Telling The Truth of Women's Lives with Jessica Zucker

Erin: Welcome to Hotter Than Ever, where we uncover the unconscious rules we've been following. We break those rules and we find a new path to being freer, happier, sexier, and more satisfied in the second half of our lives. I'm your host, Erin Keating. Welcome, new listeners. Thank you for finding the Hotter Than Ever podcast. I'm so happy you're here. And welcome back to the loyal listeners who tune in week after week for these conversations about what is possible for us in the second half of our lives. So much is possible for us because we are a generation of badasses who are infinitely resourceful and capable, and we finally really realize that about ourselves.

We are strong and we are tender. We are are insightful. We are loving, just like every generation of women. But then add in feminism and economic and educational opportunities and moms who told us we could be anything we wanted to be when we grew up, and you get us poised at the edge of the next chapter of our lives while the world shifts around us and changes. And I don't know about you, but I still managed to get up in the morning and get my kids to school and go to work in my home office. And maybe you leave the house and go to work in another office. Do you, do people still do that?

We are working at home. We are working at work. We are taking care of our kids and our partners and our loved ones and our families. And we are making it all look so easy. And we are all thinking and percolating about the dreams that we still want to chase because there are still dreams that we want to chase. And we finally are starting to not care so much about what people think of us and just do the things that make us feel good, that make our lives feel full of meaning and satisfaction. Okay, so that's who we are.

Who is my guest today? I'm fired up because my guest today is Jessica Zucker. Jessica is a psychologist specializing in reproductive and maternal health, and she is the author of the award winning book "I Had A Miscarriage: A Memoir, A Movement." She's the creator of the #IHadAMiscarriage campaign and we're going to talk about that today. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post. She's been on NPR, the Today show, and Good Morning America. Her latest book, "Normalize It: Upending the Silence, Stigma, and Shame that Shape Women's Lives", is coming out right now and you can find a link for how to get it in the show notes.

What I love about Jessica is that her work centers on talking out loud about all the things that we as women talk about in private in hushed whispers, the things we're scared to invoke because we don't want to be judged or shamed or criticized. Real truths of women's lives like miscarriage and unhappy marriages and infidelity and. And family secrets and abortions and loneliness and illness and fertility issues and sex. There's so much that we keep inside and don't talk about. We have a really deep and personal conversation about what it means for women to tell our stories, how vulnerable that feels and how liberating it is to just tell the truth about our lives and be witnessed by other people because it makes us feel so much more connected and so much less alone. I think you're really going to enjoy this episode. All right, let's get hot.

Jessica Zucker, welcome to Hotter Than Ever.

Jessica: Thank you so much for having me.

Erin: I am so excited to talk to you today. And specifically, I really love that the theme of your book is about the stories and life experiences that women have historically kept to ourselves and not shared publicly or even with one another. I think a lot of Hotter Than Never listeners are really going to be able to relate to this because we keep a lot of things to ourselves in this life as women. First, I want to hear your story and how you came to the decision to tell the story of your miscarriage so publicly, because that is something that so many women go through, and until you've gone through it, no one talks about it.

Jessica: Isn't that true? So, as you said, I'm a psychologist specializing in women's reproductive and maternal mental health and have specialized in this for over a decade and a half at this point and when I specialized in this. So I also have a background in public health and had worked internationally in women's health, women's rights. And then it was very clear to me that I wanted to have sort of a more intimate career. I wanted to be able to impact people one on one. And so when I envisioned what I would do marrying sort of my public health background with my PhD in clinical psychology, I wanted to specialize in all things women's maternal mental health. But at the time, I really had sort of a theoretical interest. I had sort of read all the books related to postpartum depression and anxiety. I had read the books about pregnancy and pregnancy loss.

I had read the books about body image during pregnancy and pregnancy loss. At the time, however, I couldn't relate sort of corporeally like in my own body. I hadn't lived through something that had me kind of connecting to the topics, except for the very fact that I'm a woman myself and feel very passionately, of course, about women's issues in general. And then 16 weeks into my second pregnancy, I had a miscarriage while I was home by myself. So I had begun spotting. We went to the doctor. Everything looked perfect. The next morning, I was experiencing what seemed like labor, which it turned out it was.

