September 15, 2022 • 40 mins
After years of suffering in silence, iCarly star Jennette McCurdy bravely opens up in her first in-depth interview about the decades of torment, exploitation, and manipulation inflicted by her very own mother.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, fam I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Red Table Talk podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
Facebook watch show in audio produced by Westbrook Audio and
I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
on Apple podcasts. Red Table Talk is back. I am
so disappointed in you. It used to be my perfect
little angel. It's the story everyone is talking about. But
(00:23):
now you're nothing more than a little slot up Flosi,
all used up but no one knew. Add that to
the list of things you are. Liar, conniving, evil, after
use the suffering in silence, I Carly star Jeanette McCurdy
joins the table for her first in depth interview to
reveal decades of abuse, manipulation, torment, and betrayal. You're an
(00:43):
ugly monster. Now love mom or should I say depth
since I'm no longer a mother at the hands of
her mother All while Jeanette starred in one of the
biggest teen sitcoms of all time, My mom will be
chasing my daughter on the house old a literal steak knife.
How did the abuse with your mom affect your relationship? Who?
That is a big juicy question. How she was finally
(01:05):
able to set herself free. Oh my god, I'm already
gonna get emotional. An unforgettable r T T not to
be missed. Can you tell us about your last conversation
with your mom? Hebre We are again, all right, we
are back at the table or back at the table,
back and fool, it's set. Well, you know what today?
(01:28):
Back to a really deep one. Brave. There's no better
way to describe our guest. For years, we knew her
as Miranda Cosgroves, wise, cracking, lovable best friend on the
hit show I Carly There's No Wrong Time to Eat
and agrol and the spinoff Sam and Cat with Ariana
Grande Come with Me. By the age of fifteen, it
(01:51):
seemed like Jeanette McCurdy had it all, but at home
it was a living hell. After years of suffering in silence,
for the first time, Jeanette McCurdy is bravely sharing her
story and our new bestselling memoir I'm Glad My Mom died,
and it is striking a nerve with millions. Wow, let's
(02:14):
welcome to Jeanette McCurdy. It looks so beautiful. We feel
like you're our long lost niece. We've been talking about you.
Welcome well, let's first say before you even start. Yeah,
but this book, Okay, this book is sold out. I
(02:39):
had no expectation of anything like this, and I think
it's really a testament to how much people want to
feel and connect with emotionally in deep ways. I just
think that that hailing is so important. Reading your book
it was really powerful, super brave. Thank you, and particularly
in regards to your mom, because it's almost sacrilegious for
(03:05):
us to speak out against your mom. You just don't
tut with moms. There seems to be like a need
to keep them up on a pedestal. Absolutely, and I
had my mom on that pedestal and it was really
detrimental to my own mental health. And recognizing the abuse
was such an intense journey for me and something that
I wanted and felt really compelled to speak about publicly
(03:25):
because I had a feeling that a lot more people
related to it than I hope. Did you start the
book when you were six years old? Six? So tell
us about your house and your family during that particular
time of your life. Yeah. My mother was initially diagnosed
with breast cancer when I was two years old. She
(03:47):
had a bone maarw transplant camotherapy, radiation, astectomy implant. It
was staged four. It was It was a really brutal
time for our family, and you know it was too so.
My earliest flashes of memories are of household was very
weighted in tragedy. My grandparents moved in with us during
my mother's illness, and my mother, as a result of
her cancer, she became a hoarder. Jeanette was raised Mormon
(04:10):
and lived at home with her mom, Deborah, dad Mark,
her grandparents, and three older brothers, Marcus, Dustin and Scott,
and what she describes as a hoarder house with a
rat impossum problem. I remember a time when Marcus, Dustin,
and Scott slept in their trundle bunk bed and I
slept in my nursery. But now our bedrooms are so
filled with stuff that you can't even determine where the
(04:32):
beds are, let alone sleep in them. We don't sleep
in the bedrooms anymore. Trifold maths were purchased from Costco
for us to sleep on in the living room. I'm
pretty sure the moths were meant for kids gymnastics exercises.
I do not like sleeping on mine. This house is
an embarrassment. This house is shameful. I hate this house. Wow. Yeah.
(04:52):
Because she was so close to seeing her fate, she
suddenly attached meaning and significance to the tiny I mean,
she's say, well, you touched that clinic, so I need it.
So she was keeping everything that me and my three
older brothers touched, and it just overwhelmed our house. It
really did not feel like a home. It felt like
a place of chaos and turmoil and turbulence. So her cancer,
(05:12):
she overcame it, but then it did come back quite
a while later. In the years between her first with
cancer and her and her second, she put me into
child acting and she had always dreampt aving an actress,
so I sort of was the vessel for her dreams.
She did a lot of living bacariously through me, and
that really wasn't your dream, No, no, no no. I
was a shy, sort of uncomfortable kid. It's so surprising
(05:35):
for me to hear that wasn't your dream to be
an actor because I was on I Carley, I was
on the sand Cat Vibe, and I just loved your character.
Thanks me watching you on the screen. In my head,
I was like, yo, she's killing it thanks very happy.
When she was just eleven, Janette became anorexic. Soon disordered
eating consumed her life. In her early twenties, she weighed
(05:57):
less than ninety pounds. Wow, how did those food issues start?
I'm glad that you asked. I feel for anybody who
relates to this. It's quite unfortunate. But my mom taught
me and arexia. She taught me cali restriction. When I
was eleven, I had felt a lump in my breast
that I thought was, oh, well, my mom had cancer,
(06:19):
so I'm probably getting cancer. And she said, no, not,
that's just boobies. And I said, well, can I stop
boobies from happening? I don't want boobies. I don't want
to grow up. And I knew that my mom really
wanted me to stay young. She really really made that
clear to me. She would sob and really clutched me
intensely and say like, I don't want my baby to
grow up. And I knew me growing up would be
(06:39):
no separating and I didn't want that to happen. So
I asked if there was a way that I could
stop the boobies from coming in, and she told me,
there's a thing called calt restriction, and it became our
sort of secret and our code, and something that, as
disturbing as it has, really bonded us. It was our thing.
No one else got this thing. We got this thing.
I can look at it from across the room and no,
you got me, and I got you, And we were
(07:01):
just in the disease, in the sickness. But there was
a connection that the sickness created that I, of course
couldn't see at the time. Jeanette paints a heartbreaking picture
of her life at age eleven. I probably show my
half eaten portions to Mom after every meal she beams.
Each Sunday, she weighs me and measures my thighs with
(07:21):
a measuring tape. I learned the value of eating water
dense fruits and vegetables like kikuma and watermelon. I learned
how helpful cayenne and chili peppers are for increasing and metabolism.
I learned that coffee is an appetite suppressant, so I
start drinking decalf black alongside Mom. Drinking coffee in any
form is technically against the Church's rules. Well it's decalf,
so I'm sure God would make an exception, Mom says,
(07:42):
and I nod like I agree, even though I'm pretty
sure that God I've learned about doesn't make exceptions. The
thinner I get, the stricter I get with but al
and jest because it seems like my body is trying
to hold onto whatever I eat. I noticed that most
foods out a little body weight to me, four tents
of a pound or so. I know this because I
weighed myself five times a day. Wow. It was when
(08:03):
I heard her saying things to the doctor that I
knew to not be what was happening behind the closed doors.
But I thought, maybe, oh, something's really doesn't feel right
in my bones here. Because my doctor saying, your daughter's
really underweight, and I would like you to keep an
eye on her behaviors because sometimes when girls develop intorexy,
they're very secretive their partents. And my mom saying, I'll
definitely keep an eye on that, but I don't see
anything off about it, And I'm thinking she measured my
(08:26):
breakfast today, she made sure that I had let us
with no dressing on it for dinner last night. Like,
what does she mean she does she'll keep an eye
on it. She is the eyes on it. You know,
it was confusing to hear, and I kind of started peacing, Oh,
the things that she's saying outwardly don't match what's happening
in our house. In the house, yes, And what was interesting,
Willow reminded me she said that your character on this
(08:49):
show was obsessed with food. Food. It was so confusing
at the time, being caught up in interrexy or ben
eating sort or bulimia, and then while playing this character
who's like slinging a fried chicken, like painting people with
a ham sandwich. It felt like my life was mocking
me in a lot of ways, and it was really difficult.
I'd have to say. One of the heartbreaking aspects of
(09:11):
the book was this is one of them. Was your
mother having you and your sixteen year old brother in
the shower bathing you both Yeah, and you were what
a leven? So do you want to read the eggs er? Sure? Yeah,
that shower time, Mom shouts from another room. My whole
(09:31):
body freezes. Oh no, not shower time. I've dreaded showers
for a while five years or so. Whenever it was
that I started to feel uncomfortable that mom still showers me.
