Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - [Revisit] I'm Glad My Mom Died, with Jennette McCurdy

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

A collection of the best moments from our conversation with writer, director, actor, and singer Jennette McCurdy! Join us as we revisit all of Jennette's empowering nuggets of wisdom, from disordered eating and her enmeshed relationship with her mother to the profound revelations she experienced following her mother’s death. Jennette also helps us break down harmful coping mechanisms, the pressures and anxieties she faced as a child actress and the source of financial support for her family, why we tolerate emotional discomfort for so long, and the power struggles surrounding love. Enjoy the best moments of Jennette McCurdy, and tune in on Tuesday for a brand new full episode of MAYIM BIALIK’S BREAKDOWN. Check out our full episode with Jennette McCurdy: https://mayim.simplecast.com/episodes/jennette-mccurdy-enmeshment-individuating-coping-mechanisms BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When I say my identity was like what my mom thought of me, it was 100% that. So the idea of pulling away, getting away wasn't even, it wasn't even something that came into my mind. I would be completely lost. I would be nothing without her. Also, I had been fed that messaging my entire life of, you know, you're completely incompetent. You are not smart. You can't do anything without me. You need me.

I'm the thing that keeps you from just completely being derailed and a loose cannon. And that was definitely what kept me from getting away sooner. So my mom had cancer for the first time when I was two. So I was always kind of aware of the fragility of her health. And I think that played a part. I just had this weight on me all the time. Well, she could go at any time. It was just like the awareness of her death was always weighing on not just me,

but the entire family, you know? And then her cancer recurred when I was 18. That would have been exactly the time that I would have been like, Fuck you, Mom. I don't want anything to do with you. I'm leaving you where I would have started really just, I think, rebelling like full, like very intensely. But because of her cancer, then I felt kind of roped back in with that guilt and that obligation and just all those overwhelming feelings that come with the imminence of death. It's my and be all next breakdown. She's going to break it down for you because you know she knows a thing or two. So now she's going to break down. So break down.

She's going to break it down. Hi, I'm Myambi Alec. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. Welcome to a Thursday edition of Bite Size Breakdown. Now, this episode is a collection of the best, most concentrated, awesome moments from our conversation with writer, director, actor, and singer, Jeanette McCurdy. This is a woman who does it all. And Jonathan, talk about some of the things that people will get in this bite-sized,

condensed miniature breakdown. You're going to get vulnerability. You're going to get insight. I mean, I'm laughing, but we were so moved by her reflective nature and just how she was exploring, how her past was impacting her and her patterns that we thought, wait a second, we got to revisit this. Also, she's recently had a book come out, number one bestseller. and based on her one woman show, her play.

Yeah, the book play, I'm glad my mother died, has gotten tremendous reception. She talks to us all about her relationship with her mom, all of the revelations that she experienced after her mother's passing. She talks about disordered eating. She talks about coping mechanisms and when she thought she was okay and how those were actually, you know, holding her back and how she began to realize that she needed to change.

Please enjoy the best moments. of our talk with Jeanette McCurdy and don't forget to tune in on Tuesday for a brand new full episode of Myambiolics Breakdown. Enjoy. Break it down. When I was six, my mom put me in acting.

I think to kind of, you know, she wanted, she had good intentions, I think, at the core of it. She wanted me to have a better life than she had. She didn't have a very good one. It was a constant struggle financially, emotionally, mentally. and I think she thought that acting was an easy, you know, kind of early way out to kind of ensure that I had success in a better path than she had.

I see it as something different. I kind of like 11 was the main financial support for my family and, you know, there were a lot of pressure that came with that. And I think with that pressure came kind of my resentments toward that career and frustrations with it as well as kind of resentments that were brewing toward my mom that I didn't identify as resurgence. at the time because because of how much I absolutely adored her and found like my entire entire identity in her idea of me. Classic in measurement schema. For the first year, having people come up to me and recognize me felt it was a form of validation.

You know, I had always been the homeschooled kind of weird Mormon kid on the outskirts. You never quite fit in. Who was always like more naive than everyone around me. And then it very quickly shifted. And I think a big part of that was how much more my mom responded to it positively, even as she saw what it was doing to me emotionally and how difficult it was for me to handle and how, I mean, I didn't want to go outside. I was already anxiously kind of wired.

And then I just became constantly hypervigilant. I've walked out of the house and I'd be like looking around and like, oh, is there a paparazzi here? Is there somebody here who's going to recognize me? And what are they going to say? And what are they going to want? And what are they? It was really hellish. probably a year and a half was like definitely when I had started resenting it.

And then, of course, my mom was all the more kind of into it and like, take the pictures, do the thing, do the whatever. Like, why don't you love this? Why aren't you grateful? You're so ungrateful. Why would you not? This is what everybody's dream. It's like, this was your dream, not mine.

When I say my identity was like what my mom thought of me, that's, it was 100% that. So the idea of pulling away, getting away wasn't even, it wasn't even something that came into my mind. I would be completely lost. I would be nothing without her. Also, I had been fed that messaging my entire life of, you know, you're completely incompetent, you are not smart, you can't do anything without me, you need me. I'm the thing that keeps you from just completely being derailed and a loose cannon. And that was definitely what kept me from getting away sooner. So my mom had cancer for the first time when I was two. So I was always kind of aware of the fragility of her health. And I think that played a part. I just had this weight on me all the time of, well, she could

she could go at any time. It was just like the awareness of her death was always weighing on, on not just me, but the entire family, you know? And then her cancer recurred when I was 18. That would have been exactly the time that I would have been like, fuck you,

mom, I don't want anything to do with you. I'm leaving you where I would have started really just, I think, rebelling like full, like very intensely. But because of her cancer, then I felt kind of roped back in with that guilt and,

and that obligation. and just all those overwhelming feelings that come with the imminence of death. My mom was a person who introduced me to anorexia, actually. I had a lump in my breast, which was my boob developing, and I was scared that it was cancer because of my mom's cancer. I thought, oh, she got cancer. Now I've got cancer at 11, like I'm doomed. And I told her, and she said, you don't have breast cancer, just developing boobs.

