Begin Again with Davina McCall - Caitlin Moran: “I Thought My Brain Had Broken” Becoming Hopeful After A Life Of Anxiety

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

How do we find hope when the world feels increasingly overwhelming? In this episode of Begin Again, Caitlin Moran joins Davina McCall for a funny, moving and hopeful conversation about love, anxiety, feminism, loneliness and finding your way back to joy. Caitlin opens up about experiencing her first panic attack at 13, after revealing her family were living on benefits, and how anxiety became the fuel that drove her extraordinary career.  Decades later, she reached breaking point and realised: “I can’t be this scared anymore.” She shares how she finally broke up with anxiety and why she wishes she had done it 30 years earlier. She and Davina also explore the growing crisis facing men, why loneliness and social media are leaving us disconnected, and the simple changes Caitlin believes can help us feel hopeful again, from putting down our phones to reconnecting with our communities. Caitlin also reflects on growing up poor, writing her first novel as a teenager, her 33-year relationship with husband Pete, and the extraordinary night she went clubbing with Lady Gaga. 🌟Like, comment and subscribe for more honest conversations about purpose, resilience, love, loss and beginning again. Follow us here: 📸www.instagram.com/beginagain  🎥https://www.tiktok.com/@beginagainpod  ✨Sign up for the Begin Again newsletter for behind-the-scenes access, recommendations and much more: https://linkly.link/2g2xm  Follow Caitlin here: https://www.instagram.com/mscaitlinmoran/  Buy ‘How to be Hopeful - A Year of Attempting to Feel Less Awful About the World’ by Caitlin Moran, Ebury Press, £22 Purchase tickets to Caitlin’s book tour here: https://www.gigantic.com/caitlin-moran-tickets We'd love you to share your Get Busy Living stories with us at https://getbusyliving.beginagainshow.com/ (00:00) Intro (01:11) Caitlin's New Book (03:22) The Impact Of "How To Be A Woman" (06:09) Foreseeing The Masculinity Crisis (09:15) Being An Enthusiast vs. A Critic (12:01) Writing About Hope (13:00) The Value Of In-Person Connection (18:56) Monzo GBL Ad (20:27) Developing Anxiety At 13 (24:50) Learning To Write (27:03) The Journey Out Of Poverty (31:57) Her First Publishing Deal (35:14) Monzo 90 Days Ad (36:23) Caitlin's 'How To Be Hopeful' List (43:11) Do This To Improve Your Own Happiness (52:05) Clubbing In Berlin With Lady Gaga (57:37) Finally Getting Over Anxiety (01:02:49) Her 26 Year Marriage (01:08:40) Inclusive Forms Of Feminism Sponsored by: Download Monzo. Monzo Current Accounts are for 16+ and UK residents. Ts&Cs Apply. Join the 'Say Yes Club' and hear more about our events here - https://events.beginagainshow.com/  You could get back less than you invest. Monzo current account required. Monzo investments are for UK residents, 18+. Ts&Cs apply. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19-speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility, and Optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. I went out to interview Lady Gaga.

20 minutes into the interview, she went, hey, do you want to go and hang out at a club? Yes, I like to do that, Lady Gaga. And we entered this full-on bourbon sex club. And then about two in the morning, she goes... Today, I am joined by the incredible Catna Moran. Katlin's got such a profound way of putting words to things that so many women feel,

but we don't always know how to say out loud. You are the most amazing author. How to be a woman was a breath of fresh air. When the book came out, there was a papshot of Kate Moss lying on the beat. completely naked with a glass of champagne at reading how to be a woman and I was like, yeah, it's that kind of feminism. When I was 13, I had that first burst of anxiety and I felt like I can do anything. Nine books in 10 years and a sitcom and a film and I believe that was all because I was anxious.

And then I got to 49 and I realized that I'm going to have to break up with anxiety. How did you fight that? But through it all, we talk about hope because you might not be able to change the world overnight, but you can change your days. Find one thing that you make better in your life and that's the meaning of life. And sometimes that's all you need to do to really begin again.

Hi. Hi! I mean it's so great to have you here because I've had a massive crush on you forever and we talked about that on X. Twitter. X is so weird. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm just not going to use it.

It's like it's government. And Twitter and tweeting. Tweeting was so good. We still say tweet. We don't say X. Yeah, exing. Sounds like you're breaking up with someone. Exactly. I'm exing you.

Which I have done with Twitter. I have now ex-ed ex. Yeah, I've ex-X. When actual Nazis turn up, you like this party is not for me. No, I'm gone. Yeah. So, this. Yes.

Can I just say, you are just the most amazing author, but the way that you can write about stuff that's quite complicated, quite difficult. Out in the world, lots of people might be, have very, strong opinions about something but you write with such skill and in a way that is completely acceptable for everybody yes that's what I try and do that's what takes the energy yeah that's really brilliant

thank you thank you well I really believe that like I mean every every writer's got different ideas about what they want to do the two things I want to do is one be useful so I only ever write a book and the books are usually something bad has happened to me and instead of writing a book about something bad has happened to me which would be a misery memoir I wait until I've worked out a solution to it and then that's when I write the book.

So here's the bad stuff that happened and here's the solution I came up because I want to be useful. And then the second thing is that I want to be useful and entertaining because I really strongly believe if you look at so much like academic texts on subjects like feminism or masculinity or mental health

at any of the subjects that I've written about they tend to be in quite dry academic books or quite serious books. And but that to me feels like that's limiting that information because most of us don't have time to read. It could be a really clever and brilliant book but if it's really dry and upsetting and technical, most people aren't going to want to read that.

And I think as a courtesy to the reader, if you've come up with a clever idea, then you should put in the second load of effort into it, which is to try and make it as light and as fun and enjoyable and gossipy and kind of just that it's part of the cure, that you actually enjoy reading the book and learning the information in it. So I'm so glad you said that. That's literally my favourite review ever.

Thank you. Well, I mean, I feel like that about all of your books. I think how to be a woman for me was such a breast, of fresh air because I am a feminist. Yes. But I was surrounded by literature around angry feminism and fury and yours was the first book that spoke my language of like, oh, there are some really funny bits to being a feminist. Like absolutely hilarious. And being a woman.

Yes, and being a woman. This is ridiculous. This is wabbly Wobbly. Yes. This is a massive trouble covered from a pain and surprises. Like it's a ludicrous thing to be a woman. The idea that we were talking about cystitis within three minutes of seeing each other today was enjoying. Thank you.

You know, because we all go through it. And that is why I think we're so lucky to be women. Yeah. We are all connected in a very deep way. Well, women go deep fast. Like, kind of like, just the amount of times I wrote about this and had what about men and the different story in the way that women and men communicate. And like, they're very different. And in some ways, women communicate better and in some ways men communicate better.

But the big difference is I was on a train. And there's a group of women. he didn't know each other. And within three minutes, they were talking about their births, they were talking about their children, they were talking about their parents, like gone really, really deep.

And the men, for the entire three-hour journey were just talking about the rules of T20 cricket. They had not even asked each of their names by the end as they finally got off the train and he went forward, and went, hey, it was really nice to talk to you, what was your name? It was like, Steve, like the end was the bit where they found each of those names.

The women within 30 seconds, I could have told you three tables back how many stitches they'd had during that last. Like, I knew everything. So, some people call it oversharing, but I don't think there's any such thing is oversharing. And people will call it gossip. But gossip is just women passing on information. Yes. We're usually the ones that have to sort out a problem. And all that gossip and oversharing is

actually us sharing everything that we know, detoxifying it, stopping it from being taboo. Well, you're talking about the problems that you've had, you find a solution and you share it. And when we read books like this, we then talk about the solutions that you have in here and share it with other people. So it's a brilliant thing. That's what it's supposed to be. My favorite thing when How to Be a Woman came out, I realized that it was a different kind of feminism that in the same week, someone sent me a picture of all the women in Danton Abbey, all in their period costume, and they were all in a row reading How to Be a Woman. And then the next day there was a pap shot of Kate Moss lying on the beach, completely naked, reading, yeah, it's that kind of, yeah, it's that kind of, yeah, it's that kind of, like, yeah, it's that kind of, like, feminism is the only thing that we've ever invented that looks at problem specifically a gender. And so all the problems that are, like, there are problems that. And so all the problems that are, you know, like, there are problems that. And so all the problems that. it's able to tackle the tools that it give us to tackle the problems of being a woman and talk about them and detoxify it are also the tools that men could use to talk about the problems of masculinity. Like, how do we know that we've got a crisis in masculinity at the moment? And feminism is the only thing that we've invented that would give them the tools to look at their problems, too.

