How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S6, Ep1 How to Fail: Camilla Thurlow

Episode Date: September 25, 2019

We're back! Did you miss us? Go on...say you did. I'm really very, very needy.It's such a treat for me to be opening season six with a truly fantastic guest: Camilla Thurlow. Camilla was always one of the most genuine and impressive contestants on ITV2's hit reality show, Love Island. A former bomb disposal expert who worked in life and death situations in Cambodia and Afghanistan, she came second in the 2017 series. Instead of launching a clothing line or advertising detox tummy teas, Camilla went on to use her new-found public platform to talk about issues close to her heart: namely, the immigration crisis and mental health. Her first trip after Love Island was to a refugee camp with the contestant she coupled up with, Jamie Jewitt (oh, and by the way, they are still together).Set aside any preconceptions you might have about reality TV and listen to the wisdom this extraordinary woman imparts about love, loss and human connection. We talk about her periods of extreme anxiety and panic as she was forced to confront who she really was rather than the Camilla she was trying to be. We talk about the challenges of public expectation and the fear of not living up to other people's idea of her. We talk about social media, turning 30 and her ingrained fear of making a fool of herself. We also talk about a near-fatal car accident and the unexpected lessons it taught her.I am so grateful to Camilla for opening up to me and for showing that strength comes through an acknowledgement of - and respect for - vulnerability. I know that you will find so much to relate to in what she says.Thank you for listening. It's great to be back.*I am thrilled to be taking How To Fail on tour around the UK in October, sharing my failure manifesto with the help of some very special guests. These events are not recorded as podcasts so the only way to be there is to book tickets via www.faneproductions.com/howtofail* The Sunday Times Top 5 bestselling book of the podcast, How To Fail: Everything I've Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong by Elizabeth Day, is out now and is available here.*This season of How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp and sponsored by Sweaty Betty. Sweaty Betty are offering listeners 20% off full-price items with the code HOWTOFAILTo contact us, email [e-mail]* Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayCamilla Thurlow @camillathurlow Sweaty Betty @sweatybetty    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist

Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. Camilla Thurlow is much, much more than a former Love Island contestant, but that might be how you first came to know her. She appeared on ITV2's hit reality show in 2017, went on that much overused phrase, a journey, and came second after partnering up with fellow contestant Jamie Dewitt. The two of them are still together, which for diehard romantics and reality television obsessives like me is utterly thrilling. Before Love Island, Thurlow worked for the Halo Trust and was involved in humanitarian mine clearance as an explosive ordnance disposal expert. The job meant her social life was dislocated by long spells spent abroad.

The reason she went on Love Island, Thurlow said at the time, was to try and rectify that. on Love Island, Thurlow said at the time, was to try and rectify that. This she achieved, but Thurlow was also keen to use her newfound profile for good. Within days of leaving Love Island, she visited a refugee camp and continues to be passionate about raising awareness among her 1.4 million Instagram followers of both the ongoing migrant crisis and mental health. More recently, she's been using social media for a slightly different reason, to share some of her own excellent poems, which tackle the trials and tribulations of modern life. I tried to find a quote here to insert, and I couldn't choose just one because I like them all too much. Instead, here's something she said in an interview with The Times two years ago

about why she went from landmine clearance into Love Island and how it changed her life. We don't have to only do and be one thing, she said. We don't have to fit into a box. Camilla Thurlow, welcome to How to Fail. Hello, thank you so much for having me. Oh, it's such a pleasure to have you here. And you warned me before I read that introduction that you're not very good at people saying nice things about you. So I hope that wasn't too excruciating. But it's all factual.

I mean, factual with a very pleasant twist is how I'd put it but yes thank you so much that's very kind I love that thing you say about not having to be just one thing and not having to fit in a box because I think it's something that gets leveled at women particularly this idea that we can only be either a reality tv contestant or a landmine disposal expert yeah I think it's a real interesting one because I can only speak from the experience of being a woman but I did feel it throughout my life that there was an idea that once you started doing one thing people found it really difficult if you started expressing an interest in another thing and what I found quite interesting about that is that you were sometimes sort of held to decisions that you had made at a time where you weren't sure what you wanted to do. So, you know, I really feel it for young people now

when they're talking to people about what they're going to do for their exams and what they want to be. And I remember being so, so unsure and making decisions and then realising a year later that they weren't quite right and then feeling like that was a failure in itself, just to have made that wrong choice, even though it felt right at the time. And reality television has its detractors. I mean, I'm not one of them. I love all sorts of reality TV, and I'm an inveterate fan of Love Island. But what do you make of it as a genre now, looking back at your own experience? I mean, I think it's got a very real role at the moment in terms of we've gone through the last few years have felt in terms of politics, in terms of climate change, quite depressing and often quite divisive.

And that's been quite interesting to see play out, particularly on that social media stage, in that sometimes, you know, particularly with what goes on with some of the American politicians, not naming any names, but we can feel like we're sort of one tweet away from international disaster. What's sort of interesting is that reality TV, because it's real people, I think there's enough in there emotionally, there's enough there that touches people so directly that they can relate to, that it can be very all encompassing, it can really draw you in, but then it's light enough that you don't get home sort of at the end of a very long workday, having read a rather depressing news article on the train and feel like it's another chore another thing you have to do it feels like an escape and I think well actually I do that quite a lot I escape into other people's

real lives I think that's yeah it gives us a common ground and it's something that can feel like it binds us together in a time that does feel like we're all kind of being set apart this sort of rise of individualism and everyone being very autonomous and that's brilliant in so many ways, but it's also that I think we are all looking for a way to find a community that we can feel engaged in. So yeah, for me, reality TV, I think we have to talk about it in as many different ways, many different subjects that it brings up,

