You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.
And I know from being around people in my life when I've been well who were in the position that I was then it is hard to be around someone with an eating disorder because they are so wrapped up in their head they don't have time to consider your feelings a lot of the time in my experience.
Hello and welcome Tivdai. You're Happy, the podcast that asks the questions you've always wanted to know from the people who appear to have it all. I'm Claire Stevens and today's guest is Lucinda Price, also known as Rooms. She's an author and a comedian and a broadcaster and an Internet personality, and you might know her from being Really Bloody Funny on Instagram. She's performed at some of Australia's
largest live events and stages. She's written for TV, she's got a cult following, and she's just released her debut book, All I Ever Wanted Was to Be Hot, which is essentially about the body image problem that every woman who has grown up in Australia in the last thirty years has been subjected to, and it's essentially about that soup that we swim in when it comes to Western beauty standards and the damage it does and for her the
journey of breaking out of it. Froom's is particularly fascinating talking about the absurdity of the beauty standards that we grew up with and how everyone wanted to be a Victoria's Secret Angel. Everyone wanted to look the same way, and if you were out of those boundaries, you felt like there was something wrong with you and that you
needed to desperately change something about yourself. I was really looking forward to having this conversation because before I started in media, I was doing a Masters of research in psychology, specifically looking at public health messaging around obesity and eating disorders and how they entirely conflict. And it looked at the overlap between obesity and eating disorders and the insidiousness of fat phobia and the way it's damaging not only for a person's mental health but also for the goal
of physical health. So many women have had their lives and their joy stolen from them because of the noise around eating, shape and weight, and it's a conversation I've wanted to have on this podcast for so long, and I knew that Frooms would be the person to have that conversation with. I started by asking her about her childhood.
Oh, I love that you just get straight into it. That's great, I would say, yeah, for sure. I was actually thinking on the way here, my sister and I are like everything to our parents, and there's nothing that they wouldn't do for either of us, Like their life revolves around us really, and not in like a coddled way, but rather like I could sit in my hands and clap and my mum would be like, oh my god, that's iconic, so I could do it again. So I've
definitely been enabled. But yeah, I would say any kind of like unhappiness that I felt was just purely in my own head, because I feel as though I've really had a pretty good trot in terms of things that have been given to me and stuff like that. But definitely from a young age, I think I had a few demons in my brain.
You have talked a bit about experience depression. When was your first experience with it?
So my first experience with it was probably, funnily enough, what I feel kicked it off. In my memory was when I went to a party when I was fifteen and I greened out. Yeah, so we're passing it around and I'll never forget. I don't know if this is like if I'm allowed to talk about this, but I was like fifteen, so that's fine. We were passing around. They made this joint that was like a cross and it was someone's parents. Weit it literally looked like that. Anyway.
I took a puff and like I really inhaled it like twice, and then straight away I was like, I've made a massive mistake. And it always happens, and you're like in a circle of people. Yeah, And I looked across me. I was looking at someone and behind them was this red cartoon going like this, like this, like this. And then we went inside and we watched my favorite ever movie, Austin Powers, and it was like I was watching it and eternity dragged on, but it it'd only
been a second. Like I was wigging out. I went to the bathroom and I vomited and I vomited up blood and I was like I'm dying. But then my friend was like, no, it's strawberries. Like I had strawberries earlier that day.
I had that once when I got really drunk and I was like vomiting blood and they're like, you've exclusively drank. What do you use that? Like vodka?
Raspberry raspberry?
Yeah? I was like, it's Vodara, but I'm still drunk.
I'm still drunk and it's probably bloody in my head. So that actually really rocked me, and thus I don't touch anything like that anymore because it rack. I remember feeling so bad that I was like, I'm never going to do this again. And I often talk about how I get migraines as a kid, and I'd be like praying to whatever imaginary god that I believed in, be like please, I'll eat vegetables and fruit if you just make it stop. Make it stop. So my whole thing
was like I never want to feel that again. I think it tipped me over into like I don't know if it's called derealization or depersonalization or whatever, but it's like nothing felt real. It was like I was in a glass box for a few months, and it was that feeling of like I've done this, I can't rectify this,
Like I'm going to be stuck in this forever. But before that point, I had bad anxiety and OCD since I was really young, so I was used to kind of feeling that real sinking feeling of like I'm stuck, I'm stuck, I'm stuck. But it just added like a little bit of like flair to it, where I was seeing a glass box now feeling it.
I have heard a lot of women talk about that experience with weed. I don't enjoy it, and I don't even know why I don't enjoy it, but it's probably a similar thing. I just don't like how I feel, And I'm a bit the same with like doing anything that I'm then like, I don't want to not feel in my body. You're writing your book about how your dad has bipolar Were you conscious of trying things like weed and thinking that it might be more risky for you because of that predisposition.
Literally one hundred percent. And I've got friends who have parents who have schizophrenia or bipolar one. So my dad does bipolar one. And why I always put one on the end is because there are two types of bipolar one bipolar two. And I'm really passionate about I feel like that word gets like thrown around so much like they're bipolar. I'm like, it's such a complicated, interesting experience people who have it. But that's kind of a side note. Yeah, definitely.