She doesn't mean to make me uncomfortable. I don't think.
She says she has to shower me because I wouldn't
know how to shampoo and condition my own hair. She says,
maybe if it wasn't so long or such a specific texture,
that she wouldn't have to, But because it is those things,
(09:51):
and since she was a professional hairstylist, it just makes
sense for her to do it. Mom showers me with
Scotty sometimes he's almost sixteen. At this point, I get
really embarras us When she showers us together. I can
tell he does too. Usually just look away from each other,
and Scott distracts himself by drawn Pokemon in the fogged glass.
He does a pretty good sharers arc When she showers
us together. Mom says it's because she's got too much
to do. Scott asked me if he could shower himself once.
(10:14):
Mom sobbed and said that she didn't want to grow up,
so we never asked again after that, whether or not
Scott's there with me. Mom gives me a breastand front
butt exam, which is what she calls my private parts.
She says she wants to make sure I don't have
any mysterious lumps or bumps because those could be cancer.
I say, okay, because I definitely don't want cancer, and
since mom has had it and all, she would know
if I do. How did that affect your dynamic with
(10:37):
your brother? Yeah? What a beautiful question, um that I
appreciate for my brother. I'm so close with all three
of my brothers, and they have been such a source
of love and support and consistency in my life where
there really wasn't much anywhere else. Isn't it amazing we
have such a beautiful bond and there's such an understanding there,
(10:58):
I think because of the things that we through together
and the things that we saw together. I love hearing
that you guys are close to Yeah, me too, because
this kind of abuse can be so I am glad
to hear that you guys have a wonder have you
(11:20):
ever talked to them about your mother's mental state before
you were born? Whatever continued to take Worsen was already
and before I was born, and she had this seven
year affair with another person A year after her mom's death,
Jeanette's life was spinning out of control as she battled
a raging eating disorder, alcoholism, and insurmountable grief. Her dad, Mark,
(11:44):
the man who raised her, dropped a bombshell he was
not her biological father. Deborah's seven year affair with a
man named Andrew while she was married to Mark produced
three children, Dustin, Scott and Jeanette. Wow. My brothers sort
of have memories and flashes of the affair and the
(12:10):
tumultualist nature of my mom navigating that, And they have
a couple of pieces of the puzzles that I was
too young to have and that I couldn't get from
the adults around me. Do you know anything about your
mother's history, like did she have any history before you
were born or something with her mom as well? Yes,
(12:32):
there was a very intense dynamic between her and her mother,
and I saw that firsthand because my grandmother and my
mom's I lived with us. Also, my mom did kind
of recount experiences of sexual abuse and she never went
to therapy. My dad and my grandpa would would plead
with her and bank her and say, you know, please
do something about this. Yeah. I was wondering like did
they ever try to be like, hey, like this is
(12:53):
really not right. They bang bang, you know, my mom
would be chasing my dad around the house with a
literal steak knife, and he'd say to have you have
to get help, you have to get a handle on this.
You can't be doing this. She wouldn't, she didn't want
to change or couldn't face that she needed to change.
And then eventually in therapy, after just sort of sharing
the stories of my relationship with my mom, they suggested
(13:13):
that she might have had some combination of bipolar disorder
and borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder, maybe all three,
all three together. Yeah, the steak knife thing, that was
a frequent situation. There weren't many many versions of the
steak knife, and and other tools she would grab sort
of whatever was on hand. And our neighbor did threatened
(13:34):
quite often to call social services. Our neighbor Bud. He
would always pound on the door in the middle of
the screen fights, and then my mom would hand him
a box of caes candies and bribe him out of
calling social services. And what was your grandmother's response to
these outbursts. She was always sort of erratic and kind
of histrionic, like it seemed like she was just if
there was any sort of history isn't a good word.
(13:55):
I love that like that, I don't want to grab it.
If there's any any sort of emotion, she then meet
it with like ten times that emotion. So if my
mom's crying, she was like chaos on chaos on chaos
with so much noise in our house. Yeah, and then
me and my thriller brothers were always just sort of
quiet because there was so much noise from the adults
(14:18):
in the in the house. And I think a lot
of children who experienced this function could probably relate to that.
Did she know about the book your grandmother? Does your
grandmother outlived your mother? Yes? Yeah, she's still outliving her.
She's in Kentucky in a senior citizens facility. I have
very strong boundaries around my relationship with my grandma, and
my my brother shared with me that she was not
happy with the title, but I expected that. I'm not
(14:40):
surprised at all. And you have strong boundaries around your
grandmother just because of abuse. I tried to have a
relationship with her, and it was very clear to me
that she was incapable of honoring literally any boundary that
I said. I mean things like, can you please not
comment on my body? Um? It's really, you know, intrimental
to me, and I want to believe you have the
(15:01):
best intentions, but these comments are really harmful, and please
can you stop? She'd say, sure, and then five minutes
later another comment come out, and she just seemed incapable
of honoring the boundaries sold to Milly. It was a matter, okay,
I just can't have it, truly. Yeah. I also feel
as though people who have grown up with you, people
saw you on the screen as this character, and they
saw you with this seemingly life you know, can you
(15:27):
read that passes from your past. I started to thoroughly
dislike fame by the time I was sixteen, but by now,
at twenty one, I despise it. Millions of people dream
of being famous, and here I am with fame and
hating it. It doesn't help that I'm famous for a
thing I started when I was a kid. I think
of what it would be like if everyone was famous
for a thing they did when they were thirteen. Their
(15:48):
middle school band, their seventh grade science project, their eighth
grade play. The middle school years are the years to stumble,
fall and tuck under the rug as soon as you're
done with them, because you've already outgrown them by the
time you're fifteen. But not for me. I'm cemented in
people's minds as the person I was when I was
a kid, a person I feel like I've far outgrown,
but the world won't let me outgrow it. The world
won't let me be anyone else. The world only wants
(16:10):
me to be Sampucket. I'm aware enough to know how
annoying and whiny this all sounds. Millions of people dream
of being famous, and here I am with fame and
hating it. I somehow feel entitled to my hatred since
I was not the one who dreamt of being famous.
Mom was. I would have been content being a kid.
Mom pushed this on me. Since it's not my dream,
(16:30):
it's not my problem how I feel about it. I'm
allowed to hate someone else's dream, even if it's my reality. Yeah. Yeah,
I'm aware of how whiny this sounds. I'm aware that
this is what everybody wants and yearns for and hopes
for and aspires to reach. But it was a really
complicated experience for me. I think some people are really
(16:52):
just equipped to handle fame and do it beautifully, and
some people and some people want it. Yes, it's not
what you wanted. My thought was I wanted to be
a child when your grandfather pulled you up, and it's
like you should be a kid. The fact that you
were also the breadwinner at such a young age for
(17:14):
your family that had to be a whole different added
pressure in feeling like, oh my god, if I don't
do this thing that I actually don't like doing. That's
something I've exported a lot in therapy is how to
release that pressure ingrained in my mind and to recognize
that I don't have that anymore and I just have
to support myself. How did the abuse with your mom
affect your your relationships? Oh, that's a that is a
(17:38):
big juicy question. So because I was in meshed in
codependent and very anxiously attached with my mother, they found
kind of relationships that reflected that dynamic, and so I
fell into unhealthy relationships where then I was supporting the
other person and I really felt like that's what I
bring to the table, and it's it has been a
lot of work to unpack. I learned to be really
(18:00):
the lookout for narcissistic partners. I learned to be really
on the lookout for in meshment and codependency. I'd be
lying if I didn't like, there's still a part of
me that's wired that way, and it's still like it
can feel so like intoxicating and like comfortable, familiar. It
feels like this is because it's like that's what you know,
your foundation was built on that. You also ran away
(18:24):
to Hawaii with your boyfriend. Yeah, that was pair rebellion.
You know. There were some paparazzi pictures and somebody had
taken of us, and then my mom found those paparazzi pictures.
The relationship had been a secret from her. I understand
why she was disapproving, there was a significant age difference,
but I don't respect how she handled it. She sent
me many scathing emails, just telling me exactly how disapproving
she was. Yeah, this is an email that my mom
(18:47):
sent me. Dear net, I am so disappointed in you.
You used to be my perfect little angel, but now
you're nothing more than a little all caps slut of fluesy,
all used up, and to think you wasted it on
that deous ogre of a man. I saw the pictures
on a website called t MZ. I saw you rubbing
his disgusting, hairy stomach. I knew you were lying about Colton.
(19:08):
I had told her I was with a friend. Colton.
Add that to the list of things you are liar, conniving, evil,
You look pudgier two. It's clear you're eating your guilt.