but I don't think it should be something that we just decide to write off based on one thing that we might disagree with it. There's reasons why it's necessary and reasons why it's interesting and it obviously makes people normal people famous as it did with you yes and I wonder how you feel generally about failure but but specifically how you feel about it now that you're recognizable and people know who you are yeah I mean that that brings a whole new terrifying aspect to it but I have to say I've gone through my whole life feeling pretty terrified of failure I don't think it'd be right to say now that that's a product of being famous if that makes sense I actually think it's a huge amount

more to do with the kind of rise of social media and that's why I particularly feel like young people have a very difficult time now living in that age where the end result and the end product of something is so important because you're kind of always performing and creating your life and how you show it to other people and we've lost a bit of that ability to just do something because we enjoy it and feel all right about not being the best at it and there's you know certainly I personally have issues with that anyway but there's a really good book in Jamie Bartlett's book about people versus tech where he talks about knowing that everyone can always see what you're doing and what you're saying gives you the sense of like you have to self-censor the entire time and so we sort of lost that ability to be discursive or to even kind

of exercise our skills in moral judgment or change our minds from the ideas that we were taught when we were younger change like let them be evolving things and it is hard to put nuance into like 140 characters I think that we have made it harder to fail I think we've made failure way more visible in general for everyone and yes I did feel that much more so post Love Island, but I don't think that's just me. I think that that's a sign of our times very much so. I totally agree with you about the fact that ambivalence has been squeezed out of the national discourse, it feels like.

So you're not allowed to say, I'm not sure how I feel like that, or I feel a bit conflicted about this. You have to have a cast iron binary opinion. Yes, yeah. And then you're held to that opinion. It's because like it's very much true that what is it? It's the social network where they say the internet's written in ink. You can be judged on a tweet that you put up when you were 16,

which might be, you know, for me that's now a long time ago, but it could be a couple of years ago that you could totally have changed your mind on. And a lot of the time it's important to recognize that people's opinions are a product of their environment and I find it really interesting now actually talking about that side of things so I will sometimes receive messages when people disagree with things that I have done and it's obviously very visible in a public space so on my Instagram for example and they'll open the message with something like I am just so disappointed in you and spend like the majority of the message coming across with it almost like an attacking or an aggressive tone

and then come to their point which is so important it's something that I wanted to know or something that's informative or something that might not change my mind but make me think about it differently and I think when did we start thinking that the best way to engage in constructive conversation was to just sort of hammer home how and there's nothing worse I mean we all had it when we were kids than someone telling you they're disappointed in you it immediately puts you onto a back foot and I think it's really important that we recognize that what we're saying can be much more powerful if we try and I think it's really important that we recognize that what we're saying can be much more powerful if we try and come at it with this idea that people may know and they may have decided differently to us and that's okay and people might not know that information

and it'll be great if we could use those spaces in a bit more of a constructive manner just listening to you talk I'm just like oh my gosh you just speak so phenomenally and like those love island contestants who were there your year must have I mean I watched it and there was a sense that you were very unlike the usual contestants such as there is one I mean we're all very different yeah and I remember I mean I know we're going back to two years but I remember that you did talk about issues that were important to you in the villa yeah Most notably with Johnny. I'm making a face because I don't have good memories of him and how he treated you.

But him saying that feminism had won all of its battles. And you very politely, with compassion, and a sense of where he might be coming from, pointed out exactly why he was entirely incorrect. And I think that topic is one which has suffered particularly from this idea of divisive rhetoric. People found it so hard to own the word feminist for such a long period of time,

not really to do with the values that it was about because I think it's very, very difficult to argue against equality. I struggle to see a strong argument against that. But it was more to do with what the word had become associated with. And I think that's got to be something that we think about in terms of then how do we, why are we so owned by our ideas of what something is about before we know actually the details of what it is. So like if we take a top level of something, and then we'll make decisions based on that top level. So we're told is wrong and that is right and and we do get served like these binary sort of visions right

from the word go I think I wrote in my thing about this but I find it really strange how in fairy tales you know from when you're really young there's like the good fairy and the bad fairy and not the fairy who's quite nice and sometimes has a few too many glasses of rose on a Friday night you know like we're taught that there's the good and the bad and there's no in between when I don't think any of us feel like that's true and so I don't see how we can think that's true of the world around us either if it's not true of us as individuals how can it be true of the collective preach let's get on to your failures because otherwise I'm just going to be totally distracted by hearing what you want to say about everything um and your first one is that it took you

four attempts to pass your driving test. But there is a far bigger story around this. So tell us what the story is. So my birthday is a summer birthday. So I turned 17 beginning of July. And I used to go away to school. So I just had this kind of summer holiday where I thought I'll practice, I'll learn how to drive. And by the end of the the holiday I'll know how to drive and I'll take my test and so I did that and I failed my first attempt I was incredibly nervous and I had a little bit of an iffy start because I used to have this lovely driving instructor I'm Scottish and he was this lovely little Scottish man who used to call me Wee Camilla and because I'm so small he used to always have set up the seat for me my driving instructor before I arrived so he'd have pulled it all the way forward and then he had a

little cushion for me because otherwise I couldn't reach the pedals and so I'd never done it before I'd never set up my seat I always arrived and he'd done it for me and the day I got in for my test I think the examiner must have done it but I don't know who had pushed the seat all the way back and I'd never moved it before so I sort of put my foot up being like maybe I'll be able to reach and I was about a foot away from the pedals and so I pulled up the side lever and then the whole chair folded up with me inside and smacked my head against the steering wheel and yeah basically it wasn't a great start and so then I went on and I failed that test unsurprisingly and he was very nice to the examiner he said that you know you're very close like you just need to go away and just get a bit

more confident do a bit more practice and then give it another go and I went back to school a few days later and obviously it was my final year of school I had my big exams I didn't spend any time driving it wasn't the focus and then at the very end of that school year I had a training camp I had the lacrosse under 19 world championships coming up and I'd had to go away on my last night of school for a training camp and then I was picked up in the middle of the night when I got back from Edinburgh airport I was being driven home and to get to where I live in Scotland there's a valley that you go through called the Dalvin pass and we clipped the curb and then went straight off the edge, like forwards over the edge and rolled until we landed upside down. And the driver's side smashed out and they were able to get out and get on the phone and call the emergency services.

