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's so hard to not have this
Speaker 1: guilt complex because it is this person gave me life,
Speaker 1: They gave me the ultimate gift. How is there room
Speaker 1: for such complex feelings towards them? How is there room
Speaker 1: for you know, I love my mother. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get emotional and I feel you, you know, like,
Speaker 1: how how is the room for such complexity towards this
Speaker 1: person that I wish it could just be purely love.
Speaker 1: I wish it could just be purely the thing that
Speaker 1: I thought it was when I was little. But then
Speaker 1: through the exploring and excavating of everything, I just realized
Speaker 1: that there was so much more underneath it. And how
Speaker 1: old were you then when you were able to go
Speaker 1: with four? Everything I said was prefaced with a disclaimer
Speaker 1: of well, this happened, but my mom meant nothing by this.
Speaker 1: I couldn't just say the truth to my therapist. There
Speaker 1: was a disclaimer and protection and guards around every single
Speaker 1: thing that I said. And at one point she said
Speaker 1: to me, like, you don't need to defend her every
Speaker 1: single time you bring her up, And that opened the floodgates.
Speaker 1: I recognized in that moment, oh wow, I'm doing a
Speaker 1: lot of mental gymnastics here to keep my mom where
Speaker 1: I wish I could keep keeper. And I know that
Speaker 1: if I want to be healthy, I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to not have her be on that pedestal anymore. And
Speaker 1: it just happened. Okay, what was that like? It was terrifying.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like I had any semblance of my
Speaker 1: own identity. Confronting that I didn't have any sums on
Speaker 1: my own identity was horrifying. I didn't know where to start.
Speaker 1: I knew, Okay, I'm probably gonna need to step away
Speaker 1: from acting because I don't enjoy this, But how am
Speaker 1: I supposed to do that when this is the thing
Speaker 1: that my mom wanted me to be? And how do
Speaker 1: I unpeeled myself from this thing? That's so I mean,
Speaker 1: I did it so six years old, it's so wired
Speaker 1: out of my identity. It meant how do I get
Speaker 1: out of an environment that was making me unhappy? How
Speaker 1: do I set boundaries with people? There were all these
Speaker 1: questions that I did not know the answers to, how,
Speaker 1: oh do you know thirty? When did you stop acting?
Speaker 1: Quietly left when I was twenty four and didn't and
Speaker 1: got on social media? And it just was the right
Speaker 1: decision for me at the time, and something that I
Speaker 1: did need to walk away from. Definitively, it was overwhelming
Speaker 1: and daunting and not easy. That's deep, man, And kudos
Speaker 1: to you because it's hard work. And the fact that
Speaker 1: you didn't give up to because you talked about having
Speaker 1: did change therapists? Change therapists? When did you all start therapy?
Speaker 1: We've been in and out of therapy for years. Can
Speaker 1: you care a little about that? Well, you know, Jada,
Speaker 1: I was an addict. Even though there wasn't any physical abuse,
Speaker 1: it was the the emotional abuse and not not being there,
Speaker 1: you know, not being present. So there's you know, the neglect. Wow.
Speaker 1: And um, Jada was lucky. I was lucky that we
Speaker 1: had a village. Yeah, we had I had a village.
Speaker 1: And that's why she's as strong and and the person
Speaker 1: that she is. Get the tissues a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: can we bring some tissues? Time for the tissues? I'm good.
Speaker 1: You know. I'm not the crier. You guys are the
Speaker 1: crier anything. She is the what's your relationship with man? Crier?