And I grew up like dad self medicated, like did all kinds of stuff, and I just I didn't want to have that. I knew like the reality of it. So I think I don't think mental health was like discussed in my family in the way that it is now. It was just a kind of reality that my dad has bipolar one and he's kind of crazy, and it's we call him, and I've said this, we call him center,
like he's the center of our family. And it actually has ended up being quite fun, Like I look back quite fondly now, even at the things that necessarily weren't. It's a serious mental illness, Like there's things that aren't fun about it. But yeah, I don't know if it's like nostalgia. Yeah yeah, but because that's like a relatively serious mental illness, any kind of experience that I had didn't feel as scary. Yeah, but it didn't also related
in a lot of ways. But I think later on in life, when I was medicated and really kind of like trying to work through it. Then I would kind of draw parallels.
You had OCD when you were really really young. What did you used to do? Like how did that manifest?
Oh? My god, so it started when I sing you think kindergarten. I'm smiling even though it's like so shit, And I just remember, like I couldn't wear socks, like Mum would have to put on and off my socks again and again and again, and she just thought that I didn't like the way they felt, and I thought that that was the same. But I realized it would be because I was like going into this new environment and I didn't feel in control. But it really flared up and became a serious problem when I was in
year seven. Again. Change it happens, and it still comes up to me whenever something's changing.
And it's weird. Often you can't tell in the moment, you don't have the self awareness. In the moment, you're like, but everything's fine and normal, that hasn't been anything, And then you look back on it and you're like, yeah, year.
Seven, Yeah, Yeah, isn't that weird how it works like that? Yeah, it's like that's the real hardest part of it. I feel is this unawareness even if you feel like you're a self aware person. But oh my god, it was so bad in year seven. I just I felt like I didn't fit in and I couldn't like find my bearings at this new school. And so I would be so hyper vigilant about everything that I did and every way that I behaved, and I became obsessed with thinking
that I was offending people. So like i'd brush past someone on the bus and like my bag would hit their blazer, and for the whole day, like that'd be in the morning, For the whole day, I'd be thinking about it again and then ruminating, being like I did this thing. Oh my god, am I a bad person? Then I'd catch the bus home and Mum tells me, now, she's like, it'd be like you were busting to use the toilet. You'd sit in the car and then have to wait, wait till we get home. Walk into my
room with my mum. She'd sit on my bed, and again and again and again, I'd have to say, I brush past Sarah on the bus today, Does that mean I'm rude? Mean or offensive? Does that mean I'm rude? Mean or offensive? And I'd say again, and again, I'd say it fifty times. And this is why I also think it's so important to like championing the people that are around people with mental illness, because like the patience that my mum showed in sitting with me, she had
to say no in the perfect cadence. If I glinted in her eye that maybe she didn't mean it, we'd start the pattern again and this would go on for like an hour, sometimes after school, and she didn't really know what to do, like what do you do? So I didn't get therapy or anything for it, because and I speak about this in my book, it did eventually go away, like it comes in episodes. It's not like this constant thing like I feel fine right now, but it kind of all went away when I died in
my hair blonde. And that's hence all ever wanted was to be hot. Yeah.
You released your debut book in September, and I have read it twice. It's a bit of a memoir, a bit of a manifesto, and in one of the early chapters you tell a story about something that you chose to do, and that chapter ends with you seeing the results of that and writing it was one of the happiest moments of my life. That thing was a Nodes job and you were seventeen. Can you tell me exactly what that moment was like? And I've just realized you like to call it rhinoplasty. We did not use the
casual lands plastic surgery rhinoplasty. Can you tell me exactly what that moment was like?
Of course? And can I just say you reading my book so early on and giving me the most amazing endorsement, like made me feel so comfortable and excited about this book because it's so scary when you write something like this.
It's so thank you, so oh, it's so brilliant. As soon as I saw the title, I was like, oh, I have all the time in love with I'd thank you.
Oh yeah, I can tell you exactly how it felt. It was summer, and I'd wanted this thing since I was eleven, and I thought about it so much, but in kind of like a good way, Like I was just so excited for when it was going to happen. I think it could have turned out looking any sort of way, and I would have been happy just for having that agency to change it. It just felt like it was akin to the feeling of like the life
day of school or getting my license. It was around that time where all of those things were happening, so it really kind of like divorced me from a girl into a woman. Britney spears vibes and yeah, I just remember thinking, Okay, now I'm comfortable. Now I feel like myself. People speak about this, so I've spoken to There can be like a dysphoria or a dysmorphia, I don't know, like you don't feel yourself until you fix something. And I think that's where plastic surgery can be really helpful.
And I think sometimes those stories aren't told enough because you either hear the like really happy success stories or the disasters where for a lot of people it kind of is this like quiet, grounding, peaceful experience when you fix something that you don't.
Like, even if it's like a messy path of why you didn't like it in the first place. Would you write in the book about certain comments that you got or just certain moments where this insecurity kind of emerge and you're able to at once see that like it's sad and unfair that you felt that way, but the truth is you did feel that way. And once you
saw the results, you were stoked. Yeah, and that's that's okay, Like you genuinely felt happiness in that moment, and we kind of shot on women a little bit for that. Was it something that once you had it, because obviously, like your friends would have known you had a partner at the time, who knew? Did you feel comfortable telling people?