But my side had sort of compressed in, I think because I had my kit stuck behind me, it all just squashed up. And so I was stuck upside down I had a bit of sunroof in the top of my head and then the seatbelts strapped across and I was in there for a fair amount of time while they found us and then they did the whole cutting the door off and you know the pulley stretcher up and I remember like coming over the top my dad was there and it was all it I mean it was had that real dramatic element to it you know I ended up being pretty much okay it wasn't nowhere near as bad as it could have been and I actually I was very lucky I was able to get back into training after a couple of weeks and I did go

and play which was the big thing for me but I just became such a nervous driver after that like an unbelievably nervous drive you will see me driving around London my forehead's literally pressed the windscreen I just don't like it and I've never been good ever since I second guess everything so in a way it did have a very clear like direct effect and I went on to fail my second test in every way possible I think I got three majors and 18 minors which is like unheard of it was just like you can't do anything and then I tried to take my third test in a village nearby that had a higher pass rate because I thought that would help and I still failed and I finally passed on my fourth attempt but it did have a very positive influence on me as well I can remember I mean the most obvious and quickest being that I was waiting for my A-level results at the time and I remember I was so so nervous I'm very like I get very

anxious about things like that my mum was like well do you really think it's as important as you used to think it was now that this has happened and so actually it changed my perspective of things because although you're talking about it very fluently, but that must have been a near-death experience. Yes, it's really, really interesting in that I can remember it happening so clearly. And I actually, I remember the person I was with was screaming. And I remember that I was completely silent. When we were rolling, my head was going backwards and forwards against the dashboard

and hitting back onto the chair behind me and I can remember being totally silent and not really feeling much like in the way of fear or anything at all I think there was like I can't really explain it it's only ever happened to me twice and that's one of the times I don't like heights and bridges and things now it definitely had an effect I remember being spoken to afterwards about how I should expect that I might have dreams about it or whatever you know where you might relive it and I never did it's very bizarre because I can talk about it and I can see the effects it had but this is always I think this is always what I've been able to do like I process things in one way where I can talk about them and I can express them but the actual effect it has on me emotionally I never really process properly and that's probably why I end up having things like the fact that I'm still

a nervous driver when it's something that you learn how to drive properly and if you do it right that's the best you can do but I'll still imagine that something totally outside my control is going to happen. You mentioned there that it's happened to you one other time yeah when was that that was during a work thing we were doing a multiple demolition and that we were firing off three pits and the first two had gone but the third one hadn't and I was going back to check what was going on and so at that time you know if there's a misfire you're always wondering a little bit what's happened I remember I had like a moment of really overwhelming fear which I was really surprised about because I've never really felt scared in those situations and then total calmness and I could literally tell you

like blade of grass for blade of grass at that demolition site what I saw that day and how I corrected things and what went on I mean that would be the only other time that I would say I could do that obviously we all think we can remember everything that happened in our lives. But those two events I have in like a way that I've never, never had any other memory, I guess. It's just absolutely clear. I could think about it as if I was reliving it. That's so interesting. And not that I seek to compare this experience to those two very traumatic ones. But I was mugged at night on a street in London by four men and similarly I was not scared I don't think I was very calm in the sense that I thought very practically I was like they're not taking my bag because I got my keys in it and I need to get home after this

mugging's taken place like genuinely and I did manage to hold on to my bag and one of them hit me across the face, but it wasn't painful. Yes. And I didn't feel fear until after the event. Yeah, exactly. And then I think that idea of having to process, you know, because you weren't afraid at the time and then if the fear starts coming afterwards

or it will come the next time you're walking down a dark street and things like that. Well, I never properly processed a lot of that because it comes out in events that are separate you can't resolve what happened the first time so it comes out at other moments and I think that speaks a lot to how sometimes we process failure as well we'll like shut it away at the time it's too difficult and it's harder to kind of acknowledge but then as soon as you're in an event that kind of reflects that again or reminds you of that you find it much harder to deal with and it has this cumulative effect certainly I guess it's that thing of you know you had that dream where you're going into an exam and you haven't done any revision and it's that build-up of things through your life that just suddenly reappear when you're

a bit older which is why I think it's so great and why I love this podcast so much that we do talk about it and we do try and resolve these things as and when they happen because otherwise they're just going to keep they stay with you for the rest of your life and not in a good way you know things can stay with you and be unbelievably positive but things being with you and trapping you and stopping you from doing things it's never really a good thing I have that dream all the time, by the way, about assisting in an exam and having missed the relevant module. But I remember reading this thing that you said about your reasons for going into Love Island. It was partly because, as I mentioned in the introduction, you felt dislocated from your social and personal life. And that was partly because when you were doing these incredibly difficult and sometimes terrifying things for work, and you were in Afghanistan or Cambodia,

you didn't want to worry your parents. So you weren't expressing to the people closest to you what was going on. And then when you went into Love Island, suddenly there was an opportunity to cry. Yes, and cry I did. But that was kind of a revelation to you in a rather beautiful way yeah it was I mean I wouldn't recommend not crying for five years and then doing it all in the space of seven weeks on a tv show I'm not saying it's like the best way to do five years I just I didn't feel or say I did I would be very much like taking myself it would be in the most private space possible and I would never have admitted it to anyone and I almost would like not admit it so I'd be sort of sat

