Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Welcome
Speaker 1: to I Choose Me, the podcast about choices. My guest
Speaker 1: has made some incredibly bold choices, and I'm really excited
Speaker 1: to share her with you. After being launched into an
Speaker 1: extremely traumatic spotlight, Monica Lewinsky could have easily disappeared into
Speaker 1: a quiet life, but instead she chose to come back
Speaker 1: on her own terms with her own podcast, to reclaim
Speaker 1: her name and fight against public shaming and cyberbullying. Please
Speaker 1: welcome Monica Lewinsky.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm really happy you're here because you are pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I look at you and what you've been
Speaker 1: doing lately, and I wonder to myself, where did you
Speaker 1: find this drink to choose to do this, this reclaiming
Speaker 1: of your name and narrative and public persona. Because yeah,
Speaker 1: you could have lived under a rock for the rest
Speaker 1: of your life after, you know, having open season hunting
Speaker 1: on you, but you decided to come up better than ever,
Speaker 1: stronger than ever, and you didn't hide what drove you
Speaker 1: to the surface.
Speaker 2: I did hide for a while. I think that, you know,
Speaker 2: it really felt like it was one of those situations
Speaker 2: where you literally do or die, and you just keep
Speaker 2: doing and doing and doing over and over again. And
Speaker 2: I feel incredibly lucky. Jenny, like to first of all,
Speaker 2: and thank you for having me. It was so wonderful
Speaker 2: having you on reclaiming, and I heard so many incredible
Speaker 2: things from people, so I think, yeah, I think for me,
Speaker 2: there were just so many moments where I could have
Speaker 2: given up, and I think it was really this combination
Speaker 2: of things of like being able to I think I
Speaker 2: had always been resilient. But one of the things that's
Speaker 2: so important I'm sure you've learned this too, is thank God,
Speaker 2: resilience is a muscle that we can build, and so
Speaker 2: it's not one of those things. It's not like height,
Speaker 2: where we're sort of genetically determined to be a certain
Speaker 2: way and that's it. I think that we can work
Speaker 2: to build those muscles. I was resilient going into ninety
Speaker 2: eight and had to be resilient coming out of it
Speaker 2: many many times. And I think that's the part that
Speaker 2: interests me so much about reclaiming, is the round and
Speaker 2: round that we go and it's sort of not over
Speaker 2: until we try I am, and I love that part. Right.
Speaker 1: We keep getting another chance, another chance, another chance, and
Speaker 1: I love the thought of like you get to create
Speaker 1: your own destiny, you get to decide what do you
Speaker 1: want to focus on. And you've clearly made a decision
Speaker 1: to not focus on what happened. That's been talked about enough,
Speaker 1: but to talk about what happens after something like that
Speaker 1: happens in your life and how you come back from it.
Speaker 1: And that's what's so inspirational. And I think that's why
Speaker 1: so many people are like intrigued and want to know,
Speaker 1: like how, because what happened was blonkers terrible, all the
Speaker 1: fruits and it was like I remember watching it and thinking,
Speaker 1: what this is? This is absolutely dreadful the way they
Speaker 1: are treating this girl. And because I was on set,
Speaker 1: I was watching it, you know, everybody was talking about it,
Speaker 1: of course, and it was you know. And also then
Speaker 1: I remember, after, you know, the news of breaking. I
Speaker 1: remember conversations on set and jokes being made and just
Speaker 1: how uncomfortable that whole feeling was for me. But I
Speaker 1: could have quite articulated at that age, and I didn't
Speaker 1: know how to like stand up for someone else or
Speaker 1: myself at that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and I'm sure you had a really interesting
Speaker 2: perspective because from your young age of becoming famous and
Speaker 2: being on this set where there was so much demanded
Speaker 2: of you at such a young age, and you're learning
Speaker 2: all of these life lessons and trying to navigate how
Speaker 2: people treat each other, but particularly women, and even more
Speaker 2: particularly young women.