Speaker 1: And that's a really good question. In my household, just
Speaker 1: in my mother's addiction, and um, I was her only
Speaker 1: child and it was usually just the two of us,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't room. Wasn't to like feel, wasn't room
Speaker 1: to cry. I cry about everything. Now I call it
Speaker 1: the thawing out. Wow. It wasn't until ten years ago
Speaker 1: that I just started thawing out all of that suppressed
Speaker 1: up and just allowing myself to feel. So instead of
Speaker 1: me going nope, you can't feel that, I go, yes,
Speaker 1: you can so. I actually loved being the crier at
Speaker 1: the table. I love that I have a complicated relationship
Speaker 1: with being a crier. I really relate to everything you've
Speaker 1: just said and really suppressed for so long, and I
Speaker 1: just felt like, I don't want to be weak. I
Speaker 1: don't want to be born. I don't want to let
Speaker 1: other people in that way. I have so much judgment
Speaker 1: around it. That's been really challenging. I've found so much power,
Speaker 1: so much strength and vulnerability. All Right, we're bringing out
Speaker 1: one of our favorite Kelly and mc daniel. She is
Speaker 1: a trauma therapist and she specialized therapy to address what
Speaker 1: she calls mother hunger. Thank you so much for having
Speaker 1: me back. We love having you here. I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you because this is your arias is what
Speaker 1: I say, is your specialty. So many grown daughters who
Speaker 1: had very abusive mothers need this story. What does a
Speaker 1: mother actually do? You know that's not in the dictionary.
Speaker 1: Two years of clinical practice to come up with. Mothers
Speaker 1: do three essential things for their daughters. Nurture, first, protect,
Speaker 1: and then guide, and all three of those things when
Speaker 1: they go missing, I call it third degree mother hunger
Speaker 1: when none of them happen, and there's abuse on top
Speaker 1: of that, So there's a fear you bond to someone
Speaker 1: who you're inherently scared of, and that destroys the relational template.
Speaker 1: It's hard to then go on and have girlfriends. It's
Speaker 1: hard to have lovers because your first love betrayed you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's very interesting, like your relationship with other women, like
Speaker 1: it talks about in the book that you had a
Speaker 1: really nice relationship with Mirandam which I thought that was beautiful.
Speaker 1: That was beautiful. Jeanette hit her mother's abuse from every one,
Speaker 1: including her I Carlie co star Miranda Cosgrove. After reading
Speaker 1: Jeanette's book, Miranda revealed her heartfelt reaction. When you're young,
Speaker 1: you're so in your own head, you can't imagine that
Speaker 1: people around you are having much harder struggles. You don't
Speaker 1: expect things like that from the person in the room
Speaker 1: who's making everyone laugh. I'm very grateful for that friendship.
Speaker 1: It did provide me a lot of comfort in those
Speaker 1: really challenging years. My relationship with Miranda was hugely healing
Speaker 1: to my concept of women. And my mom was always
Speaker 1: saying men will never really know you, and they'll hurt you,
Speaker 1: but women will know you deeply and then they'll hurt you.
Speaker 1: You tell me which is worse. These are the thoughts
Speaker 1: that I'm here about women. Not to mention my very
Speaker 1: complicated relationship with my mom, and then seeing her relationship
Speaker 1: with her mom on top of it. And I have
Speaker 1: three brothers who I love, and I felt this sort
Speaker 1: of trust toward boys that I didn't feel toward girls
Speaker 1: very young. And Miranda helped me to heal that relationship.
Speaker 1: But it is something that I still struggle with. Kelly.
Speaker 1: It's seems as the more people than we could even
Speaker 1: imagine experience this. I see so much of it because
Speaker 1: as a culture, we don't like to think that mothers
Speaker 1: can be abusive. Really, it's called betrayal, blindness, betrayal by
Speaker 1: we have to believe our mother is a good person.
Speaker 1: If we knew too young that she was betraying us
Speaker 1: or using us or explaining us, we couldn't survive. We
Speaker 1: don't we could, We don't have the wherewithal. So nature
Speaker 1: protects us. That's what that is. Yeah, Kelly, can you
Speaker 1: talk to us about how Janette's mom might have violated
Speaker 1: her sexually? That's one of those things where her mother
Speaker 1: did something shameless, It was inappropriate, and she felt no
Speaker 1: shame doing it. So where does that shame go all over? Janet,
Speaker 1: It's had to be a result of her mom's own traumas, right,
Speaker 1: most definitely that this has been a handed down thing.