there with a tear about to come out not admitting it to myself but a big part of that is it's not okay to feel like well I didn't feel it was okay to feel like that to feel sorry for myself when I could see what was happening in the world around me and I have one of the luckiest lots you could ever have and to feel like that just made me feel even worse maybe for more and more guilty about the fact that I could still have this kind of self-involved way of looking at things when I could see so much of what was going on in the world around me and know it was so unfair but I also think it started to set me apart it isolated me in a way because I feel like people saw maybe me do that to myself and they're worried that they couldn't

tell me things which is really interesting because I've never projected that onto anyone else's and I don't feel like that if someone told me you know they lost something they were really upset about it they said oh but I don't want to tell you because it's quite frivolous and you're worrying about bigger things I would never think of it as being frivolous I feel like when you're in it yourself everyone has their own problems in their own lives and I would always want to be that friend who was there for someone but because I stopped allowing myself to ever feel kind of sorry for myself I think people started to feel uncomfortable talking to me about stuff I felt really bad that I did that to the people around me I don't think it served anyone my goodness you take so much responsibility for other people's

feelings and I say that as a compliment I mean it's it's such a beautiful quality for someone to have because it's an extreme kind of empathy I guess but that's a big weight for you to carry but it sort of links to your second failure which is that you gave up drama and singing as a teenager because of your fear of making a fool of yourself yeah and anything where I could make a fool of myself and I you know I'm not saying I was ever going to be I was never going to be an actor or a singer I was never like amazing at them I just really enjoyed it I absolutely loved doing it it was as a child I naturally performed and I loved writing plays for like all my cousins I was doing it from when I was so so young and my mum's got all these

horrible videos but I can see in myself there that I just didn't mind I thought I you know I was just doing it for a genuine love of doing it. And I suddenly completely lost that. I became so self-conscious. I really, really struggled to ever, I just didn't like being center of attention. I liked to fade into the background, but I still did love singing. Those are things that I would have loved doing, but I couldn't separate that joy of doing it from the idea that I wasn't going to be the best at it, if that makes sense. I think the other thing is I hate people thinking that I think I'm good at something. I remember one of the things that most upset me in the last couple of years is I did one of the sport relief boxing matches and I got absolutely battered. I was terrible, but I loved the process. The process

came at a time for me where I was having a bit of a tricky time and the training each day gave my life so much structure and the instructor the guy who trained me became such a good friend and his whole family became our friends and it was a really good thing for me and it I took so many positives away from it but obviously in the public eye I failed because you know in the six minutes that is the actual match I lost and about a week later I was in doing an interview in that week I've been working really hard in myself to make sure that I did take away from the positives from doing that match because obviously being humiliated in public really doesn't sit well in me and it hadn't sat well with me but I was like I cannot let this be

an experience I see as negative when I've had three months of positives for six minutes of negatives it's really important that I work on taking the good things away from things and I was asked about it in an interview and I tried to explain it like that and then when it came out I think it was about a month later and I read it the interviewer said that I hadn't understood how badly I was beaten and that I hadn't got it, that I didn't get that I lost. And I felt so, there was an instant feeling of absolute shame that people could think that I hadn't realized I'd lost when I knew better than anyone. And if anything, I felt it, you know, it's my face. Like I felt it as hard as anyone.

I knew exactly what had gone on and I knew how hard that had been. gone on and I knew how hard that had been but I didn't want to be the kind of person anymore that as soon as something bad happens that I put it away in a box and I'll never do that thing again and so yeah I instantly felt ashamed that people would think that I had thought I'd done all right but then at the same time I was like I don't know why we don't collectively try and talk a bit more about the things we enjoy but aren't the best and we're quite often defined by sometimes the thing that we're not that good at or that we don't even like you know someone does accounting because that's their first job and they need to get a job and that's great and they do it but they don't really enjoy it but people say what do you do I'm an accountant and that's what they're defined by

suddenly by the thing that's least important to them whereas maybe they go fishing every weekend and they never catch anything but that's what they get their happiness from. But you'd never open with that, would you? So yeah, that was definitely an interesting point for me because I realised how much shame I carry with failing and how that has affected the way that I've lived my life and how little I've done to counter that. And then I felt like the first step I took to try and counter it,

it got kind of shot back at me. And also it was another person's perception yeah that was shooting it back at you yeah that was really interesting as well because I think if you are the kind of person who does feel exposed and feel like people are judging you another person's perception can be really crucial in how you approach things because you feel like as soon as someone judges you as a failure even if it's not something you saw as a failure that's enough that other person's perception is enough to put you off and I said I did it all the way through my teenage years as soon as there was something that I felt

like other people thought I couldn't do or I felt like I'd embarrassed myself with that was it I just stopped yeah there's lots of things that I wish I had kept doing and and they I'm not even acting and singing aren't necessarily the main things I think what's crucial that I took away from it now is looking back what I don't know why that idea of having to be the best at everything was way more important than being happy will no one rid me of this troublesome priest? This is a time of great foreboding. These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago.

These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago set in motion a chain of gruesome events and sparked cult-like devotion across the world. I'm Matt Lewis. Join us as we unwrap the enigma and get to the heart of what really happened to Thomas Beckett by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. So if you're looking for a home for your worst opinions, if you're a hater first and a lover of pop culture second, then join me, Hunter Harris, and me, Peyton Dix,

the host of Wondery's newest podcast, Let Me Say This. As beacons of truth and connoisseurs of mass, we are scouring the depths of the internet so you don't have to. We're obviously talking about the biggest gossip and celebrity news. Like, it's not a question of if Drake got his body done, but when. You are so messy for that, but we will be giving you the B-sides. Don't you worry. The deep cuts, the niche, the obscure.