Thinking of you with his dingdong inside of you makes
me sick. Sick. I raised you better than this. What
happened to my good little girl? Where did she go?
And who is this monster that has replaced her? You're
an ugly monster now. I told your brothers about you,
(19:28):
and they all said they disown you, just like I do.
We want nothing to do with you. Love mom, or
should I say deb since I'm no longer your mother?
PS send money for a new fridge? Ours broke the
PF he has send money for a new friend. It
was what was the age difference between you and Joe?
I was eighteen years thirty two years? Yeah, and I
(19:50):
think it was no coincidence that he and I sort
of began a relationship very shortly after my mom's recurrence
of cancer. The way I see it now is sort
of okay. I knew Mom's dying. I need to replace,
but something I am grateful for in that relationship is
that I was hearing for the first time how unhealthy
my mom was. So when I would get an email
like that, you know, my my instinct was to say,
I'm this terrible person, how could I have done anything
(20:11):
like this? I I would believe what she said about me.
I would believe I must let him a lousy was
helpful in getting me to see that there was another
side to that and that this is really unhealthy. When
did you first recognize something was what you were experiencing
or had experienced. When I was eleven and my mom
taught me castriction, a part of me knew something was off.
(20:34):
So the fact that there was so much secretiveness around it,
my gut knew it wasn't right, But I couldn't accept
that it wasn't right because I'm a kid, and I
need it's my mom exactly. I needed her to be
the thing that I wanted her to be in order
to survive. And then I saw the therapist who was
the first person told my mother was abusive. I quit
that therapist immediately. Couldn't handle that information. Felt like, oh no, no, no,
(20:56):
I can't go anywhere near that. And then when I
eventually went back to therapy. It was maybe a year
later when I first started confronting it and accepting it,
after even hearing the words abuse and then just piecing
things together, it felt like I was finally making contact
with reality and not living in the necessary delusion of
my childhood. Necessary delusion of my childhood. Yeah, that's real.
(21:22):
That really just gave me. And also just because I
was abused, it doesn't mean that I don't love her.
That has been so difficult to grapple with. I feel
like how people identify with their mothers, like I came
from you, Like I was sustained from you, and you're
still treating me this. It's I think a little bit
(21:43):
more like mentally and emotionally violent on the child's mind. Yes,
I feel like it's so hard to not have this
guilt complex because it is this person gave me life,
They gave me the ultimate gift. How is there room
for such complex feelings towards them? How is there room
for you know, I love my mother. Oh my god,
I'm gonna get emotional and I feel you, you know, like,
how how is the room for such complexity towards this
(22:04):
person that I wish it could just be purely love.
I wish it could just be purely the thing that
I thought it was when I was little. But then
through the exploring and excavating of everything, I just realized
that there was so much more underneath it. And how
old were you then when you were able to go
with four? Everything I said was prefaced with a disclaimer
(22:27):
of well, this happened, but my mom meant nothing by this.
I couldn't just say the truth to my therapist. There
was a disclaimer and protection and guards around every single
thing that I said. And at one point she said
to me, like, you don't need to defend her every
single time you bring her up, And that opened the floodgates.
I recognized in that moment, oh wow, I'm doing a
lot of mental gymnastics here to keep my mom where
(22:49):
I wish I could keep keeper. And I know that
if I want to be healthy, I'm going to have
to not have her be on that pedestal anymore. And
it just happened. Okay, what was that like? It was terrifying.
I didn't feel like I had any semblance of my
own identity. Confronting that I didn't have any sums on
my own identity was horrifying. I didn't know where to start.
(23:09):
I knew, Okay, I'm probably gonna need to step away
from acting because I don't enjoy this, But how am
I supposed to do that when this is the thing
that my mom wanted me to be? And how do
I unpeeled myself from this thing? That's so I mean,
I did it so six years old, it's so wired
out of my identity. It meant how do I get
out of an environment that was making me unhappy? How
do I set boundaries with people? There were all these
questions that I did not know the answers to, how,
oh do you know thirty? When did you stop acting?
(23:33):
Quietly left when I was twenty four and didn't and
got on social media? And it just was the right
decision for me at the time, and something that I
did need to walk away from. Definitively, it was overwhelming
and daunting and not easy. That's deep, man, And kudos
to you because it's hard work. And the fact that
you didn't give up to because you talked about having
did change therapists? Change therapists? When did you all start therapy?
(23:57):
We've been in and out of therapy for years. Can
you care a little about that? Well, you know, Jada,
I was an addict. Even though there wasn't any physical abuse,
it was the the emotional abuse and not not being there,
you know, not being present. So there's you know, the neglect. Wow.
(24:18):
And um, Jada was lucky. I was lucky that we
had a village. Yeah, we had I had a village.
And that's why she's as strong and and the person
that she is. Get the tissues a matter of fact,
can we bring some tissues? Time for the tissues? I'm good.
You know. I'm not the crier. You guys are the
(24:39):
crier anything. She is the what's your relationship with man? Crier?
And that's a really good question. In my household, just
in my mother's addiction, and um, I was her only
child and it was usually just the two of us,
so it wasn't room. Wasn't to like feel, wasn't room
(25:00):
to cry. I cry about everything. Now I call it
the thawing out. Wow. It wasn't until ten years ago
that I just started thawing out all of that suppressed
up and just allowing myself to feel. So instead of
me going nope, you can't feel that, I go, yes,
you can so. I actually loved being the crier at
(25:20):
the table. I love that I have a complicated relationship
with being a crier. I really relate to everything you've
just said and really suppressed for so long, and I
just felt like, I don't want to be weak. I
don't want to be born. I don't want to let
other people in that way. I have so much judgment
around it. That's been really challenging. I've found so much power,
(25:41):
so much strength and vulnerability. All Right, we're bringing out
one of our favorite Kelly and mc daniel. She is
a trauma therapist and she specialized therapy to address what
she calls mother hunger. Thank you so much for having
me back. We love having you here. I want to
talk to you because this is your arias is what
(26:02):
I say, is your specialty. So many grown daughters who
had very abusive mothers need this story. What does a
mother actually do? You know that's not in the dictionary.
Two years of clinical practice to come up with. Mothers
do three essential things for their daughters. Nurture, first, protect,
and then guide, and all three of those things when
(26:25):
they go missing, I call it third degree mother hunger
when none of them happen, and there's abuse on top
of that, So there's a fear you bond to someone
who you're inherently scared of, and that destroys the relational template.
It's hard to then go on and have girlfriends. It's
hard to have lovers because your first love betrayed you. Yeah,
(26:47):
that's very interesting, like your relationship with other women, like
it talks about in the book that you had a
really nice relationship with Mirandam which I thought that was beautiful.
That was beautiful. Jeanette hit her mother's abuse from every one,
including her I Carlie co star Miranda Cosgrove. After reading
Jeanette's book, Miranda revealed her heartfelt reaction. When you're young,
(27:09):
you're so in your own head, you can't imagine that
people around you are having much harder struggles. You don't
expect things like that from the person in the room
who's making everyone laugh. I'm very grateful for that friendship.
It did provide me a lot of comfort in those
really challenging years. My relationship with Miranda was hugely healing
to my concept of women. And my mom was always
(27:30):
saying men will never really know you, and they'll hurt you,
but women will know you deeply and then they'll hurt you.
You tell me which is worse. These are the thoughts
that I'm here about women. Not to mention my very
complicated relationship with my mom, and then seeing her relationship
with her mom on top of it. And I have
three brothers who I love, and I felt this sort
of trust toward boys that I didn't feel toward girls
(27:52):
very young. And Miranda helped me to heal that relationship.
But it is something that I still struggle with. Kelly.
It's seems as the more people than we could even
imagine experience this. I see so much of it because
as a culture, we don't like to think that mothers
can be abusive. Really, it's called betrayal, blindness, betrayal by
(28:18):
we have to believe our mother is a good person.
If we knew too young that she was betraying us
or using us or explaining us, we couldn't survive. We
don't we could, We don't have the wherewithal. So nature
protects us. That's what that is. Yeah, Kelly, can you
talk to us about how Janette's mom might have violated
her sexually? That's one of those things where her mother
(28:39):
did something shameless, It was inappropriate, and she felt no
shame doing it. So where does that shame go all over? Janet,
It's had to be a result of her mom's own traumas, right,
most definitely that this has been a handed down thing.
But when I'm working with a daughter, yeah, I kind
(29:00):
of don't worry so much about let's understand your mother's trauma.