And by the afternoon, the fetus fell from my body and my husband was at work. Of course, I called him right away. Thankfully, I'm on a text basis with my OB gyn, so I let her know what was happening. And the truth is, I was too scared to call 911 because think about the vulnerability of something like this happening. The utter shock and awe, the complexity of the trauma. Here I am with a fetus between my legs. I'm not going to have, like, all of these men running through my house trying to help me to get me into an ambulance to go to the hospital. So instead, my OB GYN walked me through what to do.

I had to cut the umbilical cord myself. And then, of course, I promptly began to hemorrhage because the placenta was still inside. My husband got home, we brought the fetus with us to in a bag to my OB's office, and then I had to undergo an unmedicated DNC. I know it's like, it's interesting because my next book is about storytelling. And it's like I've shared this story so many times that in some ways it's a story, you know what I mean? A story that lives outside of me. But when I really let myself like I am right now, connect me bodily to the fact that I went through this myself, it is wild and. And still emotional. I mean, but this was over 12 years ago at this point.

Suffice it to say that given all that, my perspective on my professional life and my personal life changed for good. I had already been somebody who loved to write. I was, like, obsessed with my dissertation writing. So I decided to get writing about the topic of pregnancy and infant loss. I had been sitting with patients for years and years hearing about their stories, but until I went through it myself, I couldn't, of course, relate firsthand to the sense of isolation and alienation and feeling alone and experiencing these platitudes that come your way that are just, like, so off putting and so disappointing and dumbfounding even sometimes. So I began writing, and in 2014, I wrote my first new York Times piece. And with that piece, I launched the I had a miscarriage campaign.

I basically had a calligrapher create a sign for me that said, #IHadAMiscarriage. And in the photograph, you don't see my face. I wanted it to be blank enough that any woman could sort of envision themselves holding this sign or expressing this sentiment. And in that piece, and again, like, I didn't know I was creating a campaign, to be honest. I just thought I was taking a professional sort of risk, personal risk, being vulnerable, putting the contents of my life out there with important intent. And the intent was, listen, culture, we're done with this. The silence, the stigma, the shame, this swirling trifecta. It's antiquated. It's not serving us. It is creating feelings of self doubt, body hatred, all of these things that the research has found women talking about.

And so with that piece, I invited people. If you haven't shared your story. And it's okay. I'm not somebody who thinks everybody should get on a rooftop or start a campaign or start a hashtag. Like, no, it's okay. If people want to be private about their lives, sure. However, my main thing was, if you're being quiet about it, just examine why is it that you feel, like, forced to be quiet about it? Or do you feel that there's shame in expressing the fact that you lost a pregnancy? Where is that coming from? And together, hopefully, we can turn culture around.

Erin: And what was the year of this #IHadAMiscarriage campaign?

Jessica: Yeah, so my loss was 2012. And then I honestly didn't feel like I could sort of get on a soapbox until pregnancy was honestly in my rearview mirror. So I got pregnant again three months after my loss. And then once she was born, so, so then I pitched the New York Times. So that piece ran in October of 2014. And that's when the hashtag kind of became this whole thing that I didn't even. I really didn't sort of know what I was creating, but it was very gratifying to see it take off.

Erin: Yeah, I ask about the timing just because of MeToo and Black Lives Matter and all of these moments in our culture that I feel like we're feeling the backlash to right now. This sort of, like, opening of that social media has allowed of, of people to sort of come together around things that have been oppressed or repressed by the powers that be. And I, I'm so grateful for the work that you did with that, because I feel like women's lives and our lived experiences and our stories, we are not the dominant narrative. Right? We are not. And I had what they call, like, a chemical miscarriage.