I said, well, how can I not develop boobs? I don't want those. And she said, well, there's a thing called calorie restriction. Those are her exact words. She did not say the word anorexia. I did not hear the word anorexia until I overheard a doctor talking with my mom. A year later when I had lost X amount of weight and was a rail thin. And it sounded like a dinosaur to me.

I remember that distinctly thinking like, hmm, somebody's talking about me like I'm a dinosaur about my eating disorder, which my mom denied in order for her to be able to support it. All pieces of the puzzle that I've kind of put together later in life didn't realize at the time. I just thought, mom's looking out for me. Mom wants me to not have breast cancer. Mom wants me to look young so I can book more roles. so I can support the family. My mom passed away when I was 21. That same week was the first time

that I had sex, the first time that I made myself throw up, bulimia, which I had for then years, a few years, and the first time that I had a drink of alcohol. So I think there's no denying that it was, you know, mom death and those coping mechanisms all kind of hit at once. Post my mother's death, I had found out some things about her that threw me for a loop that completely derailed what my image of her was and the pedestal that I had had her on definitely drove me more to my COVID mechanisms. Things kind of definitely got worse before they got better. Literally any time that I wasn't purging, I was thinking about my next time purging. That was how my mind was just oriented. I was doing it five to ten times a day where my sister-in-law was staying

there and she goes, this has to stop. Like we have to find a way to get you help. I can't stand by and watch somebody that I love hurt themselves like this. This is really not okay. It took so much courage from her like it makes emotional it took so much courage from her to say that and to to to do that and I really appreciate it. I think that was really the turning point for me and and also knowing knowing that somebody else knew it was like all the secrets out. I actually found out later on after kind of coming, you know, speaking publicly about it, I had gotten some emails from people that would be like yeah, I found some like residue on my toilet seat just so you know which then I was like oh god. Honestly, it was more just like humiliation because I thought that I was.

like this gifted secret keeper, and I like wasn't good at that. That was like pretty much all I had during that time was hoping and clinging to the fact that maybe, you know, my shame was my own, but knowing that like, eh, you actually weren't pulling the wool over anybody's eyes. That was, uh, that was a bummer. I think I was acting as much of not more in my regular life to my mom, to the people around me as I was in front of the camera. It was just 100% across the board of a facade, which is why ultimately I had to step away because I felt like it was just too damaging to my mental health to my greater good. My Ambialx breakdown is supported by Superpower.

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Right now, it's $199 for the full experience, which is much more affordable than anything else out there. Make this the year you stop guessing about your health with superpower. Superpower. Not only did Superpower reduce their price to just $199, but for a limited time, our listeners get an additional $20 off with the code break. Head to superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention My Ambiotics Breakdown to help support the show. I think a huge factor in helping me identify, I think, what I actually want and the life that actually means something to me versus other people was a type of therapy, DBT, dialectical behavioral therapy, physical concrete

worksheets, which was the key factor in why I like DBT, why I preferred it over other types of therapies. I felt like talking was getting me nowhere. I don't want to just talk in circles and not get anywhere. I want like a paper to tell me where I'm at. It really helps me to feel kind of more centered and grounded. And this type of therapy did that for me. And in a, in a, big part of it is identifying your life worth living. And with that comes, locking down kind of your values and goals that actually mean something to you. And having those parts of life really kind of nailed down and pinned down in concrete ways was, was hugely helpful to me. And of course, it changes. It's not like, you know,

just because I had a goal when I first created my goals that I'm going to like keep that for my life or something like that. But it really helped me a lot. You wrote a play, correct? Yeah. A one woman show, it's just like a cringy term. My relationship with my mom is something that I'll be working through for sure, for, you know, for a long time to come and like exploring, I think, in some form of art for a long time. I have to feel a personal investment to things that I'm writing.

I admire people who don't have to have that personal investment and can just kind of like latch on to characters or a story and go to town. I'm sure it comes from a place of selfishness. I just have to feel like, what am I exploring that's, you know, relevant to me and helping me work through something? Or I feel like I can sense that sense, like that laugh. of personal investment. I took some time off and then I wrote a one woman show, which just kind of explores my relationship with my mom from childhood, up until a few years

after her passing, kind of the revelations that I had in post her passing that helped me to find my own identity and establish my own identity. And I think the tagline was something like, you know, how my mother dying turned out to be the greatest. What was it? How did you say it? The show is called I'm glad my mom died. How my mom's just went from me and the worst thing that ever happened to me to the best. Yeah. I just, I really love that. I've been writing a book for that was based on the one woman show. I just think a book has the amount of space necessary to kind of cover the ground that I want to cover in the way that I want to cover it entirely.

So that's been incredibly fulfilling. I'm a very kind of career motivated person. I don't think, I don't want to go back in front of the camera. I don't see that happening for me. I'd love to kind of direct things that I didn't write at some point, things that I just kind of connect with. This is the journey. Like, this is life.

And I just, I love all the parts of it. it that you have seized and also think it's really, really amazing that through your struggles you've been able to create so much, you know, it's really beautiful. Thank you for joining us for this very special Thursday episode of My and Biolix Breakdown.

If you like what you hear, please rate us, review us, and make sure to follow us on Instagram at Biolic Breakdown to tell us your favorite parts of this episode. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time. It's Myin Biolix Breakdown. She's going to break it down free.

you because you know she knows a thing more too and now she's gonna break down so break down she's gonna break it down