TONTS. - Heartsick with Jessie Stephens

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

Hello I'm Claire Tonti and this is TONTS. a podcast about feeling all of it. In this episode I talk to journalist, author and podcaster Jessie Stephens. We talk about the specific and often incredibly painful experience of heartbreak and her new book Heartsick.Subscribe here for – tontsnewsletterYou can find me on instagram @clairetonti or at www.clairetonti.comFor more from Jessie head to @jessiestephens90 on instagram and her podcasts Mamamia Outloud and True Crime ConversationsYou can email me with suggestions for episode topics and guests to [e-mail]. Feel free to leave me a voice memo to be included in the show.A big thank you to this wonderful team:Editing - RAW CollingsTheme Music - Avocado JunkieGraphic Design - Emma HackettPhotography - Anna RobinsonStyling - Hilary Holmes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, this is Tons, a podcast about feeling all of it, about our inner critic, our emotions, and the often messy, difficult stuff of life. I'm Claire Tonti, and I'm really glad you're here. There isn't a topic much more universal than heartbreak. A thousand love songs in a thousand different languages have been written about it. Books, films, TV shows, poems, so much of what makes us human is shared within the stories of people falling in and out of love, no matter what their background, gender, or sexuality. The lasting impact on our mental and physical well-being, the nuanced, personal, and specific ways relationships fall apart, of how we are rejected, isn't necessarily as readily explored. That grief, that bottomless pit in the bottom of our stomachs. Jessie Stephens joins us today on

Tons to talk about all of that. Her new book, Heartsick. She's first and foremost a journalist and in her book, she interviewed three different humans who allowed her into the most intimate details of their relationship breakdowns. She studied emails and text messages and photos and letters and even diary entries to create the narrative arcs of her three characters. Though their names have been changed, their stories are true. They follow Claire, who has been left devastated after coming back to London with her girlfriend, Maggie. Patrick, who is a lonely uni student and falls in love for the first time. And Anna, who is happily married with three children until she starts an affair with a very old friend. Jessie has written these stories as close to the truth as possible, and it is a devastatingly unputdownable, gripping read because it feels so personal.

And each story has elements that I think everyone can identify with. I think she has managed to put words around feelings that are so incredibly painful and often have been experienced entirely alone, crying on the bathroom floor. This book was so anxiety-cing, but I think also incredibly validating if you've ever been through a deeply painful heartbreak and have been left struggling to come to terms with how much it hurt and the physicality of your own experience. Before we launch into our conversation, I need to say that someone else joins us on the podcast and it's Chilly, Jessie's rescue dog, who pops in and out chewing on her bone under her chair while we record it over Zoom. So if you hear some clicking sounds in the background,

that's Chilly. I want to say too that we tend to talk more about heterosexuality in a Western context in this episode. And I want to say up top that being straight white women from pretty similar backgrounds has meant this conversation does come from this particular lens. But this is the start of many, many conversations on taunts. And however you identify, I think Jessie's perspective on love, relationships, gender, and inner critic is refreshingly honest and really valuable. Here she is, journalist, podcaster, and author, Jessie Stephens. I like books that I can't put down. If I can put a book down, I often find that I will not pick it back up. And in a time when there are 40 million things you can watch on Netflix or Stan or Amazon,

our attention has never been harder to get. And I knew the story I wanted to tell, but I very carefully paced it and constructed it so that the reader had to turn the next page. That was intentional. And I used a lot of devices that I learned in thriller and mystery and crime, which is weird because there's no dead bodies in this. But I needed the stakes to be really, really high in order for people to read through. And the problem with my book, I learned very early on, is that the outcome is written on the cover. And when the outcome is written on the cover, you need to work three times as hard to just get people super invested in the stories and to play with them a little bit so they do

not know what's going to happen. Mm. I heard you speak about how you don't think writing is, you haven't used woo-woo or kind of intuition with this. You've been quite meticulous. What did you, what do you mean by that in that you didn't use kind of woo-woo to get the book out? I listened to an interview yesterday with an author who said she wrote the first page and then the characters speak to her and tell her what to do next. I respect that,

but that has not been my experience. People who talk about sitting down and going into another world I am so envious of but I think sometimes it's a little bit of a misrepresentation of the writing process. This was the hardest thing I have ever done and if I didn't apply some science to it from writing spreadsheets to having very clear productivity hacks, then this never, ever would have been written. And someone who's really good at that is Jane Harper. She's done a TED Talk on how to write a book. And she says it's a science.

If you sit around and wait for the muse to visit you, it never, ever will. You will not feel inspired every day. You will hate what you wrote yesterday. And it is an exercise in determination and self-discipline more than it's this fun artwork that, you know, you get a lot from every day. It's really hard. And I think people should talk about that more. Yeah. I find that so interesting because I find creativity really difficult. Did you have an inner critic with it? Like, were you really very battling yourself all the time or were you like, nope, science. I'm just following the formula. That was by far the hardest part. When you do anything for

the first time, people talk about imposter syndrome, which I think is real, but I had to keep checking in with myself and going, no, you don't have imposter syndrome. You are an imposter. You've never written a book before. Of course, you are going to find it really hard because I don't know how to do this thing. And anytime you do something for the first time, you discover all the things you don't know how to do this thing. And anytime you do something for the first time, you discover all the things you don't know how to do. So my biggest struggle throughout the whole process was my absolute hatred of what I had written up until the last, up until right now, like I submitted that manuscript and I was so deeply insecure and I'd heard a horror story

and this happened to a lot of writers I've discovered where you deliver your manuscript, which might be between 70 and 90,000 words. And an editor will say to you, nice first try, give it another go. And I was so prepared for that to happen because I am a perfectionist to a fault. And I don't say that to be like, I'm perfect. It's horrible because it actually stops you from trying things and it blocks you in a lot of ways. And I think people who aren't perfectionists are much better writers, but that inner critic was by far the hardest part of the whole process. And if anyone had a trick to turning that inner critic off, I would, because the good writing happens when you put her to the side. You cannot write and edit at the same time. They're two different skills and my brain wants me to do both and it's horrible.