So I was doing fertility treatments, and the first one I did IUI and the first one took. And I was like, yes. And then we were like, nine or ten days in, and it was like, nope, no more. I started spotting. And so I've always thought of that as, like, well, it doesn't really count as a miscarriage. Right. Like, but when I started to tell people about it, when I started to talk to people about fertility and all the struggles I was having to get pregnant, I started to hear, oh, everybody has a miscarriage. Everybody has a miscarriage. Like, half the women I talk to, they're like, oh, I had a miscarriage. But, like, it's like one of those things where it's so silent in the culture that you don't even know to suspect how normal it is.

Jessica: That's right. And I think the fact that it's not a disease and it's not going anywhere and there's absolutely no cure for it, so therefore it's a normative outcome of pregnancy. Like, that, to me, is the reason why, even more than anything, we should be talking about it. Because, again, it's not like, ooh, if we don't talk about it, it's actually going to go away.

Erin: Like, no, never going away. Women have had miscarriages since the beginning of time. Women have had irregular periods since the beginning of time. Women have had all kinds of pregnancy outcomes since the beginning of time.

Jessica: I'm curious why, though, you felt like you, you said that it didn't count, and I thought that was an interesting way to think about it. Like, do you think that that is a consequence of a culture that doesn't sort of allow women to own their stories?

Erin: Yes. And also, I didn't suffer that much, so I felt like, and it was part of, like, this sort of cycle of disappointment of trying to get pregnant. It was just one of the things that didn't quite work that I was trying, except that it was the first, like, real intervention that I had done that. The first IUI, that, which is basically you take the sperm and stick it in a salad spinner and time your drugs with your ovulation, and then you're trying to make the match. It's the least invasive, invasive thing you can do to try to get pregnant. Just for the listeners who aren't familiar, I just was like, oh, yeah, I mean, I just think women's lives are marked with so much heavy disappointment that we don't talk about. And also, my, my father had lung cancer at that time. And I found out about, like, I, I started spotting while I was in the hospital, like after he had just had surgery. And I was like, well, this isn't much compared to that. You know what I mean?

Jessica: Oh, that brings upsuch an important point about the comparisons, how we compare and contrast losses or hardships. I experienced that, well, so eventually I wrote a book. My first book, "I Had A Miscarriage" memoir movement and two weeks after that book came out, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Erin: Oh, honey.

Jessica: And it was interesting how many people said things to me that were this kind of comparing and contrasting vibe where it was like, oh, you've had it so hard between the miscarriage and breast cancer, like, making it almost seem like I should be ashamed, or that like somehow I had, quote, unquote, bad luck, or that I should be, I don't know, searching around in my mind for a reason why these two bad things would happen to me, as if bad things aren't happening to good people throughout their lives all over the world.

Erin: It's such magical thinking. It's such like, that is not real. And, and that's really to the power of story that we are always writing the story and trying to make sense of the moral and the narrative. And, and when things are not normalized, and also if you have this sort of overlay of, of shame and judgment, like every woman does about every fucking thing that happens to us in our lives and everything we do, we are just trying to connect the dots of the story of our lives. And we're not given a lot of models for how those stories can be told.

Jessica: That's exactly right. Because when I was diagnosed with breast cancer and like the first thing out of most people's mouth was like, you're so strong, you're a warrior. And I was like, huh, I'm a warrior. So wait, I'm at war with my body. And then I thought, wait, if I were a man, I don't think people would say that. I mean, I'm sure nobody said to your father when he was going through what he was going through, that he was a warrior. So it's just interesting.

And I understand these are all well meaning platitudes. I really do. I mean, after pregnancy loss also, there's so much of it, but the way it lands and the way it can sometimes alienate people and make them feel that much more sort of isolated is. Is incredibly concerning. And it also puts a pressure. I mean, especially the warrior badge puts a pressure on people, which I think translates also to, oh, wait, if you don't make it, you didn't try hard enough, because a warrior survives, and what if you don't? So I just think, like, all the language surrounding women's bodies, women's lives, women's milestones, is so complex and needs to be investigated a lot further.