Like that one photo of Nicole Kidman after she finalized her divorce from Tom Cruise. Mother. A mother to many. Follow Let Me Say This on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new episodes on YouTube or listen to Let Me Say This ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. There's so much joy to be had in being free enough to be rubbish at something. Yeah, yeah, it is. And that was the other thing. I think that a big part of why I found relationships

and friendships so hard for so long was that I thought if I wasn't like the best and the most perfect that people wouldn't like me and actually when you kind of test a friendship is when you make a complete fool of yourself or you're like willing or comfortable enough to do that knowing that person will still like you or love you yeah I think not letting people see you in any other light than the light you want to show them is when you are totally limiting your ability to form a close bond with people and that's what I did for a really really long time I relate to this so much to the extent that the first session I had with my current therapist one of the first things she

said to me was I think you care far too much what people think of you. And my challenge as a therapist is going to be never letting you know what I think of you and how I'm reacting to what you're saying. And it was tremendously astute and it put me in a very uncomfortable position

because then she's never revealed how she thinks about me. And sometimes I just have to sit there in silence and it's the most agonizing thing yeah but it's good for me it's like immersion therapy yeah and it is it's interesting I think that that's probably the way to go about it though in fact I you've inspired me I think I should do a bit of therapy on it it's interesting because then you meet people who don't feel that way at all and in some ways it's like enlightening isn't it you see other people who don't care what other people think you think wow I wish I could be like that and I wish I could

feel like that but I don't think that unlocks the ability to think like that if anything it makes you think so what's wrong with me like how come I care so much so yeah I've definitely not tackled that problem I still very much don't do things and I'll still worry about what people are saying and I'm still very affected by other people's opinions yeah it's one of the things I'm sort of like most afraid of so even with that perspective even knowing that I wish I hadn't given those things up still now it's ongoing trying to talk myself into doing things because they're what I want to do rather than because of what everyone else will think there was a lovely clip on I think it was Jamie's Instagram recently where he videoed you singing in the shower and that clip now has such meaningful resonance that presumably you allowed

him to put it up there and you were caught off guard singing in a way that was as if no one was listening yeah he did have to beg me though he was like please let me because I'm actually very around the house I will always be like singing a stupid song even if I'm like there's another clip on James Instagram from somewhere I put it on a story maybe where I was asking if he wanted to sit and watch a program with me and for some reason I'm like singing it to him. But I was sat on the sofa and he was behind me. So I didn't realize he was videoing. And he thinks those things are so funny.

And I'm like, oh, I don't know if I think that's funny. You know, when you watch yourself doing something like that, it's like, but that is a big part of who I am. But yet for such a long time, no one would have ever seen that side of me and I even think now when I look back on the period of time I was in Love Island that it was still a snapshot of me as a person and obviously those shows are a snapshot anyway because they are an hour of 24 hours um so I wasn't crying quite as much as I have looked but at that point I was still really trying to find that part of me again that felt like I could

be silly I'd really lost it I don't know there's another thing where I think so obviously I worked abroad a lot and I think as Brits sometimes we have this tendency towards stiff upper lip and we have to do quite a lot of interpreting how other people think about us and how other people feel I don't think I was ever good at it, but I got really, really bad at it. And so in Love Island, sometimes I was really struggling just to gauge what was happening around me. And in that way, it was really beneficial in that by the end, I was starting to get back into things.

But I certainly don't feel that sometimes. I mean, I've never watched it back because I can't, but they've occasionally shown us clips at the beginning of interviews together and I think oh gosh I'm not I can see I'm like there's something in me that's resisting the temptation to join in that's resisting the jokey side or the I don't know I don't consider myself a serious person if that makes sense but I'm so serious in that I think I was taking myself very seriously and that's what I don't do or I didn't feel like I did yeah I want to read something because this will lead us on to your third incredibly profound failure actually but I wanted to read something

from the passage you wrote me about your second failure about fear of making a fool of yourself which is your realization that making a fool of yourself in front of people is one of the most important ways to form truly intimate relationships and I think that's so true and it's something that I talk about a lot with failure like the ability to be open about one's own vulnerabilities is paradoxically the source of one's greatest strength and connection absolutely and that's why it really frustrates me actually when I hear people calling people who are compassionate or empathetic weak because I'm like you don't know how much strength it's taking that person to just keep going because they are feeling everything of the people around them and they are

taking on other people's burdens and there's so much strength in allowing yourself to feel that way and I'm not sort of talking about me here I'm talking about anyone because one of the saddest things I think I've seen especially working in the line of work I worked in before was the people around me other people being told that because they were upset by some of the things that we saw because they found it difficult that they were weak and they had a problem and I thought well they're trying to do their best for everyone else even though they're feeling all these deep feelings of pain and that's a really strong thing to do because that you could just avoid it completely they go hand in hand your third failure is and I quote you this is how you wrote it to me not living up to in quotation marks Camilla

Thurlow so your failure to be this persona that had been created for you yeah tell me about this there's so much I want to ask you about this it's fascinating I think so for me it's a bit twofold now actually so there's first of all there's the person that you sort of imagine yourself to be when you're a bit younger so you think oh by the time I'm 23 I'll have achieved this and I'll be married or whatever it is and then you get a bit older and you think okay by the time I'm 25 I'll have done this and that and we're constantly setting ourselves these versions of ourself for the future and then start to make decisions based on that and then when we get there we're disappointed we don't have them even though those things wouldn't necessarily serve the person we are now.

