“Shame keeps you silent!” Tell the truth to improve your self-worth

0:01Hello and a massive welcome to Happy Place with me Fern Cotton today a pretty gritty subject that can be really difficult to talk about. But I know I've certainly got a lot to say about it. And that is shame. Guilt is I did something bad. And shame is I am bad. This is other weird shame that hangs in you just because you exist. And I absolutely believe people lead entire lifetimes defined by it. It's the feeling of it's just you. There's a deeply lonely feeling. I've never spoken of this. And still, as I start to talk about this, I feel like shame, right? You feel a bit of shame, then you feel ashamed about that, and then it all just cascades.

0:41You know, it's hard for me to say, but I had an eating disorder, for sure. I had a lot of shame about my life, about moments in my life. I was so convinced that I'd committed a crime, that I was absolutely petrified of anyone finding out that I felt so ashamed. And so, obviously, the violence and the alcoholism, I was ashamed. Ugh, where do I even start with shame? shame like many of you it's my least favorite feeling but also like many of you I have drowned in it at times it has it's at times it's totally taken over because that is the nature of it it's really insidious it's very sneaky yet unbelievably powerful can have hold reins on you for years and years I would say for 10 years of my life shame was weaved through so many parts of it and I'm only now sort of coming to terms with that and letting it go and my god does it feel good to let it go and I think when you're recovering from bouts of shame there's lots of conclusions you can come to one might be that the shame wasn't yours in the first place and that is deeply deeply important and very powerful and that's certainly been part of my story and also it leads you to believe that you're the only one feeling it and as we know from this very podcast episode and from the incredible chats I've had in real life and on social media it impacts many of us so there's many realizations you have I think when you're trying to heal from a period of shame I really hope that this episode not only allows you to remember that loads of people feel it and that there is nothing wrong with you because I know when I was in shame I felt like an absolute freak like there was something inherently wrong with me and everybody could see it.

2:33I promise if you're thinking like that at the moment it is 100 % not true. There's nothing wrong with you. You're just a human trying to get through your life. Don't let shame take over. I really want that to be the message from this whole episode and I really hope that if you know someone that might be drowning in shame themselves that you send this on to them too. We're going to start with the queen of shame at Brené Brown. She's researched shame for decades, so she's got lots to say about how to cope with it. Do you know what? Weirdly, after I had done that interview with Brené, I went into a bit of a shame spiral myself, which seemed utterly ridiculous.

3:09But it was on Zoom. I hate doing podcasts on Zoom. I like to be sat face to face with someone. I was nervous. It was at night because of the time difference. I didn't feel I did a good enough job. I went over every question in my head again. I felt like she had walked away thinking I was a moron. It was honestly bizarre considering that is her whole shtick. But anyway, hopefully I'll get to interview her again and I can rectify all of that. Dawn French came on the show to talk about why she thinks we all need to embrace being a bit of a twat sometimes. This was such a great and funny episode and how that can combat feeling ashamed.

3:45And Charlie Mackesy has got some really interesting thoughts about how shame is stopping us connecting with people properly. And then three deeply personal stories about feeling shame. Ben West because of his brother's suicide, Lulu because of her difficult childhood and Jamie Lang because of his eating disorder. Before we get into it, I want to tell you a bit about the sponsors of this episode, The White Company, because The White Company have always believed that life is a beautiful thing, especially at Christmas. They make the season feel all special and effortless so we can savour all those little moments from magical anticipation and preparation to celebrating and giving gorgeous gifts.

4:26If you've been a Happy Place listener for a number of years, you'll know that every year I start Christmas shopping really early. I'm obsessed with getting people the perfect present. This year, I started the first week of October. I beat my personal best. I absolutely love thinking about what I'm going to buy each person. I've quite a lot of people to buy for, so I have to really give it some thought. I'm not in sort of spreadsheet territory but I do like to make a comprehensive list of everybody that I've got to buy for and then I like to deeply dive into who this person is and what they might need or want.

5:02I think the secret to matching the right gift for the right person is all about imagining their reaction when they open it. I love that moment of watching someone open a gift. I guess if I'm struggling with working out what somebody wants, I will use my interviewing skills to quiz them, to get some facts and things they're into at the moment, to find out what's really floating their bow and then put that to my Christmas list. Sometimes getting the right present for the right person just means knowing them very well because you know all their little idiosyncrasies, all of their likes, dislikes.