No? No, No, it was just like people in my immediate circle. But even until writing this book, like, I was so scared talking about it because it is an insecurity of mine, the fact that my nose looks different, Like I don't like sharing old photos of myself because I don't like giving people permission to shit on this little girl who felt self conscious. And yes, it's changed, but I'm still that person. The part of my nose
is just in a bin somewhere. But no, it took me so long to even consider talking about this with people that I don't know, because yeah, like I said,
there's still that like insecure part of me. You know, I'm so worried people and think, oh, she must be so naturally fuggly, Like I don't like giving people permission to like Bar's judgment, even though of course they are, but surprisingly writing about it and putting it out there, like no one seems very scandalized by it, and that's quite powerful for me, you know, it's kind of freeing.
It's like, oh cool, I think one day I'll be able to share photos of myself and it doesn't matter what you think, because and it's true, Like I look back at photos of myself now, and being honest about it has also changed the way that I see my old self. I see, oh, she wasn't even that bad, Like I think it really was very much in my head and that's why I'm glad I got it. But yeah, definitely there's still a bit of feeling like I don't want to give people ammunition to judge me.
It must be a little bit like exposure therapy, because if it's something so scary and something that you were certain was going to go a certain way once you share this truth and it hasn't, that must be especially for somebody who is predisposed to being anxious, that must be quite comforting. You write candidly in the book about wanting to be pretty unpopular, and you say you infiltrated the popular group just by going blonder. As someone who
was never in the popular group. What does it feel like to me in that group?
Oh my god. That was another thing that I was really scared about writing about because it's like, I feel like I got my wish, Yeah, and I'm like I can see. I mean, I don't know, because I never didn't have it like I did have it for like a year and a half. I've felt so like a floater, like I didn't have friends, and it really affected me. So I think I don't know what it would have been like if I just stayed like that forever. I think I would kind of be a different person, to
be honest. Oh my god, it felt good.
Is it competitive? Like when everyone you talk about like the cheerleader effect and the fact that like everyone's hot and then everybody seems hot because you're all hot together. What does that power feel like? And especially being able to compare it with when you didn't have that social capital.
Yeah. Well, it's kind of not dissimilar to work now, Like it's a popularity contest what we do in a lot of ways. So it kind of probably primed me for that. For me, I don't think it changed you I was as a person, but I think it made me a better person actually, because it meant that I felt like I could. I've felt a lot of agency, and I think I'm my best self when I feel
a bit more in control. And I felt accepted even though it was this thing that, yeah, it is kind of complicated because there's like haves and have nots, right, but yeah, I definitely still knew that it was conditional, so I definitely had to work towards it with the blonde hair and looking a certain way and behaving a certain way in front of boys. But I think I
was still myself in a lot of ways. It's like survivors guilt because I'm like, I know what it was like to really feel like I didn't fit in.
Do you feel like fitting in being hot, being blonde? That having that safety net gave you per to be who you were, like I think you say in the book, like to be a weirdo, to be crazy, funny and out there and follow whatever instincts you had. Do you think because you had the safety net of hotness, but you could do that.
One hundred percent? Because I remember when I didn't. When I was in year seven and we had this like drama class and I did this whole performance, and I remember at the end of it, I like slid across the floor in my tights and everyone was like whoa because it was kind of like good, like it was kind of like a really good move, and I was like whoa. But again, I felt like a freak. Everyone thought I was like this weird girl running around the school.
I think as well. When I'm anxious, I blink a lot, so i'd kind of bounce around the school like blinking and like kind of being really oh hey, like kind of dorky because I hadn't really come into being a proper teenager yet. And people used to say to me, like I remember in drama class, one guy was like, I thought you were hot, but then I got to know you, so was that kind of vibe, which is.
Actually kind of and you're kind of like that's what I want. Yeah, I feel like that kind of And it's weird in that sometimes it's like, did you only get to know me because I was hot? Like did somebody only bother to get to know your funniness because you'd lued them in fully?
Fully? Catfish?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, well yeah I didn't even take it. I took it as a compliment because I'm like, I'm glad that you are seeing me for who I am, which is like this exactly how I present, I guess and the things that I find funny. So yeah, definitely gave me permission. And I feel like sometimes as young girls, we need something to give us permission. And that's what it was. For better or worse.
After the break, Froom shares her experience in what was supposed to be a dream media role but instead left her feeling increasingly dissatisfied with her appearance. A moment that sticks out to me as a time the world told you you'd be happy and you weren't, or when you thought you'd be happy and you weren't, was when you got your job at Pedestrian. Can you tell me about the role and what it involved.
Yeah, of course. So yeah, I got a job a Pedestrian as a health and fitness editor when I was twenty.
Got an editor at twenty, I know, how what the hell?
That's why I was like, yes, like I'm killing it. So I really was happy when I got that job. Yeah, I was like obviously felt a lot of pressure because I felt like, oh, I've really got to make this work. Like I wanted to work there so bad, but it was so out of the realm of possibility in my mind. Yeah, it involved me like going on runs, trying smoothies, writing about health and fitness, and at that point I'd never
gone on a diet. I thought diets were ridiculous. Again, that was kind of a privilege, to be honest, because I'd never been teased for my weight. Yeah, so I kind of had the privilege of not knowing what it was like to have to worry about that. So I think in a way it helped my writing because I came from a very layman's approach. But what I find funny looking back is it eventually writing about health and fitness every day all day really actually started to affect me.