I kind of really want her to be able to
unpack her own, especially since Mom's not here, there's no
need to do that. And I think Jeanette was already
raised to be so aware of her mother's pain. She
was already so raised to be aware of her mother's
(29:22):
lost dreams that what you must have had to do
to even come back and feel like you get to
take up space in the world. I literally couldn't name
my emotion. No, I'd be sitting there and I've got
I don't know how to describe what I'm feeling, but
it's intense. Wow, isn't that an investment? Right? That you
just got me all the way together and that that
idea of having to make a really clear separation. I
(29:47):
went to get my my own sort of first apartment
at this point, my mom's cancer had recurred, so it
seemed like I was already eighteen. Yeah, and it was
horrifying that she had this cancer, But it also seemed
like the first time that we were going to be separated.
So I felt relief around that, but also guilt around
feeling the relief, and just such a complex layer of emotions.
I got this apartment and then my mom handed me
(30:08):
a copy of the Way we Were Robert Redford movie
that night and was like, Hey, I got you this.
Do you think we could watch this movie together tonight?
I knew that wasn't just us watching Robert Redford once
for a couple of hours. That was mom moving in.
And she continued to ask me every night, can I
just stay over tonight? Can I stay over tonight? For
about three months until she just didn't ask anymore and
lived with me in my first apartment. Uh, and yeah,
(30:29):
so we're living in this hoarding, chaotic environment again, and
I thought there was no escaping. There's no escaping, and
this was like a one bedroom apartment right when she
would sleep in the bed with you, hugging the whole night.
And it's so complicated to because then there's the layer
of the cancer. So she's hugging me tightly, and I
feel physically how much her body is deteriorating from cancer.
(30:50):
How am I supposed to set a boundary? And how
I supposed to look my my dying mother and the
I say, Mom, can you not squeeze me tonight? Because
it's you're really invading my personal boundary. I just couldn't.
I didn't and I couldn't. This is not easy to
hear for anyone. But when a mother does this in
the shower and then continues to kind of take her
daughter as her own way beyond um, it forms in
(31:15):
the daughter's brain a psychological marriage. So this daughter is
basically fulfilling the role of spouse is supposed to fill.
So what that does is it makes someone profoundly sexually anorexic. Wow,
then everybody started to disgust you. I couldn't hug people
for so long. I now love hugs and welcome hugs,
(31:37):
but it felt inherently inappropriate to me. It felt like
they want something for me that I can't get. WHOA
so did that? Like? Wow, that just opened up a
whole new candle worms for me in this in this story,
like trying dealing with intimacy, your relationship with intimacy in general,
like it's going to be tricky, But because it's a mother,
people almost want to think, well, maybe that was okay, Yeah,
(32:00):
that is crazy. This kind of thing happens a lot
and no one says anything. Yes, it's hard for people
to understand why nobody stepped in. Can you explain how
abuse is pervasive in a way that it can control
the whole environment. Everybody's walking on eggshells right, Nobody knows,
(32:22):
nobody's safe, Nobody knows what's going to set her off.
And that's what the thing is that seems to be
the common denominator in your story and others, is that
we know what it looks like when she gets set off,
and it's so ugly and it's so terrifying that we
just don't go there. And what's sad is when her
partner can't go there either. But generally, I hear it
(32:44):
all the time and we'll protect the children. They'll say,
I didn't know that was happening. We assumed everybody was okay.
Mothers have a lot of power. Let me ask you
a question, after having this experience, do you think you
want to have children of your own, Jata, I was
thinking the same, Get out of my head. I would
never want to have a child for my own identity.
That's a very, very huncrete one for me. I'm in
(33:07):
a place where, so I'm thirty, i don't feel like
I want kids, and I have two nieces that I
adore and and a third on the way. I'm really
happy to be an aunt, and right now I don't
feel that I want them. But I'm also open to
maybe a couple of years from now or whatever. I
I something hits me and I just feel like, yeah,
I do want that, but for now, yes, So, Jeanette,
(33:31):
can you tell us about your last conversation with your mom? Well,
the last conversation would have been sort of a non conversation.
Her cancer spread her brain. She was in a hospice
bed that was set up in our living room, and
she was really just detached behind the eyes. But I
think this thing happens when people are on their death bed,
or this was at least my experience, where everybody tries
(33:51):
to say something to the person who's dying, like it's
an attempt to get them to wake up. My brothers
had each kind of given their good news of their
live one of them was getting married, one of them
was moving back to California. And then I said, Mommy,
I'm so skinny right now. Like the thing that I
felt like was the most that I had to offer
was my thinness um, and I really, really in my
(34:12):
core at that time, I believed that that would get
my mother to wake up. I believed that she cared
more about my body and my weight than she did
about anything else that could possibly be uttered by my
brother's mouth. I really felt like that better more of her.
I think you even said I'm made nine pounds. I did,
I did? Whoa yea. So Nicole joins us and says
(34:33):
Jeanette's story has made her feel empowered in her own life. Hi,
I'm so excited to be here. Hello, what's your question
for Jeanette? So? I have really connected with Janette ever
since I Harley because I grew up as a tomboy,
and I did grew up in a very tumultuous household
that would often escalate to verbal abuse. So I totally
(34:55):
understand the feeling of just not knowing what's going to
set your parents off. So question is, were you ever
able to forgive your mom for the behavior and for
you know, the issues that it caused. That's a good question.
I worked towards forgiveness. Oh God, I'm gonna get emotional.
I already feel it. I worked so right. I worked
(35:19):
towards forgiveness for I worked toward forgiveness for a really
long time. And my therapist said to me one day,
what if you don't have to work towards forgiveness? And
I wept, and I knew that that's what I needed
to hear because I had been trying to find a
way to still honor my mom in respect. I was
(35:39):
still trying to live for her. I was still trying
to find a way to make it all means something
because it had to, because it was her. And that
was exactly what I needed to hear. It was hugely emotional,
but my God didn't help forgiving someone who has not,
first of all, changed their behavior, they haven't acted on
(35:59):
her blee. Do they deserve forgiveness? They personally do not.
Forgiveness is a process that may eventually happen for you
so that you have a loosening, but that takes its
own time and permission. Not to give it for that person, Nicole.
I hope that was helpful. It was very helpful. Your
courage gives me courage, So thank you for doing what
(36:20):
you do. I'm sending you a big hug. Yeah, I
love it. Thank you, Nicole. That just blew my mind
about maybe you don't have to forgive her. I feel
like we're always trying to take the high road, and
I'm gonna heal and I'm gonna be this and I'm
gonna be done exactly. I just want you to know
(36:41):
this has been a really awesome experience. We was so
touched by your book. I had so much emotion reading
the book. I'm so happy for you. I am so happy.
This has been the honor and a blessing to have
you here. I feel the same way. I really appreciate
all of you. Thank case so much for having me
and as we wrap, your honesty, your vulnerability, and your
(37:06):
voice has moved so many, including these familiar faces who
wanted to send some love to you. M to that girl.
You out here doing your thing, thriving and signing, glowing
and growing. I am so proud of the hard work
that you've been putting in. Thank you for personally and
positively impacting my life. You're winning queen, my stright angel.
(37:27):
Hi Jeanette, it's my um and we are thrilled for
your success and we just think you're awesome. Huge congratulations.
Couldn't be proud of Oh. I just wanted to say,
I'm so so proud of you. Just such a trill,
placed a strong voice for for women to see that
you could stick up and say how you feel, that
(37:50):
your own voice. If you're just so cool. I love
your God to that. I am just so grateful to
have you as a friend. I'm just so glad to
see you saying I'm taking back my life, I'm taking
back my power, and you're doing it so beautifully. Okay, Jeanette. UM,
I just wanted to say I love you and to
(38:12):
just keep going, keep being great, do you. My game
is versy McClellan. I know Jeanette from working on Salmon Cat,
and some of you may know me, just one half
of the duos, feeling grace and rosy from the chow.
I remember this one time feeling really really left out,
and then I remember Jeannette coming into my dressing room
and giving me all of her time. A massive hub
(38:34):
and after meeting lives of down with celebrities. I can
definitely say that Jeanette is the most genuine I have
ever met. Gonna, I'm so proud of you for finally
speaking your truth, putting yourself first. They say that our
pain is our biggest strength, and you're so powerful right now.
Pay Jeannette. I respect your bravery to revisit the experiences
(38:58):
and challenges that earned you the wisdom we now get
to admire. I'm sending lots of love and I hope
that tonight you look at yourself in the bathroom mirror
dramatically and say, I know who I am in truth.
I am free, I am free, I am free. Thank
(39:20):
you everyone, Oh my goodness, thank you that that moved me.
I was constantly trying to read, trying to write. I
tried to write a script called Chicken in the Sand.