5:36For example, I usually get one of my best mates, Claire, something with the Queen on or David Bowie because I know that both of those options will work very well. Or sometimes I like to get something really, really personal. So I bought gorgeous Elizabeth Day very recently, these cute little martini napkins with her name on because I know that her favourite drink ever is a dry martini. This year I'm already eyeing up some white company gifts. Firstly, my managers just had a gorgeous teeny little baby so I'm going to get her a silk pillow eye mask and a silk hair and skin beauty pillowcase so that any sleep she does get feels as deliciously restorative as possible when you've got a newborn baby.

6:21We know that sleep is rare in these times. It's very important. Then I've got this one mate who's always cold, always freezing, needs the heating on fully, a bit like me. So I'm getting her some cashmere wrist warmers and a faux fur hot water bottle. I mean I want them for me too. And one of the white company's amazing smelling candles. Maybe the Tonka Luxury Signature Candle? Basically those are all the things that I want to receive so I can just feel really cosy at home. Then for my gorgeous sparkly cousin some gold plated molten midi hoops and a leather mini travel jewellery case to put them in.

7:02Practical and chic, thanks very much. So with over 30 years of Christmas expertise, the White Company knows it's the thoughtful details that make the season special. From cosy home comforts to elegant dining and the art of meaningful giving, they make it easy to bring Christmas together beautifully. What you wear, how you host and the calm, comforting feeling of home. As a proud B Corp, the White Company is committed to thoughtful design, lasting quality and living life beautifully. Discover more at thewhitecompany.com. All right, let's do it. Here's the show.

7:59I started as a shame researcher 21 years ago, I guess. And I first started studying just women in shame. And I remember interviewing people in their 50s, 60s that their whole lives were defined by it. I mean, really defined by it. And for those of you listening thinking, okay, what is she talking about with shame? I'm talking about this deeply painful experience of believing that we're flawed and somehow unworthy of love and belonging and connection. That something we've done or failed to do makes us unworthy. and it's very different than guilt. Guilt is I did something bad and shame is I am bad.

8:42And we know from now probably going on 60, 70 years of research that guilt is helpful. Guilt is when I hold a behavior up against who I want to be and my values and there's cognitive dissonance. It creates a psychological discomfort and we're like, shit, that is not who I want to be as a daughter, as a partner, as, you know, a professor, a leader. And I need to, I need to bring things into alignment. Shame is a whole different thing. Shame is I'm not enough. And I absolutely believe people lead entire lifetimes defined by it. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And you say in the book, you know the antidote to it is empathy which um we can all see how that plays out beautifully with human connection and somebody saying i see you i hear you or i've had the same situation happen to me you know i was very lucky that i was on the receiving end of that sort of empathy but i wonder if you have to have perhaps a small side dish of self-worth in there for you to reach out in the first place because it does require you to be even more vulnerable because you have to then tell someone what you're feeling shameful about?

9:56I think the good news is I think what you need is probably self-compassion. Yeah. I think you need to give yourself permission to be human, to be both kind and cruel, to be, you know, to get it right and to really fuck it up sometimes to be connected to be lonely. Just you have to I think it's self compassion. That I love, you know, when I think about self compassion, I always think about talk to myself like I would talk to someone I love. And when I hold up how I talk to myself, when I screw something up versus how I talk to my children. It's just it's night and day. You know, if my kids make a mistake, I'll first say, you know what, it's okay, you're human.

10:48Making mistakes is a part of, this is a part of who we are. You know, when I make a mistake personally, I think to myself, God, you idiot. God, you're so stupid. And I would never, ever talk to my kids that way. I wonder if the conversation is even more relevant today because cancel culture exists. And I really struggle with this one because, you know, a lot of the work that I do is I want to help people feel less alone. And, you know, shame certainly isolates you and ostracizes you. But how can we expect ourselves or others to eradicate shame from our lives, knowing that cancel culture exists?

11:26I feel like I want to look behind me to see if someone back there has the answer. Like I just I mean, this is this is my new this is my new theory. I've been really thinking about this over the last six months a lot. I think we're so shit at holding people accountable that we turn to canceling and shaming and vitriol and name calling because we either don't know how or we're not willing to do the really rigorous, vulnerable work of holding people accountable. Like we don't know how to do that. And so So what we do instead of saying, when you engage in this behavior or when you said this or when you took this action, it hurt me or it hurt other people.

12:14And I'm going to hold you accountable for that. We just blast them. And so there's no learning. I mean, it's incredible. The absence of accountability is so overwhelming. But it's so pervasive. It's like asking a fish to describe water. Like we don't even understand it. So what we do is we just get rid of people. Is that because we're doing it to ourselves, but we're not holding ourselves accountable for things with responsibility? We're shaming ourselves daily. Therefore, it's so easy to do it to other people. I think that's a really important insight. Because I can only relate to what I've been through myself.