Now that you brought that up, I would like to just touch on that because you were literally talking about the problems that men were heading for men. Like way before it kind of went into the mainstream. I mean, you could see it coming, right? I timed it so badly, though, like it came out and everyone was like, like, even sort of liberal, progressive sort of men were just like, men don't have problems. Like kind of, you know, what is Kathleen Moran going on about? This is such a patronising book. And then a year later, adolescence came out. And they were going, well, why are teenage boys like this?

What has happened in fathering? What has happened in culture? And I was just sitting there going, if I brought the book out this year, I would have got some good reviews. But that is, it is an amazing book. And also, I think, after how to be a woman, a surprising. one for you to write. And I was actually very grateful because as a mother of a son and as as the wife of a very good man, it is very nice to see someone going, no, we need to keep an eye on this. Totally. And, you know, we were ladets. Like, I can do anything a guy can do. But it's like,

wouldn't it be lovely for men to have that same thing? The reverse. Yeah. I think when I sort of doing in sort of like the briefest and most entertaining way that I could possible to explain the difference between men and women now, in the last 150. If you look at women's lives, 150, 200 years ago, we were the legal property of men. First of all, our fathers, then our husbands. We couldn't have our own bank account. We couldn't own property. We could be sent to a mental asylum on the say-so of our husbands. You know, we couldn't start a business.

You know, women would have to co-sign and have a joint account with men even into the 1980s. Marital rate was still legal in 1991. No. Like post-de-lite. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's still legal to rape your wife in this country in 1999. Wait, what did you just say? Post-D-Lite. That's always my idea of the modern era. That is such a fucking brilliant reference. Post-delight.

Yeah, yeah. Moves in the heart. For me, that's the start of the modern era. But, oh my God, that is. Isn't that crazy? Mind-blowing. Right? But in that stretch of time, women's loads have changed completely. We can now rule businesses.

You know, the legislation we've made on sexual assault. We go into space. We own companies. We can rule countries. We can wear what we want. smoke cigarettes, we have contraception, we can talk about sex like everything. And those were seen as the things of men. Basically what feminism did is girls go and take the things of men, take the power, take the fun, take the money, take the responsibility, and here we are.

In that same time, men have not taken any of the things of women. And if you look at when we talk about the crisis of masculinity and the mental health statistics, you know, we know the statistics, you know, the leading cause of death of men in this country under age of 50 is taking their own lives. One in four men over the age of 40, say they have no close personal friends. those are women's skills that you need to take. You need to come and take the things of women there. You need to learn how to talk about your problems. You need to know how to discuss your mental health. You need to know how to stop being lonely and make friendship groups that will support you in the way that because because women are still seen as the loser. But because women are still seen as the losers. So because women are still seen as the losers. So it's the undelying sexism that prevents them. So right, okay, let's talk about labels. Yes. Because I know you're anti-labels. I'm anti-labels.

Tell me what you mean by that. I think the thing you're most desperate for when you're young is a label. You want someone to come up to you and tell you who you are. And I can, I wrote a piece once that was all the things people had told me that I was. Because especially as a teenage girl, you're so open to it. I can remember a boyfriend who said, oh, no, I can remember it was a pop star. It was Andrew Eldrich from the Sisters of Mercy. And he said, I can tell how intelligent a woman is by the way that she walks.

I still remember it now at 51. I like me and all my family, we've all got hypermobility, so we're very lucy-goot. Have you? Yeah. We all walk like penguins, basically, wind up penguins. And I remember reading that and just spending years trying to like walk like a clever lady would,

like kind of like just remembering all these things. So whenever people give you labels, sometimes that's amazing. Like for instance, when I was a TV critic in my early years, the game is when you become a critic, whether it's rock or pop or TV, the kill is seen as the height of your art. to write a savage review of something. Those are critics that are revered.

And so, like, the game is when you start being a critic, you're like, okay, I'm going to be the most vicious one. I'm going to be the nastiest one. I'm going to take this TV show or this record down. And I'd done a couple of these, and then I bumped into Russell T. Davis at a party who wrote Queer as Folk and Doctor Who is one of my heroes. I was something to tell you about Russell T. Davis after this.

Okay. Yeah, I'm ready to start. And he came up to me and he went, I've read all your stuff. I'm such a fan, but let me tell you who you are. You are an enthusiast. When you write about what you love, that is when you're writing singles.

on the page. And he kissed me on the center of my head and it was like when Glinda gives the kiss to Dorothy and it protected her all the way through Oz and I just walked away from that party with these new synapses burning going, he's right, I enjoy writing about things I love more than things I hate. And then that becomes an entire philosophy because I think particularly in this

day and age, everybody's ready to be, everyone can be a critic now, everyone's online and the hottest takes get the most clicks which mean you get paid the most uncertain websites and the idea of being an enthusiast and a fan girl for humanity, the most important job of a human is to point at something you love and tell other people about it.

Like, pass on the good stuff. Like, there's not enough of that in the world. We have the solution to nearly every problem we have as humans. But there aren't enough people going, this scientist has come up with this solution for global warming. This person has come up with a new way of making solar power efficient. We have more fan girls pointing at the good stuff, all the good art, all the good people, all the good ideas.

That's the kind of emotional economy that I want to live in more. People pointing at good things. We don't need to discuss the bad things. And as humans, you know this. You meet a lot of famous people. I know a lot of famous people. The first question anyone asks you, they know you meet a lot of famous people is who's lovely?

Who's actually nice? Like people want to know that. They want to know the good news. The second question they ask you is always who's an asshole. Yes. But the first thing people want to know is who's lovely? Who have you met that you really got on with? They're really like that in real life.

We have such a deep desire to know good news. Yes. And the last 10 or 15 years have completely flipped that economy. And I think where the reason I wanted to write how to be hopeful is I think we have past peak despair now. Yes. The conversations that I was having people and have been having. for the last decade or so, everyone's like, this is a particularly terrible time.

Things are particularly difficult. You know, my children don't want to have children. Like when we talk about the future, we presume it's going to be worse, which was not the case when we were going up. But people can only be in one emotional set for so long. And after a while, basically, you just get bored of being full of despair. We can't be any more despairing than we've been. We can't feel any more confused by the chaos and enraged by it. And I think everybody would really like to be hopeful now.

That was what I thought when I started writing the book. I'd been on my own hopefulness journey. It's the word hopeful is in the title. Let's bring it back, man. Yes. It's a great word. And Nick Cave has that beautiful quote, that hope is optimism with a broken heart,

which I think is such a great quote. Oh, God, you've got to text me that letter. Yes. I think we are now relishing. We are at a stage now in humanity. I've never known people want to connect more. Yes. Well, you look at the stats on loneliness.

And that's, again, how crazy that we've invented all these machines that mean that we're theoretically more connected than we ever are. But the problem with things like social media and sort of like digital communication is that you presume that that's it. If you're communicating with someone on text or on WhatsApp or online or on a website, you think that's the communication. It's not that that's the start of you communicating, which should then lead to you meeting in real life. You have to meet in real life and look each other in the eye.

You know, you need to smell each other. You need to get the whole story that isn't just confined by a text. You need to watch people's body language. And we just need to realize that that you start there, but then it needs to go to the next stage. And but what we're being told is no that's that is human communication now. Just talking to people in tiny little chat boxes where you can't see an emoji is doing so much heavy lifting for what would be a huge amount of complex sort of body language that we're picking up on. An emoji instead of body language.

Yeah. Right. That's not. So we just need to remember that like this is the tool that takes us to the place where we're not lonely anymore. It's not the thing that in itself prevents loneliness. You can feel some of the most lonely times I've ever had in my life is being somewhere where you're just on social media and you're just like, if I could just sit in a room and

with someone and not talk, that would be better than this ability to be able to theoretically talk to a million people on Twitter. But this actually feels quite lonely. I mean, we are seeing more and more that people want to gather in places. We did a coffee rave the other morning. Amazing. And we'll begin again. And 400 people turned up at like 6.30. It was the most joyful.

We're like, oh, we're going to do this more. You must. People coming on their own. Yes. Like overniting the night before coming to like. It was so happy. And I just thought the power of being around other people and spreading joy. But all the venues, I don't know if you've noticed, but the London venues are just shutting at a rate of knots.

And that makes me so, I mean, again, there's so much of this is going to be hate with in the 90s, but I genuinely believe that underage clubbing was the making of me. Oh. Your ability to blag your way into a club or a pub at like, you know, 13 or 14 and kind of like be a around older people. Obviously, you know, we know there's can be a bad side to that. But by and large, everyone of my generation did that. Being able to go out and meet people at that young age, but the ID is so, so tight now. My kids had a fake ID. They found it on the ground. And luckily, the face of the woman on it, she had the most generic white woman's face ever. So this, if this ID was passed down from like generation to generation of children in their social circle,

kind of like, I am now 18 and have proper ID. Now you will get the sacred to social. You get the sacred idea and stuff. And it was passed on for like a period of 10 years. Oh my God. How brilliant. But it's important because where else are kids going to go? I hate that thing that like their only options now are, you know, for some people being at home is not safe or pleasant. Yeah.