It was, it was, It was great. What was Chicken
(39:40):
in the understand the chickens and everyone was very strong
and chaos. To join the Red Table Talk family and
become a part of the conversation. Follow us at facebook
dot com slash red Tape, We'll Talk. Thanks for listening
(40:01):
to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by
Facebook Watch Westbrook Audio and I Heart Radio
Hey, fam I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Red Table Talk podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
Facebook watch show in audio produced by Westbrook Audio and
I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
on Apple podcasts. Red Table Talk is back. I am
so disappointed in you. It used to be my perfect
little angel. It's the story everyone is talking about. But
(00:23):
now you're nothing more than a little slot up Flosi,
all used up but no one knew. Add that to
the list of things you are. Liar, conniving, evil, after
use the suffering in silence, I Carly star Jeanette McCurdy
joins the table for her first in depth interview to
reveal decades of abuse, manipulation, torment, and betrayal. You're an
(00:43):
ugly monster. Now love mom or should I say depth
since I'm no longer a mother at the hands of
her mother All while Jeanette starred in one of the
biggest teen sitcoms of all time, My mom will be
chasing my daughter on the house old a literal steak knife.
How did the abuse with your mom affect your relationship? Who?
That is a big juicy question. How she was finally
(01:05):
able to set herself free. Oh my god, I'm already
gonna get emotional. An unforgettable r T T not to
be missed. Can you tell us about your last conversation
with your mom? Hebre We are again, all right, we
are back at the table or back at the table,
back and fool, it's set. Well, you know what today?
(01:28):
Back to a really deep one. Brave. There's no better
way to describe our guest. For years, we knew her
as Miranda Cosgroves, wise, cracking, lovable best friend on the
hit show I Carly There's No Wrong Time to Eat
and agrol and the spinoff Sam and Cat with Ariana
Grande Come with Me. By the age of fifteen, it
(01:51):
seemed like Jeanette McCurdy had it all, but at home
it was a living hell. After years of suffering in silence,
for the first time, Jeanette McCurdy is bravely sharing her
story and our new bestselling memoir I'm Glad My Mom died,
and it is striking a nerve with millions. Wow, let's
(02:14):
welcome to Jeanette McCurdy. It looks so beautiful. We feel
like you're our long lost niece. We've been talking about you.
Welcome well, let's first say before you even start. Yeah,
but this book, Okay, this book is sold out. I
(02:39):
had no expectation of anything like this, and I think
it's really a testament to how much people want to
feel and connect with emotionally in deep ways. I just
think that that hailing is so important. Reading your book
it was really powerful, super brave. Thank you, and particularly
in regards to your mom, because it's almost sacrilegious for
(03:05):
us to speak out against your mom. You just don't
tut with moms. There seems to be like a need
to keep them up on a pedestal. Absolutely, and I
had my mom on that pedestal and it was really
detrimental to my own mental health. And recognizing the abuse
was such an intense journey for me and something that
I wanted and felt really compelled to speak about publicly
(03:25):
because I had a feeling that a lot more people
related to it than I hope. Did you start the
book when you were six years old? Six? So tell
us about your house and your family during that particular
time of your life. Yeah. My mother was initially diagnosed
with breast cancer when I was two years old. She
(03:47):
had a bone maarw transplant camotherapy, radiation, astectomy implant. It
was staged four. It was It was a really brutal
time for our family, and you know it was too so.
My earliest flashes of memories are of household was very
weighted in tragedy. My grandparents moved in with us during
my mother's illness, and my mother, as a result of
her cancer, she became a hoarder. Jeanette was raised Mormon
(04:10):
and lived at home with her mom, Deborah, dad Mark,
her grandparents, and three older brothers, Marcus, Dustin and Scott,
and what she describes as a hoarder house with a
rat impossum problem. I remember a time when Marcus, Dustin,
and Scott slept in their trundle bunk bed and I
slept in my nursery. But now our bedrooms are so
filled with stuff that you can't even determine where the
(04:32):
beds are, let alone sleep in them. We don't sleep
in the bedrooms anymore. Trifold maths were purchased from Costco
for us to sleep on in the living room. I'm
pretty sure the moths were meant for kids gymnastics exercises.
I do not like sleeping on mine. This house is
an embarrassment. This house is shameful. I hate this house. Wow. Yeah.
(04:52):
Because she was so close to seeing her fate, she
suddenly attached meaning and significance to the tiny I mean,
she's say, well, you touched that clinic, so I need it.
So she was keeping everything that me and my three
older brothers touched, and it just overwhelmed our house. It
really did not feel like a home. It felt like
a place of chaos and turmoil and turbulence. So her cancer,
(05:12):
she overcame it, but then it did come back quite
a while later. In the years between her first with
cancer and her and her second, she put me into
child acting and she had always dreampt aving an actress,
so I sort of was the vessel for her dreams.
She did a lot of living bacariously through me, and
that really wasn't your dream, No, no, no no. I
was a shy, sort of uncomfortable kid. It's so surprising
(05:35):
for me to hear that wasn't your dream to be
an actor because I was on I Carley, I was
on the sand Cat Vibe, and I just loved your character.
Thanks me watching you on the screen. In my head,
I was like, yo, she's killing it thanks very happy.
When she was just eleven, Janette became anorexic. Soon disordered
eating consumed her life. In her early twenties, she weighed
(05:57):
less than ninety pounds. Wow, how did those food issues start?
I'm glad that you asked. I feel for anybody who
relates to this. It's quite unfortunate. But my mom taught
me and arexia. She taught me cali restriction. When I
was eleven, I had felt a lump in my breast
that I thought was, oh, well, my mom had cancer,
(06:19):
so I'm probably getting cancer. And she said, no, not,
that's just boobies. And I said, well, can I stop
boobies from happening? I don't want boobies. I don't want
to grow up. And I knew that my mom really
wanted me to stay young. She really really made that
clear to me. She would sob and really clutched me
intensely and say like, I don't want my baby to
grow up. And I knew me growing up would be
(06:39):
no separating and I didn't want that to happen. So
I asked if there was a way that I could
stop the boobies from coming in, and she told me,
there's a thing called calt restriction, and it became our
sort of secret and our code, and something that, as
disturbing as it has, really bonded us. It was our thing.
No one else got this thing. We got this thing.
I can look at it from across the room and no,
you got me, and I got you, And we were
(07:01):
just in the disease, in the sickness. But there was
a connection that the sickness created that I, of course
couldn't see at the time. Jeanette paints a heartbreaking picture
of her life at age eleven. I probably show my
half eaten portions to Mom after every meal she beams.
Each Sunday, she weighs me and measures my thighs with
(07:21):
a measuring tape. I learned the value of eating water
dense fruits and vegetables like kikuma and watermelon. I learned
how helpful cayenne and chili peppers are for increasing and metabolism.
I learned that coffee is an appetite suppressant, so I
start drinking decalf black alongside Mom. Drinking coffee in any
form is technically against the Church's rules. Well it's decalf,
so I'm sure God would make an exception, Mom says,
(07:42):
and I nod like I agree, even though I'm pretty
sure that God I've learned about doesn't make exceptions. The
thinner I get, the stricter I get with but al
and jest because it seems like my body is trying
to hold onto whatever I eat. I noticed that most
foods out a little body weight to me, four tents
of a pound or so. I know this because I
weighed myself five times a day. Wow. It was when
(08:03):
I heard her saying things to the doctor that I
knew to not be what was happening behind the closed doors.
But I thought, maybe, oh, something's really doesn't feel right
in my bones here. Because my doctor saying, your daughter's
really underweight, and I would like you to keep an
eye on her behaviors because sometimes when girls develop intorexy,
they're very secretive their partents. And my mom saying, I'll
definitely keep an eye on that, but I don't see
anything off about it, And I'm thinking she measured my
(08:26):
breakfast today, she made sure that I had let us
with no dressing on it for dinner last night. Like,
what does she mean she does she'll keep an eye
on it. She is the eyes on it. You know,
it was confusing to hear, and I kind of started peacing, Oh,
the things that she's saying outwardly don't match what's happening
in our house. In the house, yes, And what was interesting,
Willow reminded me she said that your character on this
(08:49):
show was obsessed with food. Food. It was so confusing
at the time, being caught up in interrexy or ben
eating sort or bulimia, and then while playing this character
who's like slinging a fried chicken, like painting people with
a ham sandwich. It felt like my life was mocking
me in a lot of ways, and it was really difficult.
I'd have to say. One of the heartbreaking aspects of
(09:11):
the book was this is one of them. Was your
mother having you and your sixteen year old brother in
the shower bathing you both Yeah, and you were what
a leven? So do you want to read the eggs er? Sure? Yeah,
that shower time, Mom shouts from another room. My whole
(09:31):
body freezes. Oh no, not shower time. I've dreaded showers
for a while five years or so. Whenever it was
that I started to feel uncomfortable that mom still showers me.