12:57But when I was in a big patch of shame, my option was shut down. I just closed off shut down. But I think the only way I've been able to move through it and not carry that bag of shit around with me anymore is to face it and to not pretend that the stuff didn't happen that I don't want to think about. And to look at what I might have been accountable for versus the stuff that people just projected onto me. Right. And again, it goes back to, you know, understanding a guest accountability and also, you know, the thing that you're an expert in, which is looking at vulnerability and apologising or even if it's not public, but it's just to yourself.

13:38apologising for the harm you might have even done to yourself. I think that all of those feelings, it's so uncomfortably exposing, but essential, I think, if we're to move through this stuff and not just lug it around forever. Because we can, we can pull that stuff into, you know, to the future, decades and decades ahead. We'll still be carrying around that shame unless, I guess, we do face the monster that we've shut away somewhere. I think we can remember every time we've been shamed in our lives more than probably many other memories I was thinking about it reading your book I remember this really harmless moment but being probably five or six at school and drawing a picture of a house as I'd been told to do and my dad who was a sign writer used to kind of sketch and use this real sort of wishy-washy way of using his pencils so I thought I'm just going to copy my dad he's a professional and I got so told off and ashamed in front of the class for not colouring it in completely and neatly.

14:36And that's something that happened when I was five. We don't forget these moments. No, we don't. And I think that's luckily slowly coming out of the parenting model and the school model. But it hasn't come out of how we're communicating on social media. No, it hasn't. But as you have grown through that and remember the sting of that awful moment, you also know now as an adult that that person was wrong to do that to you. So you might forgive them for it because they got it wrong. And you have to hope with good intent they had some other agenda. They mistook your creativity. They didn't get it.

15:12They were having a shit day. Having a shit day. Anything. Yeah. Let's forgive that because that can go. But you know as an adult they were wrong. You don't have to carry it as you were wrong. Yeah. It's not your shame to have. It's their shame to have. But I think as adults we conflate the two. We don't know what our own opinion is anymore and we actually think the person that shamed us is probably right. And I've definitely felt like that as a grown adult. And I still find that tricky to unpick sometimes. Like, you know, even if you know that your intent was good, but you still got it wrong, which happens all the time for all of us.

15:44I mean, tense good, but we get it a little bit off. We're not quite sure what we're talking about. But when you've been shamed, I think it's really, it's a really tricky situation. My instinct is to hide, go into my shell. I'm never going to speak again. I don't want to say anything or move into sort of scary territory. I think it's a really tricky thing to know yourself and go, but I know that, yes, I got it wrong, but I know my intent was good. It's really tricky. You've got to have guts to do that. It's to show you don't trust each other that as a base level that your intention is good. That's what I would like to believe about other humans.

16:20Same. You want to believe they meant well, but they got it a bit wrong. Yeah. And that makes it forgivable. then I mean I I genuinely think we're we're being forced into corners where I can smell my own cowardice I don't like that yeah I've never been cowardly I hope but I'm starting to be that because I'm being circumspect about what I will support or not in case it causes trouble Yeah. You know, and even thinking about the timing of when I might say such a thing or what might be cherry picked out of this and lambasted against me. And yet and that forces us to shut up. I know. And we're not we're not going to shut up.

17:07Haven't we lived long enough as women, especially? I know. You know, we that's the last thing we should do is shut up or, you know, put baby in the corner. Yeah. We shouldn't be back in the corner. And yet I am in the corner and I really dislike it about myself. and about this cultural malaise where I just think, I'd like to support that person in what they just said there. Oh, that's going to be taken wrong because there's a whole gang of people that don't like this person. Then I'm going to be in their gang and they wouldn't like me in that gang. And also, can I be bothered with the huge maelstrom that will come?

17:43But that means some people who are being brave enough to speak up are alone. Yeah. Because those of us who might support them can't take on all the problems it might bring. What a shitty load of crap we got ourselves into here. How has it happened? How have people given their lives so that we could vote? How have people done so many things to push forward and now we're in this place? It's horrendous. Like you, I don't know how to unpick it. But like you just said, what we're missing out on when we either don't look at our mistakes or we're intolerant of other people's mistakes is the learning.

18:22We're not learning probably very much at all from the good moments, the happy moments, the perfect moments. They're lovely and they feel fantastic. But the learning is when you're on your knees. The learning is when you've looked back and you're cringing and you can't bear it. That's when you make a decision to go, I won't do that again. Or maybe I'll learn a bit more about this or that or whatever. That's the good stuff. It is. And look, we know because we've got kids, they're going to make mistakes. Of course they are. They're supposed to. But that's when it's worrying. If your kid makes a mistake and repeats it and repeats it and repeats it, especially if it hurts them or gives them shame or embarrassment or humiliation or any of those awful things, then you have to worry.

