iJennette

I read a fascinating book yesterday. I couldn’t put it down. It is the first time in a while in which I have read an entire book in one day. The book just came out and it is called I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. Jennette McCurdy is a (now grown) child star who is best known as the character “Sam” on the Nickelodeon hit “iCarly.” My kids loved watching that TV show growing up, and I personally always enjoyed the character of “Sam” the best. However, the book makes it abundantly clear that Jennette doesn’t like “Sam” at all. I’m Glad My Mom Died is a memoir of what it was like to be a little girl forced into child acting, by an overbearing, abusive, narcissistic stage mom, in order to live out the unfulfilled dreams of her own mother. Jennette comes into her adulthood, realizing that she never liked being an actress at all. Jennette comes into adulthood realizing that her entire childhood was spent hoping to make her extremely difficult to please and sickly mother, happy. Jennette feels robbed of her childhood, her adolescence and her very own sense of self. The book is a brutally honest, frank, often funny, yet frequently sad memoir, leaving the reader with hope that Jennette can come into her true self, in a healthy way, leaving the ghosts of her past behind. (Warning the book is explicit, and may hold triggers for people, including candid accounts of abuse, sexual encounters and eating disorders.)

For my fellow writers who read my blog, you will definitely relate to this excerpt from the book:

“I absolutely prefer writing to acting. Through writing, I feel power for maybe the first time in my life. I don’t have to say anybody else’s words. I can write my own. I can be myself for once. I like the privacy of it. Nobody’s watching. Nobody’s judging. Nobody’s weighing in. No casting directors or agents or managers or directors or Mom. Just me and the page. Writing is the opposite of performing to me. Performing feels inherently fake. Writing feels inherently real.”

And chapter 91 was perhaps the most brutally honest chapter of the book, yet incredibly insightful. Jennette writes:

“Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can’t we be honest about them? Especially moms. They’re the most romanticized of anyone. . . . My mom didn’t deserve her pedestal. She was a narcissist. She refused to admit she had any problems, despite how destructive those problems were to our entire family. My mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me. . . . Her death left me more questions than answers, more pain than healing, and many layers of grief – the initial grief from her passing, then the grief of accepting her abuse and exploitation of me, and finally the grief that surfaces now when I miss her and start to cry . . . . Sometimes when I miss her I start to fantasize what life would be like if she were alive and I imagine that she’d have apologized, and we’d have wept in each other’s arms and promised each other we’d start fresh. Maybe she’d support me having my own identity, my own hopes and dreams and pursuits.

But then I just realize I’m just romanticizing the dead in the same way I wish everyone else wouldn’t.

Mom made it very clear she had no interest in changing. If she were still alive, she’d still be trying her best to manipulate me into being who she wants me to be.”

Two of my absolute favorite activities in this world are reading and writing. I am not sure which I like better, but I do know that they go hand-in-hand. I’m so grateful for the written word.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.