And I think it's a really good tale of the fact that like, what you consume can consume you, and what you consume even if you think that you're above her, even if you think intellectually that you can outthink it.
Or you're doing it ironically or whatever.
Yes, the ironically thing is a big one, especially if you pride yourself on being someone who's self aware. I think it can get you even more so. Yeah, the role involved trying different things, changing my appearance for a story, doing stuff like that, which again I was twenty. I thought it was amazing. I was like, I get to do all this stuff for free. Before that as well, I'd worked at Lululemon, and part of that was going
and doing exercise classes for free. So I always was enabled to do these things that I thought were really positive for me, the context of that being actually a bit strange when I look back.
What's fascinating about your story is this fact that the physical, and especially when it comes to eating disorders, the physical and the mental feed into each other. So a lot of people, basically you don't really develop an eating disorder unless you diet. That's how the psychopathology starts, because it's your brain becoming so hungry that then like it stuffs up all the signals and the whole relationship between your
brain and your body. And so you get this job and you're doing diets or smoothies or thinking obsessively about health just because that's what you have to do. You tell a story about a friend coming to visit you in Sydney and you felt weird after he left, and then he said, I just don't know if we can be friends, because that whole time was really weird. What do you think you were behaving like? In that time?
I remember very clearly everything pissed me off. I found everyone annoying, being around people for extended periods of time, extended periods of time, being like one whole day in one whole night, like you'd piss me off. I thought I was better than people, to be honest, I thought I was smarter. I thought everyone wishes they had my will power. You know. I was really up my own ass. But I think I had to be because I was
putting everything into it. So I felt entitled to feel all of those things, because if I didn't feel all those things, what was I doing it for. I think the way it manifested in a social way was everything having to be my way. I decide when we go out, I decide what we eat, I decide when we go home. I don't have time for small talk. Yeah. What I remember from it was just being really stringent and having absolutely no spontaneity. And I know how wild that is
now because I'm really spontaneous now. If you call me up, I'll come do whatever with you or on the weekend, or like I'm happy to just sit in bed all day on the weekend if it means we're going to
have a fun time a friend and I together. And I know from being around people in my life when I've been well who were in the position that I was, then it is hard to be around someone with a neat disorder because they are so wrapped up in their head they don't have time to consider your feelings a lot of the time in my experience, but that was
a wake up call in a lot of ways. It was embarrassing, Like I walked away from that conversation that I had with him feeling so embarrassed because I didn't realize. I hate the idea that I made someone feel uncomfortable. I don't think anyone would liked that idea, to be fair, but it did make me feel really small and really really bad. But it still took me a few more years to think that the problem was that I was hungry and not that I was depressed.
Was your initial reaction to that to blame that person and think like, uh, you just don't get me. Maybe we're not meant to be friends anymore, or did you kind of see some of the truth in it at the time.
I think, judging on the fact that I remember being embarrassed, I think I definitely saw truth in it because we've been friends since we were like fourteen, him and I. His name's Ben.
Were you able to repair the friendship?
Yeah? Yeah, oh yeah, Like he was one of my best friends in high school, like drama kids together, and now like he came to my launcherit I did in Melbourne and like wrote this beautiful thing for me, being like, I'm so proud of the woman you've become. Like he's really he's really like earnest and other stuff, which I like, he is very in touch with his emotions. So yeah, and that kind of makes a friendship like that stronger.
Like he's someone who would just say it how it is, and I probably needed that in a lot of ways from someone like him.
I think the way that you describe the reality of having an eating disorder is so vivid. And I studied psychology and about ten years ago I worked in a residential treatment facility with people with eating disorders in the US. I was only there for such a short time, but it has stuck with me like nothing else because I just could not believe how rigid and scary this mental illness was. I remember we were doing like art therapy
and one girl woman. It's weird, I say, girl, but like quite important, especially with eating disorders where it can be quite paternalistic.
Woman.
She was a young woman, but she was just crying and crying and saying, I don't know what I meant to do because I feel so disgusting and I'm putting on weight and I'm eating this food and I feel so disgusting in my body. I can't recover because I can't live like this. And I was like, oh my god, what are you meant to do? What can you remember that it felt like to be in the throes of that.
Yes, it feels like that. It feels like you've got two options. I can, yeah, gain weight, which isn't an option, but okay, we're going to say it's an option. Or I can die, you know, which also isn't an option. And that's why I think you can get really stuck when you're at your lowest. I think there's different degrees with the eating disorder as well. There was times where I was definitely still clinically. I hit all the markers for having an eating disorder, but it didn't feel as severe.
And then there were times where it was really like I don't know what to do and I'm stuck, like you said that woman, really rigid and really stuck.
And I think sometimes it's actually during the recovery process that you're like, oh, I can't live like this because I don't know how to live in this body. And that's when it all hits you. Because eating disorders have the highest mortality rate out of any mental illness. And I think that's why this book in your story is so important, because it's telling that truth about how trapped you feel and you Originally they kind of diagnosed it
as depression. And do you think that was because you were just so low?