Sounds like a real fun time. Just sounds like you were just enjoying the whole process immensely. So fun. But I have spoken to some authors, Jane Harper being one of them, and she promises me that it only gets easier. And I believe that. I think that once you've done, the first time I wrote an article for the website I work for, Mamma Mia, I found it so hard and it took me hours and hours and I was agonizing over every word. I've probably written a thousand articles and I could write an article in 20 minutes if I had to, and I don't get that same anxiety anymore. So you just need to do it again and again and you become better at it. And that inner critic isn't necessarily a bad thing. That's the thing is my inner critic was probably very, very right. But the idea that an author, I always hear authors say, like, I couldn't wait for it to be in the world.

I was terrified because to me, there are thousands of things I would still change, but all creativity is, is doing a task in a set amount of time. There are authors that will never finish their book. So I just knew it had to be finished and it won't be perfect, but it will be done. One thing I've really appreciated about the book was your own story and also the fact that they were real stories from three real people rather than being fictionalised, I guess. Have you experienced, and I know from reading the book the answer to this question, but I thought listeners who haven't read the book might appreciate this. What have you experienced in your life of heartbreak so there's been a number of moments

the one I write about in the book it was hard to actually choose one but I think that this one was most interesting to me because it was the most surprising I expected when a relationship of a few years broke down to be left heartbroken. But this story was a guy I'd been seeing for maybe six weeks. We'd been on a few dates, but I had that feeling of I've met the one, which is a humiliating thing to think, let alone say out loud. But I felt like he was more in, almost like more into me. And so I had this sense of security of just like, oh my God, he's really into me and I really like him. And we just connected on this level that I thought was above anything else. And I was sort of at an age where it was time and it was such an incredible period, these like six weeks and you walk differently and you, the whole colour of the

world changes. And then he went quiet on me one weekend and I got this horrible, horrible feeling. And then he, I think I must have texted him probably more than once because you get to a point where it's like, I'm ready to be sad. What I'm not coping with is this level of anxiety. It's actually making me sick because I need an answer. And I eventually got him to call me and he said, I've gotten back together with my ex-girlfriend. I have to give it another go. And it speaks to how much I still wanted him to like me that I was like, oh, I completely understand. Good luck, whatever. And I got off the phone and just cried and cried and cried. I remember I had a day off of work the next day, which was mortifying to me. And then actually he ended up

breaking up with that girl. And then we sort of had another go and I went to his house one day and I realised that worse than being dumped is spending time with someone who clearly doesn't like you anymore because of the way they speak to you, the way they look at you. And I was just, I went to the bathroom at one point, scrutinizing myself going, do I have something on my face? Like what has gone wrong here? And I was shocked by how much that experience shook me. And still it's sort of this stab when I think about it. And I don't think that culturally we're allowed to feel like that about short-lived romances we're meant to get over that very quickly our friends

don't care our family never met them but to me that was the most painful and that was absolutely heartbreak like I was so upset about all the things that I'd planned in my head and all the hope I had had just been evaporated. From a heartbreak perspective, obviously we talk about emotions, but can you talk me through the physicalness of heartbreak? Because that's what came through from that story too, I think. Yeah. Of just the feeling of sickness and your gut, what happens to your body. I think it's just awful. And the people that I interviewed, and I call them characters too, even though they're real people, they're sort of three characters that we follow. And at least one of them vomited. There were others that sort of couldn't get out of bed and were plagued by, I mean, their symptoms in line

with, you know, depression. Yeah. Completely. And almost like this awful flu or something. It manifested in so many different ways for them. But interestingly, they're also extremely universal the the thing of throwing up after you've been brutally rejected is very human because of you know your body not being able to process something or or multiple times i've found

myself like sitting in a shower that's my go-. It's like the ultimate pity moment where a lot of people find themselves in that during heartbreak, but we don't talk about those moments. So we find them even sadder. But I did find that those responses are, you know, incredibly universal. Yeah, absolutely. Do you think it's different being a woman and a straight woman in the way we experience heartbreak or do you think it's just completely universal? That was something I really wanted to explore. And I thought heartbreak in a strange way belonged to women more than it belonged to men probably because I am a woman but also because our cultural references feminize heartbreak and make it look like it's this thing that happens

to a silly 15 year old girl who's rejected by the boy on the bus like and that's what it makes you feel like in terms of how we experience it I think that gender comes into it. I actually think that sometimes men feel things more in their bodies, and this is a massive generalization, but from the people I've spoken to, can actually feel things more in their bodies and women feel things sometimes in words more. And women are almost luckier in some respects because we have more of a vocabulary and more of a ritual and process that we've been taught through our whole lives. So whether it's eating ice cream or watching TV or calling a friend, it's an imperfect ritual, but at least we know how to put one step in front of the other. Men, I don't think have that at all. And they don't have any blueprint for what they're

meant to do next, which is scary. And I think that it's why for men, there's a lot of mental health issues that come after breakups. So I think we've got to do a better job at obviously allowing men to like cry and to have emotions, but also, you know, supporting them in the wake of that and empowering men to have more of a vocabulary around how they feel. Yeah, because that's what I thought was so powerful about Patrick's story, because he's a bloke for starters. And then just understanding that so much of what he felt is what I felt through heartbreak, what other people have felt through heartbreak. And his kind of utter confusion about how he felt and the first relationship he'd ever

had and just not having anyone in his life who seemed to really get it. So that loneliness of that, you know, it was so sad. I've been thinking about Patrick since, and one thing I've noticed is that, and I think a lot of men experience this, when they get in to a heterosexual or even same-sex relationship for the first time, they suddenly have a confidant in a way they never have before. So in the case of Patrick, he had someone who listened to him and he had conversations he'd never had with anyone else before. So to him it was like Caitlin was this door into a whole world he didn't even know he had access to. And then when something like that is taken away,

I think men can believe that that person was their only access to their emotions or intellectual conversations or something. And that's a lot of pressure to put on a partner. But I feel as though at the end, yeah, Patrick is kind of going, well, now who do I talk to? Which for women, we are much better at having friends and our mother and a community around us where we've always had those conversations.