She doesn't mean to make me uncomfortable. I don't think.
She says she has to shower me because I wouldn't
know how to shampoo and condition my own hair. She says,
maybe if it wasn't so long or such a specific texture,
that she wouldn't have to, But because it is those things,
(09:51):
and since she was a professional hairstylist, it just makes
sense for her to do it. Mom showers me with
Scotty sometimes he's almost sixteen. At this point, I get
really embarras us When she showers us together. I can
tell he does too. Usually just look away from each other,
and Scott distracts himself by drawn Pokemon in the fogged glass.
He does a pretty good sharers arc When she showers
us together. Mom says it's because she's got too much
to do. Scott asked me if he could shower himself once.
(10:14):
Mom sobbed and said that she didn't want to grow up,
so we never asked again after that, whether or not
Scott's there with me. Mom gives me a breastand front
butt exam, which is what she calls my private parts.
She says she wants to make sure I don't have
any mysterious lumps or bumps because those could be cancer.
I say, okay, because I definitely don't want cancer, and
since mom has had it and all, she would know
if I do. How did that affect your dynamic with
(10:37):
your brother? Yeah? What a beautiful question, um that I
appreciate for my brother. I'm so close with all three
of my brothers, and they have been such a source
of love and support and consistency in my life where
there really wasn't much anywhere else. Isn't it amazing we
have such a beautiful bond and there's such an understanding there,
(10:58):
I think because of the things that we through together
and the things that we saw together. I love hearing
that you guys are close to Yeah, me too, because
this kind of abuse can be so I am glad
to hear that you guys have a wonder have you
(11:20):
ever talked to them about your mother's mental state before
you were born? Whatever continued to take Worsen was already
and before I was born, and she had this seven
year affair with another person A year after her mom's death,
Jeanette's life was spinning out of control as she battled
a raging eating disorder, alcoholism, and insurmountable grief. Her dad, Mark,
(11:44):
the man who raised her, dropped a bombshell he was
not her biological father. Deborah's seven year affair with a
man named Andrew while she was married to Mark produced
three children, Dustin, Scott and Jeanette. Wow. My brothers sort
of have memories and flashes of the affair and the
(12:10):
tumultualist nature of my mom navigating that, And they have
a couple of pieces of the puzzles that I was
too young to have and that I couldn't get from
the adults around me. Do you know anything about your
mother's history, like did she have any history before you
were born or something with her mom as well? Yes,
(12:32):
there was a very intense dynamic between her and her mother,
and I saw that firsthand because my grandmother and my
mom's I lived with us. Also, my mom did kind
of recount experiences of sexual abuse and she never went
to therapy. My dad and my grandpa would would plead
with her and bank her and say, you know, please
do something about this. Yeah. I was wondering like did
they ever try to be like, hey, like this is
(12:53):
really not right. They bang bang, you know, my mom
would be chasing my dad around the house with a
literal steak knife, and he'd say to have you have
to get help, you have to get a handle on this.
You can't be doing this. She wouldn't, she didn't want
to change or couldn't face that she needed to change.
And then eventually in therapy, after just sort of sharing
the stories of my relationship with my mom, they suggested
(13:13):
that she might have had some combination of bipolar disorder
and borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder, maybe all three,
all three together. Yeah, the steak knife thing, that was
a frequent situation. There weren't many many versions of the
steak knife, and and other tools she would grab sort
of whatever was on hand. And our neighbor did threatened
(13:34):
quite often to call social services. Our neighbor Bud. He
would always pound on the door in the middle of
the screen fights, and then my mom would hand him
a box of caes candies and bribe him out of
calling social services. And what was your grandmother's response to
these outbursts. She was always sort of erratic and kind
of histrionic, like it seemed like she was just if
there was any sort of history isn't a good word.
(13:55):
I love that like that, I don't want to grab it.
If there's any any sort of emotion, she then meet
it with like ten times that emotion. So if my
mom's crying, she was like chaos on chaos on chaos
with so much noise in our house. Yeah, and then
me and my thriller brothers were always just sort of
quiet because there was so much noise from the adults
(14:18):
in the in the house. And I think a lot
of children who experienced this function could probably relate to that.
Did she know about the book your grandmother? Does your
grandmother outlived your mother? Yes? Yeah, she's still outliving her.
She's in Kentucky in a senior citizens facility. I have
very strong boundaries around my relationship with my grandma, and
my my brother shared with me that she was not
happy with the title, but I expected that. I'm not
(14:40):
surprised at all. And you have strong boundaries around your
grandmother just because of abuse. I tried to have a
relationship with her, and it was very clear to me
that she was incapable of honoring literally any boundary that
I said. I mean things like, can you please not
comment on my body? Um? It's really, you know, intrimental
to me, and I want to believe you have the
(15:01):
best intentions, but these comments are really harmful, and please
can you stop? She'd say, sure, and then five minutes
later another comment come out, and she just seemed incapable
of honoring the boundaries sold to Milly. It was a matter, okay,
I just can't have it, truly. Yeah. I also feel
as though people who have grown up with you, people
saw you on the screen as this character, and they
saw you with this seemingly life you know, can you
(15:27):
read that passes from your past. I started to thoroughly
dislike fame by the time I was sixteen, but by now,
at twenty one, I despise it. Millions of people dream
of being famous, and here I am with fame and
hating it. It doesn't help that I'm famous for a
thing I started when I was a kid. I think
of what it would be like if everyone was famous
for a thing they did when they were thirteen. Their
(15:48):
middle school band, their seventh grade science project, their eighth
grade play. The middle school years are the years to stumble,
fall and tuck under the rug as soon as you're
done with them, because you've already outgrown them by the
time you're fifteen. But not for me. I'm cemented in
people's minds as the person I was when I was
a kid, a person I feel like I've far outgrown,
but the world won't let me outgrow it. The world
won't let me be anyone else. The world only wants
(16:10):
me to be Sampucket. I'm aware enough to know how
annoying and whiny this all sounds. Millions of people dream
of being famous, and here I am with fame and
hating it. I somehow feel entitled to my hatred since
I was not the one who dreamt of being famous.
Mom was. I would have been content being a kid.
Mom pushed this on me. Since it's not my dream,
(16:30):
it's not my problem how I feel about it. I'm
allowed to hate someone else's dream, even if it's my reality. Yeah. Yeah,
I'm aware of how whiny this sounds. I'm aware that
this is what everybody wants and yearns for and hopes
for and aspires to reach. But it was a really
complicated experience for me. I think some people are really
(16:52):
just equipped to handle fame and do it beautifully, and
some people and some people want it. Yes, it's not
what you wanted. My thought was I wanted to be
a child when your grandfather pulled you up, and it's
like you should be a kid. The fact that you
were also the breadwinner at such a young age for
(17:14):
your family that had to be a whole different added
pressure in feeling like, oh my god, if I don't
do this thing that I actually don't like doing. That's
something I've exported a lot in therapy is how to
release that pressure ingrained in my mind and to recognize
that I don't have that anymore and I just have
to support myself. How did the abuse with your mom
affect your your relationships? Oh, that's a that is a
(17:38):
big juicy question. So because I was in meshed in
codependent and very anxiously attached with my mother, they found
kind of relationships that reflected that dynamic, and so I
fell into unhealthy relationships where then I was supporting the
other person and I really felt like that's what I
bring to the table, and it's it has been a
lot of work to unpack. I learned to be really
(18:00):
the lookout for narcissistic partners. I learned to be really
on the lookout for in meshment and codependency. I'd be
lying if I didn't like, there's still a part of
me that's wired that way, and it's still like it
can feel so like intoxicating and like comfortable, familiar. It
feels like this is because it's like that's what you know,
your foundation was built on that. You also ran away
(18:24):
to Hawaii with your boyfriend. Yeah, that was pair rebellion.
You know. There were some paparazzi pictures and somebody had
taken of us, and then my mom found those paparazzi pictures.
The relationship had been a secret from her. I understand
why she was disapproving, there was a significant age difference,
but I don't respect how she handled it. She sent
me many scathing emails, just telling me exactly how disapproving
she was. Yeah, this is an email that my mom
(18:47):
sent me. Dear net, I am so disappointed in you.
You used to be my perfect little angel, but now
you're nothing more than a little all caps slut of fluesy,
all used up, and to think you wasted it on
that deous ogre of a man. I saw the pictures
on a website called t MZ. I saw you rubbing
his disgusting, hairy stomach. I knew you were lying about Colton.
(19:08):
I had told her I was with a friend. Colton.
Add that to the list of things you are liar, conniving, evil,
You look pudgier two. It's clear you're eating your guilt.
Thinking of you with his dingdong inside of you makes
me sick. Sick. I raised you better than this. What
happened to my good little girl? Where did she go?