I don't know. I think, to be honest, that misfire from a psychiatrist was because of my family history of mental illness. It's convenient. She was a kind of doctor that diagnosed me with a disorder. That was her whole job was to look for signs of that. She didn't know what I was like before, I said on the questionnaire.
When she was talking to me, I definitely said that I was dieting, which should have set off red flags to be honest, but I think it's important, yeah, to address the fact that eating disorders do have the highest mortality rate. And it's not because someone's dying of being really skinny and they're mal nourished. It's because they're taking their own lives, and it's not discussed enough. It is,
I feel because of that feeling of being stuck. I know you've discussed experiencing mental illness, and it's that feeling where it's I'm stuck. I've got two options, and if you're someone who's really impulsive, then yeah, you got two options. And I think it's important. It's so funny. I doled out that statistic on my Instagram a couple months ago and someone said, oh, yeah, I know they're pretty bad, but I wouldn't say they're the most lethal.
As though it's like a subjective, I personally wouldn't say, it's okay, do you like the data?
What the hell give me the tea? What's going on here? And I think that was just indicative of the way that we look and the way that we think. I think we think that women are dramatic because yes, people assume, oh, eating disorders are a thing for young women, and they're being dramatic and they wouldn't do that. They wouldn't do that. It's not about that, it's something they can snap out of. People aren't talking about that with suppression.
And I think because it does disproportionately affect young women, people do see it as almost narcissistic. I've actually seen some interesting commentary online about kind of accusing people who are talking about any disorder recovery or talking about their experiences, accusing them of being fat phobic, and it's like, no, that is the mental illness though, that's what's making that
person incredibly sick. Have you found that interesting the kind of way that people engage with this story of you having an eating disorder, that like, there can be a bit of a misunderstanding.
Yeah, for sure. I wanted to explore the nuance in the book, which was saying that, Yeah, when I developed the eating disorder, I was prime for what you think someone with an eating disorder is young, white, wealthy woman given everything pretty much affectionists perfectionist decides to go on a diet, doesn't like the way her body looks even
though she's a standard size. Oh no, she shouldn't eat disorder Now, what I wanted to explain was that when it's an eating disorder, and even when you diet, I think dieting is weird and it shouldn't be normal. But yeah, when you have an eating disorder, it tips over into something that you can't control. So yeah, I was controlling it at the start. Yeah, I decided to diet. Did I decide to develop an eating disorder? Nah? But it happens,
and that's not discussed enough. I feel like we say it's either you see the person who's really sick and it's very obvious to everyone that this person has an eating disorder, or you have these other gray areas, which was what was really important for me to try and get across in the book, because I think there's so many people who don't fit the diet diagnostic criteria, who fly under the radar, who will be sick for the rest of their lives, will be stuck in diet culture,
and so much of the life and excitement and spontaneity is stripped out of their life in a way that they might not even be aware of. Because I think that it's so important to show that you can go back to having this like childlike wonder and sense of excitement. Yeah, and that's something that I think is hard to tap into when you're on a diet.
Yeah, And I think it's weird with eating disorders. I think because thinness is so valorized in our culture, we can almost look at people with eating disorders with contempt. Like even I don't know if you had this, like at school or when you're a young woman and there's somebody in your orbit who has an eating disorder, you almost gossip about it as though it's malicious, Like it's the weirdest thing. If what I'm saying is through that person is suffering and I don't see it as suffering.
When you have an eating disorder, do you feel that, Like do you feel people looking at you in that strange contemptuous way.
Yeah, well I remember being on the side of the person who's contemptuous, and I write about it in the book, these girls who were clearly going through something, and they would be spoken about like, uh, like of course, like everyone was kind of jealous. Yeah, in a lot of ways.
So fucked up.
Yeah, it's so fucked Then as an adult, Yeah, there was definitely times where if someone not necessarily criticized me, but called it out. I'd be like, Okay, you're jealous because and a lot of the time people were dieting and I was like, you're just jealous that I'm doing it way better than you and I'm the boss of dieting.
But mostly honestly, I was just complimented all the time, and like i'd go try on outfits, like the people working at the stores would be like, oh wow, like you could wear anything like that look so good on you to me, And I see it now. I feel like it was obvious that I had an eating disorder when I was definitely a low weight. There's also I don't know, this is like my gut telling me to
say this. I'm not sure if it's true or not, But like if I saw myself as someone who's gone through it, it would be very clear to me very quickly what I was going through the way that my body looked, my energy, my aora in a room. So the idea that people were seeing that and kind of not and thinking that it was normal or something to be jealous of is crazy to me now. But I think it's also normal to be jealous of something like that will valorize as you say, skinniness.
Yeah. When I worked in that residential treatment center. The other thing I noticed, and you talk about this in the book, is that these women who were dealing with a variety of eating disorders, they had all the knowledge, they had read all the research about their disorder how to recover from it. Like they were like clinical psychologists with what they knew, yet they weren't recovering. And I think sometimes with mental illness, there's this difference between knowing
something and actually feeling it. When did that emotional shift come for you, because there has to be some other You can know everything, but there's this moment of like, oh this actually has to change that almost comes out of your control. Yeah.