And we feel like a failure for not achieving the things that we decided when we were sort of a bit younger were the right things for us, even if we found the things that are right for us. So we compare ourselves a lot to this version of ourselves that never existed. It was just kind of an abstract dream. And also I went through life people-pleasing. So the version I was imagining of myself was quite often the version that I thought the person I was currently most influenced by would like in a few years time. And then that person might not even be in your life anymore,

but you're still bound to that idea that you created because that was the right thing for them, if that makes sense. And then also reality TV, it is real and it does expose all these human elements and that's why it's so important but at the same time to edit something from 24 hours in a day to one hour it means you will get sort of the most crucial parts of that story and that often misses the nuances it's like the story that we can understand we we want it to be digestible and understandable for the audience and that means sort of missing out the bit when you had a bit of a wobble or you thought slightly differently and that's perfectly understandable but we can sometimes sort of

simplify the people involved and the thing of course about being in it is that you don't know the persona that is being created for you and it's not that is still you but it's like a highlight of you it's like a simplified character exactly and one thing of that is that people think they know you in a way that you maybe don't feel they do so I struggled with the fact that I came out and people thought I was nice because I know that I have times where I'm not nice or I start an argument or I'm not reasonable you know I still get messages to this day asking how do you deal with things in this way in that way and there's been a number of times where in my life where I haven't the kind of

secondary part that is that people do feel like maybe they can bear judgment on things so I would be out with friends for a drink and people would come up and be like oh I'd never expect that of you and it's really tricky because you feel like you're disappointing people all the time I remember I put up a picture of me and my friend on one of my insta stories and we'd been at an art show and there was a mirror that was like you could both stand on either side of it and it was like I fucking love you or something like that and I got so so many messages about using a swear word on my Instagram and I found it really tricky because I understood why that might worry some people particularly you know I know that I could have a younger audience because of the show but equally I thought well maybe if you don't want your daughter to see

swear words maybe we should be thinking about whether people should be on Instagram as a child. So I just really struggled because I really took it on board. And then I would censor myself. And then you sort of start to lose what you actually think about things because you're constantly having to respond to this disappointment from one person and another person's disappointment that you're so boring. And I just, just yeah I found it really hard to find in that the space for me and do you lose sight of who you think you are in the midst of this hall of mirrors yeah and I don't think I knew myself that well anyway I've never in my life really known myself particularly well because of this fear of failing and a big part that was I think because I didn't really and this I made a bit deep but I've only realized it this year I've turned 30 and I sort of went through this

bit of a really low period a real big struggle slightly earlier this year and I and I'm actually still sort of coming off the back of it which is why I quite like that we're discussing this now because quite often I'll talk about things sort of two years afterwards and you know when you're looking back on something you can never actually feel how it really felt but I was talking actually I was talking to Jamie he said I just don't understand how you can like look at the other people around you love them completely forgive them for their mistakes not have a problem with that and yet with yourself you won't forgive yourself anything so it all just gets too much it's all on your

plate all the time you just carry it forward you just won't let yourself leave it or you won't forgive yourself and I realized and I was writing something at the time actually and it was all about self-love and I was like so I don't really have any authority on this topic because I've never actually loved myself enough to let myself sit with my mistakes and feel them and still know who I am as a person I felt like if I made a mistake I was totally defined by that and if I allowed it in that was what I was going to become rather than looking at it and feeling like okay we all do it we're all human just give yourself a break every once in a while yeah it was a revelation it was a true revelation I feel very moved by that

because life is texture and I think a perfectionist is impossible but also never real because you're not being honest about yourself yeah and your imperfections make you more beautiful. So much more beautiful. Yeah. Like Leonard Cohen says, it's the cracks that let the light in. Yeah. And it's so interesting, actually, in a way, in that I feel like the people who are closest to me,

the times where I felt closest to them is when they've opened up and said, I did this wrong and I need you to be here for you to be here for me and I want to know how to make this better and I felt like oh yes I can really help someone here and yet I can't help myself I can help anyone else but to sit with myself and try and support myself when I'm feeling like in a moment of I just descend into self-loathing rather than sort of looking at it and being like right what's the problem here how can we resolve this how can I make this an experience that's gonna move me forward as a person it just goes into I go into like abject denial it kind of relates to my second failure where I didn't like to make a fool of myself but I hate making fool of myself in front of myself as well I took being perfect so so seriously because I couldn't trust myself

to really still love myself if I made a mistake. And you've referred there a couple of times to a tricky patch or a struggle. Yeah. What form does that take for you? Sort of two things happen. And one of them is kind of acute. So if I go to an event or anything, I always get anxious before events. I always find them difficult whether

they're kind of public events or personal events I just really worry but if I'm in a bad phase that worry becomes almost paralyzing and then I go into kind of an avoidance technique but I get panicked and then I tend to be a bit not more argumentative but I'm more likely to react if someone so if I hear because sometimes people say especially they'll sort of come up to you at like public events and things and they'll comment on you or they'll say something about your relationship and things like that and I will be 10 times more sensitive to it and then I react far worse to it but then there's also kind of this constant feeling of unease just in general it starts to become unbearable to be inside my own head all the time and I just yeah I get completely trapped in it trapped in a really negative sort spiral

and I find it it's hard to talk about this necessarily it's not that the other option becomes any less terrifying but when life becomes unbearable like that you do start to think in a different way it starts to change out the way you look at everything and it's difficult for the people around you of course as well that's the other thing and if you're a people pleaser as soon as you start disappointing the people around you because of feeling like that you're trapped in that again it's just a constant negative spiral when you talk about the other option being terrifying yeah I mean without being it's yeah I mean I don't know how to say this without being like a bit you start to entertain thoughts of what not being a life would be like and even if it's just sort of letting that cross your mind or whether it becomes a more serious thought pattern that's when you

realize because that's not that it's not that that becomes less scary or less worrying it's just that you can't see how this feeling is going to go, this feeling of constantly feeling. And I'd had it before. So this year it was like a reoccurrence and was managed a lot better. But immediately previous to Love Island, I was in a very, very difficult phase. And like, I really struggled to see any way out of it.