And who is this monster that has replaced her? You're
an ugly monster now. I told your brothers about you,
(19:28):
and they all said they disown you, just like I do.
We want nothing to do with you. Love mom, or
should I say deb since I'm no longer your mother?
PS send money for a new fridge? Ours broke the
PF he has send money for a new friend. It
was what was the age difference between you and Joe?
I was eighteen years thirty two years? Yeah, and I
(19:50):
think it was no coincidence that he and I sort
of began a relationship very shortly after my mom's recurrence
of cancer. The way I see it now is sort
of okay. I knew Mom's dying. I need to replace,
but something I am grateful for in that relationship is
that I was hearing for the first time how unhealthy
my mom was. So when I would get an email
like that, you know, my my instinct was to say,
I'm this terrible person, how could I have done anything
(20:11):
like this? I I would believe what she said about me.
I would believe I must let him a lousy was
helpful in getting me to see that there was another
side to that and that this is really unhealthy. When
did you first recognize something was what you were experiencing
or had experienced. When I was eleven and my mom
taught me castriction, a part of me knew something was off.
(20:34):
So the fact that there was so much secretiveness around it,
my gut knew it wasn't right, But I couldn't accept
that it wasn't right because I'm a kid, and I
need it's my mom exactly. I needed her to be
the thing that I wanted her to be in order
to survive. And then I saw the therapist who was
the first person told my mother was abusive. I quit
that therapist immediately. Couldn't handle that information. Felt like, oh no, no, no,
(20:56):
I can't go anywhere near that. And then when I
eventually went back to therapy. It was maybe a year
later when I first started confronting it and accepting it,
after even hearing the words abuse and then just piecing
things together, it felt like I was finally making contact
with reality and not living in the necessary delusion of
my childhood. Necessary delusion of my childhood. Yeah, that's real.
(21:22):
That really just gave me. And also just because I
was abused, it doesn't mean that I don't love her.
That has been so difficult to grapple with. I feel
like how people identify with their mothers, like I came
from you, Like I was sustained from you, and you're
still treating me this. It's I think a little bit
(21:43):
more like mentally and emotionally violent on the child's mind. Yes,
I feel like it's so hard to not have this
guilt complex because it is this person gave me life,
They gave me the ultimate gift. How is there room
for such complex feelings towards them? How is there room
for you know, I love my mother. Oh my god,
I'm gonna get emotional and I feel you, you know, like,
how how is the room for such complexity towards this
(22:04):
person that I wish it could just be purely love.
I wish it could just be purely the thing that
I thought it was when I was little. But then
through the exploring and excavating of everything, I just realized
that there was so much more underneath it. And how
old were you then when you were able to go
with four? Everything I said was prefaced with a disclaimer
(22:27):
of well, this happened, but my mom meant nothing by this.
I couldn't just say the truth to my therapist. There
was a disclaimer and protection and guards around every single
thing that I said. And at one point she said
to me, like, you don't need to defend her every
single time you bring her up, And that opened the floodgates.
I recognized in that moment, oh wow, I'm doing a
lot of mental gymnastics here to keep my mom where
(22:49):
I wish I could keep keeper. And I know that
if I want to be healthy, I'm going to have
to not have her be on that pedestal anymore. And
it just happened. Okay, what was that like? It was terrifying.
I didn't feel like I had any semblance of my
own identity. Confronting that I didn't have any sums on
my own identity was horrifying. I didn't know where to start.
(23:09):
I knew, Okay, I'm probably gonna need to step away
from acting because I don't enjoy this, But how am
I supposed to do that when this is the thing
that my mom wanted me to be? And how do
I unpeeled myself from this thing? That's so I mean,
I did it so six years old, it's so wired
out of my identity. It meant how do I get
out of an environment that was making me unhappy? How
do I set boundaries with people? There were all these
questions that I did not know the answers to, how,
oh do you know thirty? When did you stop acting?
(23:33):
Quietly left when I was twenty four and didn't and
got on social media? And it just was the right
decision for me at the time, and something that I
did need to walk away from. Definitively, it was overwhelming
and daunting and not easy. That's deep, man, And kudos
to you because it's hard work. And the fact that
you didn't give up to because you talked about having
did change therapists? Change therapists? When did you all start therapy?
(23:57):
We've been in and out of therapy for years. Can
you care a little about that? Well, you know, Jada,
I was an addict. Even though there wasn't any physical abuse,
it was the the emotional abuse and not not being there,
you know, not being present. So there's you know, the neglect. Wow.
(24:18):
And um, Jada was lucky. I was lucky that we
had a village. Yeah, we had I had a village.
And that's why she's as strong and and the person
that she is. Get the tissues a matter of fact,
can we bring some tissues? Time for the tissues? I'm good.
You know. I'm not the crier. You guys are the
(24:39):
crier anything. She is the what's your relationship with man? Crier?
And that's a really good question. In my household, just
in my mother's addiction, and um, I was her only
child and it was usually just the two of us,
so it wasn't room. Wasn't to like feel, wasn't room
(25:00):
to cry. I cry about everything. Now I call it
the thawing out. Wow. It wasn't until ten years ago
that I just started thawing out all of that suppressed
up and just allowing myself to feel. So instead of
me going nope, you can't feel that, I go, yes,
you can so. I actually loved being the crier at
(25:20):
the table. I love that I have a complicated relationship
with being a crier. I really relate to everything you've
just said and really suppressed for so long, and I
just felt like, I don't want to be weak. I
don't want to be born. I don't want to let
other people in that way. I have so much judgment
around it. That's been really challenging. I've found so much power,
(25:41):
so much strength and vulnerability. All Right, we're bringing out
one of our favorite Kelly and mc daniel. She is
a trauma therapist and she specialized therapy to address what
she calls mother hunger. Thank you so much for having
me back. We love having you here. I want to
talk to you because this is your arias is what
(26:02):
I say, is your specialty. So many grown daughters who
had very abusive mothers need this story. What does a
mother actually do? You know that's not in the dictionary.
Two years of clinical practice to come up with. Mothers
do three essential things for their daughters. Nurture, first, protect,
and then guide, and all three of those things when
(26:25):
they go missing, I call it third degree mother hunger
when none of them happen, and there's abuse on top
of that, So there's a fear you bond to someone
who you're inherently scared of, and that destroys the relational template.
It's hard to then go on and have girlfriends. It's
hard to have lovers because your first love betrayed you. Yeah,
(26:47):
that's very interesting, like your relationship with other women, like
it talks about in the book that you had a
really nice relationship with Mirandam which I thought that was beautiful.
That was beautiful. Jeanette hit her mother's abuse from every one,
including her I Carlie co star Miranda Cosgrove. After reading
Jeanette's book, Miranda revealed her heartfelt reaction. When you're young,
(27:09):
you're so in your own head, you can't imagine that
people around you are having much harder struggles. You don't
expect things like that from the person in the room
who's making everyone laugh. I'm very grateful for that friendship.
It did provide me a lot of comfort in those
really challenging years. My relationship with Miranda was hugely healing
to my concept of women. And my mom was always
(27:30):
saying men will never really know you, and they'll hurt you,
but women will know you deeply and then they'll hurt you.
You tell me which is worse. These are the thoughts
that I'm here about women. Not to mention my very
complicated relationship with my mom, and then seeing her relationship
with her mom on top of it. And I have
three brothers who I love, and I felt this sort
of trust toward boys that I didn't feel toward girls
(27:52):
very young. And Miranda helped me to heal that relationship.
But it is something that I still struggle with. Kelly.
It's seems as the more people than we could even
imagine experience this. I see so much of it because
as a culture, we don't like to think that mothers
can be abusive. Really, it's called betrayal, blindness, betrayal by
(28:18):
we have to believe our mother is a good person.
If we knew too young that she was betraying us
or using us or explaining us, we couldn't survive. We
don't we could, We don't have the wherewithal. So nature
protects us. That's what that is. Yeah, Kelly, can you
talk to us about how Janette's mom might have violated
her sexually? That's one of those things where her mother
(28:39):
did something shameless, It was inappropriate, and she felt no
shame doing it. So where does that shame go all over? Janet,
It's had to be a result of her mom's own traumas, right,
most definitely that this has been a handed down thing.
But when I'm working with a daughter, yeah, I kind
(29:00):
of don't worry so much about let's understand your mother's trauma.