Speaker 1: And we were young women. We were You're a year
Speaker 1: younger than me, so we were the same age when
Speaker 1: this was happening.
Speaker 2: Practically, and it's you know, I think that it's one
Speaker 2: of those things I remember being that age and my
Speaker 2: mom or other adults in my life, or my dad
Speaker 2: or my stepmom sort of saying like, you'll see when
Speaker 2: you're older. And internally I was like, what are you
Speaker 2: talking about? I am, I'm an adult. I'm over eighteen,
Speaker 2: I'm twenty one, I can drink, I can vote. I'm
Speaker 2: an adult right and is now at almost fifty three.
Speaker 2: I really I look at my friend's kids this age,
Speaker 2: or I look at I speak at colleges a lot,
Speaker 2: and the young people that I'm meeting, and yeah, just
Speaker 2: like you're a.
Speaker 1: Baby, I know, you know what. I actually say that
Speaker 1: to my daughters. When you're older, you'll see it differently
Speaker 1: or you'll understand. And I and now you're just reminded
Speaker 1: me that I am my mom.
Speaker 2: Yeah it is. It's an interesting it's really interesting. And
Speaker 2: I also I think too with my situation story, however
Speaker 2: we want to label it one of the things that's
Speaker 2: always been nightmare.
Speaker 1: That's better.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Interesting is that so much is tied to the collective,
Speaker 2: and so that's it's not always been just about what
Speaker 2: I want to try to do, how I try to
Speaker 2: gather my strengths or make plans. It was this dance
Speaker 2: with the collective around. You know, we're people going to
Speaker 2: be ready for someone who is normally there's a reason
Speaker 2: fallen woman. It's like you know that I've fallen in.
Speaker 2: I can't get up, lady, except it's archetypical, you know,
Speaker 2: And so I think in that way too. That's where
Speaker 2: the sort of social psychologists and me is always fascinated.
Speaker 1: Monica's strength and determination to choose herself are exactly what
Speaker 1: this podcast is all about. I was thinking, even when
Speaker 1: it comes to choosing how we want to look in
Speaker 1: our lives, what we want to wear, how do we
Speaker 1: want to present ourselves? And that is exactly why I
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Speaker 1: Did you want to go into psychology when you were
Speaker 1: younger before all of this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, my undergraduate was in psychology, and my masters, which
Speaker 2: I got after everything happened, was social psychology. So I
Speaker 2: had been interested in college. I was really interested in
Speaker 2: forensic psychology, so I took a class that was about
Speaker 2: designing psychological instruments, so the tests we take, and I
Speaker 2: remember this sort of this the module that was kind
Speaker 2: of around jury selection, and I was really fascinated by
Speaker 2: the kinds of tests that were used to uncover bias.
Speaker 2: And then I was also fascinated by the test that
Speaker 2: would sort of you know, tease apart someone's personality and
Speaker 2: were they you know, a version of a monster or not?
Speaker 2: Oh god, that was you know. That was also the
Speaker 2: time this was. This was in the world of silence
Speaker 2: of the lambs. So I was like, I am going
Speaker 2: to go work for the.
Speaker 1: FBI, Jodie Foster exactly.
Speaker 2: Cover monsters, and as I like to joke, instead it
Speaker 2: was like the political monsters. And I got investigated by
Speaker 2: the FBI wrong verb, you know, not working for or with,
Speaker 2: but investigated by. So yeah, but I think that that
Speaker 2: understanding of the complexity of people and the complexity you know,
Speaker 2: of myself, which I sort of already felt was a
Speaker 2: burden before everything happened.
Speaker 1: Why did you feel like your complexity was a burden?
Speaker 1: Were you a layered young person as a teenager?
Speaker 2: Yes, I think even I think even as a little
Speaker 2: kid that there there's certain photos of me that there's
Speaker 2: a pensiveness unlike me at three years old that I
Speaker 2: just think that's not normal. You know, where where did
Speaker 2: that heaviness come from? Or you just see this heaviness.
Speaker 2: And I think I was sensitive from a long time.