19:05It's if you make the mistake and even if you make it again, but then you move on or then you learn from it. Hooray for those mistakes. I'm not sure what you learn from success. Not very much at all. What I would say is I have seen increasingly in the last few years, people with a lot of whatever successes, you know, wealth, I don't know what it looks like. I don't ever really entirely buy it. But people who have a lot of that feeling spiritually and emotionally bereft. Because somehow that part of their life, which looks all marvellous and seems to be all tied up, means this part has been neglected.

19:48So what is success and what is the point of it all? I'd much rather live in the place I am, which is lucky, which is a bit awkward, bit wrong, bit ugly, bit didn't feel right, got the wrong thing, wore the wrong clothes, said the wrong thing, regret that. You know, constant, fussy, difficult, awkward stuff. is exhausting, but it's truthful. It's being a human. It's being a human. We're expecting humans to not be humans. We're expecting them to be shiny, perfect robos and walk around, everything is perfect. Life is so messy. Especially when you present it yourself. I mean, I know it's an old chestnut to blame social media, but I wish social media was full of lots of ugly, difficult, funny stuff.

20:37And there is some of that. That's what I certainly cleave towards, all that stuff. But there's also far too much of, aren't I perfect in this? I went to this clever thing and I'm marvellous. You know, there's that. And I don't begrudge anybody any of that. But it's not real. But please put your other stuff on. I think shame is the very thing that prevents us daring to be vulnerable. Yep. And yet that daring then opens up this window into the whole universe of connection and beauty and connection that we so try to get by being shiny and perfect, which wasn't working. No, do you know what? The shame thing I'm fascinated about.

21:13I'm writing a book at the moment and I've done a deep dive. I've gone off on a tangent about shame because it seems so important in the context of this conversation. The book that I'm writing about is that it silences you. It stops you. It makes you a mobile. You know, I had a big period of it and I'm still so impacted by it. And I thought, oh, when I was writing, I was like, I've got something to say on Instagram that feels like worth writing about. So I wrote this piece about shame and then someone shamed me in the comment and I shut down and I deleted it and I panicked. Yeah, you do. You react and shut down.

21:46I couldn't, I couldn't have it. And I was like, oh my God, but I'm writing about it and I still can't confront it. And I, and then I went back to my book and I wrote exactly how I was feeling in the moment, which was sort of physically ill. Like I wanted to jump out my skin, but equally I wanted to like stare shame in the face and like see who blinks first. It was just so overpowering, this feeling of shame. But it certainly made me take the post down. I was like, I need to hide. I don't want to be seen or heard or whatever. And like you've just said, if you can move through shame, if you can get past it, that's where you do something extraordinary, different, game-changing for yourself, for others, but it's fucking hard to get through it.

22:28That's terrifying. Terrifying. And I so relate to the number of posts I immediately did because there's one comment. Yeah. I bet for every one negative you get. Oh, I had loads of people saying, put the post back. I really liked it. Where's it gone? Where's it gone? No, I was like, I can't. I'm still in it. I still feel it. And that led to me having a really interesting conversation with a friend of mine who, I know that he's had his problems and he's been relatively vocal about it, but he was like, shame brings me down almost every day still. And he was saying, he'll even have an interaction with the post lady and then spiral into shame afterwards because you said something a bit weird or whatever.

23:06And I was like, oh my God, you think you're the only person. But we're all dealing with it. We're all dealing with it. I think shame, I remember reading somewhere, well, someone said it, I can't remember, where there was two types of shame. And one is the toxic shame, which remains in you for no apparent reason, just the fact that you have it. And it sits there. And the other one is you feel ashamed of something you've done. And the second one is easier to deal with. Yeah. Because you go, that was stupid. I'm so sorry. and decision but there's a this is other weird shame that hangs in you yeah just because you exist yep what it's mad right yeah um and more of us feel like that then i think we care to believe which is helpful because shame doesn't want us to know that other people no no no it's just you just you it was a problem yeah it wasn't my fault yeah i know it's mind-blowing yeah but the the moment you start talking I did a drawing years ago I think then it was in a police cell somewhere but I said something like shame keeps you silent but there's no shame in talking or asking for help I think the moment you start talking about it is the moment people engage with it and oh I'm not alone then yeah and I think it's the it's the feeling of it's just you there's a deeply lonely feeling that but the moment you go oh you do that as well you feel that oh my god me too okay so so So there's hope then, because actually this is a universal issue.