Erin: Yeah, I agree. I agree. I mean, when I was going through fertility stuff, it was all so hard, and I just was so determined to get pregnant that I was like, I'm a soldier. I would say that to myself. I'm a fucking soldier. I'm gonna go from Brooklyn to the Upper East Side in the morning before work and get my blood taken and get the ultrasounds done, and then I'm gonna go to work and I'm gonna go home, and then I'm gonna do it again. Like, all the things I had to do in the snow, I didn't care. I was like, I am getting pregnant and I am having a family, and I don't have any room to feel any kind of way about this.

Jessica: Well, that's what I've been wondering, as you've talked about your story, like, and your situation with fertility, did you ever then have time to grieve, if you want to call it that, or feel all the feelings involved? Like, once you were pregnant, did you feel stuff or were you just like, nope, I'm soldiering through, like, I don't have time for this.

Erin: I felt like I went through the battle and I won. I mean, I got pregnant with twins and I hit the jackpot. And everybody's like you're so lucky, you're so lucky. You know? And it's like, yeah, I absolutely was. I worked really hard for it, and I was determined not to take no babies for an answer, you know? You know, and I can be really tenacious.

And my best friend the other day said to me as we've just gone through the fires here in la, you know, and I came to terms with like, oh, fuck I really am a single mom, and this is it for me, and I have to be strong, and there's really not a lot of room for me to have a whole lot of feelings. I have to be the person that my kids need me to be and make decisions on my own and be a leader and whatever. My best friend was like, you are so stoic and I don't even think of it as stoicism. I think of it as like doing what I have to do to get through life. And no one is coming to rescue me. Nobody is coming to rescue me.

Jessica: So do you mean like the fires, ike having to evacuate and having to kind of make that plan with your kids there and be the one to do, to execute?

Erin: Yeah, make the decisions, have a level head. Not freak out, not let my emotions take over. Just sit with my anxiety and my fear around my house burning down. And also just being mindful of their mental health and their well being. And you know, and they complain, like, I kept them out of school for a week and they were pissed. And I was like, too bad. And I just kept saying to them, sometimes your parents are going to do things that other people's parents are not doing.

Jessica: That's so true. How do we do all this? I don't know how we parent in the world we're currently living in. It is so complex. And it's interesting because again, it's like I want to model for both my kids, but my daughter in particular. All of these things that we're talking about. Like, I want her to appreciate her body or at the very least not be mean to herself about her changing body. She's in puberty, so like, when the period comes, how are we going to talk about that and handle that?

And I'm very sort of mindful of wanting to do it, I guess, differently than my own mother did it. My father's a physician, so he's actually the person I turned to more than my mom when it came to my bodily changes. So I'm just so curious to see how that's all going to unfold for her. But it's like, meanwhile, we're living in fires and wars and so many other things right now that it's a wonder that we can be, quote, unquote, good mothers through it all. It's a tall order.

Erin: It's a tall order. It's a tall order. And yet what choice do we have? What choice do we have? None of this is optional. Like, we didn't choose what the world looks like today. I mean, some would say maybe we did, but I didn't.

And so, so the new book is called "Normalize It". And the question I have for you. Yeah, I'm gonna hold it up too. Here we go. It's a great cover by the way, where do women start to learn that there are all these things we're not supposed to talk about?

Jessica: Well, that's a good question. I opened the book with Dr. Carol Gilligan's research. She was at Harvard University, now she's at New York University. And she did groundbreaking research on girlhood. And what she found was basically that girls will be going about their lives, doing their thing, and then at a certain sort of turning point or milestone or age or time in puberty, not suddenly, but suddenly, because I don't know if she says it's sudden, but it does sound sudden because they hit a wall. And she's saying basically that what she witnessed in her qualitative research is that girls start to take then their truer selves, their sort of authentic selves underground.

That's the wording she uses, meaning, this is when the quote unquote, like, good girl stuff starts, right? So if you see that a teacher isn't happy that you look unhappy because there's too much homework or you have a quiz or whatever, and they're like, wipe that face off your. Look off your face or something, and then it's like, oh, right, oh, okay. I'm supposed to just smile and present myself in a certain way. So that's just one example of sort of how we get acculturated into believing that we have to kind of grin and bear it. And then we, I think with that internalization, we start to question ourselves. And again, we, unless we are around women who are, like, celebrating their periods or, like, loving their bodies in the mirror every day, I think they look around at their peer group and everyone's sort of awkward and maybe hiding their breasts that are coming in and start to feel a sense of shame.