Speaker 2: And also you know it's having had this late stage
Speaker 2: diagnosis for women, which often happens in perimenopauseitive ADHD. I
Speaker 2: now understand that a lot of my sensitivity was rejection
Speaker 2: dysphoria and so that's also interesting. You know, it feels like,
Speaker 2: I think for many of us, a little like Memento,
Speaker 2: where we're sort of going, oh, that's why this happened,
Speaker 2: and this happened, and I felt this way and I
Speaker 2: didn't know how to when.
Speaker 1: You like look back at my life knowing what's what's
Speaker 1: rejection dysphoria.
Speaker 2: It is a part. Not everybody with ADHD has it,
Speaker 2: but it's a part where you experience normal rejection as
Speaker 2: physically intense as like physical pain it is. It is
Speaker 2: close to unbearable, and its rise.
Speaker 1: Rough to walk around with.
Speaker 2: And especially I think as a young woman trying to navigate.
Speaker 2: I mean it happens for men too, but you know,
Speaker 2: a young woman trying to navigate relationships and you know
Speaker 2: all of those things. And so it helped me understand
Speaker 2: why I I stayed stuck on certain people or in
Speaker 2: certain situations, you know, because the rejection felt unbearable, and
Speaker 2: so I think I kept at it of like nope,
Speaker 2: I can fix it. I can fix this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know a lot of people that I've been
Speaker 1: like that. I feel like I've gone through that era
Speaker 1: for sure. Do you feel like you're you're past that
Speaker 1: you're not susceptible to this.
Speaker 2: No. I think that it's more I have a lot
Speaker 2: more tools to understand stand it, right. And so much
Speaker 2: of the work my therapist, who's a trauma psychiatrist, has
Speaker 2: done with me, which kind of annoyed me at first
Speaker 2: because I thought I was like, well, this is never
Speaker 2: going to fix me, Like we have to hurry up.
Speaker 2: I've lost all this time, like fix me, fix me,
Speaker 2: fix me. And really so much of it was about
Speaker 2: finding self acceptance and you know, those moments where it
Speaker 2: would be, you know, like this mantra of like, yeah,
Speaker 2: sometimes when I'm feeling X, Y and Z, I do ABC,
Speaker 2: you know, and that's what I do, right, and really
Speaker 2: trying to excuse me sit in not judging myself and
Speaker 2: blaming myself, right, which is that first layer. So I
Speaker 2: think for me, where that intersex here is around recognizing
Speaker 2: that that I'm like, okay, I am rejection sensitive and
Speaker 2: so and I had a therapist tell me that a
Speaker 2: long time ago, but it never came under the rubric
Speaker 2: of ADHD, you know, or I don't even know that
Speaker 2: they had a name for it at that point. And
Speaker 2: so I think that knowing that that happens to me
Speaker 2: allows me to to just be a little gentler, and
Speaker 2: then the gentleness allows me to maybe step out of
Speaker 2: it faster, not it not hurt quite as much.
Speaker 1: So true, Yes, I've found that, like once you can
Speaker 1: take the time to sort of self examine where where
Speaker 1: you went wrong in life? Where what were the painful moments?
Speaker 1: Where did you experience suffering?
Speaker 2: Where did you beautifully in your book?
Speaker 1: Like, once you step back and you look at it,
Speaker 1: then you're able to like accept it in a different
Speaker 1: way and take accountability for your parts and things. I
Speaker 1: can totally relate to that. And how Yes, now you
Speaker 1: have the perception the ability to step back and even
Speaker 1: in those trigger moments when you want to go back
Speaker 1: to that automatic thinking of what your survival technique was
Speaker 1: in your case being sensitive to rejection, you have the
Speaker 1: ability of the clarity to think, hmm, I have a
Speaker 1: choice right now, I can choose differently.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's still hard. You know, I've had like a
Speaker 2: difficult work situation in the last few weeks, and so
Speaker 2: every time I get an email on this thing, I
Speaker 2: notice in my body, you know it, my heart rate
Speaker 2: is going, my anxiety is up, my armor is coming
Speaker 2: on and you know it's just I think sometimes even
Speaker 2: just the ability to recognize that's not something I would
Speaker 2: have been able to do a long time.