And when you're older, you need to go out anyway. And then the only other places you've got are like shops and shopping malls. But then your value is dictated by how much money you've got in your pocket and how much you can spend. And the idea of all the social media where you could be talking to anyone or anything. and it's not, no one ever said, oh, I feel better now after spending three hours online. Like, kind of we know, we call it doom scrolling, like, and yet we still do it.

But if there was a food called like Doom Cake, or there was a piece of clothing called Doom pants, we would not still be wearing them. Doom pants, that's amazing, yeah. Do you want to wear my doom pants? No, no, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yet still we doomscroll, like kind of we know.

And it's really weird because there's been public health flaps in the past. Like I remember video nasties, people going, it needs to be banned, hip-hop lyrics, you know, hip-hop, like rap, It needs to be banned. All these kind of panics about what's happening to our younger generation and it will destroy them. But the difference was with hip-hop or video nasties or whatever, people enjoyed them. And it hasn't damaged them. Whereas social media is the first thing where we're going, this is terrible for the young people and we need to ban it.

And the young people are going, yeah, I hate it. Like, they hate it too. Oh, yeah. And they're like, I'm completely addicted. I can't put my phone down. I mean, they can see it happening. Yeah. And their bedrooms were a safe place, but suddenly they're not safe anymore because the phone is still there.

It's like a dark version of that bit at the end of Labyrinth, starring David Bowie and Jennifer Connolly, where you know when all the Muppets turn up at the end and go, we're still here and you're like, yay, Muppets are in my bedroom. Except the Muppets are all just like trolls from Belarusia, who are like coming through your bedroom window at 4 o'clock in the morning. And stuff like, did you read that Sarah Wynne Williams book about, she used to work at Facebook, Careless People, that's been in the top 10. Anyone who is on the internet in the 21st century needs to read this book. So she was there.

And one, I mean, there's a million awful stories in there. But the one that really upset me the most as a mother of daughters is that they realized that if you post a selfie, if a teenage girl posts a selfie and then deletes it within half an hour, it's because she didn't get enough likes and suddenly she's gone, I'm really ugly, like, kind of, I'm deleting it, forget that. And they put in a package of information into that so that every single time a teenage girl deleted a selfie because she felt bad, but information would be sent to advertisers who could then immediately spam her account with, buy some makeup, here are some diet pills, maybe you should have plastic surgery,

and use special words like kind of like disgusted, low self-worth to trigger girls into wanting to buy these products. That's in our girls' hands in their room, like third. 13, 14, 12, 11. That book is out. Careless people. Came out six months ago. Oh, my God. Met her trying to sue her, so she can't talk about it anywhere in public.

So she's been appearing silently at literary festivals, and she has to sit on a chair and can't say anything, because she's not allowed to say anything about the promotion of it. But it's been the top 10 for the last six months. It's because everyone is like, okay, if they want to ban this, what's going on in there? You have to read it. Honestly, to know what is going on at the top levels. We haven't put our children's...

health and happiness in the hands of the right people. Oh my God. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to digest that from it. While I... God, that is so hideous. I know. It's really dirty, isn't it?

It's like psychologically dirty. Yes. They're kids. What's one thing you'd love to be able to say you've done? Well, Monzo's sponsoring begin again to help us win back some time so we can do more of what we love. Like, finally doing that thing. I want to know what that thing was.

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T's and C's Apply. This family is on the brink of civil war on September 18. Mobland. The hit original series is back on Paramount Plus. We are the Hurricanes. Don't know the ants? And Google us. From the underworld of Guy Ritchie, Do you want to step up the ladder?

I want Carmen dead. Starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren. Do I have to do everything myself? You want to want him on! I'll give you a more! Mobland, new season hits September 18th on Paramount Plus. I want to talk to you a bit about, because anxiety is not something that I have, I've worried, but not in an overwhelming way. But I was thinking about the theme of this begin again.

And I would say there were two phases in my life. there's a million bits like, oh, motherhood, whatever. But the two biggest phases in my life were what happened to me when I was 13 and then what happened to me three years ago where I finally had to deal with what happened to me when I was 13. So when I was 13, I was a very cheerful girl. I've got my diaries from that time. I just absorbed all the musicals with Judy Garland and it.

I loved Annie. I loved Anne of Green Gables. I love little women. And I was like, I will be like those girls. I'm just cheerful girl. I crack on. And our family had a secret at that point, which is that we were on benefits. We were on disability benefits. My dad had been a fireman. He'd had an accident. They'd developed osteoarthritis. So he was on benefits and we lived on benefits. But we were told we must never tell anyone that. First of all, he was a proud man and he didn't want anyone to know. And secondly, he would often have to like go out and mend the car out in the street because we couldn't afford to send it to a carriage because we were on benefits. So in order to do that, he would like bind himself up with bandages and take so many painkillers. He was just off his face and go and drop the clutch out the car.

and but we'd say we must never tell anyone because if people saw a man mending a car they'd go, you're a benefits cheat and our benefits would be taken away it was really drummed into us that at any point we would have our benefits taken away That's quite a lot to carry secrets and change As a 13 year old, isn't it? Yeah, yeah

But we were all and we were just like, that's how we will survive. And then one day I made friends with an old woman who lived at the other end of the street because she had kittens and a biscuit barrel full of chocolate biscuits. She invited me and I was taking my dog for a walk She invited me in, I played with the kittens.

Possibly under the influence of many of the chocolate biscuits, I became very garrulous and chatty. And during the course of that, I mentioned that we were on benefits. And then I left and started walking home, and the chocolate sugar buzz lasted about halfway down the street. And then suddenly halfway down the street, I was like, I've told someone our secret. Like, she might give us away.

If she decides she doesn't like us, if she sees my dad next week, like, it could be over. And I was reading a lot of Dickens at the time, and I knew about the poor house. and I was like, that's it. I have consigned my family. If this gets out, I will have consigned my family to the poor house. And in that moment, I'd heard about anxiety before,

but no one really had anxiety in Wolverhampton in 1985. It was something that, you know, people in Woody Allen movies had. It sounded quite aspirational. It was like Babel. Because we also didn't have everyone around. Yeah, I got anxiety. I got anxiety. I'm going to see my shrink.

Like, kind of like, oh, wow, if I moved to New York, I can get anxiety. So I didn't really know what it meant. But this, and it wasn't what I thought it was. I thought anxiety was, would you be a bit worried about something? When you have your first panic attack, it feels like you're being poisoned. Like something washes through you physically. Your brain starts going faster and faster and faster. So the thoughts are tripping up over themselves.

And the thoughts get darker and darker and more like barbed wire. And something is happening in your guts and your heart rate goes up. And it feels like your veins are full of this black stuff. And you are in a different world. Like the world changed halfway down that street. And obviously now years later, I know what's happening. when you have your first panic attack, you are suddenly flooded with cortisol and noradrenaline and adrenaline. And those are essentially amphetamines. So you are just flooded with speed.

You are literally overdosing on speed because you think you are in a dangerous situation and your body must be ready to run. So by the time we got to the end of the street, you know, suddenly filled with this kind of amphetamine super fast thought superpower. I was like, okay, we're in danger. I will have to get us out of this. My first plan was that I would sit at the bottom of the stairs every day. The first post would come about 7.30 and the last one would be at 2.30. I presume the first thing that would happen would be a letter would arrive. So I was like, I'll sit at the bottom of the stairs and then I can intercept the post. That was for about two months. I'm like, I was writing about it in my diary, but in code. And then I was like, and then it's sunny. Writing it in code in case someone read it.

Yeah, because I didn't want to scare anybody else. And then I was like, okay, I actually don't know what I'll do when I open that letter. I need to make money. If I've earned enough money so that by the time they finally get us, I can just go, okay, they're taking a benefits away, but I'm now earning more than benefits. Like, kind of then it'll be okay. And no won't be angry with me and I'll have solved the problem. So I, and the only way that I could think to earn money was what Joe does in Little Women, which is right. Like if you've got some pen and paper, right. So what I quickly want to get to is how, because you were taken out of school at 11 to be home school. Yeah, yeah. And you're 13 at this point. How did you find, because I know for

the first year you, you were at home, you kind of, you were all a bit feral. Oh, yeah. But you, how did you find little women? Oh, so, so our parents never, gave us lessons. They weren't those kind of homeschoolers. It was literally, it was child-led education. So it was just literally do what you want. So we just watched television and ate a huge amount of cheese. And I don't regret a single bite of it. It was all really good. But the first time I met Courtney Love, I walked into the studio and she went, Catlin, I used to be as fat as you. The secret is, don't eat cheese. I've not been able to take that advice. I cannot give up cheese. I regret. I don't regret a single bite of cheese I've ever had.