Erin: Yeah, yeah. I think it's hormonal, right? Like Louise Bridenzine, I think I might be saying that wrong. Wrote a book called the "Female Brain". And it tracks all the different hormonal changes and what the sort of the neuropsychology, like, what the inside is doing and what the outside is doing. And in middle school, which is where my daughter is, where my son is, this is such a pivotal period. And what becomes the most important thing is social acceptance. So I talk to my daughter all the time about the conformity in my own middle school experience where there were, like, certain kinds of shoes you could wear and they had to be tied a certain way.

And I, like, describe the fashions that, like, made me feel like I was going to fit in even though I never felt like I was going to fit in. And I see and I reflect to her like, oh my God, you all dress exactly the same. You have the same brands, you have the same like, because that is what's happening in your body. That is what your brain is being pickled with. All of these hormones that tell you, okay, XYZ for evolutionary survival.

Jessica: Well, and I'm sure that social media does not help with any of that.

Erin: It reinforces all the badness. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jessica: So, I mean, yeah, my daughter, we're applying her to middle school right now. And so even last night she was asking, do her legs look like my legs? And I thought that was a really interesting question. I think she's, her body's changing so she has a lot of questions about it. She looks more like her dad, she looks more like my husband than she does me. And so I don't know, it's just like they're trying to figure it out. Who am I? What is my place in the world? Do I matter? Does my voice matter? Can I be authentic?

I mean, again, they're not consciously thinking these things, but this is sort of coming on board around this age. And ideally they live in a household where these kinds of conversations are out in the open and their female role models and their male role models are encouraging them to talk about stuff, to investigate the hard things in their lives, to normalize. Talking about all of these changes and concerns, like you said, with friends, with fashion, whatever it is, so that they know they have a safe space to return to at the end of each day, especially when they're in middle school.

Erin: Yeah, totally. I want to tell a little story about something that happened while we were watching Abbott Elementary the other night. Had nothing to do with the show, it's a terrific show. My son said something about how a friend of his said flicking the bean and I was like, oh, now they're almost 14, right? So this is age appropriate. Sort of like feeling it out, like, what's going on with sexuality? What does this mean? So I'm sitting there with my almost 14 year old daughter and son and I said, do you know what that means? And he said, no. Like, no, I don't. I don't think so, something vagina, something. And I was like, well, the bean in reference is the clitoris. It's the part of the vagina that has all the nerve endings and sensation. It feels good when you touch it. And he's like, oh, Mom. And my daughter's like, yup. And I said, so flicking the bean refers to someone masturbating by touching their clitoris. And he goes, okay. And my daughter's like, yep. And then we tabled it and moved on.

Jessica: Good for you. Oh, my God. I bet your son nearly fainted.

Erin: He wants to kill me and kill himself. However, I'm committed to normalizing conversations about pleasure, about body, about sexuality, about how we treat each other.

Because I think there's so much misinformation out there. I think there's so much shame and confusion out there. And I just want to say to them, like, there's no reason for that.

Jessica: There's no reason for that. I mean, I love that you talked about masturbation, and I've gone as far as to talk about porn with my son, who's 16. Because my worry is that, and I've said this to him directly, my worry is that you will see something that you think a woman finds pleasurable because she's paid to make it look like that look that way. But that may not necessarily be the case.

Erin: Right.

Jessica: And so he, of course, doesn't want to talk to me about this.

Erin: No.

Jessica: And I said, well, where are you learning what you're learning? Oh, through friends. Well, okay. So they know as much as you do, and I'm here to help you understand a little bit better the importance of female pleasure. Because I don't think a lot of people are talking to their children about the importance of female pleasure, especially people with sons, because it's the assumption that men get to experience maybe more pleasure. And if the woman does great, and if she doesn't, like, hopefully she enjoyed some element of it. So these are just things that. I mean, it's not so subtle, but I do subtly try to weave this in. I don't want to make him so uncomfortable that he doesn't want to talk to me about it.