24:32It's a human condition. It's a human condition. And how do we get free from this? How do we walk freely? And I think it's conversation, connection, vulnerability, telling the truth. You do it in the right place, but daring to believe you'll be loved more for it. You know, I did a drawing the other night, actually, of this crazy, messy wood. and it's wild and completely scrawly and the mole says to the boy, you know, you feel, your feelings look like this but all we see is this and it's a leaf, a little leaf just falling. So there's this disparity between what's going on inside of you which is all kinds of stuff and then you show us this and at some point you're going to have to, for your freedom, talk about this.

25:23Yep. get it out whoever it is doesn't really matter or it does matter but just do it and believing that shame locks you in but if you dared to be vulnerable you have this oh my gosh huge vista to walk in of honesty and you do this you feel this okay and you think other people are going to go oh my god I'm never going to torture you again you are awful and they don't they do the opposite it and I learned that time I did it recently where I was like someone I didn't know as well and there was things that were sort of plaguing me mentally and then I was like one day I just need to tell you some stuff about myself because I'm feeling like I'm just like living a lie like being an actor and of course everything I said was met with kindness compassion love and it's you know we have to remind ourselves that you know most great people will respond with grace and care they're not gonna shun you and ostracize you that's not not the case right let's get back to the show here's ben west lulu and jamie lang i'm sure many people including myself have felt extreme shame about things in life it's probably one of the ugliest emotions to feel it makes your skin crawl it makes you just want to escape everything it's just a horrible toxic toxic feeling.

26:46You at one point, again, I'm imagining due to your level of shock and grief, felt responsible for Sam's death. And that was grinding you down and bringing on so much shame. How did you start to lift yourself out of that? I think when you're in shame, you feel like this is it forever. I'm never, ever going to rid myself of this. What helped you to move through that? Yeah, it's an interesting question. It's funny, isn't it? Because I've done so much work, I don't feel that shame anymore, thankfully. But I sometimes need to remind myself of just how intense that was. So, I mean, I'm very unfortunately, you know, as we were brothers, like we argued a lot, got on quite a lot.

27:28But one of the last things that happened, well, the last thing that happened between me and Sam was as he was leaving, I sort of shouted something after him because I was annoyed at how he'd not been involved in dinner. And it ended up being the last thing I ever said to him was just this heated argument. And that just crushed me because I realized I can't remember when, but maybe not the day after, but like when things had started to settle, I just remembered what had happened. And I was like, oh, my God, he did it because of me. He did it because of that conversation. And I went into this absolute panic and realized.

28:01And obviously the nature of shame is you feel a bit of shame. Then you feel ashamed about that. And then it all just cascades. And I just remember panicking, feeling that shame. and it got so intense that I couldn't I felt like I couldn't tell anyone about it because I thought everyone else had forgotten that happened and if I was to say something but in mind we had the police at our house like detectives and stuff I was like oh I'm gonna get arrested it's my fault like they're gonna arrest me for manslaughter or something and it seems silly sitting here saying it but I was so convinced I'd committed a crime that I was absolutely petrified of anyone finding out that I felt so ashamed.

28:40And I guess that probably played a little bit into me trying to pretend like I was okay and being happy because I just wanted it. I really, really, really was scared of going to prison and being arrested for this. So much for you to deal with. At 17, I know. At 17? Right? It was a lot. But also, you've lost your brother and then you think it's your fault. I don't know how you got through it. No, I know. And I guess for a long time, it was just sort of pretending that I was okay. but really the turning point of shame was the first time I told that story about feeling like I was going to be arrested to a lovely lovely lovely counsellor that I worked with for a number of years Lucy and I remember sitting there it was during Covid so it was virtually and just sort of telling this it took me many many many sessions to get to this point of feeling comfortable saying this and I just told her how I've actually felt about everything and I told her about like how what I felt about that night and why I think he took his own life that night and she just stopped me and she was just like well Ben that's not how it works you know that's not how it works it is nothing you did made that happen and it's not your fault and it was just this weird moment it almost feels like a movie like I'm making this up but it was this moment where it's like oh my god yeah you're so right and it took me years I think I was four years later to get to that point of like someone else told me it wasn't my fault and that was enough for my brain to go oh yeah of course it isn't and that was the first that was the first moment I really was okay with it not being my fault and from that moment like I've I've spoken to a lot of people that have been suicidal and one of the questions I ask all of them is like what do you think in that moment what's that what is that last thought before you before you like commit to what you to what you're about to do what is that last thought and and none of them have said it's that argument or that one thing someone's shouted at me or it's that one menial moment that that someone's thinks about you know it's it's not if i'm talking to those people it's so settling that actually in that moment your brain is just in such a distorted place that you're not having thoughts that make sense and that with that's been very settling and i've sort of tried to understand not that you can understand too much about suicide but I've tried to understand and through that I've felt settled back that actually I didn't do anything wrong and I've reframed a lot of my shame to go how on earth was 17 year old Ben so unaware and so uneducated that I didn't get the tools to help because if my current self went back to being 17 I know so much more I could have I could I do help people that are in that situation like I I love I work for shout as a volunteer like I have conversations with people that are in crisis all the time I would be able to help like if I'd had that knowledge back then and my mum had had her knowledge back then my family had their knowledge back then the school had the knowledge they have now back then what could have been different it's just it's not it's hard to think about um but I guess you know it comes back to the campaigning that yeah we can now try and make a difference and a lot of my shame got redirected into anger at why I wasn't given that opportunity to essentially save Sam.