Speaker 1: Ago, Right, you would just take and run.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know sometimes that still happens. But you
Speaker 2: know that's zero to sixty pause, rage, We're trying.
Speaker 1: Yes, this work that you've done with your trauma therapist
Speaker 1: is incredible. I can see the impact that it's had
Speaker 1: on you. And thank goodness you sawt therapy because you
Speaker 1: needed to. I mean, that was huge and unlike anyone
Speaker 1: else has ever experienced. So I'm very happy for that.
Speaker 1: Would you call that you've talked about it before your
Speaker 1: dark decade?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think that there was. My My
Speaker 2: dark decade was this mix of this sort of aftermath
Speaker 2: plan falling apart over and over and over again. And
Speaker 2: on the one hand, and what that forced me to
Speaker 2: do was, you know, to have to work on different
Speaker 2: aspects of myself, most of which I did in that
Speaker 2: period through less traditional therapies. But I did, you know,
Speaker 2: I started working with my current trauma psychiatrist in two
Speaker 2: thousand and thirteen or fourteen, so that was sort of
Speaker 2: almost she held my hand as I re emerged in
Speaker 2: many ways versus enduring that period.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering this because I experienced this recently. I was
Speaker 1: doing an interview a podcast with someone. They showed me
Speaker 1: a clip of an interview that I had done in
Speaker 1: the nineties, and it was I didn't, I hadn't, I
Speaker 1: had forgotten about it. And it was an interview with
Speaker 1: Arsenio Hall and he basically said you're a slut, You're
Speaker 1: a whore on national television and young me Jenny sitting
Speaker 1: there trying to smile through it and not in my
Speaker 1: mind thinking how what is happening? And how do I
Speaker 1: get out of that? And now, as a grown woman,
Speaker 1: watching that is heartbreaking to see. And I wondered if
Speaker 1: you felt that way, especially when I rewatched the Barbara
Speaker 1: Walters interview.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll say this, I have not rewatched it. I
Speaker 2: had to watch a few a handful of clips for
Speaker 2: something the other year, and just even watching a few
Speaker 2: clips was really hard. And some of what I think
Speaker 2: is complicated is teasing out for myself what was hard,
Speaker 2: what was going to be hard no matter what because
Speaker 2: of the time, like my personal life, where it was
Speaker 2: going to be hard no matter what because of how
Speaker 2: we treated young women back then, and even as much
Speaker 2: as we wanted hope and think that women are going
Speaker 2: to be are portive and supportive and our best champions.
Speaker 2: I you know, I think that Barbara thought she was
Speaker 2: doing a good job. Barbara thought she was setting me
Speaker 2: up for success. And it's complicated, you know, And she's
Speaker 2: not here anymore. So I you know, I imagine at
Speaker 2: some point I will need to sit down and watch that.
Speaker 1: But I just saw this young woman smiling as I
Speaker 1: did in that embarrassing moment, and not knowing any other
Speaker 1: way to do it but to be yourself and smile
Speaker 1: and try to make everybody happy even though you're so uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Well, I think too. I think for me, there were
Speaker 2: these two other layers to it. Also. One is I
Speaker 2: have this horrible habit of laughing and smiling when I'm nervous.
Speaker 2: So even as a kid like I'd get in trouble
Speaker 2: for shit because I'd laugh.
Speaker 1: I have a kid like that and all. Yeah, And so.
Speaker 2: It was my parents and be like, well you wouldn't
Speaker 2: be laughing. This is no laughing matter, you know. And
Speaker 2: it's like it is to me because I can't help it,
Speaker 2: you know. So I think my younger brother benefited from
Speaker 2: that quite a bit. But I got blamed for shit.
Speaker 2: But I think also the other is I was so naive.