Speaker 1: But when I'm working with a daughter, yeah, I kind
Speaker 1: of don't worry so much about let's understand your mother's trauma.
Speaker 1: I kind of really want her to be able to
Speaker 1: unpack her own, especially since Mom's not here, there's no
Speaker 1: need to do that. And I think Jeanette was already
Speaker 1: raised to be so aware of her mother's pain. She
Speaker 1: was already so raised to be aware of her mother's
Speaker 1: lost dreams that what you must have had to do
Speaker 1: to even come back and feel like you get to
Speaker 1: take up space in the world. I literally couldn't name
Speaker 1: my emotion. No, I'd be sitting there and I've got
Speaker 1: I don't know how to describe what I'm feeling, but
Speaker 1: it's intense. Wow, isn't that an investment? Right? That you
Speaker 1: just got me all the way together and that that
Speaker 1: idea of having to make a really clear separation. I
Speaker 1: went to get my my own sort of first apartment
Speaker 1: at this point, my mom's cancer had recurred, so it
Speaker 1: seemed like I was already eighteen. Yeah, and it was
Speaker 1: horrifying that she had this cancer, But it also seemed
Speaker 1: like the first time that we were going to be separated.
Speaker 1: So I felt relief around that, but also guilt around
Speaker 1: feeling the relief, and just such a complex layer of emotions.
Speaker 1: I got this apartment and then my mom handed me
Speaker 1: a copy of the Way we Were Robert Redford movie
Speaker 1: that night and was like, Hey, I got you this.
Speaker 1: Do you think we could watch this movie together tonight?
Speaker 1: I knew that wasn't just us watching Robert Redford once
Speaker 1: for a couple of hours. That was mom moving in.
Speaker 1: And she continued to ask me every night, can I
Speaker 1: just stay over tonight? Can I stay over tonight? For
Speaker 1: about three months until she just didn't ask anymore and
Speaker 1: lived with me in my first apartment. Uh, and yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're living in this hoarding, chaotic environment again, and
Speaker 1: I thought there was no escaping. There's no escaping, and
Speaker 1: this was like a one bedroom apartment right when she
Speaker 1: would sleep in the bed with you, hugging the whole night.
Speaker 1: And it's so complicated to because then there's the layer
Speaker 1: of the cancer. So she's hugging me tightly, and I
Speaker 1: feel physically how much her body is deteriorating from cancer.
Speaker 1: How am I supposed to set a boundary? And how
Speaker 1: I supposed to look my my dying mother and the
Speaker 1: I say, Mom, can you not squeeze me tonight? Because
Speaker 1: it's you're really invading my personal boundary. I just couldn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't and I couldn't. This is not easy to
Speaker 1: hear for anyone. But when a mother does this in
Speaker 1: the shower and then continues to kind of take her
Speaker 1: daughter as her own way beyond um, it forms in
Speaker 1: the daughter's brain a psychological marriage. So this daughter is
Speaker 1: basically fulfilling the role of spouse is supposed to fill.
Speaker 1: So what that does is it makes someone profoundly sexually anorexic. Wow,
Speaker 1: then everybody started to disgust you. I couldn't hug people
Speaker 1: for so long. I now love hugs and welcome hugs,
Speaker 1: but it felt inherently inappropriate to me. It felt like
Speaker 1: they want something for me that I can't get. WHOA
Speaker 1: so did that? Like? Wow, that just opened up a
Speaker 1: whole new candle worms for me in this in this story,
Speaker 1: like trying dealing with intimacy, your relationship with intimacy in general,
Speaker 1: like it's going to be tricky, But because it's a mother,
Speaker 1: people almost want to think, well, maybe that was okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is crazy. This kind of thing happens a lot
Speaker 1: and no one says anything. Yes, it's hard for people
Speaker 1: to understand why nobody stepped in. Can you explain how
Speaker 1: abuse is pervasive in a way that it can control
Speaker 1: the whole environment. Everybody's walking on eggshells right, Nobody knows,
Speaker 1: nobody's safe, Nobody knows what's going to set her off.