Erin: No. It is a fine line where.

Jessica: It is a fine line.

Erin: I don't want to creep them out, but I do have a podcast called Hotter Than Ever, and if they come into my office, they see all this stuff everywhere, you know, and they know that I like to talk about sex and that I'm on a mission. They do know to some degree that I'm on a mission, and then it's not really part of their lives. Like, my shit is not thrust on them, so to speak.

But I want them to know that it's an open door. If they have something they want to know or they're confused about something. And the porn conversation is really important. I have said to my son, this is entertainment and not what sex is really like. This is a. This is a media product.

Jessica: I mean, my dissertation actually, when I got my PhD, was about women who worked in the porn industry as actors. And so I actually was able to talk to my son a little bit more about the circumstances that a lot of people come from or live within who are in that field, so that.

Erin: I worry about them. I always tell them I worry.

Jessica: Yeah, well, because it's like, I do think that, like, when, if it's produced well enough, you think like, oh, these are actors and like they're enjoying it. And this is something that I might try in my own life when their attachment histories, the. The psychological background is. Is very important to consider. And this isn't something to kind of have as a fantasy, necessarily.

Erin: Yeah and maybe it is and maybe it isn't. When you get older and you figure out the context of everything and your own pleasure and what your real life physical experiences are, desires are. But like, no, not as that stuff is forming in you.

Jessica: Exactly. At that age, no.

Erin: No. So, I mean, there's a list of things in your book that we are taught not to talk about. Grief, body image, sexual trauma, pregnancy loss, how we really feel about motherhood sometimes, whether or not we've had abortions, what menopause feels like. So really the sum total of a woman's bodily experience here on earth is we are made to feel, don't share that. Don't talk about that. Oh, that's going to make people uncomfortable for me. I add to this list, like, what it's really like inside a bad marriage. Like, you do not know what people are going through because they do not talk about it. You know how hard it is to be a single parent when you are fearful about money. Like, there are so many things that I know from my own life experience. Like, I am gonna grin and bear it because I want people to think a certain way of me or I don't want to put my shit onto other people or whatever. Obviously that's not true. I started a podcast where I tell tales school about my own life just to do exactly what you're trying to do with this book.

Jessica: But, like, what was that loneliness like then? Like, did you have friends or a therapist or somebody that you were at least able to share directly about all of that with? Like, because to keep that all inside, I would think somebody would implode.

Erin: I did, I had a therapist, thank God, where I escaped into was workaholism. And that was, for me, that was the place where I got all the juice in my life. And it helped me to tolerate what I was tolerating. And it took me getting sick with COVID and going to the hospital and almost dying to make a change and to wake up and to realize I had been lying to myself and to everyone else about everything.

Jessica: Wow. So, I mean, not to make this a therapy session, but I mean, when--

Erin: I always use this podcast as an excuse for free therapy.

Jessica: But when you look back on your life, are there dots that you now connect that make you realize, like, oh, this is why I chose him?

Erin: 100%. Yeah, of course. And he's not a bad guy. At the end of the day, he's a loving dad and he has his issues. And when it's interesting to see how the kids are coming to their own understandings of who he is and what they love about him and what's frustrating about him. But yes, of course, yes, I connect all the dots and I have clearly lots of daddy issues and lots of sort of what I would now self diagnose as cptsd. So which is really, you know, in my understanding, is being re-traumatized over and over again in the same way in a situation you can't get out of. And so that's a lot of my story from, from the beginning. And I'm really grateful to have had the marriage that I had and I'm grateful to have the kids that I have. And I feel like my story is just fucking normal. My story is normal.

Jessica: I'm so glad you feel that way because that's what I was going to ask. Like, did you feel a sense of shame when you realized this is over? Like, I can't do this anymore and I need to tell the truth to everybody in my life and I have to make a change. Like, and I wonder why it has to be laden in shame. Why I don't. I mean, maybe, maybe there are men again. I'm not trying to talk in such binary terms, but why do we feel the shame? Why do we get to carry the silence, the stigma that leads to this enormous shame that we feel like we have to kind of sequester.