Oh. I love talking to you about these because I just feel like you completely get it. You're so yeah. I think that's what a lot of people. When you're experiencing a mental illness, you go real deep into it. Like it's a warning sign. When I'm going on Reddit to research how someone's feeling about something, Yeah, that's when I'm like, I'm deep in it, yeah, and I don't
even realize. Yeah. I think that's also why I enjoyed writing the book, because I was so obsessed with eating disorders when I had one that I kind of had the knowledge based, so.
Like I've read all the studies about the experiments where people were hungry, so they did all these behaviors that people with even disorders then do, like you know, all of that stuff. What I find interesting about your story is that it was kind of a shitty thing that happened to you that really opened the door for recovery, which was getting let go from pedestrian. Can you tell me about that period of your life and how that kind of evolved into starting a different phase.
Yeah, it was so surprising when I got made redundant. I mean, if you work in the media or any kind of job like that, that happens quite a lot. Doesn't really matter who you are or how good you are at your job. I'd worked for the company for four and a half years, and that's a pretty long time in your twenties, I think, So just to be let go over Zoom during COVID, I was like, oh my god, my life is a nightmare, Like how did
this happen? And it's easy for me to kind of laugh about myself back then now because it's worked out well for me. But it gave me a moment to look out of myself and be like, this can be taken away from me at any moment, this career can be taken away from me at any moment. I'm tailoring my whole life around this job, and now it's gone. So where am I going to get that sense of self? It was such a weird time. It was all kind of serendipitous. This happened during COVID because all the gyms
were closed. You couldn't socialize, so everyone kind of contracted kind of closer to my world in a lot of ways, which again, yeah, I think it like opened up the door for me to recreate myself. I think it could have gone either way, Like it was sad getting a major john, and I think I could have gone more deeper into restricting as a means for control. But I think I was at that point where I was open to the idea of relaxing my rules. It was giving the end of the world vibes.
If the world's ending, I'm not going to be fucking hungry.
I got to enjoy this, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And so once you relaxed those rules, then what happened?
Yes, So I gained weight, and mentally I became more relaxed. To be honest, what happened was I went back into binge eating, which is what I'd experienced prior to the restrictive eating disorder that was really hunting and upsetting. The mentality is similar to a binge itself, which is I thought, all week I've been so good, or like all the last two or three years, I've been so good, and now it's the weekend and I'm sending it and I could have just been eating normal the whole time. That's
how it felt. Felt like I'd wasted all this time. So you've got a lot of competing things that are upsetting and disturbing. What I read and even when it was happening to me, I didn't want to believe it is that weight gain is so important. Weight gain is the number one key. Eating is the number one key. It wasn't until I got help from a specialist who understood that that I could actually reap the benefits of that eating, which is getting more fuel to your brain,
being able to make more rational decisions. But that's always the hardest bit because you're facing your biggest fear and when you are really sick and you and it manifestos being depressed. You're like, well, I don't want to be fat and depressed and now going to be fat undepressed rather than skinny and depressed. And because skinny being skinn is the number one thing in my life, I'd rather
skinny and depressed. But what happens if you finally have enough guardrails in your life that you can push yourself a little bit and like take one step forward and do the thing, gain the weight or eat a bit more, then everything starts opening up. You take a step, SciOne said the other day, and it's a bit woo woo, but like when you take one step forward, the universe takes a step forward too. Yeah, that mental image really
resonated with me because that's how it felt. I didn't want to write a book that was from a place of total recovery where I'm talking about loving yourself and it's crazy to diet. That is kind of what I say, but I wanted to keep enough detail in there for people to know. No, I think I know how you feel.
I don't want to say that I do, because everyone's different, but just know that I feel like I know what you're going through right now, and I want to be not an example necessarily, but I just want to show a certain life that I've cultivated post eating disorder. It's like it's in a whole different realm. It's not way better, it's completely different life that I always wanted since I was a little kid, and I've got it now.
And you also say in the book that for a lot of people, you hear that you can never fully recover from an eating disorder. That you partially recover or I think some research as it takes like seven years
to recover. And from the work I did, you would see people come in and out and in and out of residential treatment of impatient treatment, and that must be a kind of scary feeling when you're doing this really hard thing and then thinking, well, I'm not even going to fully recover from this, or I could do all this work and then I'll be back here anyway. What do you think were some of the really clarifying moments for your recovery that allowed you to recover fully.
Yeah, you're always going into it being not one hundred percent sure how it's going to turn out. And again, it's easy to look back now and see the really specific moments where I was making really big leaps, but at the time it's like you're in the dark trying to feel around. Yeah. I always found that narrative that full recovery is not possible really upsetting, and because I remember when I was especially when I was binge eating,
and I talk about this in the book. I found out that my mom did the same thing at the same age, which was super illuminating and crazy to me because when I was binging. When I first started, I thought I'd invented binging and purging. I was like, oh my god, I found his cheek code. I didn't need anyone to teach me how to do that. I did it myself. Oh my god. My mum would say to me, God bless her. She didn't mean this to kind of keep me trapped, but I struggled with it. She was like,
one day I just woke up and it stopped. It's like if there was a switch that was flicked, and that really I struggled with that because I never felt that. Looking back, I can see moments where the switch was actually flicked, but it's so important. I think you can wait around and think, oh wait, no, I'm going to recover. It's going to come to me. It's going to come
to me. When in actuality, it's continually taking steps and steps and steps, and then the time you take the biggest step, then you start going like this and it's fine. But yeah, I think the idea that it's never possible to recover, I just think that keeps people from taking steps. Yeah.