So it's not like that part of us is cut off to the same extent. Totally. I think it's that intimacy, isn't it? You know, that ability to be intimate and vulnerable that we seem to be able to do, whether culturally or genetically or whatever it is, we just have those relationships. Exactly right. And men might first experience them with a woman or an intimate partner. And I think that's really interesting. And it explains why it can be a trigger for mental illness or for, you know, a period, a really difficult period, because they think an intimate partner is the only person who you can have that experience with, which of course isn't the case. Totally. It reminds me of something. I know you've listened

to Dolly Alderton's podcast, Sentimental Garbage. Oh, I loved it. Because I mean, I think part of this too is culturally as women, we experience the world first as teenagers and as young kids through the stuff we watch. And for me, Sex and the City was totally one of those really, maybe it's showing my age at 35, but pivotal shows. And so I loved that podcast because it reminded me of all of the reasons why I love that show, as problematic as it is. But that line that, I don't know if you remember, I can't remember if it was Dolly said it, about the girlfriend experience and how there are these serial guys who, and one of my good friends has experienced this recently with this guy who she saw dates over like, you know,

a few weeks slash like a couple of months. And he would come and cook her dinner and it would be really intimate. They'd have like beautiful conversations. He'd like snuggle her at nighttime, but then he just wouldn't text her again for weeks and then he'd do it again. Yeah, exactly. And this is the thing is they're not, the idea that a guy just wants sex is actually not consistent with a lot of women in their twenties, thirties and beyond with their experience. The reason why we can feel so gaslighted or hurt by the experience of ghosting is that we were given the girlfriend experience and that we thought what they really wanted was to talk at us and have their emotions validated. And so we did that for them and then had that

withdrawn. And often it feels like there's a word, there's a phrase that's been, you know, coined for it, but basically like when the man accelerates the relationship at a really ridiculous pace and then looks at you and is like, oh my God, it's really going too fast. And it's like, what? I didn't even suggest that we move in together. You pushed that. And then they look at you like you're really trapping me. And I think that it's part of that, that they wanted this intimacy with someone and they might've just used you for that, which I think can be really difficult. And it's kind of in a way worse than using you for sex

in a way, because sex can be quite transactional, but this is much more, you're building a future in your head with this person because they're selling you on it really hard. Exactly. Exactly. That's, and it's funny that Sex and the City reference, because I think that shows like that also prime women to expect heartbreak in their future at some point. When I first started dating, it shocks you how much it hurts the first time. But as women, we probably expect that we'll be heartbroken at some point. Men are never primed to expect it, which is why I think it hits them differently because they were like, this wasn't in the brochure of manhood. Like in male conversations, they're not telling you this is incredibly, you know, gendered,

but I don't know, fast and the furious or something. They're not suggesting that a man will get his heart broken. It's normally the women who do because that's such a feminine thing to have feelings. Right. So I wonder if that's got something to do with it as well. Sex and the City did a great job in preparing me for a lot of things. Oh my God. I know, right? What do you feel it prepared you for? There are so many moments I look at in my life and I'm like, this is a Sex and the City episode. I think one of them is getting to your ths, and they touched on this in Sentimental Garbage as

well, but you get into your 30s and suddenly you are at weddings, christenings, engagement parties, hens, and the ways in which we celebrate and mark courtship. If you do not have those things, you never get to celebrate. And you do get to a stage where you're like, where's my party and where's my present. And that was such a clever episode to sort of go, everyone has birthdays, but your whole thirties as a woman and beyond are about these markers of success. And you can get through that and go, I have spent thousands of dollars on your life choices and mine never got acknowledged. And that's a really hard thing. Oh, completely. I think it does so well as well. I think women, and this is so gendered and so like a big generalization, but often I think we can be a bit Kerry in that we centre ourselves

as a character in our life. And sometimes we can view ourselves from above. And I often in my life, even when you're heartbroken, you know that scene, even when she goes to El Cantinori's and she gets her heart broken in that her friends don't show up and she's completely on her own. Then she goes and cries in the shower. And that moment to me, I'm like, yes, as I'm crying in the shower, I'm like, I must look just like Kerry in the episode. You know, that kind of strange, right? Psychological thing, I think. And this is obviously a spectrum, but women often do have that representation of ourselves and that story that we're constantly like posing in situations in our lives, you know, even in the way we dress

and the way we leave the house, which I don't know that men, I'm talking particularly straight men, do in the same way, you know. It's so true. And there's another moment where Carrie is sitting with Miranda and Charlotte and Samantha and she goes to talk about her breakup again. And she sort of opens her mouth and they look at her and they're like, we're done. You now need to go and see a therapist. And that moment has stuck with me as well, because the subjects of my book, the reason they were so willing to share and had so much to say and I got to that level of intimacy was because

the people in their lives who loved them had had enough and I don't think that's their fault necessarily but we very much have a timeline I think we do it with all types of grief where we go normal period of grief I'll listen to you talk about this for 10 days and then I am done and you're actually sucking up too much oxygen. And that's what we do with heartbreak, which is why the fact that we're carrying scars five, 10 years, 25 years down the track make us feel crazy and weak. Whereas if there's one thing I've learned from this book and the response is that you can have had your heart broken by a boy in the playground at six and you can be 60

and remember that like it was yesterday and have that imprint itself on your psyche. And that's the case for a lot of people. But that's crazy if you bring that up at brunch, like you actually sound crazy. Yeah, because it's like a physical hurt because we tell stories all the time about the time that we broke our arm or got stitches or I know I got a hook in my eye once when I was in