I kind of really want her to be able to
unpack her own, especially since Mom's not here, there's no
need to do that. And I think Jeanette was already
raised to be so aware of her mother's pain. She
was already so raised to be aware of her mother's
(29:22):
lost dreams that what you must have had to do
to even come back and feel like you get to
take up space in the world. I literally couldn't name
my emotion. No, I'd be sitting there and I've got
I don't know how to describe what I'm feeling, but
it's intense. Wow, isn't that an investment? Right? That you
just got me all the way together and that that
idea of having to make a really clear separation. I
(29:47):
went to get my my own sort of first apartment
at this point, my mom's cancer had recurred, so it
seemed like I was already eighteen. Yeah, and it was
horrifying that she had this cancer, But it also seemed
like the first time that we were going to be separated.
So I felt relief around that, but also guilt around
feeling the relief, and just such a complex layer of emotions.
I got this apartment and then my mom handed me
(30:08):
a copy of the Way we Were Robert Redford movie
that night and was like, Hey, I got you this.
Do you think we could watch this movie together tonight?
I knew that wasn't just us watching Robert Redford once
for a couple of hours. That was mom moving in.
And she continued to ask me every night, can I
just stay over tonight? Can I stay over tonight? For
about three months until she just didn't ask anymore and
lived with me in my first apartment. Uh, and yeah,
(30:29):
so we're living in this hoarding, chaotic environment again, and
I thought there was no escaping. There's no escaping, and
this was like a one bedroom apartment right when she
would sleep in the bed with you, hugging the whole night.
And it's so complicated to because then there's the layer
of the cancer. So she's hugging me tightly, and I
feel physically how much her body is deteriorating from cancer.
(30:50):
How am I supposed to set a boundary? And how
I supposed to look my my dying mother and the
I say, Mom, can you not squeeze me tonight? Because
it's you're really invading my personal boundary. I just couldn't.
I didn't and I couldn't. This is not easy to
hear for anyone. But when a mother does this in
the shower and then continues to kind of take her
daughter as her own way beyond um, it forms in
(31:15):
the daughter's brain a psychological marriage. So this daughter is
basically fulfilling the role of spouse is supposed to fill.
So what that does is it makes someone profoundly sexually anorexic. Wow,
then everybody started to disgust you. I couldn't hug people
for so long. I now love hugs and welcome hugs,
(31:37):
but it felt inherently inappropriate to me. It felt like
they want something for me that I can't get. WHOA
so did that? Like? Wow, that just opened up a
whole new candle worms for me in this in this story,
like trying dealing with intimacy, your relationship with intimacy in general,
like it's going to be tricky, But because it's a mother,
people almost want to think, well, maybe that was okay, Yeah,
(32:00):
that is crazy. This kind of thing happens a lot
and no one says anything. Yes, it's hard for people
to understand why nobody stepped in. Can you explain how
abuse is pervasive in a way that it can control
the whole environment. Everybody's walking on eggshells right, Nobody knows,
(32:22):
nobody's safe, Nobody knows what's going to set her off.
And that's what the thing is that seems to be
the common denominator in your story and others, is that
we know what it looks like when she gets set off,
and it's so ugly and it's so terrifying that we
just don't go there. And what's sad is when her
partner can't go there either. But generally, I hear it
(32:44):
all the time and we'll protect the children. They'll say,
I didn't know that was happening. We assumed everybody was okay.
Mothers have a lot of power. Let me ask you
a question, after having this experience, do you think you
want to have children of your own, Jata, I was
thinking the same, Get out of my head. I would
never want to have a child for my own identity.
That's a very, very huncrete one for me. I'm in
(33:07):
a place where, so I'm thirty, i don't feel like
I want kids, and I have two nieces that I
adore and and a third on the way. I'm really
happy to be an aunt, and right now I don't
feel that I want them. But I'm also open to
maybe a couple of years from now or whatever. I
I something hits me and I just feel like, yeah,
I do want that, but for now, yes, So, Jeanette,
(33:31):
can you tell us about your last conversation with your mom? Well,
the last conversation would have been sort of a non conversation.
Her cancer spread her brain. She was in a hospice
bed that was set up in our living room, and
she was really just detached behind the eyes. But I
think this thing happens when people are on their death bed,
or this was at least my experience, where everybody tries
(33:51):
to say something to the person who's dying, like it's
an attempt to get them to wake up. My brothers
had each kind of given their good news of their
live one of them was getting married, one of them
was moving back to California. And then I said, Mommy,
I'm so skinny right now. Like the thing that I
felt like was the most that I had to offer
was my thinness um, and I really, really in my
(34:12):
core at that time, I believed that that would get
my mother to wake up. I believed that she cared
more about my body and my weight than she did
about anything else that could possibly be uttered by my
brother's mouth. I really felt like that better more of her.
I think you even said I'm made nine pounds. I did,
I did? Whoa yea. So Nicole joins us and says
(34:33):
Jeanette's story has made her feel empowered in her own life. Hi,
I'm so excited to be here. Hello, what's your question
for Jeanette? So? I have really connected with Janette ever
since I Harley because I grew up as a tomboy,
and I did grew up in a very tumultuous household
that would often escalate to verbal abuse. So I totally
(34:55):
understand the feeling of just not knowing what's going to
set your parents off. So question is, were you ever
able to forgive your mom for the behavior and for
you know, the issues that it caused. That's a good question.
I worked towards forgiveness. Oh God, I'm gonna get emotional.
I already feel it. I worked so right. I worked
(35:19):
towards forgiveness for I worked toward forgiveness for a really
long time. And my therapist said to me one day,
what if you don't have to work towards forgiveness? And
I wept, and I knew that that's what I needed
to hear because I had been trying to find a
way to still honor my mom in respect. I was
(35:39):
still trying to live for her. I was still trying
to find a way to make it all means something
because it had to, because it was her. And that
was exactly what I needed to hear. It was hugely emotional,
but my God didn't help forgiving someone who has not,
first of all, changed their behavior, they haven't acted on
(35:59):
her blee. Do they deserve forgiveness? They personally do not.
Forgiveness is a process that may eventually happen for you
so that you have a loosening, but that takes its
own time and permission. Not to give it for that person, Nicole.
I hope that was helpful. It was very helpful. Your
courage gives me courage, So thank you for doing what
(36:20):
you do. I'm sending you a big hug. Yeah, I
love it. Thank you, Nicole. That just blew my mind
about maybe you don't have to forgive her. I feel
like we're always trying to take the high road, and
I'm gonna heal and I'm gonna be this and I'm
gonna be done exactly. I just want you to know
(36:41):
this has been a really awesome experience. We was so
touched by your book. I had so much emotion reading
the book. I'm so happy for you. I am so happy.
This has been the honor and a blessing to have
you here. I feel the same way. I really appreciate
all of you. Thank case so much for having me
and as we wrap, your honesty, your vulnerability, and your
(37:06):
voice has moved so many, including these familiar faces who
wanted to send some love to you. M to that girl.
You out here doing your thing, thriving and signing, glowing
and growing. I am so proud of the hard work
that you've been putting in. Thank you for personally and
positively impacting my life. You're winning queen, my stright angel.
(37:27):
Hi Jeanette, it's my um and we are thrilled for
your success and we just think you're awesome. Huge congratulations.
Couldn't be proud of Oh. I just wanted to say,
I'm so so proud of you. Just such a trill,
placed a strong voice for for women to see that
you could stick up and say how you feel, that
(37:50):
your own voice. If you're just so cool. I love
your God to that. I am just so grateful to
have you as a friend. I'm just so glad to
see you saying I'm taking back my life, I'm taking
back my power, and you're doing it so beautifully. Okay, Jeanette. UM,
I just wanted to say I love you and to
(38:12):
just keep going, keep being great, do you. My game
is versy McClellan. I know Jeanette from working on Salmon Cat,
and some of you may know me, just one half
of the duos, feeling grace and rosy from the chow.
I remember this one time feeling really really left out,
and then I remember Jeannette coming into my dressing room
and giving me all of her time. A massive hub
(38:34):
and after meeting lives of down with celebrities. I can
definitely say that Jeanette is the most genuine I have
ever met. Gonna, I'm so proud of you for finally
speaking your truth, putting yourself first. They say that our
pain is our biggest strength, and you're so powerful right now.
Pay Jeannette. I respect your bravery to revisit the experiences
(38:58):
and challenges that earned you the wisdom we now get
to admire. I'm sending lots of love and I hope
that tonight you look at yourself in the bathroom mirror
dramatically and say, I know who I am in truth.
I am free, I am free, I am free. Thank
(39:20):
you everyone, Oh my goodness, thank you that that moved me.
I was constantly trying to read, trying to write. I
tried to write a script called Chicken in the Sand.
It was, it was, It was great. What was Chicken
(39:40):
in the understand the chickens and everyone was very strong
and chaos. To join the Red Table Talk family and
become a part of the conversation. Follow us at facebook
dot com slash red Tape, We'll Talk. Thanks for listening
(40:01):
to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by
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