Speaker 2: I talked a bit about this in the documentary that
Speaker 2: was done on Barbara a few years ago. Of I
Speaker 2: so naively thought like, oh, okay, people hate me because
Speaker 2: they don't know me yet, and I haven't been able
Speaker 2: to speak for myself legally, and all anybody knows is
Speaker 2: sort of the worst things about me, the gossip about me,
Speaker 2: these horrible tapes, like twenty hours of recorded phone calls
Speaker 2: that you know, none of us realizes how hattie and
Speaker 2: horrible we are in these loose, sort of free flowing moments.
Speaker 2: But I just I really thought, Okay, now people are
Speaker 2: going to get to know me, and they're not hate me.
Speaker 1: I didn't hate you when I watched it. I felt
Speaker 1: it felt for you, and I felt like, God, bless
Speaker 1: her little heart. She's smiling and trying to make the
Speaker 1: best of this mess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was, you know, and they're they're you know,
Speaker 2: you might have had an experience like this. They're not
Speaker 2: many people for whom they're their very first television interview
Speaker 2: is someone like a Barbara Walters or Ante correct, and
Speaker 2: so it wasn't even I had had the experience of
Speaker 2: being interviewed and then watching it back, you know, like
Speaker 2: you probably know this now too. I learned the hard way. Oh,
Speaker 2: sarcasm doesn't work print interview. Like you could be sarcastic
Speaker 2: in a TV interview or a podcast radio and people
Speaker 2: hear it in your voice, but a print interview, it's
Speaker 2: it doesn't necessarily translate, right, But so we learn those things.
Speaker 2: And I think even if the Barbara Walters interview had
Speaker 2: been maybe my third or fifth, you know, the only
Speaker 2: other interviews I'd had were with a you know, independent
Speaker 2: counsel's office and Congress, and so you know, that was
Speaker 2: a little different than the lights. And you know, so
Speaker 2: there's so many I guess for me, there's so many
Speaker 2: moments from that wide time period of my life that
Speaker 2: I regret that It's like, I don't know, the ones
Speaker 2: in that interview are sort of lower on the list,
Speaker 2: if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: But you know, I mean I found myself, you know,
Speaker 1: really feeling for that young girl. Thank you, jeez, what
Speaker 1: you've been put through. But what you're doing now, this
Speaker 1: determination to advocate out loud for public shaming, cyberbullying, and resilience.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: These are bold moves that you're making. How did you
Speaker 1: get to choosing this path?
Speaker 2: You know? It was it really was unexpected in many ways,
Speaker 2: and it stemmed I talk a little about this in
Speaker 2: my TED talk, but it stemmed from this experience I
Speaker 2: had with my mom around Tyler Clemente, who was a
Speaker 2: young eighteen year old freshman in college who had been
Speaker 2: publicly shamed and he died by suicide jumping off the
Speaker 2: George Washington Bridge. And I had been away for the
Speaker 2: weekend when the news hit, and so I knew nothing
Speaker 2: and was like on the phone with my momving home
Speaker 2: from Davis, California, having seen my best friend from college
Speaker 2: for the weekend, and as you know, my mom just
Speaker 2: started she was like, Oh, there's that poor family and
Speaker 2: that poor boy, and she just started to get so upset.
Speaker 2: And as she's explaining to me what happened, you know,
Speaker 2: I just I realized later that I was seeing this
Speaker 2: her reliving what I hadn't been able to see in
Speaker 2: ninety eight because I was so consumed by my own experiences, right,
Speaker 2: and also the narcissism of youth, and so what really
Speaker 2: transpired for me is I thought about it more and
Speaker 2: Brene Brown had started to talk about shaming, public shaming.
Speaker 2: She really opened that conversation, and then I just started
Speaker 2: to think, Okay, well, I'm still here, and maybe there's
Speaker 2: a way that some people might be able to get
Speaker 2: something that I can help.
Speaker 1: Okay, this conversation is so good. We will come back
Speaker 1: for more with Monica Lewinsky. Please watch for part two
Speaker 1: soon