Erin: Well, because we're not in power, like, in the culture. We are not in power. So as empowered as women have become through feminism, which has only been a 40, 50 year experiment in our. In our lifetime, like the real gains have been in the last 40, 50 years. They let us do all the work now. They let us make as much money, but we still have all the domestic responsibility. We still have the caregiving responsibility. And now we just also run the companies that we don't own.

I think there's just a lot of--we're so busy keeping the plates spinning and we're so busy trying to be socially accepted, acceptable and, and fit in and not alienate people and fulfill everyone's expectations going back to girlhood that, that there isn't really room for us to, to fall apart or to. To really get in the process of dealing with all the dark stuff. I think the culture says that paints a certain picture and we're all trying to be pretty for that picture.

Jessica: That is perfectly put. That's true. The pressure of that is immense.

Erin: Yeah. I mean, that's my theory. Focus group of one always

Jessica: Does that shame dissipate, though, once you embraced this important change in your life and the breakup and sharing with other people and being in therapy and whatever, did the shame sort of begin to roll off your shoulders, do you think?

Erin: Yes, I think so. And I also think I am curious about the people in my life who watched me pretend everything was okay and didn't say anything. And I think there is something about the institution of marriage that feels inviolable. That it feels like once you've entered into that contract, that is a private experience and that you're betraying your partner if you tell the truth about what's going on, you know, you're betraying your marriage vows, you're turning outward and not inward.

And also like to the benefit of the people who, in my life who saw that I was suffering and didn't say anything. They did want to stick around and be there for me, of course. And they didn't want to risk. I can be really fierce. And they did. I think I scare people sometimes and they didn't want to risk alienating me.

Jessica: Yeah, they probably walked on eggshells not knowing, like, even if they could see that the marriage wasn't ideal, maybe they felt it wasn't their business or that as soon as you were ready to share, you would share.

Erin: Yeah, and also I put up a pretty good friend of like, I got this.

Jessica: Yeah, well, you do got this. But it doesn't mean that you're infallible and that vulnerability isn't important. But it does seem like you've got this.

Erin: It does seem like that, doesn't it? I do not know these days whether I've got that.

Jessica: I don't know if I've got this, but, you know. We just cobble it together and do our best.

Erin: Yeah, what is it that women typically will share with one another and will share publicly? And then who are the people that we're most likely to confide in and who are we most likely not to confide in? I think you are lucky if you have a couple of women in your life who you tell the truth to.

Jessica: I know, my mother in law was saying that to me on her last visit to Los Angeles and I found I was really struck by it because she seems to be surrounded by a lot of people from that she met when my husband was in preschool. She still have all those friends. But it was fascinating that she opened up about, like, really at the heart of it. Who do I tell the full truth to? Maybe one or two people. And I was really struck by that.

Erin: Yeah. For me, divorce has opened up the possibility of being more honest and of figuring out who the people are in my life. People almost sometimes feel like divorce is catching. So there's some people who will pull away.

Jessica: Yes. Well, people think miscarriage and breast cancer are also contagious. So just so you know.

Erin: Right. Like, life is not a communicable disease. You can't catch someone else's trauma just from witnessing it.

Jessica: No, you can't.

Erin: But we are not taught how to support each other, how to be there for each other, how to discharge this secrecy.

Jessica: That's right. And to be there for people no matter what. Like, even if it ignites fears within us about our own relationships or our own bodies or our own potential cancer or pregnancy loss. Like, why is there not enough, like, space or scaffolding to support regardless of what it ignites or stirs up or provokes in somebody? It's interesting.

Erin: Yeah. That's why everybody needs a therapist.

Jessica: That's right. And everybody can read this book if they can't afford therapy.

Erin: Yeah, yeah. Talk to me about stories. Talk to me about storytelling. Because that is at the essence of everything I've ever done professionally. And I inherently believe in the power of our stories. And like, however crazy the media business is today and all of everything, like, at the end of the day, we are just craving connection, empathy, whatever storytelling gives us. How can we tell our own stories in a way that will empower other people?