But the one thing our parents would do is they would take us to the library at least once a day. Because we all read so fast that often I would read, like I would have read that book in that day and then I'd go back in the afternoon and get another one. So we went to the library every book in the library. That was my education, telly and books. So you're in the library every day. Yeah. And I read everything. This is mega. Yeah.

That your parents did that. What a gift. I know. Well, they read too and like kind of, and often we would have our TVs taken away because we were renting them. We didn't have the money. So that was the only thing that we had was books. And they were readers as well. So yes, I went to the library every day and just read.

So I knew from books. The books, the information that the books gave me was, and writers are kind of pushes. Like writers always want other people to be writers. So when people are writing books, they're always going, well, you could write one too, sort of subconsciously. So I very much picked up that information from the books that I was reading. So I started to write.

My presumption was because I could read a book in a day. I would be able to write a book. That turned out not to be the case. There's a long time to write a book. I really had quite a sore hand by the end of the day. So it took me, I think, two and a half years in the end. And then I started sending it off to publishers. And the third one...

So this point, you're 15. 15 now, yeah. And the third one I send it to accept it. We'd only afford to print out one copy, so I'm having to wait for them to go out and then wait for them to come back. Who made you able to accept a no and go back and try again? Well, my crushing poverty and anxiety, El Davina, that made me keep going and take notes and go out again.

Do you have no other option, right? So you've been very open, and I think it's so important to talk. talk about you when you talk about your poverty, yes, and the situation that your family were in and how hard life was. But you saw a way out. And there is a really interesting thing. Again, I talked to Michael so much about it, about leaving and how hard it is sometimes to leave your position.

Oh, yes. In society because there is kind of a guilt, you feel a bit guilty, but you can get ashamed by other people. You feel full of shame. Could you just talk me through that journey? So, travelling up the class system, you mean? Yes. So it's interesting because then you become, I guess, sort of the nearest equivalence would be kind of like migrants and immigration and stuff, or kind of being mixed race from speaking to friends who are, you know, my husband is that children of immigrants, most of my friends are, in that you're never quite one or the other again. You are, in the end, you realize, okay, I'm both and that's great. But at the beginning, so one of the

I would repeatedly get asked when I first started writing and had a public profile was, well, what class are you now? Because, you know, you are working class? Like, you're below working class, you're underclass. But now you live in North London and you earn money. So are you middle class now? And this would fox me for a while because I'd be like, I do observe differences between people who are born middle class and people who travel through the class system. And so my answer now is to say that I'm culturally working class, but financially middle class. Yes. That's a great answer. Thank you very much. I came up with it myself. Because the difference is, I mean, it's like being able to talk two languages. is one of the things that I enjoy most in my columns in the Times,

like most readers of the Times tend to be middle class and they're quite wealthy people. And one of the things I really enjoy being able to do is translate what's happening in a working class life or existence and the problems that you face there and being able to explain it to a middle class audience. And just there's little things like, remember the first office that I ever went and worked in,

someone went, someone started a conference, a lovely woman, but started the conversation by going, where do you ski? Where? Not do you. Not do you. Where do you ski? Yeah, yeah. Because by this point I got this voice.

I'd copied this voice from the, the middle class people that I, you know, for as soon as I have two drinks, I'm just like, right back to Orvo, like, kind of like, I did not have this voice at all. And like, but people would take the piss at me. Like, oh, sit there's words, the word city. It's not city. So I adopted this voice on the train, basically on the way down. As I went through rugby, it was like, I will have this media voice. So people presumed I was middle class. And then there's other things like, I noted, like, so for instance, if we're all out eating with a bunch of friends, I will automatically presume there is someone

secretly sitting around that table who is worried about how much it's going to cost, but they will not say something. So I will always always. go, I'm paying for everybody. And that's a thing that you notice from people who are, who have traveled through, who are culturally working class, middle class, we're aware of those things. And we take people with us. We put the family on the payroll. You know, we are constantly aware that there will be other people who are worried about money at that moment. Things like worrying about how you smell. Like if you come from a poor house, you'll have the windows closed in winter and your clothes will be on a rack drying. So when you cook chips or fry an onion, your clothes, which will

already smell a bit mildewy because it takes a long time for clothes to dry on a rack because you don't have a tumble dryer will then also smell of food. So then you like the more powerful perfumes and you're trying to cover it up. I, you know, I remember all these things just worrying about smelling. We couldn't afford deodorant so I would like go and steal it from boots. Sorry boots at Wolverhampton. I'd probably owe you about 50 quid. But those are the, but now I see it. It's one of those cliches where you go. It's a superpower. Can I say something? Yeah. It is. Well, I think so. if you're a writer to understand the two worlds. And I think if you're a human, it's a superpower.

But what has been interesting was that I was middle class and then we lost everything. Yes. And I had a roof over my head and I had food on the table. So I was lucky because I know that you sometimes didn't. You weren't sure of that. Yeah, we could sometimes run out of food. We all had, I would say, issues around eating because it could just run out. So we would, when the benefits came in once a month, we'd buy.

My dad had a card that allowed him to pretend that he ran a small business and could go to the wholesale market and buy fruit and veg really cheap because they wanted us to eat well. So we'd get like a crate of oranges and a crate of apples because there were like eight children and two adults. So we had to buy in bulk. But because we knew that by the end of the month there wouldn't be any, we were all a bit like gorge. So like when the food came in, you'd be like, you know, we'd eat even if it was uncomfortable because it was like, it's going to run out soon. It was quite a sort of disordered way of eating, I think. Yeah, there were days where all we had left in the house was like flour and water. But, yeah, we never actually starved, but it was the constant worry that you might.

Yes, you might. Yeah. I mean, it's the fear. You know, we were talking about anxiety and it's fear-driven, you know, it's... Oh, totally, yeah. Well, just precariousness. It's like, it's quite a flight, isn't it? Like, kind of anxiety is a worry that you are in danger and not being able to eat is one of them.

So, but then it meant that I had written this book. And then I got a publishing deal. And that was when I learned the second big fact about books. First of all, they take more than day to write. and secondly, you don't get paid for them what I thought you would get paid. Oh, yeah, I love this. This is so funny.

Because tell everybody how much you thought authors. Oh, a million pounds. Like, if you're famous, if you've moved into media, everybody gets paid a million pounds to do everything. Like, when I wrote a sitcom, I was talking to my mother-in-law's neighbour, and he went, how much you get paid to write a sitcom? It would be like a million pounds per episode, right? You're like, no.

No one gets paid a million pounds for anything. Like, that's not what happened. So it wasn't a million pounds. It was 1,800 pounds. And so on that day... How am I going to look after my family with that? It was literally this. What?

Yeah. It was literally like it was simultaneously the best day of my life and then went yes. And the second sentence quite bad because it was like, this is three year plans. It's really, really gone wrong now. How are we going to earn the money? But I was really lucky because by the time it was published, I was 16 because it's still quite rare for a 16 year old to publish a book. Valerie Grove from the Times came to interview me. She'd sort of heard about this and was like, oh, 16 year olds written a book.

And she came to interview me to do a feature when the book came out. And after, as soon as we finished in the interview and stuff, and she'd tell the tape, quarter off. I was like, look, you've come down to Wolverhampton, you're a writer, you live in London. How do you earn money being a writer? Like, this book thing has not worked out. Should have really researched this. How do I do it? And you went, be a columnist. Then you get paid every week. You write a thing every week and go and work for a newspaper. So I was like, okay, I will take that advice and run with it. Oh, that is brilliant. Yeah. So then I entered every competition for being a journalist. I also started sending. So I sent it off to Melody Maker, the weekly music press.

And they started taking my reviews, which I get paid $28 and $42 per review, like a child at a gig. The first time I went to a gig, the first gig I ever went to, which one? I was being paid to write about. God, I can't remember what they were called. A band. A band. They were in Wolverhampton. It was whatever was happening in Wolverhampton.