What should you not say to somebody who's recovered from an eating disorder?
You look healthy? No more? Yeah, that's the classic that's been around forever. You look healthy. Yeah, thanks for nicing. Thank you for pulling me out of myself and reminding me that I have a body that I'm trying to not prioritize so well meaning I still get it to this day. I still have family friends who stop me after lunch and say, hey, you look really.
Good, and you're like, I, that's not the points the point do you think you just don't comment on appearance?
I think you have to, and I think it's something that is a muscle that you have to. I stop myself all the time. I even said it to your beautiful producer. I couldn't help myself. It's such nice hair, and even then I was like, don't think I should be saying this, So I said, haircut? Is that something you can change? But you know, even that, I'd really
try not to. I've been around people in my life who've shown me a different perspective and been like, say, someone wears like really outrageous clothes or something that other people deem outrageous. If you say whoa, If you're like someone who doesn't dress like that, and you say, WHOA, you look great, it doesn't feel sincere. There's so many different You don't know where someone is in their life and there how they feel about themselves to do it
in a way that's not dangerous. I feel I was very sensitive when I had my eating disorder, and so I just try not to do it. My rule is you compliment things you can take on and off, and only if you really mean it.
So even if there was somebody in your life who you knew was trying to lose weight, and you knew enough to think that maybe it was just for health reasons and there was nothing sinister about it, would you still not say anything.
Well, I think that if it's for health reasons, then it shouldn't be relevant that they look different. But also, I'm sure there's people who want to lose weight and it isn't a full blown eating disorder, and they probably want to hear that. But I just think that we can't divorce the piousness of being thin from anything else. So it does feel like a character judgment when you say, oh,
you're losing weight. Yeah, because ninety seven percent of diets don't work in the long run, So they're going to gain it back and they're going to feel bad because they're going to remember that if you're going to compliment them on the way down when I'm on the way back up, you must think I'm insert derogatory term.
More of my conversation with rooms after the break Right now, you have a very loyal following and you share really really funny content. You've been doing that for a long time in internet years. Sharing on the internet comes with feedback. Now that you've been through that whole ex experience of going through recovery for a mental illness and working on self esteem and self worth, do you get affected by what people write about you on the internet?
Yeah?
What are the comments that actually hurt?
Yeah? Totally know what you mean. For me. The thing that actually affects me, and this happened last night with a guy. It's when men comment on my body. Yeah, and they're never really saying anything bad. Yeah, it's always about my figure, my big boobs, this or that. That affected me, especially prior to the book coming out, because I have breast implants and so when I had them out, when I wore a top that wasn't a fucking Hessian bag, that would affect me because I'd feel like I'd ask
for it and I felt like an idiot. I just made me feel so small, and it was annoying because people would be like, oh, like it's just men, of course they're going to do that. But I was like, it makes me cry and I don't know why because it shouldn't. Like there's other stuff that people say that should make me cry. But I think I'm pretty. I have a lot of self esteem about my ability to work. I like myself as a writer. I think I have a good eye for things, so I can sit quite
comfortably in that. But when it comes to my body, it really affects me. It's weird. And yeah, when men make comments about my mummy, milkeruse, Oh.
It's such the mummy milk is thing.
It is so intense, like horrible. It's comments like that that really affect me again because it makes me feel like an idiot, and especially because I have breast implants. It plays into this narrative that I have in my head that I've asked for it, So that affects me. I just hate it because it pulls me out of myself because I think to myself, Oh, I'm having fun
on the internet. I've just got fun. People that get it are watching me, and then I remember, oh, no, there's this whole silent audience of people who don't give a fuck what I have to say. They don't think I'm funny. They just see this woman on the internet who has big boobs. Yeah. Yeah, So comments like that upset me because.
Yeah, I get that. There's a weird kind of like I don't know what's shame is the word, but you feel like sexualized when it's like I have not been complicit in this sexualization, Like no, and I think women you do feel silly. Like I remember I was working once in a bar and just wearing something I thought was totally normal, and a guy just stared at my boobs and made a really vulgar comment, and I felt like sick. Oh, and I think it was the same thing.
It's like, did I do this? Am I complicit because I'm not wearing a turtleneck? I think maybe I asked for it.
Yeah, it's the weirdest thing. It's so bad. Yeah, you feel Yeah it's shame.
Yeah, I don't know if.
It's a shame or yeah, it's shame. Oh. And then I think about it. I'm like, wait, no, bitch, I'm going to the beach. Yeah. And you wouldn't be making this comment if I you know.
Yeah, exactly. Working in this industry, do you experience jealousy or competitiveness and what does that look like? Yes?