kinder and you tell that story it gets a great response but you but and people pity you yes but yeah for some reason with heartbreak we don't treat it in the same way no it's you you're meant to get over that and once you are in another relationship you're meant to get over that. And once you are in another relationship, you're meant to not ever think about your ex-partners again, or that hurt isn't meant to stay. But the reality is that you can be in a happy long-term relationship and still every now and then think about the person who broke your heart. It doesn't make you not committed. It just makes you human. Absolutely. I want to change tack for a little bit now. I want to ask you about you, Jessie. Yes. This is a funny question I've been reflecting on recently. If you had been a

bloke, like if you had been born a bloke, you've got a twin sister, Claire, and you've got two brothers who are twins. So say it had been reversed and you and Claire had been blokes. Do you think your life would be very different? I wonder. I think it would in some ways. And I think for better and for worse. And by that, I mean that this narrative that you're worse off being a woman, which I know in some ways the outcomes support that. I think there are a lot of really tough things about being a man too, that probably aren't popular to articulate. But I wonder the fact that what I do now is talk on podcasts and write and how I communicate is so central to who I am. The men in my family struggle a lot with that and I think that's part of being men and that

makes me sad because that is an enormous loss and I know it can sound silly because so much of literature and history has been written by white men so we don't want to kind of yeah exactly you don't want to kind of cry for them too much. But I do think that there's a lot of support about talking about how you feel when you're a woman by other women. And my career and every opportunity I've ever got has been from another woman. And that's just something I'm so, so grateful for. So I wonder what that would have been like if I had been born a boy and had a very different set of expectations on me. I'm also like, I like working against the grain and working

against expectations. So that comes in handy when you're a female as well. Like journalism is... You've got that narrative. Yeah, exactly. And like mainstream media, you can feel like journalism is very women-centred, but it's actually not. Mainstream media is still run by men in suits. And so there's an element of me feeling like I'm working against the grain, which I find quite empowering and exciting. So I think it would have been different.

I'm not sure what I would have been doing, but I don't think I'd be in the same spot. Were you raised, do you think, the same as your twin brothers? It's really hard to know. Socially, when you look at psychology and all that kind of stuff, I could pretty confidently say no, because you know that when you're held, you know, even in the first few hours after you're born, it's different. So I think we probably were raised quite differently. The expectations were different. I was probably given more space to speak than my brothers were and then they were encouraged in physical pursuits.

And this is by an incredibly feminist mother and an incredibly, you know, fair father. So this isn't like it was a traditional family, but I do think that we were raised differently. And then that obviously is exacerbated when you go to school and all that kind of stuff. So. And what you absorb. Yeah. And I say that, but it's funny because my brothers worked in childcare and now are teachers and that's a caring role that is traditionally female. So perhaps it was more equal than in a lot of other families that we were allowed to challenge stereotypes a bit.

Yeah, completely. Because your parents were both teachers. Yes. Isn't that right? Is that why you, because you are bloody so good with your academics, my friend. I've been looking at all of your work and what you've done. It's pretty impressive. I'm just going to read out the title of your master's. So it's Rethinking Feminism, an oral history of 1970s feminism, heterosexual encounters and men's lives with high distinction that you've got. Very impressive what is that where you got your academic kind of bent do you think yes I think the any child of teachers will say

that you have an inbuilt respect for learning for the sake of learning I didn't go to uni to get a degree which is completely valid and I had lots of friends who went on to be paramedics and blah, blah, blah. But for me, it was about, I remember having a thing that was like, I want to know everything about everything. Like that was a sort of a research impulse of just learning heaps and heaps. And so I think that comes from being the daughter of a teacher. Lots of people in media you speak to are like, yeah, both my parents are teachers. It's very much, you know, a thing. And it also means you have an enormous respect for teachers and your own teachers at school. And there isn't

enough respect for sort of knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I think we're going more and more towards getting people in and out of uni and yeah, and I'm not about that. I reckon sometimes, I mean, I wrote that master's and so many people rolled their eyes and saw it as very indulgent and like, what's it actually contributing? But I wouldn't have written this book without that master's. There are things I discovered in that master's that informed the book I just wrote. What did you discover? So I met this man who I was talking to, it was about heterosexuality and the way in which a political movement like feminism informs it. And this man was talking about a girlfriend he had at

like 14. He's married with kids and he broke down and started crying. And I had this moment of just like, wait, old men are heartbroken? Like, what's that about? I couldn't stop thinking about it. And I think that was a turning point for me that I realized it was far more universal and that you don't just get over it. And that if that seed had never been planted, I probably wouldn't have written this book. But I realised during that, that I was obsessed with like the history of love and the history of relationships. They are things that happen in people's lives and then you die and then it's gone, but they're constantly evolving. And how does that, you know, inform our lives and our experiences?

Specifically men's lives. If you had a paintbrush and you could decide like a magic wand and decide that society could be different, what do you think should change for men? I think there is something in expectation, and this might be my own bubble. I'm concerned day to day about the mental health of most men around me. And again, I know that women struggle with mental health as well, you know, in comparable numbers. But when you look at things like the suicide rate, men are a lot higher. And that, again, you can talk about privilege. But I think that one of the most privileged things any of us can have is our mental health.