And it was the first time I'd seen a mosh pit. So I'd got there two hours early with my pen and paper, ready to take notes. I'd written down the venue information. I was like, you know, I'd say it was the smashing pumpkins at Birmingham. Edwards, Birmingham, West Midlands, UK, the universe. 715, they are still not on stage. 745. Some people have come on and moved the microphones around.

literally writing everything down. Then they finally came on and everybody started going mental like leaping around and stuff and I had no idea what this was. I was right down the front my hat was coming off and I presumed it was maybe like

you know like with the gap band you do oops upside your head and everybody rose. I thought maybe this song has a special dance to it like oops upside your head and everyone jumps around to this song but then everything will go back to normal

but then the second song started and everyone was still doing it I was in my first mosh pit I had no idea so this continued I retreated to the back with my hat took my notes from the back and that was the first gig ever went to I was writing about.

So it was, and the reviews that I'd sent to Melodymaker, I'd sent two of two cool bands, whose records that I'd borrowed from the library, Happy Mondays and Jane's Addiction, but the third one was a review of the motion soundtrack to Annie, because that was my favourite songs. I would like to be a rock journalist, please, and I particularly like tomorrow from the film, Annie.

Please let me have a job. They were so shocked. I'm so weird, though, like, yeah, have a job. Is that your karaoke song? My karaoke song is Aidal Vice from The Sound of Music, which I have made people cry for them. Oh. In a bad way, Davina.

Oh. A really, really bad way. I can't get most of the length. By the time we get to bloom and grow, I'm way outside my range. It's awful. I just want to talk to you about money and specifically investing, which I know sounds scary. But if you're thinking that ship sailed, I just want to let you know it hasn't. It's never too late to start investing.

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Yes. I'm going to read you the list. I know you know it. It's your list. You wrote it in the first place, but I'm going to read it to you. You'd be astonished how much you forget about a book. Oh, really?

I fucking love this list. Thank you. Find out a way to wake up without feeling instantly anxious. So you didn't know how to do that when you wrote the list. This was like, this is what I need to do. Yeah, because I would wake up. You know that scene in Pulp Fiction where they have to like stab her in the heart with adrenaline, because she's overdosed.

I woke up every morning like this. Because as soon as I woke up It was just instant anxiety Like literally my stomach would go Like that same whoosh That I got 13 years old Was happening every morning How did you start not waking up with that

Or was that like Is that the rest of the list? That's the rest of the book Okay I'm going to keep on reading then Eat bloody breakfast Instead of having codeine under banana Yes Strong truth

Well done Well done Improve the neighbourhood Right Right Right I love the way you're talking about Picking up rubbish

Talk to me about that Have you got a litter picker? No, I'm going to get one though. After I heard about that. You get me a mosh pit friendly bra. I'll get you a litter picker. So I had spent 10 years going, why won't someone do something about this? Our streets is so filthy.

People are using my front gardeners have been. Who do I vote for? Why won't someone do something about this? Why won't someone do something about it? And I just woke up one day and this was the start of my question. I went, that someone is me. I can see it. It's outside my house.

I need to fix it. I am the change that I wish to see. And if you grew up from a generation where you played Pac-Man, and you're just going along and you've got like gobble things up. Picking up later in the streets is exactly like playing Pac-Man but for real life

you walk down the street with your litter picker and you leave behind in front of you as a filthy street that is disgusting and makes you depressed and behind you is a perfect serene street that looks like Tokyo

it's like spotless and it's just I you know now if I'm in a bad mood my husband will say have you been Litter Pickum recently and it sounds quite pastag but I'll be like

now I haven't you was like it'll do you good go and do it and I literally ring him 10 minutes later you were right you said something at the beginning of that that blew my mind

which was I am the change I want to see. Yes. I've got another quote on my wall that is, I am my own cavalry. I think we often wait. We're like, when are the cavalry coming? When's someone coming to change everything? It's like, no, you are your own cavalry. Like one of my mottoes for a really long time has been when you've complained about something three times, the second time you complained about it, you should have started doing something about it.

And it's a really careful line to balance because you don't want to sort of go into that kind of like, thatcherite Norman Tebitt thing of like, you know, solve all your problems. there is no such thing as society, but more often than not, it is probably a problem that you could solve. And you will feel really good doing it. And the litter was my gateway interchange of my life because suddenly instead of feeling powerless and waiting for the government or business or someone great to come and fix things, I was like, no, I could just do this now. That was the start of becoming hopeful. I'm looking forward to getting more little bigger. Thank you. I'll get you. Have some kind of small adventures.

See new things. Be dazzled by the world. We gain faith in it. see wonderful things that humans have done but be home in time for tea right because again I think in our age like if you've been a mother and you've been busy in your head

you've got this thing of my life hasn't started yet like once in a bit I'll have the time like once this bit of motherhood is over or once this bit of work is done something will happen in a while my proper life will start I'm just trying to clear all this stuff out the way and then I will have my proper life

and then you start getting to 15 and you're like I'm still waiting where are my adventures And in my head, an adventure would be going on fabulous mini breaks across Europe or spending six weeks, like kind of like walking through the Japanese mountains or something. And I was like, well, I can't fit those in. But like, what would give me the same feeling of just doing something a bit different? And like, and it came in conjunction with stopping wearing my headphones, which happened by accident.

I just lost them. And I realized that if you, we all wear our headphones now, everybody, it's like an episode of Doctor Who, everyone's walking around where their headphones on, looking at their phones. When I lost my headphones and I started listening to what was happening again, Suddenly you kind of tap back into the neighbourhood gossip. You suddenly, that whole thing of like, you know, people saying, I feel lonely, there is no sense of community anymore. It's because you got your headphones on. And also when you start reading, particularly in London, there's so much stuff online going, London is a city on the verge of civil war.

Like, you know, people that hate each other. Like, it's so violent and scary. It's not. Take your headphones off. And everyone's just going, you can have sausages or chicken for tea. They're on the phone to their mums. They're like playing with the baby at the back of the bus and, like, waving their keys at it. Like, you can really quickly fall back in love with humanity again.

if you take your headphones off and sit in humanity and then similarly like walking in nature like the first time I didn't wear my headphones and I sat under a tree when it was raining I was like no one else can hear this

like this is a couture moment and like suddenly it turns into like a peature moment no one else is having it oh I love that right because if I'm listening to the Beatles which is what I normally be doing obviously they're amazing but millions of people are listening to the Beatles right now

and like you can listen to that song whenever you want if you take your headphones off the exact sound of the rain at that moment and hearing people putting up their umbrellas and calling to each other and kind of running with their dogs and the smell. It was like, I've been, it feels like the world has really changed in the last 10 or 15 years. And it has in some ways, but the majority of the change that we feel and that makes us feel sad and isolated and hopeless and anxious

is that we've changed the way that we interact with the world. You know, we know what the stats are. Look at your stats on your phone, how many hours you spent on it. We are walking around with our headphones on all the time. We're making eye contact with people. If you go back to living your life as you did 15 years ago, it's amazing how much things feel like they've kind of gone back to normal. You're sort of like, oh yeah, this is how I remember life being.

I'm walking down the street and talking to people. What's crazy is that for young kids, they are seeing what life could be like. They haven't been. They don't remember it. They haven't had it. They've not experienced it. It's absolutely bonkers. Have you seen the stats, though, like so many, like 69% of people who are on social media, don't post on it.

And I have lost count of the young people I know now. who've just bought brick phones. They're like, we were told we needed to be on social media. We didn't have profiles for our jobs. People are going to check out who you are. You don't exist if you're not on social media. And we gave it 10 years and it hasn't worked. You know, the jobs are being taken away.

We're not progressing. We're not buying houses. I think it might be a lie that I need to be on social media. And they're all buying brick phones and suddenly go in, I'm going to put on a club night. Like, I'm going to actually go and see my friends. Like I'm going to do things in the real world. Like kind of where at no moment will something I've said suddenly go viral and ruin my life.

or no picture that I've posted online will be haunted me in 10 years' time and people I don't know can be talking to me at 3 o'clock in the morning. Like, I just think we're starting to realize that that is not working for us. Like I think social media point one, the first iteration is kind of over

and there might be a better one in the future. Yeah. But this one, no one likes it. No. That's the big news. No one likes it. Feel like I'm doing something useful and then you say noble.

Yes. For humanity. Now, why, what? I mean, I kind of, You know, we know what Noble means, but what does it mean to you? Well, there's this thing called, I always forget what the word is, but there's this thing called the hierarchy of need. Yes. And so the first one is you need to be safe.

You need like a roof over your head and you need food. So that's the first one. And then it goes up the hierarchy and so you need to have done something that is inspiring in that day. You need to in some way connect with something bigger, whether that be nature or culture. And the top of it is that you need to make sure that you've done something for other people. And it's amazing how often I talk to someone who feels really bad and like their life is bad and that they don't have enough. And they go, how can I fix this problem?