I do. I always have in a way, kind of in a silent way. I remember when I was in UNI, there was a woman who was really smart and she was kind of the best in the class, would always get really high distinctions. And I don't think I'm a competitive person, but clearly I am. Yeah, I remember, I remember I won't dox her name, but she was just
really just effortlessly good. And it became like a topic in my psychology sessions because I was so hung up on it, and it plays into that obsessive personality, the rumination thinking, oh, like she's just so good, Like I don't know what to do, and so yeah, when I feel jealousy, especially in this career path, it shows me where to go when I can take enough of a step out of it for a second and not let
the emotion overtake me. I say that person, I'm so jealous of them because they're doing something that I want to do. Then I go into planning mode. I'm like, Okay, how can I do what they're doing? What part of it? You know? Because sometimes it happens with people who job I don't want and whose vibe I don't want to emulate, but I'm still thinking, oh, but they're doing this thing, like how do I So Yeah, I think it can ultimately, when you can take a step away, it can be
a good motivating force. But definitely, when it's overwhelming, it just paralyzes you and I fully spiral.
It can be really clarifying that. Yeah, you think, if I've got this feeling and it's an uncomfortable feeling, then it is telling me something about what I want. And if I didn't get that feeling, ever, I wouldn't be ambitious, I wouldn't have goals and I feel exactly the same thing, feel the same, yeah, And I think, yeah, you look at you probably have it with a book, like as you were writing, like looking at people who have books and me like, well, that's done really well. Well, that's
done really well. Why did that do well?
They?
Oh my god, I want exactly what they have And it kind of paves a path for then you to do the same thing, literally, which is very exciting. When are you at your happiest at the moment?
Oh, I'm at my happiest when I have so much in my to look forward to. That's always been the thing for me that's gotten me out of any phase. Is it just need one or two things that I'm genuinely excited about and there's always something. I think. I'm happy when I'm meeting you people and always just having someone to hang out. We have become a really social person after my eating disorder. Yeah, it's just for me whenever I've got something to look forward to.
What are your challenges to happiness? Like, what keeps you from happiness?
Comparison obviously procrastinating when I've got things to do. I've become a bit of a procrastinator also coming out of eating disorder, to be honest, which is a bit of a negative, Like I used to be super early to things and very RIGI and it helped away, but now I'm always running a little bit late. You know, when you've got something so meanial to do that you just put it off and then everything feels crab.
That's interesting though, because it's almost like that's what happens when you prioritize joy a little bit, when you're like, hold on, I actually care about feeling good. I remember reading something about how people with eating disorders they don't like doing things that feel good, so they won't get massages, they won't like get their hair done because there's not
that kind of self love. And that's interesting that you were probably prompt with things and because you didn't mind being uncomfortable because you were always so true, whereas now you're like, oh, I prioritize toy. Yeah thats me.
My to do list will roll over week to weeks before I'm doing it second right now. That's kind of fun. And if it makes you feel weary in life, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I think that's it.
Yeah, when you think about growing old, What do you still want in life in order for you to have lived a really happy existence.
I want a community. I want like a big family. I want to have people around me that enjoy my company. I want to have young people around me and old people around me. I want to maintain this sense of excitement that I have, and that's kind of always been a hallmark of my life. Like I've always been kind of like an enthusiastic person. I don't even want that to go away. I think, yeah, really important relationships, really
deep relationships. I've got a lot of like amazing soulmate friends, So keeping them, nourishing them feels really good to me, and it always has, and I know how lucky I am to have. Like my best friend Madison is a writer. We've been best friends since we were fourteen, and that's such something that is a little apple core that I just put in the ground and it just continues to grow and it's such a beautiful thing to watch. And every year that we remain friends adds a little corn
to the tree. So exciting. So yeah, I think for me, I'm excited that the idea of getting older that I can like accumulate lovely possessions that I love and like beautiful clothes, and there's still that material side to me that I really can't get rid of. But yeah, having a community and people that I love is important to me.
And right now in your life, are you happy?
Yes? Yeah, you can say it right. That is so good to hear. I'm happy that you read my book twice. Yeah, that's enough to do me for the day.
Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. That is all we've got time for. On today's episode of But Are You Happy? Frums's new book, All I Ever Wanted Was to Be Hot is out now and I highly recommend it. We will pop a link in the show notes this conversation with such a brilliant exploration of the pain of living through an eating disorder and the joy that comes with recovery, which we so rarely get to see. To sit in a room with frooms with enter Price is to see a person
who is so full of life and so charismatic. And I sometimes need this reminder. So I'm just going to say it out loud that when you sit in a room with somebody and you really connect with them and you have a lively and vulnerable conversation. It just does not matter what they look like, what size they are, whether their hair or makeup or clothing is perfect, whether they have creases on their face, which I do and
I think about way too much. You just feel their energy, and I think it's such a good reminder for all of us that we think about it so much more than we need to, given that it isn't what anybody else values about us. I really hope this chat was an insight into how oppressive beauty standards can be and how they steal our happiness and the freedom that can come from challenging them in our own small ways. The Butterfly Foundation is a great support service for anyone who
struggles with disordered eating or body image issues. There's a link to them and other support services in our show notes. And if there's anybody who you think might get something out of this episode, I know there's a lot of people in my life who will please share it with them. And if you want to recommend someone for the show, you can always get in touch with me directly. I get the best suggestions from our listeners. You can message me on Instagram, and if you like the show, leave
us a review. We always love your feedback and it helps people to find us. The executive producer of But Are You Happy is Nama Brown and the producer is Charlie Blackman. Audio editing by Scott Stronik. I'm your host, Claire Stevens, and we'll see you next week