And so that's something I do worry about, and even R U OK? Day and stuff, that's really been brought about by men not having conversations. And so I care about mental health generally, but for a lot of the men in my life, I wish I could take that pain away, which I think the better you are at talking, the more the pain goes away. I think the two things are related. Absolutely. And do you think, because it's so interesting, you work for Mamma Mia,

which is obviously a hugely feminist media outlet, which their core belief is about making the world better for women and girls. Do you think that those two things align? That if we improve mental health for men, that then things improve for women? Yes. And that was the premise of that thesis as well, was that you cannot have one social movement of liberation for women when a portion of women are in heterosexual relationships with men. So one liberation can't happen without the other. And I was really curious as to how one thing is law, which is probably the most important. Another thing is funding,

like domestic violence funding and ensuring that those institutions exist. But then there's the home and then there's the woman that cooks dinner every night and the man who doesn't come home to what, like there's that gender dynamic that's being negotiated. So that's what I was fascinated by. And it became very clear that there is no liberation of women without the liberation of men. And there are as many women who are getting to the end of their lives and they've cared for children and then they kind of go is that it and then there were men getting to

the end of their lives and going I wish I spent more time with my kids like both had regrets so by liberating both I think you get to a closer experience of what a human being wants that isn't so much a result of their gender. So I think, yeah, I've always seen feminism as about liberating men and women equally. Which I think makes you really unique, which is why I've loved your work, actually, because I think that that's not always a narrative that we hear, because otherwise we're just preaching to the choir. If we're just all talking about empowering women, which obviously we both strongly believe in, but you can't do that. Annabelle Cradd writes so beautifully about this too. You can't do that without giving men the skills and the role in society to change,

to the ability to change, the freedom to move and change. And I think I'm conscious of that seeing friends of mine now who've had young kids and the dynamics in families. And even when friends of mine who, you know, are ostensibly and more than their partner still divert to the domestic role because that's what their husband has seen themselves as being, the provider. And neither of them are happy then. No. But there still isn't the room just yet to change things, you know? Exactly.

And I don't think that the solution is yelling at men that they're shit. I'm not convinced that that's useful. I don't think any social movement has ever really been inspired by that. And there's a great quote that I came across when I was doing my master's thesis about how feminism is the only revolution in which the oppressed is in love with their oppressor. And that was a real moment of like, oh, that's why relationships, some relationships, and in the book, I look at a same-sex relationship as well, because that's as valid an experience of heartbreak. But in terms of feminism, I think that's a really interesting area to explore, because this writing men off thing isn't, I believe, in a more co-ed world in a lot of ways. And I don't think that that's a way to demand that people do better

is by yelling at them that they're shit. Or like my dad's had some health issues and I was recently in a neurological ward looking around and, you know, a lot of white middle-aged men who had had strokes and couldn't speak or walk anymore. And I thought privilege is really complicated. Like tell this man and his family that this is the height of privilege. I know that's intersectionality and that's acknowledged, but it's not as simple as all white men are the enemy. I do think it's, you know, a lot more complicated and that's worth talking about. I totally agree. I read an article recently that on their deathbed,

the five main things people regret, actually, I won't go into all of them, but one that I thought was really interesting, and this was particularly for men, was that they worked too much and that they didn't allow themselves to be happy. And I thought that that was so sad, you know, that we have that. It's just hard. It's so sad. Obviously we're like, it's not just about having a pity party for men because obviously, and straight white men particularly, because obviously they have huge amounts of privilege, but that to me, getting to the end of your life and having huge regrets around that is really heartbreaking. It's really sad. And that's something that providing more ways to be a man benefits everyone. And

that's exciting to me that in our generation, we get to say that and that we get to see a new, hopefully generation of fathers who get to enjoy it as much as the mothers and a new generation of male caregivers. And all of that is, is something that men aren't ceding and like going, oh, now I have to be it. Like a lot of men want that and weren't able to in previous generations. So yeah, it's about opportunity. What's your dad like? He is extremely compassionate, empathetic.

And like, it was funny when my dad got this surgery recently, the surgeon had to do something kind of up near his brain. And afterwards he was in his hospital bed and the surgeon said, I looked inside your head. I saw your brain and you are a very good man. And it was a joke, but he is a very good man. And I'm sure that he could tell it from looking at his brain. But, yeah, I think that he's probably the person in my life that I've got the most sort of moral compass, generosity. You care for people less fortunate than you. He's an assistant principal at a Catholic school and I think a lot of those religious principles come through

in terms of modesty and humility. And I think I've got a lot of that from him. Oh, he sounds amazing. Yeah. Yeah. What was he like when you were growing up? I think he played a lot of golf, which we now give him a lot of crap for. But had this thing, and it's funny that when I finished the book, someone said, you've always been very determined because I don't have an enormous amount of self-discipline, I don't think. And I don't think I'm smarter than anyone else, but this determination thing, and I think it comes completely from my dad. I remember being a kid and like, I wasn't very tall and I went to play netball and I wanted to be a goal shooter. And I used to just do hundreds and hundreds of shots in a row.

And that's my dad to a T. Like he's a very, very determined person and played golf at a very high level for that reason. But I think I learned that off him about like practice, practice, practice, focus and hard work. I think that was very, very from him. I remember, I think I heard you say something about his idea of when, you know, how people often say, oh, you can just, you know, I could have been that, or I could have been this, but I just didn't do that. But I've got the talent, but I just didn't, I didn't get there in the end for whatever reason. He's like, well, don't tell me that, that's bullshit. Either do it or don't, you know? It's his pet hate. And that's the thing is that he was a sort of, can't remember what the term is, but basically like a professional golfer for a few months. And then he just found it

quite self-centered and struggled with a sport where it's just you. And he's always said that he hates it. Like if I turned to him and said, I could be an author author like I write lots of stories and just add the words up and I'm an author he would just look at me and go until you have written a book you are not an author like you don't get to claim someone else's success because you believe you can do it like and it's so so many people are like yeah I could have been a professional rugby player I'm like bullshit yeah you're not so even if you could have, you didn't, so suck it. Exactly. Exactly. I hate it. I think I actually kind of love that attitude to life, really. I genuinely think that's really amazing. I wanted to ask you too, because I grew up Catholic,

how are you going with your whole Catholic upbringing, Catholicism stuff? I've come full circle. I don't go to church or anything. And I did as a kid. And I had a very kind of Catholic, Irish Catholic grandmother who imbued a lot of guilt and, you know, a little bit of healthy levels of self-loathing, I think, who like, I loved her more than anything. She was just the best influence. And then I kind of at school really off it, not my thing. And I think I have a complicated relationship with sort of not spirituality, but, you know, obviously the Bible and a lot of things I don't agree with.