31:52Yeah how interesting how interesting that emotions can morph into something completely different like a level up and actually you're channeling that anger into well I'm gonna bloody well make changes and you are I mean massive ones which which we're going to get to but I think it's so important for people who have either been through something similar or just feel shame to know that it's not your fault and you've done that via someone telling you a brilliant counsellor but also by educating yourself and knowing that it's an illness and there's nothing that you potentially could have done that evening to stop that from happening.

32:26The end of chapter one, you summarise that initial part of the book by saying, this is your time to be utterly transparent, whereas you might not have been entirely transparent before. What stopped you, do you think, talking about the entirety of your story before now? I have a pat answer, which is I'm a private person yeah but really and truly I had a lot of shame about my life about moments in my life my childhood and you know I just to be honest with you my mother trained me very early on anything that goes on in this house does not leave this house and so obviously the violence and the alcoholism and all the stuff in my young childhood, I was ashamed.

33:21I mean, you've got to do a hell of a lot of work personally to get to a point where you can then start even telling mates about this stuff. You know, I've got big patches of my life where I know that shame still sort of floats around in the equation. And they're always the moments, you know, where I need to go to therapy again and talk about stuff. or, you know, some stuff I still wouldn't want to talk to my friends about. So to write it in a book is a huge deal because you've got to talk about it all over again. You've got to have a level of comfort with it. What's gotten you to that point? Well, I'm 76.

33:56That's what's gotten me. And I do feel privileged to be 76 because, you know, my mother didn't live this long. My father didn't live this long. And I'll tell you what happened. I think maybe the kick in of I'm going to do the book, you know, because I'd thought about it. People had mentioned it. And I thought maybe, yeah, we'll see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then my granddaughter turned 15. And my son and I were, you know, looking at her, just loving her, loving her to pieces. She's just so great. And 15 and going to school. I mean, she's a young woman, but she's really only a little girl. and my son then said Bella you know what Nana was doing at 15 and really really it's sort of like yeah wow wow wow he said she was in business she was on the road no school for Nana and then you know when I started to think about writing my memoir telling my story because it's been said by only I think there are four people who really know me really know me and one of them said people think they know you they have no idea they just don't they don't know because I don't share certain things I chose not to share certain things and and I thought my grandchildren don't know I'm gonna do it that's the reason I'm gonna do the book for their a legacy for my grandchildren to get to know who their grandmother was.

35:30And that's when it started. And boy, I had to go back into therapy once I started. I bet. Because I had so carefully blanked things out, pushed them down, and to drag them up again was emotional. It was painful. I mean, a lot of the things, there are things in the book too, because I've just finished Audible that made me laugh what I need you I am and thank god I've got a sense of humor but you know I think everybody's story is I mean for me I read books mainly to learn yeah because I'm curious and I thought well you know maybe if I tell my whole story and and then I started to look at it I'm thinking oh my what a life Lou I've had a life what a life and if somebody can get something from it that maybe helped them or they may think oh that's a good idea oh I wonder why she did that maybe I should try you know one person decides that it's helpful that's my small way of giving back because I've had the most unbelievable life I mean unbelievable and you undoubtedly will help so many people I think especially when it comes to shame yeah nobody talks about this stuff because that's what shame does shame stops you from talking it keeps you quiet it keeps you straight stays in the dark yeah it's in the dark and actually I think you realize as soon as you start talking about the things that you feel ashamed about it dissipates because you're not you know you're not it's not hiding in the dark growing secretly and then you have a fermenting fermenting yeah and you have other people oh my god same I've been through that or I've had something similar or I feel ashamed about this it does help that is actually I mean for instance when I started first of all they changed my name they changed my this would have been the record label right they said well well it's a combination of people you know first of all it was my manager Marion my name is Marie McDonald McLaughlin Laurie well that's gonna you know a bit of a mouth not as catchy as Lulu and everybody like there was just the Beatles just been going for a year or so The Rolling Stones, the animals, all these cute names.