And I go, you do have needs and we'll address those as well. But have you ever tried doing something for someone else first? It's amazing how that actually makes you feel better than doing something for yourself sometimes. Like it's the magic source that kind of like, because then you're seeing someone else's happiness, especially if you're having problems with registering happiness yourself, if you've got anhedonia where you're not feeling any emotions anymore. What's that?

So that's a big thing. that people started talking about after lockdown that because Anhadonia is where you have no emotions so you're not depressed particularly you're not particularly anxious but you're also not joyful you just have turned off all your emotions

usually after a traumatic event and the rising people they're being sort of diagnosed with Anhadonia really sort of took off after lockdown so being in that emotion of state so sometimes it's really hard to make yourself happy if you shut down all your emotions but the quickest way to feel your own happiness

is to see it in the face of someone else that's a short circuit that gets you back in contact with your emotions again. So just it's, I always never want to sound pious. But, you know, but when you reconnect with those old truths, like, if you want to make yourself happy, you make someone else happy is. Okay, so invent a way of this one, this is big for me. So invent a way to keep up with news that doesn't shag my mental health. And that, so with news, I think also as well, this is a conversation about it.

So they're kind of, in my social circle generally, We are all left-wing progressive people who believe and will frequently say one of the downsides of living in the modern era is that most people do not know that much about politics and how it works. And if people were more informed about how politics worked and were more abreast of the news, they would be able to make more informed choices when they vote. It is kind of your moral duty as a liberal leffering person to consume as much news as possible. And that's a very big part of the reason why I was very anxious because once they started to deep what news is, so news is bad news. generally. Like there was that thing in newsrooms where they go, if it bleeds, it leads. So, for instance, if someone went into a hospital and shot up 10 people and they died, that's worldwide headlines. But of course, in that same hospital the day before, one surgeon might have saved the lives of 30 people and did it the day before and the day before. But that will never be news headlines because it's slow and good. And there's no single image. It's not incident. It's a baseline reality. And there's that saying that you can hear the axe hit the tree, but you can't hear the forest grow. And that's generally what our news coverage is. We don't see that everyday progress is in good things that are happening and everything that's working.

We only hear about what doesn't work. And 30 years ago, there was a news reader called Nicholas Wichel who suggested that we have a certain amount of good news on it on the broadcasts every day. He was like, people need to have some positive news. What is working? What legislation has worked? Where have wars stopped? Where have things improved? And all the bad boys of news were like, that's soppy.

One of the quotes, which I think from Jeremy Paxman was, even if it makes our viewers want to open a vein, they need to see that news. but we can see that people's consumption of news has massively dropped because people don't want to watch news and makes them open a vein and so then they go and search for other news. And what I think is interesting, I think that we used to get, and finally,

but it was banar, rubbish. Yeah, it was a dog-out skateboard. And actually, what I want, I mean, I follow lots of accounts now of great things that are happening around the world. There are some amazing things to do with the climate, to do with energy, to do with love, to do with like so many beautiful things

that we don't hear about that would be great and finally is on the news. Well, not also the fact that the news is then followed by the sport and I can remember Yoko Ono saying 30 years ago just kind of like, why is it the news and then the sport? Why isn't it then culture? Why are we not knowing if someone has written an incredible poem or a beautiful song?

Why is it always football? Kind of like questioning what it is that you get and then what the effect is. Did you go and say that? Yeah. That's fascinating. Good on Yoko. Yeah.

So once I finally got over, I was like, am I allowed as a liberal progressive woman who works in the media to stop watching as much news as I do? Can I become less informed? What would happen if I did that if I forego my ferocious news consumption? And the plan I came up with was that I would only read the papers on Sunday, the weekend papers, because often something that's happening on Monday where everyone's going, why have you not posted about this? Where's your solution to what's happening in the Sudan? By Wednesday, some governments have talked to each other. And by Sunday, it's like, oh yeah, they seem to be finding out of way.

So I was being alerted incorrectly that I need to do something about Sudan on Monday because the governments in the UN have sorted it up by the weekend. And secondly, local news is something, like, until very recently, all we would ever have really consumed would be local news. What was happening in our village and, like, two villages away. That's kind of what humans are built to be able to understand. You know, we'd hear every so often if Napoleon was on the march again in Europe. But generally by and large, local news is what we're built to understand.

And local news isn't just bad news. You know, my local people will have, you know, murders and stabbings and, you know, terrible things that have happened. But it also has good news. It goes, this girl has gone to university. Here's a girl that's cut off all her hair and giving it to cancer research. And new bakery is opened. Here is a new cycle lane. And first of all, you get a spread of news, good and bad.

You see progress. You see things changing and happening. And secondly, that's the news that affects your actual life. Like, the amount of people that I know that are really drowning in the amount of news that they read in current affairs and are like, everything's terrible. Like, I feel so awful about this. But like, without being unfeeling and you must, you know, campaign and send money to charities, it's that helping people and stuff. You making yourself genuinely mentally ill, worrying about things that are happening in other countries, is it actually affecting you? Because for you to now become so ill and so withdrawn from your old life that your friends are concerned about you is really a weird kind of narcissism.

It's empathy that turns into narcissism. Honestly, you talk so much sense. Thank you. It is amazing. I love listening to you. Oh, thank you. I'm so happy to be here. But it's mega.

feel part of something like a community but without any way being part of a community as this triggers massive social anxiety. Now that's quite interesting. Explain what you mean by that. So I don't like being part of a community.

I'm one of those slightly misanthropic people who's a bit like oh I don't want to be part of a gang or like kind of like carouled into things or I think we've all seen community WhatsApp. It's like enforced. Yes. And also Those kind of power plays that happen when you're in kind of one of those community WhatsApp, like on your street or someone who's doing a street party. And it starts off all cheerful. And then someone's bitching about someone else.

And then someone's making a bid to take it over. And it all just gets a bit political and stuff. It's not community. Those kind of communities tend to be a bit toxic. Whereas being part of a community by like, you know, with the litter picking, you know, the amount of conversation, you know, I'm making things better. I can do it when I want to. No one's my boss. No one's critiquing what I'm doing.

And I'm having really lovely conversations. And you're not having to tow a party line either. And also a lot of people are really socially anxious. Like one of the bad things about being home educated is you almost, I can tell someone who's been home educated at a party because we're hovering at the edges. Yeah. We're hovering at the edges of a party. We're having to drink quite heavily and quite quickly in order to feel relaxed. And we don't quite know how to make small talk because we never had to make small talk because we just were with our school talk. So you never learned to kind of go into a room and make small talk in like a cantiscoll canteen or in the playground because we just spent all our time with people who essentially got the same face as us. So did you make friends outside of school then? By drinking very heavily. and at the edges of parties. Well, that was when I became a journalist, the whole idea of interviewing people. I really, I saw that.

The PRs for the bands saw it as me spending an hour with Evan Dando from the Lemonheads and then me writing a feature. I saw it as a chance for Evan Dando to find out what a great person I was and then go, sure we be friends. And I kind of thought that was what an interview was. So I would go back and listen to the first couple of interviews

that I did and turn it on and it would just be going, it would be me, he'd be starting to say something really heartfelt in person. And I go, that's really funny you said that because something like that happened to me. Anyway, let me tell you about me for 10 minutes, so you get to know how great I am. So, yes, the interviews are not very good. Were you friends with Devondando?

No, we once walked around Kensington Park for about two hours, feeding some ducks. And he was very sad. And then he sat down and played his guitar, and I sang along with him very badly. Wait, he sat down and played your guitar. Yeah. That was very sweet.

I know. Interviews aren't like that now. Although they are sometimes, like when I went to an interview lady, The only time ever in my history of thinking that someone would be my friend when I interviewed them happened when it was Lady Gaga, which was the most unexpected one. So at the height of her fame, I went out to interview her. And I was horrible, I missed my plane.

I was horribly late. I thought she'd be furious and would give me five minutes. And instead, 20 minutes into the interview, she went, hey, you're really cool. What are you doing after this interview? Like, kind of, do you want to go and hang out at a club when I've done my gig? And I was like, I would very much, yes, like to do that, Lady Gaga. So she finished the gig, which was amazing. and then she came up, she was still in her stage gear

so she was in bra pants, fishnet tights, and then Alexander McQueen Cape, and we got into a blacked out SUV, drove through the streets of Berlin, went down the street where the doors closed behind us, and entered this club that was unlike anything I've ever seen. At this point, I'm 32 and a mother of two. And I'm with her British PR,

who's just this gongy indie boy, who's my friend. And we look in this club and, like, I mean, I don't know what language and images I can give you, but it's a full-on-Burban sex club. So there's, like, bathtubs and chains and kind of like a lot of business going on. The men are having their time. And me, I turned to her PR and went,

oh my God, you can smoke in here. Everyone's smoking indoors. It's the only thing we noticed. It's like, you can light up in here. Wow, Berlin's so free and easy. Literally brought out the cell cut smoking away and stuff as everyone was kind of like. And you're with the Garga.