But then I look around sometimes and I'm grateful that there are certain values that I had a compass for. And I often like will be in a situation, I like think of a Bible passage. I'm like, that's so fucked up. Like, oh, there's one about like a tax man. I remember learning that one a lot. I think it was about greed. And I really hate greed. And I don't like jealousy or, or yeah I think that there is something about

giving to others that comes from that upbringing which I think you can get it doesn't have to be a religious upbringing but that was how I was taught those certain values and I'm grateful that they existed in my childhood because it's very easy in 2021 to think that the height of success and self-realization is being a billionaire. And I don't believe that. And I think that probably comes from a Catholic upbringing. Totally. Yeah. It's complicated, isn't it? Because I think there's something incredibly important about living an examined life and really thinking deeply about why you do the things you do and your ethics and your values and morals.

What I find hard with all of this is to live with that moral compass and those values but also the feminism, trying to exist within a religion that I think is so problematic and anti-feminist and the things that they've done in terms of covering up, you know, child abuse, all of those things just are so counter to the values that I grew up with. I find I still don't know how to reconcile all of that. Yeah, I think I've, because both of my parents work

in Catholic schools and have known brothers who have been sent to prison for what they've done. And they've had to grapple with that pretty seriously. And I think that what you end up doing is seeing the institution as very separate to the beliefs you have when you get into bed at night. And like my nan prayed every night at her bedside, which is really just meditation. And I think meditation is a new way of talking about some pretty old ways of practicing religion. And it's funny because still something bad will happen. And I find myself doing the sign of the cross and like doing a secret prayer. And I'm like, I'm not even religious. I don't even believe this, but it's a way of

connecting you with something bigger than yourself. It's like a clutch or something. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. So you're exactly right with the institution. Couldn't feel more foreign to me. Hate it. You know, I think the greed, I remember going and visiting the Vatican and being revolted

by the greed in that and going, that's not religion, that's money and that's an institution. And power. And power, yeah. Yeah, because I did the same thing. And do you know that the Vatican is actually built on a pagan burial site? So underneath it, isn't it, right? So they built over an entire town and a sacred pagan site where they buried their dead and they put this ginormous,

rich, wealthy building on top. It's just so counterintuitive to the whole way that the whole thing started. Just fills me with a lot of rage, Jessie. Exactly. Feed the hungry children. There are so many people who need that money. Just pull it apart and go and feed some hungry

children. I just don't get it. It's hypocrisy. Oh, it is. A thousand percent. Oh God, we could talk about this for ages, couldn't we? It's such a huge thing. Oh God. So I wanted to ask you about a quote that I saw. You used to have a website called ThinkSpo. Is that right? Yes. Yes. With your sister Claire, ThinkSpo.com.au. And I just want to read this beautiful quote, a few words from a set of twins who see a fundamental flaw in social media, that those who speak before they think overpower the voices of those who think before they speak.

Yes. Where does that come from? We were so naive. We were consuming media and looking at it and just going, and I think this comes back to the respect for learning thing. And I felt like there were a lot of people saying a lot of things very quickly, but not, and I'm now, I still have to toe that line where I've written articles because I have a deadline and I didn't know enough about that thing. And I have a lot of regret about that. So the example at the moment is the Palestine-Israel conflict. I

actually refuse to write about that because I do not know enough. And until I do, I'm not the right voice for that. There are people much smarter than me and I will commission cleverer voices who have been covering this for years and years. But the fact that a journalist or a reporter or a writer can take a five minute look at an international conflict and think they can summarise it is a worry that I think is still, I actually think digital media has got a little bit better with this because our measurements of success have changed. But at that moment, which was about, I think it was about eight years ago when we wrote that, it was all clickbait, churn, crap that was being written. And then we were in these lectures going, how do people not know this?

This is so, so interesting. So how do you get the interesting knowledge that people want and talk about greater ideas? That's what I wanted. And I actually think that podcasting has been that medium that's evolved to do that. So I listened to some long form interviews about, you know, ideas that you could, that could be a lecture. And I think they're much better for us than a quick article that can't quite look into it so much. And there's a, there's a place for that. And I love opinion and I love actually simple explainers that break things down. I just think you've got to be really careful that we don't write without thinking. Thinking is a very important part of that process. And when people are taught to churn, they don't get to think enough.

And scoop just the headlines. Yes. And that's what a lot of people say. And then it's an incorrect summary or, yeah, I find that a problem and are very much focused on that to try and skew things differently. But now, for example, people care a lot more about how long someone is reading an article than whether or not 100 or 100,000 people clicked, which I think is a really important difference. And I hope that we continue to do that kind of a focus on,

and I know we've done that at Mamma Mia, focused on quality over quantity. And that is the direction of digital media that I hope, you know know we've done that at Mamma Mia, focused on quality over quantity. And that is the direction of digital media that I hope, you know, we continue to do. And the joy of podcasting, I think. Yes. Yes. Some nuance. Exactly. Because as we know, every situation has a thousand different angles that you could take.

And I think part of the problem is we've just been shouting at each other from the left and the right without really delving into why we think the way we do. Exactly. Yeah. So I want to thank you for your work too, because I can see that you're doing that and looking at things from lots of different angles. And I think it's so important to do that. Thank you. Yeah. Otherwise we're just shouting at each other. And what is that? It's just Twitter. We're just Twitter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So I guess what's next?

What's next for you? Where are you going with all of this? Oh, that's funny you ask. I just went and pitched a new book idea to my publisher, which I'm like, no, I keep going back and forward on it, but it is one of those ideas that I can't look away from. And that's my measure of kind of this might be the new direction. And I'm not, you know, sure yet whether that will eventuate. But I think definitely these longer form projects are exciting.