Speaker 1: And that's what the thing is that seems to be
Speaker 1: the common denominator in your story and others, is that
Speaker 1: we know what it looks like when she gets set off,
Speaker 1: and it's so ugly and it's so terrifying that we
Speaker 1: just don't go there. And what's sad is when her
Speaker 1: partner can't go there either. But generally, I hear it
Speaker 1: all the time and we'll protect the children. They'll say,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that was happening. We assumed everybody was okay.
Speaker 1: Mothers have a lot of power. Let me ask you
Speaker 1: a question, after having this experience, do you think you
Speaker 1: want to have children of your own, Jata, I was
Speaker 1: thinking the same, Get out of my head. I would
Speaker 1: never want to have a child for my own identity.
Speaker 1: That's a very, very huncrete one for me. I'm in
Speaker 1: a place where, so I'm thirty, i don't feel like
Speaker 1: I want kids, and I have two nieces that I
Speaker 1: adore and and a third on the way. I'm really
Speaker 1: happy to be an aunt, and right now I don't
Speaker 1: feel that I want them. But I'm also open to
Speaker 1: maybe a couple of years from now or whatever. I
Speaker 1: I something hits me and I just feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do want that, but for now, yes, So, Jeanette,
Speaker 1: can you tell us about your last conversation with your mom? Well,
Speaker 1: the last conversation would have been sort of a non conversation.
Speaker 1: Her cancer spread her brain. She was in a hospice
Speaker 1: bed that was set up in our living room, and
Speaker 1: she was really just detached behind the eyes. But I
Speaker 1: think this thing happens when people are on their death bed,
Speaker 1: or this was at least my experience, where everybody tries
Speaker 1: to say something to the person who's dying, like it's
Speaker 1: an attempt to get them to wake up. My brothers
Speaker 1: had each kind of given their good news of their
Speaker 1: live one of them was getting married, one of them
Speaker 1: was moving back to California. And then I said, Mommy,
Speaker 1: I'm so skinny right now. Like the thing that I
Speaker 1: felt like was the most that I had to offer
Speaker 1: was my thinness um, and I really, really in my
Speaker 1: core at that time, I believed that that would get
Speaker 1: my mother to wake up. I believed that she cared
Speaker 1: more about my body and my weight than she did
Speaker 1: about anything else that could possibly be uttered by my
Speaker 1: brother's mouth. I really felt like that better more of her.
Speaker 1: I think you even said I'm made nine pounds. I did,
Speaker 1: I did? Whoa yea. So Nicole joins us and says
Speaker 1: Jeanette's story has made her feel empowered in her own life. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be here. Hello, what's your question
Speaker 1: for Jeanette? So? I have really connected with Janette ever
Speaker 1: since I Harley because I grew up as a tomboy,
Speaker 1: and I did grew up in a very tumultuous household
Speaker 1: that would often escalate to verbal abuse. So I totally
Speaker 1: understand the feeling of just not knowing what's going to
Speaker 1: set your parents off. So question is, were you ever
Speaker 1: able to forgive your mom for the behavior and for
Speaker 1: you know, the issues that it caused. That's a good question.
Speaker 1: I worked towards forgiveness. Oh God, I'm gonna get emotional.
Speaker 1: I already feel it. I worked so right. I worked
Speaker 1: towards forgiveness for I worked toward forgiveness for a really
Speaker 1: long time. And my therapist said to me one day,
Speaker 1: what if you don't have to work towards forgiveness? And
Speaker 1: I wept, and I knew that that's what I needed
Speaker 1: to hear because I had been trying to find a
Speaker 1: way to still honor my mom in respect. I was
Speaker 1: still trying to live for her. I was still trying
Speaker 1: to find a way to make it all means something
Speaker 1: because it had to, because it was her. And that
Speaker 1: was exactly what I needed to hear. It was hugely emotional,
Speaker 1: but my God didn't help forgiving someone who has not,
Speaker 1: first of all, changed their behavior, they haven't acted on
Speaker 1: her blee. Do they deserve forgiveness? They personally do not.