And again, if you go out with a famous person, what happens is they go and sit in a VIP booth and their people go and get the drinks and your kind of VIP booth all night. Gargar is not like that. Gargar walks up to the bar, turns around to the entire club and goes, what's everyone having?

Gets in around for everyone, then reaches into her bra and brings that a fistful of euros and puts them on the table to pay for it and then just spends the whole night getting, we just got very drunk. We were going twos on a fag. At one point she's lying with her head in my lap

and I'm sort of putting the cigarette in her mouth which is really hang in. And at about two in the morning she goes, do you want to come to the toilet with me? And I was like, well, this must be drugs. I have not done drugs for 20 years. I don't even know what the drugs are now, how to take them.

But I'm here and it's a story and it's Gaga. I will go to the toilet. So we go to the VIP toilet and she closes and locks the door and I'm like, oh God, what am I going to do? And she goes, I noticed you're wearing a jumpsuit with a zip down the back and they're really hard to unzip on your own. And I presumed you would need a wee right now. So I just thought I'd unzip your jumpsuit for you. And I was like, that is so lovely. That's so thoughtful.

But also very awkward because then obviously she unzipped me and then I have to like take it down just in a bra, do a wee while talking to her eye contact, eye contact. And then we got to the end and I needed to wipe and I reached around for the toilet paper keeping eye contact. and she simply reached the other side where there was a pile of fluffy towels and handed me one and was like, wipe with this. And I was like, wow, this is where it's like to be a mega start. You wipe your fanny on a special fluffy towel. Then she sat on the toilet and she just simply hoaked her tints and guss it to one side and we threw them. And then I passed her a towel. I'm like, I've learnt the ways of the VIP toilet.

And she went to her, no, no, no, no. Just going to shake my lettuce. She just shook her lettuce. Can I just say something? I love Lady Gaga. Love Lady Gaga. But that has made me adore her. You and her would get on like a house on fire.

What a woman. I know. Well, to keep tabs on my bladder to work out when I needed a week. She is everything. Right. She's just played to like 50,000 little monsters and then she's got also got tabs on my bladder. I love telling my lady to go out of that story. What a woman.

Okay, last one. Stop Dreading Winter. This is a really interesting one because I do that. Really? Yes. I am, please give me some vitamin D, sunshine. I need a long day. I can't stand getting dark at three.

Well, also, when it's sexist, if you're a woman, kind of like, you know, we know generally, you know, we are constantly being told he is not safe to go out when it's dark. So you suddenly... Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. Do you know what I did? Go on.

When we went through, I mean, a phase, we're always scared of walking the dark. Yes. But I think it was at its peak, basically. and I walked down behind a woman and I was like, I'm just letting you know that I'm a woman and I'm walking behind you and you're safe.

She turned around and she looked and she went, thanks so much. Anyway, she wrote me a letter. Oh. And she said, I work at a shelter. Oh. And I was like, oh, God, I didn't know that. But she said, thanks.

And I told the girls about that and we're all going to do that for the other one. And I thought, oh, God, this is what we were talking about one person. Yeah. You know, you're talking about community. felt like I'm not not picking up Elizabeth, that was something that I felt good about, because she told me she appreciated it afterwards. And then she's told other people to go do it.

So this is the best thing about humans, like kind of like, you know, you can't change the world, but everyone could change one tiny thing. Like it's something we've been complaining about and we come up with a solution to it. And then you tell someone and tell someone. And suddenly just one normal person has come up with one little solution to one tiny thing. And then someone else comes up with a solution to another tiny thing. And suddenly, you know, humanity and culture and what we do in society is like a patchwork quilt, we can also one tiny little square come up with one little solution and patch it all together.

And just the power of just coming up with one solution and spreading it is like that's the ultimate point of being a human. Find one tiny problem. If you've solved one tiny problem in your life and leave the world fractionally better than when you found it when you were born, your job is done. Yes. And when people go, you know, what is the meaning of life? Why are we here? It's that. Find one thing that you make better in your life.

And that's the meaning of life. I mean, you've helped a lot of people with your books and also with your television, just by being you, I think. But when you talk about hope and being hopeful, this book, did it help you in the end? Are you feeling? Are you in a better place? Did it work? Well, this is where, again, with my powers of ADHD, having said an hour ago, there were two times in my life where I began again. The first one when I was, I was 13, and I had that first time. burst of anxiety. And that, I call it my best bad friend in the book, because it does. If you are anxious, I was, I was proud of my anxiety. I felt superior in my anxiety. I was like, I wake up every

morning and I have that, but then I'm full of amphetamines and terror. And that means I can work really fast. Like, I can do anything. Like, I can work. Give me this, you know, nine books in 10 years and a sitcom and a film and like stand-up tours and all these things in two columns a week. I believe that was all because I was anxious. So I was like, well, I can. I can. I can work. I embrace my anxiety. And also, I think the smart people are anxious because it just makes you get on and do things and we're hypervigilant. We're aware of how precarious things are. So we're keeping ourselves and our friends and our family safe with our hyper productivity.

And I've found a brilliant method for doing this. And then I got to 49 and I'd never known what really what anxiety was. And so the adrenaline is made in your adrenal gland, which is just above your kidneys. It's a tiny little kind of like triangular gland that looks like a little cap that they would wear in the French Revolution. and I became aware of it because it had clearly burnt out. Like I was just so constantly flooded with adrenaline. I was like my skin was haggard. My guts were, I'm not going to tell you about my toilet troubles, Devinia, but they were mighty.

If you're constantly flooded with adrenaline, it's not a good news down there. And I was just like, I can't be this scared anymore. Like I am going to have to change. I'm going to have to break up with anxiety. And I went and talked to my husband and my family and I went, look, I think I'm going to become much more stupid now because I believe the anxiety makes me smart. I think I'm going to earn a lot less money because that's what keeps me hyperproductive

so we're going to be a lot poorer but mummy can't be anxious anymore I'm going to stop this so I went and talked to my doctor and told him my problems he immediately was aghast that I had not come and talk to him years before and been given beta blockers

which will immediately stop you producing adrenaline so as soon as you wake up and feel that first you take a beta blocker you don't feel I was like it's not going to make me wiggie it's not like taking a valium or anything is it he was like no it just literally stops you producing

adrenaline So I would take one, forget I'd taking it, and then 10 minutes later, be like, oh, I feel calm and normal and safe. I didn't realize how unsafe the anxiety actually made me, because if you're constantly producing adrenaline, your body is saying you're in danger. And while you keep letting it do that and you don't address it, you're going, yeah, you are in danger. Keep producing that amphetamine. As soon as I stopped it, I felt physically and mentally and emotionally safe. And I am embarrassed to tell you how quickly I stopped being anxious. It took two weeks.

And the thing I realized, I realized two things. First of all, that when that anxiety came, it was a good friend to me. I don't think I would have made it out of Wolverhampton and got the job and the life that I've got without it. But that was like my industrial era. Like, that's when you're burning coal and fuel and oil to get out. When we invented factories, they burnt on dirty fuels. But you can't run on those dirty fuels forever. At some point, you need to convert to something cleaner, like solar.

and taking anxiety out is like removing the dirty fossil fuels and running on something cleaner and lighter. And secondly, I became really angry about everything that I was reading around anxiety because if we look at the rates of their diagnosis for anxiety disorders, it's gone through the roof. And you hear people calling themselves, and even professionals referring to people as anxious people. And there is no such thing as an anxious person.

Yes. We're not born anxious. At some point something happens that makes us anxious, but it's supposed to be a transitionary state. You're supposed to use the message in the anxiety, learn something from. it, change your life and then go back to being normal again. Yeah.

And this is where we're talking about like, again, going into a perfect circle back to the beginning, why labels often make me feel really scratchy. I would feel very unhappy if a 13 year old was told, you are an anxious person. And we will now put you on medication and we will not address that, but you're just an anxious person and take this medication forever. Instead of saying, you're a normal person who's suffering from some anxiety and we're going to get you over to the other side of it. And so I've become quite evangelical about this now.

Whenever I do live shows, I'm like, when I start talking about, I think I can recognise other anxious people. I call them cortisol kids. Anybody who at a young age had that first rush of cortisol and they're still hypervigilant 30 years later and I can spot them a mile off. So in a gig I'll go, who's anxious? And they put their hands up and I'm like, okay, I saw you.