I love podcasting. There's so much more that I want to do in podcasting, which I love. I do true crime conversations on Mum Mia and Mum Mia Out Loud and, you know, some new ideas, which are really exciting. I want to do more with my sister Claire. I think we work really well together and I love, I actually love, you know, with recaps and stuff that we've done, the comedy element. We have so much fun with that. So I love, I actually love, you know, with recaps and stuff that we've done, the comedy element, we have so much fun with that. So I want to play with that side of my creativity a little bit more. Yeah, it's funny. I've never had like a five, 10 year plan, but I

think if you keep following your interests, then you're going to end up somewhere interesting. So that's my like life motto. I love that. That leads me into my last question. So looking back at Jessie, that's heartbroken at the start of your book, what advice would you give her now looking back? What would you tell her? I wish she had more self-worth. And I wish I knew how you give people that, but I know that that compounded the experience of heartbreak and that when you have successive heartbreaks, your self-worth really gets a beating. I would probably tell her as well to sit in it and feel it because what you offer and your greater strength will be putting into words that feeling. So what I did do was pick up a pen and I tried to journal a little bit, which some of those words made it into the book. And so I've learned a lot about vulnerability

and feeling those moments intensely because you'll be able to give something back to other people in that experience if you really lean into it rather than denying it. Oh, beautiful way to finish. I love that. Yeah, we've all, you know, you sound like Glennon Doyle, who I bloody love too. It's like the vulnerability stuff. It's really important. It is. Yeah. There's one actually final thing I wanted your opinion on because sometimes in this podcast I talk a lot about the media and TV that we watch as kids

and the narratives and stories that we're told and how they kind of impact the stories we then tell ourselves. Where do you think that lack of self-worth when it comes to relationships for men and women, you know, whoever you are, where do you think that that could come from external stories of that, you know, the one kind of narrative? Yes, yes. And I also think something is happening. I mean, you can talk about social media and stuff, but I don't know the role that that plays or if a lack of self-worth is also a life stage that we all need to go through. But I do think that young women struggle with self-worth really, really seriously and that we need to do better at building them up. Something happens at school

sometimes where like, or when you start dating, where it is so superficial and you feel like you have to look a certain way to be loved and you get, you know, to after school and then you think you're not worthy of being loved for whatever reason, but you're focusing on the wrong things. Like the pressure to be beautiful as a young woman, I think has a lot to answer for when it comes to people's self-worth because it didn't, I wasn't focusing enough on what was inside. You become very vain and that's not your fault because that's, you're being socialized to feel that way and to value yourself on that because that's what you feel like everyone else is valuing. And I think that had a lot to do with it. And the less I care about that, the happier I am. And it's a very

hard process, but this is what women talk about with getting older is that you do start to care less and you become more yourself in the process. So, ah, completely. I think I was given the gift of being a really, I won't say ugly, but let's just say ugly for want of a better word, kid. And very gorgeously chubby. And now I look back on that kid and I think, good on you, mate, because you got to have something else going on. If you don't have that, especially as a girl, and at the time it was awful, but I also think that gives you a gift because it enables you to develop, you know, other skills, which I think sometimes boys are valued when we grow up, in our culture anyway, more for what they do

than necessarily how they look. And I think I have a friend who's a play therapist who talks about how if we dress girls in sparkly stuff, what's the first thing that we comment on when we see them? Yeah. And it's beautiful shoes, look at your hair, oh, isn't that gorgeous, you look gorgeous. And what is that message over time sending that in order to get noticed

and valued what we value about you is the shoes or the hair or the face or the skin or whatever. And boys just don't, I don't think get that in the same way. I know there are pressures too for self-image. It wasn't cool growing up to be funny. And in fact, it was not annoying, but it was kind of just like, what are you trying to do? And you don't get that at a boys' school. You get to be the funny one. There's a class clown in a boys' school. There's not a class clown in a girls' school. There's just pretty girls. And that hierarchy messes with you, I think. And so when you get to play with humour, humour also makes you, requires you to be self-deprecating. And when

you're trying to be beautiful and lovable, you're the opposite of funny because you feel like you're having to do a tap dance to get any attention. Whereas kind of boys get to just be funny. And that I found that was a real shame. And only in adulthood was I able to lean into that a bit more. Did you, is that because you wanted to, to boys to like you and you thought they wouldn't if you were funny? Yeah. Yeah. I, and I, I don't think I went out with a boy who laughed at me for most, for most of my life. They didn't laugh. Even if you were really funny I've sat back and I've been like okay that was hilarious what he said isn't funny but you're all and still I will hang out with a group of guys and if they don't laugh at a woman I'm like I know there is nothing funny up girls when there is a big group of women I have never laughed as hard I know as a big group of women together. They are so, so funny and you get funnier as you get older

because you're more honest. Yeah, yeah. But when you're not being honest and vulnerable and self-deprecating, you're not being funny, which is why, yeah, it's like you're at a pub and you just hear women laughing at men. That's all it is and that's a shame because women are really, really funny. Yes, they're so funny. And I've often found that, not that I'm hilarious, but you know, I have my moments and you'll just tell a joke and I'll be like, what a cracker. And it'll just

pin drop when there's got, or they look at you like a bit confused, like they've been startled. Yes. By like, you know, like, like oh what's this about and you know why it's because laughing at someone is a transfer of power if someone is laughing at you they're giving you a moment of power it's implicit I don't think this is actually a conscious thought but I've been with particular alpha men that won't laugh at you because like women can't be funny or whatever it is but it's actually I think it's a power play it's a massive power play not to laugh at someone and the best people are big laughers yes and isn't that interesting because I don't think I couldn't laugh at someone

like if someone's trying to be funny even if they're not funny I'm like oh good on you look at you go it's a politeness thing. It is a politeness thing. I will like always laugh at people and women are such laughers because they've been socialised to be. But I'm, you know, sick of the man on the stool holding court, telling half funny jokes when women around him are much funnier and aren't getting the same attention. Totally.