37:44And she said, we need something for you that suits you. And she suggested Lulu. And I sort of went, yeah, because I was thinking of comparing myself with all the bands. And then, of course, what happened next was that, see, Lulu is a character I now know. And it's a character I play. So you still click into that even now? Now I know what it is. Before I wasn't 100 % sure. I hadn't analyzed it. But I realized my name changed. My accent has to change because I speak so quickly anyway. But with a Scottish accent, I was talking like that. Nobody knew what I was talking about. And I understood that.

38:22And then I recorded Shout and they couldn't find another one like it. They couldn't find anything as bluesy, as rocky. Because as a singer, I like to ring a song out. Oh, you do. Oh, yeah. Thank you. And so they couldn't find anything for me. And I was given songs that were not challenging enough for me, not in that, that, that I could do the ringing out. And so that's three things they changed. And then one day, coming off stage, I pounded my guitarist. What was that? You weren't even looking at the audience. You were watching. And I'm like, I'm another. And Marion, my manager said. yeah and we both me and my guitars went yeah she said you can't talk like that you can't be like that people are watching you and they'll think that's all you are and you'll get a bad name and they'll think you're this and that the next thing so by that point I thought my name isn't good enough my accents are not right my personality is obviously not good enough and it's not correct it's not proper it's not socially acceptable all those things even though I didn't have those words in my head at 15 socially acceptable um and then the songs would be lightweight a lot of them and I'd want something I could get my teeth into so I realized I've played the part of Lulu since I was 15 years old and I am obviously part of me is Marie from Glasgow.

39:58And, you know, Lulu is happy, clappy, poppy, smiley, DeLulu. And Marie is happy, scrappy, sometimes angry, bluesy, determined, different to Lulu. But, you know, what happens is when you're playing characters like that, especially when you're a child, You take the character. I took, I should say, not what anyone else is going to do, what I did. I took the character of Lulu on because why would I go on stage and not take Lulu with me? People seem to like her. Yeah. But then I didn't know where she ended and where Marie began. So as I got older, it became more obvious I had to look at that. The other thing I didn't know about you, and it seems Sophie's been a big help and initially sort of woke you up to the idea of what was going on, was your eating disorder.

40:55I didn't know this about you. And what I found really interesting is you don't use the word bulimia at all when describing it. In my eyes, it's bulimia. I had bulimia for 10 years. I was incredibly uncomfortable saying the word, talking about it. The only reason I started publicly talking about it was because of our dear friend, Elizabeth Day. And I went on her podcast and I spoke to her before off mic and said, I think I want one of my failures to be based around looking after myself and this thing I used to do. And I found it so hard to say the word bulimia. I felt ashamed, slightly fraudulent saying it, like I'd made it up, although it ruled a lot of my life for nearly a decade.

41:43But knowing and trusting Elizabeth like I do, I thought this is a really good way of me practicing talking about it. and it is a horrible secret illness. You're doing it all in secret. People won't know because you look the same often, especially if you're binging and then purging. You don't really look any different. And I used to carry gum with me and spray perfume and I had all the little tricks going on so nobody would find out. So when you break that secrecy and you either tell someone or someone says, were you being sick? It's so unnerving. I now, through a lot of therapy as well, feel really comfortable talking about it.

42:23And also I know that so many people out there are living with this secret unhappily. So I do know that talking about it will be helpful. Where are you at with discussing it? Yeah, so it's a big one, right? So the reason I, so when I wrote my book, right, Boys Don't Cry, I wanted to make it like chapters, right? So A was for anxiety, B was for best friend, L is for loneliness. you know s is for sophie and so because i'm dyslexic i wanted to make sure that you could just turn to a chapter and just read it and it was my experience with what i think is a way to help through it and i really think that's important in life and that's why i wrote it for my future kid because i want my baby to understand that they can talk about things right and it came to the chapter w and but i i've never i've never spoken of this and still as i start to talk about this i feel like shame right I get it um it came to the the chapter w and I had promised myself that I'd be honest in the book and so I thought right I'll talk about weight so w is for weight and I I don't think men talk about issues that they have with their weight or their body or the way they look or their hairline or all these things we just don't and I thought it was important to do it and so my story with it is I played a lot of sport I was very sporty always quite lean always looking you know everyone always used to say what a six-pack Jamie has all these things and I used to eat a lot of food because I was trying to put on weight for rugby because I was a keen rugby player a really good rugby player and when I had my knee injury and my sport was taken away from me I must have gone into some sort of like anxiety without realizing it and I got comfort in eating and it was back when you didn't really have camera phones at all and so we had I had like a disposable camera I went on holiday and I was taking photos my mum would say to me you look a bit stocky like you look a bit stocky like you're eating a lot and you look a bit stocky and it was very from a place of love right I went oh whatever you know I didn't even think of it whatever and I went on holiday got ticks and photos got them developed and I remember going to like a snappy snap which used to be a place you get developed and i was going through them and i came across a picture of me topless on the beach and i did i look stocky i didn't look lean i didn't look like as six-packy as i usually was and immediately i just felt shame and so that day something clicked to my brain i must have been 18 19 and probably because the anxiety of the sport and all those things i couldn't play sport anymore which was like thing taking away from when i went Elizabeth Day, that was my failure that I couldn't play sports anymore.