I knew. And I'm like, I've got some news for you. This doesn't have to be the rest of your life. Like, you know, no one was more anxious than me. Like there were gigs where 30 seconds before I was supposed to be on stage, I was lying face down behind the safety curtain, like hyperventilating, just going, and then the curtain would start to go up

and it'd be like, right, up, And no one would know. I was so cheerful and relaxed. I was fine being on stage, but there was just the bit before you go on stage, you're like, what if it goes wrong? What if I say the wrong thing? What if someone hates me? I didn't even know what I was scared of.

And having removed the anxiety from my body, I now, everything feels so much easier. I wish I'd done it 30 years earlier. But maybe it wasn't the right time. Maybe you needed to do something in those 30 years that showed. Yeah. I want to talk to you about Peter. Yes, Pete. and how you met because I love this idea that he, when you were writing a column, wrote you a sort of like fan letter.

Oh, this is all so Richard Curtis. Yeah, it is perfectly Richard Curtis. It's really Richard Curtis. And when you wrote the article, tell everybody a mindset. So I was entering lots of writing competitions and I won the Observer's Young Reporter of the Year competition and they gave me a column for the duration of the summer holiday. days and the first column I wrote was and the purpose was absolutely distinct in my mind

I was like this is my first piece in the national newspaper I'm going to write a piece that makes someone fall in love with me so I'm going to write a piece describing going up town and sitting on the piece of grass outside St. Peter's Cathedral and watching boys going by and I'm going to describe the kind of boys I like and my writing is going to be so brilliant and funny and tender and

fabulous that anyone he reads it will fall in love with me. But he manifested. I manifested. I manifested. I manifested a man. I manifested. I know. I Peterfest did my Pete. And so he was going out, he was in the death throes of his relationship with his then-girlfriend at the time and he read this piece in the observer and he read it out down the phone to her going,

isn't this a brilliant piece of writing? And she said, you're going to go out with her. You're going to break up with me and go out with her. And he was like, well, I've never even met her. I know, she. Yeah, well, women are smart, right, they know. I don't think he realised, but she did. That is so.

But how long was it before you actually met? It was about six months later. and we went to, we both interviewed the same bands. I was interviewing them for The Times, and he was interviewing them for Melody Maker. And so we met sort of, you know, sort of in the holding bit, waiting to go and interview the band.

And then when I'd finished the interview, the interview had really run over, and I was still living in Wolverhampton with my parents at the time. And I was like, I got on the chair, he was like, I'll take you to Houston Station. And halfway on that tube journey, because it was in Hammersmith, I realized I was going to miss my train.

So I just said to him, this sounds really weird, but like, I'm going to miss my train, can I stay at your house? And he went, yeah, but you just need to know a big secret about me and at that point obviously you're worrying and going is he a murderer

I am a murderer I've got boredies under the floorboards but are you okay with that and that point I would have said yes because he had no other option and he went I really love and I'm going putting dead skin on your face

Crowded House and I went I love crowded house too and that was a secret because at Melody Maker it was only about cool bands And if either us had ever admitted that at the cool rock mag that we loved, crowded house, you were too melodic, it would have been the end.

So I was like, I love them too. So then we started singing their songs to teach other, and we went back and listened to them. And by about 2 o'clock in the morning, I was like, why won't this man kiss me? This is so rude. I am here. Why won't he kiss me?

And he left the room, and I was like, he's going to get himself ready for some sex here. And he said he came back, and he brought his toothbrush and some toothpaste, and his nightwear, which was a Victorian-style wee-witty-winky nightgown. And he went, don't laugh at it. My mum bought it me. You wear this, you sleep in my bed, I'm going to sleep on the sofa.

And in the morning he'd gone, but he'd gone round the corner and had bought a carton of tropicana orange juice, the classy kind, not from a concentrate, and a croissant, which I had never seen before. You'd never seen a croissant. How old were you? 17. Amazing. I didn't know pastry technology had made layers. I had no idea you can make it in a semicircular shape. And then we start going out with each other for about three or four months.

And then I was offered the opportunity to present a TV show on Channel 4, a late night. music show that was the sort of summer replacement to the word. With Terry... I co-presented it with Johnny Vaughn. Johnny Vaughn, that was it. I was going to say Terry Christian, but it was Johnny Vaughn't it. And Pete came up to me and just sort of went the sort of day before we started filming it and he went, look, you're 17, you're about to be really famous.

I love you. But you're about to go through a huge experience and you shouldn't be going out with someone. You're going to meet loads of people. Like, you should go out there, like date, like kind of like, go and have your adventure. Go and be famous. if you still want me, you know, I'll always be your friend, but if you still want me at the end of that, then I'll just be here.

Who does that? I know. Who actually does that? And you know, like, he was so right to do that. Totally this. Totally this. I went on a mat. You know, when you first get famous, you do go a bit mad and you just do turn into a bit of an asshole. I would have been a terrible person to go out with.

So I went and dated for two years and went out with some terrible people. And then when I finally broke up with my horrible boyfriend, I just sort of turned back up on his door and went, okay, I've done my dating. I've done my adventureing. Can I come back with you? He was clever because he knew nobody would be as lovely as him. I know. And that's the power of a man who appears to be fluffy and gentle and kind in a beta,

but is secretly an alpha in disguise. He was a very, very confident man. He just sat there and waited. So attracted. And that's 33 years. Well done. Very good. How long have you been together?

33 years. 33 years. Yeah. And the way you talk about him, it's still. He's the one person. I was trying to, like, I never think about him. It's usually weird. When I was trying to explain to him, he went, this sounds really bad.

I was like, everyone else I'm trying to figure them out all the time. I have conversations with them in my head. Like, I'm trying to figure them out and everything. And I dream about them. And you are the only person I never dream about. And I never think about you because I don't have to work anything out about you. Just when I'm with you, it's just perfect piece. You never worry.

No. You know. Yeah. You've got the knowing. Well, that's the created house lyric that we sang at each other was. it's not the girl you think you are and it goes, Neil Finn's singing about a man

and you're going, he'll be no trouble. And that's, he is no trouble. He has, he is no trouble. He's all calmness and sweetness. I'm just so.

And I don't think, you know, for all my feminism, I do not think I would have been able to do what I've done without being with him. This is what I loved about how to be a woman

is that you appealed to my sense of feminism in that it's an inclusive thing. It's not exclusive of men. I just want to be given the same opportunities and be paid the same amount of money as you and have a fair go at life. But with you? Yes. Like alongside you. Well that was the whole thing. When I was trying to work out how I was going to conclude the book having written all these things about being a woman,

I was like, you know, it's all about even though there are problems of being a woman and problems with being a man, we're all just people. Like I'm not pro-women particularly or anti-men. I just thumbs up for the eight-th billion. For humans. Yeah. Yeah. That's. Let's be great people together, all together. I just want to be a great human being and I want men to be as great as us and for us all to have the same opportunities as possible.

But I'm very, I was amazed when I sold the book to my publishers and they were like, how to be a woman, we better hope a lot of women buy this because no man will ever buy it. And after the first two weeks, I started getting all these stories from women. He were like reading it on the tube, but hidden behind like a copy of Exchange and Mart or auto trader because they knew that they have people going,

how to be a woman, why are you reading that? But they were like, which kind of blew my mind. They were like, we're reading it like a ha. manual. Yes. Like, we, you're explaining, brilliant to me.

Like, I don't, like the big one they would always go is the chapter where you go, I've got nothing to wear, where you go, what do women really mean when they say I've got nothing to wear?

And what we, and he's like, she's got a wardrobe full of clothes. She's got loads to wear. And it's like, no, she's got nothing to wear for who she's got to be today. Today, she's got to go

from the school gate to a really powerful meeting and then a party. And we've got to be two or three people in the way that we dress that day. So when she's opening her wardrobe, she's going, I have no one, I have no clothes, I have nothing to wear for the person,

a specific person I've got to be today. Whereas men don't really have that problem because they just get up. They go wear the same stuff. And they put their trousers on and then leave. So it's like, so that's, you know. So that's, so they were just reading this stuff going, now I finally understand what my wife means when she's saying that and the floor is covered with clothes.

And they just read it like a manual in the same way that you'd read the manual for a Ford gear, which I found very pleasing. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. just for everything that you've bought all of us. Every book that you've written, every column that you write, for speaking our language, for educating us, for showing us funny things and moving things or putting it in a way that we can digest.

I'm really grateful for you. Don't make me cry. No, I really mean it. I just want to say thank you. Caitlin Moran, everybody. Oh my God, you're going to have to come back for Part 2. I'm ready for it. We need it.

We need part two. So just in case you missed this episode here, if you love this episode, I know you're going to love that.