Speaker 1: Forgiveness is a process that may eventually happen for you
Speaker 1: so that you have a loosening, but that takes its
Speaker 1: own time and permission. Not to give it for that person, Nicole.
Speaker 1: I hope that was helpful. It was very helpful. Your
Speaker 1: courage gives me courage, So thank you for doing what
Speaker 1: you do. I'm sending you a big hug. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love it. Thank you, Nicole. That just blew my mind
Speaker 1: about maybe you don't have to forgive her. I feel
Speaker 1: like we're always trying to take the high road, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna heal and I'm gonna be this and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be done exactly. I just want you to know
Speaker 1: this has been a really awesome experience. We was so
Speaker 1: touched by your book. I had so much emotion reading
Speaker 1: the book. I'm so happy for you. I am so happy.
Speaker 1: This has been the honor and a blessing to have
Speaker 1: you here. I feel the same way. I really appreciate
Speaker 1: all of you. Thank case so much for having me
Speaker 1: and as we wrap, your honesty, your vulnerability, and your
Speaker 1: voice has moved so many, including these familiar faces who
Speaker 1: wanted to send some love to you. M to that girl.
Speaker 1: You out here doing your thing, thriving and signing, glowing
Speaker 1: and growing. I am so proud of the hard work
Speaker 1: that you've been putting in. Thank you for personally and
Speaker 1: positively impacting my life. You're winning queen, my stright angel.
Speaker 1: Hi Jeanette, it's my um and we are thrilled for
Speaker 1: your success and we just think you're awesome. Huge congratulations.
Speaker 1: Couldn't be proud of Oh. I just wanted to say,
Speaker 1: I'm so so proud of you. Just such a trill,
Speaker 1: placed a strong voice for for women to see that
Speaker 1: you could stick up and say how you feel, that
Speaker 1: your own voice. If you're just so cool. I love
Speaker 1: your God to that. I am just so grateful to
Speaker 1: have you as a friend. I'm just so glad to
Speaker 1: see you saying I'm taking back my life, I'm taking
Speaker 1: back my power, and you're doing it so beautifully. Okay, Jeanette. UM,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say I love you and to
Speaker 1: just keep going, keep being great, do you. My game
Speaker 1: is versy McClellan. I know Jeanette from working on Salmon Cat,
Speaker 1: and some of you may know me, just one half
Speaker 1: of the duos, feeling grace and rosy from the chow.
Speaker 1: I remember this one time feeling really really left out,
Speaker 1: and then I remember Jeannette coming into my dressing room
Speaker 1: and giving me all of her time. A massive hub
Speaker 1: and after meeting lives of down with celebrities. I can
Speaker 1: definitely say that Jeanette is the most genuine I have
Speaker 1: ever met. Gonna, I'm so proud of you for finally
Speaker 1: speaking your truth, putting yourself first. They say that our
Speaker 1: pain is our biggest strength, and you're so powerful right now.
Speaker 1: Pay Jeannette. I respect your bravery to revisit the experiences
Speaker 1: and challenges that earned you the wisdom we now get
Speaker 1: to admire. I'm sending lots of love and I hope
Speaker 1: that tonight you look at yourself in the bathroom mirror
Speaker 1: dramatically and say, I know who I am in truth.
Speaker 1: I am free, I am free, I am free. Thank
Speaker 1: you everyone, Oh my goodness, thank you that that moved me.
Speaker 1: I was constantly trying to read, trying to write. I
Speaker 1: tried to write a script called Chicken in the Sand.
Speaker 1: It was, it was, It was great. What was Chicken
Speaker 1: in the understand the chickens and everyone was very strong
Speaker 1: and chaos. To join the Red Table Talk family and
Speaker 1: become a part of the conversation. Follow us at facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash red Tape, We'll Talk. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by
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