And I think that's it. It's when you can't see a way out. There's no light because you don't think there's light at the end of the tunnel and would you define that as depression I don't know because I haven't actually ever spoken to anyone about it in that way so yeah I guess I don't know I don't feel I can I don't know I know for me that there were big factors that were sort of things that I hadn't dealt with from before so like things like PTSD and that side of things contributing to what generally just felt like I had lost it felt like the world shifted and that I didn't know where I fitted in anymore and I could not fathom how I would resolve that because I was unable to communicate with people around me about that

feeling and I couldn't even in my you know I wasn't being nice to myself like as in I was sitting there thinking I don't fit and that's my fault that I've got that so I've got something wrong and and it becomes that thing where everything that people so you know when people are making a joke and then you make the last line of the joke and then everyone goes quiet and you realize that you're not you're not in tune you're goes quiet and you realize that you're not in tune. Yeah, and you're not in tune with anyone. You couldn't feel more lonely. And it's not because the other people around you aren't lovely and wonderful.

It's you that seems to have the problem. And that's it, isn't it? You go into this very self-focused cycle. But I don't know if I would necessarily call it depression because a big part of it is the way that I think and feel about the world I talk about this actually in terms of keep your friends close and your enemies closer that I see anxiety for me as so much of both in that it has pushed me to do being an anxious person being a perfectionist has pushed me to do some of the greatest things I've ever done in my life. And it's motivated me and it's made me do things I was afraid of and really want to see the world in a different way.

But then as an enemy, it's been even closer. And the problem is because it has had these really beneficial effects in a way, it has made me motivated and ambitious. That voice in your head, you start to give it validity because you've seen success off the back of it and then when it's not necessarily telling you something that's a rational way of thinking you'll still buy into it and it will be the thing that tells you that you're not worthy and you're the one who's not able to fit into the world and no matter what you do you're not going to find a way to do that. And it definitely brings out the worst, or it did with me,

it brought out the worst sides in me in terms of when I would feel jealous or when I would feel just like what I was doing was never enough, but what everyone else did was enough. And that doesn't turn you into a particular... I didn't feel like... I think it made me the worst version version of myself but the problem is when you're the worst version of yourself and then you've got a voice in your head telling you that you're the worst version of yourself you've lost that ability to look at it with perspective and yeah and I think it becomes trickier and trickier to separate what is a normal way to feel about failures or about things that don't go completely right or about the mistakes

that we all make and what is an exaggerated feeling that's only going to serve you to take you to a negative place and that's why I'm not sure if it's necessarily depression because it's far more to do with the way that I catastrophize and then as I'm catastrophizing I start to lose that perspective myself so I don't go stop you're making this bigger than it is or stop there's no point thinking it's not getting us anywhere instead I start to think yes and you deserve to feel like this and you should feel sad and you should and then it goes on and on and on something like that the reason I didn't stop you there because you've articulated something that is so difficult to express so perfectly.

And I relate to every single thing you just said. And thank you for speaking so openly and eloquently about that. I find that one of the things that has helped me is to imagine myself saying the things I'm saying to myself to a dear friend. Yes. Because you would never say that to a dear friend yes because you would never say that to a dear friend of yours and Jamie's right how can you extend all of this love to others because you must you have the capacity within you so you must be able at some point to turn it towards yourself but can I ask how important Jamie is in this? Because for anyone who struggles and copes with what you're coping with on a daily basis, the person they are with in an intimate relationship is extremely important. must not rely on the people around me to fill that space so when that emptiness starts coming around

there's the real risk there that it will start to seep into your personal relationships and I I know that in the past I have relied on another person to fill that space for me and I think maybe that's been the big difference this year and how I've tried to sort of start repairing some of that damage because I don't think it's actually particularly reflective of just this year if that makes sense I think I just sort of got to 30 and all these things that I'd been feeling for so many years and struggled to think about I started to think about and try and rectify the people around you are important but at my worst times it's like being in a house with a broken doorbell they can all be ringing it trying to get in but you're just not going to realize that they're there I feel like I've needed people my whole life to fill

that space for me I needed praise and I needed someone to tell me that I was doing it right and I needed someone to say for me to be able to turn those thoughts on my on its head for me to take those negative thoughts about myself I need someone else to tell me and I want to now be able to do that for myself to say no stop you're not this you're not that you've done well on this or to feel satisfied in works that doesn't necessarily receive praise to be able to feel proud of things that to other people might appear like a failure I want to learn how to do that for myself because I think without that I will always have to rely on someone else to give me that and I don't want to need that from someone I want to know how it feels to feel happy with myself the other people in your life are so important in that it takes a lot of patience

I think to deal with someone when they're negative about themselves and definitely Jamie having that patience and being willing to support me in kind of learning to deal with this side of things has been incredibly important I mean it's interesting because they are so important but the most important relationship you have will be with yourself that's the only constant you have until the day that you die is that relationship with yourself so you've got to make it a good one exactly and it's only taking me 30 years to realize you're 10 years ahead of me because it's taken me 40 years so and I do think it's that thing of um when you're living your life according to other people's opinions you're not living your own life you're living their version of yours and why would you want to waste your time doing that yeah but how do you deal then

because you do have 1.4 million followers on Instagram by the time this airs you'll probably have more but how do you deal with that because that's a tricky path to navigate yeah yeah and you do it very well but do you have boundaries do you set yourself do you take breaks what do you do yeah good that's such a good question a little bit is denial so I don't look at that although it's a figure isn't it's one of those figures where someone says like a bajillion dollars you're like that doesn't really mean anything do you know what I mean so I don't look at that number and think of it in reality as such the measure of my Instagram or the thing that I've always used and a big part of it is because right after Love Island, when I came out, I didn't really have any money. And I was staying on a friend's sofa in Peckham.