45:09I started to diet and I'd never done that. I was conscious of what I was eating. So Coca-Cola became Diet Coke and hummus became reduced fat hummus and I would eat rice cakes instead of crisps and I started dieting and I started to become thinner. And so then I became so conscious of my weight, which I'd never done before. And then that led into, which I didn't even realize, looking back, I didn't realize is that I, I then joined Made in Chelsea and I went on to Made in Chelsea and everything was edited for me. I had no control over my life. I didn't know what was going on. I was conscious of the way that I looked and all these things because people were writing stuff on social media and all this different stuff that I then had to control something.

45:58So it became, you know, in part what I was eating and you know I've spoken to people who have had eating disorders and I have to you know it's hard for me to say but I had an eating disorder for sure I've never said that out loud and even I went to a therapist and when I told the therapist what was happening I had to cover my eyes in sex I was too embarrassed about it but there were moments in my 20s where I wouldn't keep my food down because it was just a complete control thing and it was a secret that I had and I knew that other people had this but I thought it was just women I thought it was a something that women suffer not guys no way you're kidding me guys don't suffer with this you're kidding me no way we're not at all and actually I found one a friend of mine a guy friend close mine who was being sick into the loo once and I joked with him about it I went oh man like are you okay don't worry about it you know it's okay and I didn't tell him about my thing but it made me realize that oh other men suffer with this and when I first started dating Sophie no one ever knew uh that I had this occasionally and I do want to be honest it was occasionally it wasn't like a constant thing the whole time it was just occasionally Sophie caught me once and this secret that I had was suddenly not a secret anymore and suddenly I realized what was going on and she says to me, what are you doing?

47:33And I said, oh, I was doing nothing. And she said, yes, I heard you being sick. And I said, well, I know I wasn't. And she said, it's okay. I just want you to know that whatever you're dealing with, I'm sorry. And if you ever want to talk about it, I'm here. And that suddenly became a, I suddenly clicked onto what was happening. I was like, what the hell is, it was like I was an out of body experience. And then it was suddenly a realistic thing what I was doing. I never spoke to Sophie again about it. And I was then watching the Freddie Flintoff new documentary about it. And Jack Whitehall, who's a friend of mine, actually went on the screen.

48:10And he said that he had suffered with an eating disorder throughout. I can't even say I find it hard to say the word. But he suffered with an eating disorder. and I thought well maybe I should talk about what I experienced because women are amazing how they talk about body positivity and that's just amazing and it's all great but with guys we never talk about it to be sexy and attractive we have to go to the gym and do press-ups and have abs and have bleaks and be able to lift 100 kilograms and look that way and not everyone can do that and we sort of suffer in my experience suffer really in silence because it's so shameful you don't talk to your guys about it no freaking ways are you kidding me not in a million years i could maybe talk to my mom about it i can maybe talk to my sister about it couldn't talk to guys about it yeah and it was something that i thought was important to talk about in the book because if another guy picks it up and turns to that chapter and reads it and reads my experience and then the ways that i think are really good to coping with that situation i think it could be really important yeah but it was yeah it's um it's for whatever reason don't know i'm happy i can talk about my anxiety and whatever it is I can talk about anything that for me is one thing that I really because I don't first I don't want to be defined by anything like that I don't want to be defined by anything really but and also I um yeah it's a very shameful thing for some reason I find it pretty shameful well if you've learned anything from those conversations it's that shame loves festering in silence that is its favorite place to dwell so come and be loud about all your messy bits on instagram with us at happy place official we're a little community we're a little gang and we like chatting about this stuff if you want to listen to any of the full episodes you heard little bits of today there'll be links in the show notes for you so do go back and listen to the full episodes because they're hearty in the meantime a massive thanks again to everyone who's come on happy place and has been honest about the more difficult parts of their lives because i really appreciate it huge thanks to our brilliant producer anushka tate at happy place studios and to you, you do not have to suffer in silence.