Have you been in the media landscape? Have you been in a room where you're the only woman on a panel? Does that ever happen to you? I actually haven't. It's only happened socially. I've always been surrounded. I've been in a writer's room, all women. I've been on panels, podcasts, mostly women. And I've been so lucky in that way. Wow. so it's just socially what was it like is Luca a big laugher because Luke is your partner yes does it do you get are you a gagging kind of you know whatever yes that sounds terrible gagging I meant you know like gas bagging laughing kind of team he says if I were to say to him what do you love the most about me which I ask three times a day he will say no one makes me laugh like you make me laugh and that is the center of our whole

relationship is how much we can make each other laugh and that's why you're not going to get a meaningful equal relationship until and this is something I learned from my masters as well when they were talking about equality in a relationship, they said there's not equality in a heterosexual relationship when there's an intellectual disparity. And I don't mean that by IQ. But if you're not on the same page about how you see the world and think about things, and I think this happened for a lot of generations where it was a woman who hadn't had access

to the same amount of education, so the man didn't think he could talk to her about things. Now you're sitting in your lounge room with a complete intellectual equal. Like that's, that's the best relationship because you're on the same page and you can laugh and you respect each other's ideas and you can debate. And there isn't this power play of, I know more than you. I'm the teacher. You're the student. Yeah, and having that, well, and I guess that then extends into your whole lives domestically, looking after kids, all of that stuff. Yes. Because you're seeing them as a fully fleshed partner.

But there is that kind of guy that my friends have dated who is like that with his friends and has a lot of women who are friends but then chooses a partner or whatever, finds a partner who is definitely not his intellectual equal, who is lovely but cleans the house, laughs at his jokes and we're puzzled. I see that too. Give us some insight, Jessie. What do you think that is? I see that too.

And I think that that's a replica of probably sometimes their parents or that's the only way that they've ever seen heterosexuality modeled it's also the um it sounds really bad but sometimes it can be the Madonna whore thing or like women you don't want to have sex with are allowed to be funny but the second you're a woman that you're gonna to have sex with, she can't be all of those things. There's the object and there's the subject. So there's like, you're at the pub with a whole lot of funny women and they're like your mates, but that's got to go into the home as well. And I think sometimes it doesn't, is that they're not mates with that

person they're sleeping with. It's a different dynamic and it's a power thing. I've seen that with men too, that I'm like, I just watched her laugh at you for three hours and she barely speaks. That's not a relationship. That's just a performance that you do for someone every day. Yeah, someone with an audience who then claps while you eat your breakfast. Exactly. Yeah, it's very odd. Is that about, I'm just asking you now because I'm so interested, is this about men's self-esteem or the stories they've been told about what relationships are supposed to be? I think that can be part of it. And I think it's also the way, you know, they've been socialised and the wife that they expected and the woman that they imagine themselves marrying isn't a woman who's loud. And I wonder

if there is also a place where those people are also really happy. Like maybe there are relationships. I don't relate with this, but if a woman is like, and I've met women like this that say, I'm happy to be sort of the subservient one. And he is a little bit more dominant or whatever. And they're both happy. Then I guess go for it. It's not what I would be looking for. And that's why I think that everyone has to have their own priority list. That's different to what they see around them. But yeah, I wonder about that because you do, it's very common. It's still a very common relationship that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Yeah. And yeah, I guess maybe that's it that, yeah, it's that whole idea of

people being different and happy with different things and wanting different things. And just because we might see something as being a particular way and enjoying it and being happy in that way, not everyone lives in that same space as you, in that same headspace as you. Exactly. Exactly. I guess. Yeah. Oh gosh. Hetero relationships or any relationships. Yeah. Bloody minefield. My goodness. No wonder you did a master's in it, my friend. I have to dig that out and try and read that, I think. I know. It's a little bit dense. I don't think it's very fun to read. I couldn't get through it.

A book is much more readable, luckily. Luckily. Well, I like where it's led to. So congratulations again on HeartSick. Thank you. It's just bloody awesome and important, I think, and puts words around feelings I don't think people even realise they had. Thank you so much. Well done. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for reading it. Oh, gosh, and I would recommend anyone who listens to this show to go and read it too. Anna, Claire and Patrick, all three really different people with really real true stories out there. And I think so many comments I've seen on socials, there's been little bits of the book that have touched people's lives in so many different ways. So yeah. Well done you, Jessie Stevens. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Oh, you're welcome. You've been listening to a podcast with me, Claire Tonte, and this week with journalist Jessie Stevens. You can find more from Jessie at mamamia.com.au, where she hosts the podcast Mamma Mia Out Loud and also True Crime Conversations. You can also buy her book, Heartsick, at Booktopia and all good bookstores. I would have a lookout for it if you're in the US as well, because I bet it's winging its way over there very, very soon. And for more from me, you can follow me at Claire20 on Instagram and I have a newsletter that usually comes out every Friday but I took another break this week so it should be coming out next week

and you can subscribe in the link below. Thank you so much to Royal Callings for editing the episode and to Avocado Junkie for our theme music. And if you wouldn't mind doing us a favour, chuck us a review and a rating in iTunes, just like Definitely Not Emily has. This podcast tackled such difficult issues with joy and humour. I'm an avid listener to Suggestible on the weekly planner and this didn't disappoint. Can't wait for next week and to hear who Claire talks to next. Thank you so much, Emily. It was Jessie Stevens. Surprise. Hope you enjoyed it. And if you would like your review read

out, just pop one in the old iTunes app for me. That would be wonderful. You can also email me at tonspod at gmail.com with suggestions for guests or any stories or topics that you would like me to cover or just any questions you might have. And if you'd like to get your voice on the show, on my website, claire20.com, there's a little spot in the TonsPod spot where you can record directly into the site. Emma Hackett, who did the website and is a wonder kid, she organized that for us. So you can send me your voice over the airwaves, or you can do a voice memo and email it to me as well. I would so love to hear from you.

Okay, that's it from me for this week and sending you lots and lots of love. Hope you're well out there. Talk to you soon. Bye. Your door to big deals is on DoorDash right now. Sign up for DoorDash and enjoy a free Big Mac on your first McDonald's order of $20 or more. Only on DoorDash now until June 15th. Terms apply.