And I stayed there for about six months. Actually, it was brilliant. And at the time, that's when I started starting to use Instagram with this platform. Basically, that was my introduction to having a big following. I was staying with two friends and I would ask them, do you think I should put this up? Do you think this is all right? And then I started thinking, well, maybe I should just always post as if I'm posting just for my friends, putting up what I still think is important and what I like and what

would sort of resonate with them. And I found that actually was the best way of doing it because now, you know, sometimes I'll put something up and it will, people will say a negative thing about it but if I've thought about it in that way then I'm much more at peace with the decision I worry less about the negative side of things and I still worry don't get me wrong I don't think I've ever learned how to navigate it properly I don't know what the right thing is because I also wouldn't want to be like well I don't care what anyone's opinions are because that's also important to me and I want to create content that is reflective of the person that I am and not reflective of you know what's outward coming in I want to create stuff that's inward going out but sometimes also

it's just kind of pressing the button so with the poems that I write I don't proof them because I know if I do I'll never put it out so I just quickly once I finished I quickly screenshot it and then I quickly put it on and that's the only way that content is ever getting out onto that literally you write it and then it's and then it's posted yeah straight on and then it's very annoying because I go back and I'm like oh I can't believe I put that grammatical error in verse three I just have to put it because if you're a perfectionist kind of person I'm such perfectionist I know I could just read it and read it and read it and the poems are probably

the most kind of heartfelt content that I put out and I don't want them to be censored I know I would just start to tone everything down and be like oh is that a bit controversial to put that in there and I think the only way they're going to stay reflective of exactly how I feel is if I put them as out as I feel things and actually a very close friend at the start when I first came out of Love Island did say to me because I was struggling with putting up a post because I felt the caption was really heartfelt and she said I think the best way that you're ever going to have to connect with people is to do it in these moments to write these captions in these moments when you these captions in these moments when you are feeling that way and then just to get them out there because it's a scary thing

but it is trying to create sort of a bit more of a real life on there I guess it's real and actually the poet Charlie Cox said this brilliant thing about when you talk about your most personal feelings it turns out to have the most universal resonance. Yeah. And I love your poems. Thank you. I honestly, they're so good. And if you are listening now and you haven't read them,

do look at them on Camilla's Instagram page. It has been such a delight. It really has. I feel like I could carry on talking to you for several hours. I think so. I could definitely speak to you for... In fact, Jamie said when I told him I was coming on, because he knows, in fact, for a long time, he thought I had a good friend called Elizabeth Day,

because I talked to her. I'd be like, and then there was this time when she went to Russia, and he would be like, oh, right. But he was a bit concerned when I told him I was coming on, because he was like, do you think it's going to be uncomfortable that you know so much about her? I'm so flattered. No, because I feel uncomfortable knowing so much about your life oh my goodness that's that's just made me blush thank you so so much you're so lovely to say that

I don't know if you remember this but I actually interviewed you straight after you came out of Love Island but over the phone it was for Grazia yes yeah and i just wanted to know quickly what it was like in the immediate aftermath of leaving the villa yeah is it madness i don't know how to explain it i guess it is in some ways but then big parts of it are coming home and seeing your friends and family again yeah i i don't know yes it sort of is but then the whole seven weeks has been i guess kind of as some sort of badness because it is so alien to spend that long a time in one place with a certain group of people. It's an interesting time. I was very, very lucky because I was just so well looked after. And I think I'm so lucky in the group of friends that I have in that it just, I don't know, it never felt

that abnormal because big parts of it and actually because I'd gone there to try and resolve these issues I was having with these kind of social boundaries coming back and being able to have like proper conversations with my friends and family was at that point my biggest takeaway of the whole situation and that was overriding absolutely everything else and yeah I guess after a couple of weeks, everything does start to sink in a bit more. But my memories of immediately coming back are really positive ones

because that being why I'd gone in and coming out and feeling like that. But that's what I also think is interesting that I had a dip earlier this year and I sort of came out of Love Island and was like, oh, all my problems have been solved. I feel like I'm never going to be unhappy again. then I was and then I'll be happy again and that's you know that's it that's life isn't it and that's why I'm quite glad to talk about this kind of now

two years on because at that point I think I was all kind of like oh everything's going to be sunshine and roses from now on and I'm so back in touch with my emotional side and I've worked out why I put up all these walls and then I found myself doing exactly the same thing over again and so it's just that reminder that you've got to keep working on yourself and it's worth doing that work for sure and I kept putting that to the bottom of the pile and you devalue yourself don't you don't think you're worthy of spending that time and effort on but if there's anyone if there's anyone who is it's you and I do think that you build up resilience so that the next time it happens you become more aware more quickly of what's happening yeah definitely I think that that I was able to recognize a lot more of the issues this time and also that you learn a bit

more where they're coming from and that's really important because that does give you some kind of it's not that you're shifting the blame off yourself it's that you're like okay but there's a reason why I feel this way and therefore there's a possibility of me resolving it and then there's also an option that at some point I'll undo that and find a way to move forward without it it's a little bit of hope got to hope that's such a great note to end it on camilla thurlow you can go back home and tell jamie that the woman crush is more than mutual thank you so so much thank you so much thank you if you enjoyed this episode of how to fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you

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