This Is Us
To Renew Your Friendships, Be Radically Transparent
When I revealed deeply personal details of my life in my memoir, my friendships changed in ways I never expected
I was already a bit of a mess a year ago, just as the world changed forever. I bit my nails, pulled out strands of hair. I stared at the ceiling some nights, convinced I could hear a faint, constant ringing. “Aren’t you nervous for your book to come out?!” people asked. “Not really,” I answered. I don’t know why it felt right to lie. Not right — essential, as though only by performing cool-girl calm could I show my panic who was boss, shove it back into its hole.
I have struggled with anxiety throughout my life, but this wasn’t the generalized hovering kind I was used to. A specific worry dominated my waking life: that when my memoir was published, people would hate me. I took that worry and divided it into dozens of worries, like a baker shaping individual balls from one big mass of dough. I thought about who exactly was going to hate me and how. I imagined what they were going to think, what they would say about me, and it was like pressing “play” on a lifetime of insecurities. All my fears, all the things I hated about myself. It was a long song.