Jessica: That's a great question. Well, I see storytelling as the antidote to silence and what I get into in the book, I try to provide myriad examples of ways we can be open, be honest, own our truths. And like I said earlier, it's not about getting on a rooftop. You don't have to go do a TED Talk about your divorce or I mean, I do have characters in the book who do big things with their stories, but I say that only because I don't want people to feel intimidated. It doesn't. You don't have to be some public figure.

Erin: You don't have to go live on Instagram.

Jessica: You don't have to. You don't even have to be on a podcast, but you could even write a piece that is anonymous, or you could even just write in a journal. You could even whisper it to your neighbor. I think it's about starting the process, and you have to start somewhere. And so getting comfortable with that is incredibly risky and initially very uncomfortable if we've grown up in a world that doesn't support us doing so. So hopefully, like we talked about, like, if the. If home life supports that, then maybe our kids will be more inclined to share. But I think it's about putting the toe in the water.

Erin: Yeah, and I mean, I always come back to my journal, like, at the end of the day, if you can tell the truth to yourself by writing it out in your journal or leaving yourself a voice note or whatever, however you do it, sending. Saying it out out loud and allowing yourself to witness your own truth is a great first step. And then to be witnessed by others is another step. And it's not required, but I just think it helps. Like, I think we carry all this stuff around with us. We could, like, hand the suitcase to someone else for a minute.

Jessica: I know. I mean, and the thing that's interesting, too, about sort of taking this emotional risk through expressing our truths is that we don't know how it's going to land.

Erin: No.

Jessica: And I am here to kind of, like, dare people to do it anyway. Like, that's part of, I think, my mission of, like, getting rid of the silent stigma and shame that just swirls around in women's lives. Because even if you open up and you're met with a platitude that goes sideways and you're like, you know what? I don't even want to be friends with this person anymore. Like, something goes so badly that you're just you feel like, wow, I can't believe that I wore my soul to this person. Even so, you've done something powerful. And I think people need to kind of try to honor that and even do some self talk around that if it doesn't feel too funny or corny or whatever. Just saying like, you tried. I tried, I opened up, I shared my story. It's important. I'm important and I matter. Because, I mean, and it sounds silly, but I do in cognitive behavioral therapy, which I don't use a lot of in my clinical practice, but there's a lot of that just really reminding ourselves of who we are and to show up anyway despite the outcome.

Erin: That's deep, Jessica.

Jessica: Next time we need tissue boxes and we'll go deeper.

Erin: I've loved this conversation. If there is one thing that you want the listeners of this podcast to take away with them after they listen to this episode and it's sort of settling in, what would that be?

Jessica: I want to sound anything but trite, but I will say that you are not alone. And I mean, the thing is, everybody says that, but to feel like you're not alone is so different than just to be told you're not alone. So my hope for people is that through sharing their stories, through opening up, through vulnerability and allowing themselves to know their own truths, that they will feel more connected, less isolated, and ultimately more, for lack of a better word, empowered to continue sharing openly.

Erin: I love it. I love it. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this conversation and this free therapy session.

Jessica: Same, ditto. I got therapy out of it, too. Thank you so much.

Erin: Thanks for listening to Hotter than Ever. I hope you enjoyed this conversation about telling your story and taking the truth of women's lives out of the shadows and into the light where other people, other women can see them and say, yes, I relate. That happened to me.

I feel that way too. Is there someone in your life whose secrets you are keeping? Does your closest friend and confidant need to hear this conversation? Share this episode with them. It is so easy to just share the episode and they will thank you for it.

Hotter Than Ever is produced by Erica Gerard and Podkit Productions. Our associate producer is Melody Carey. Music is by Chris Keating with vocals by Issa Fernandez.

I'm going home to visit my family and I am going to share myself and my stories openly and honestly with the people who have known me the longest. Sometimes that's so wonderful and sometimes it's so scary and hard. Wish me luck.