Nikita Gill - Everyone Wants to Be Heard But No One Wants to Listen

28:37Yes. How does success feel now having experienced that rejection? Would you, do you feel successful? Slightly strange question. I love that you asked me that because when Hekati hit the number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Incredible achievement, can I just say? People don't know how hard that is. If you are not American, it is so hard to hit the number one spot in the New York Times bestseller. Let's just give you your laurels for that moment. Well done. Thank you so much. I think it was such a surreal experience because I was in a cab heading back after having dinner with a lovely friend and my editor emails me because obviously different time zones and she was like, I didn't think I was going to hit the list at all.

29:25and then she emails me and she goes my god you're number one and I was like no stop joking with me no way Margaret sort of thing that's what I thought but no she sent me the the clipping and it was after so many years and even like in publishing it I was 10 years into publishing by then like this is my what it would have been my 10th book after so many years and this whole idea like it really challenges this whole notion that there's an overnight success you get one shot at it. You write your debut. If the debut doesn't do it, that's it for you. Don't buy that ever. I did it on my 10th book. I mean, there are people who do it on like their 20th book or their 30th book.

30:08And I think that moment, it was so surreal. And I did, I cried. I cried on the train back home. The lovely, I was in an Uber and the lovely Uber man was like a beautiful older gentleman. And I said, I'm sorry, it's just happened. I have no one to tell this to. Can I just tell you? And he just looks at me and he goes, what is it? Are you okay? Because he obviously thought something's wrong with his car. No, no, I've hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list. He stops the car and he looks back at me. He says, I'm so proud of you, Beta. Oh, and of course, I was in floods of tears then because this lovely man who I don't even know has stood around and said that to me.

30:53When I called my mom and dad, then it really felt like that moment, you know, where I remembered every fight we had about this. And my mom is like, you know, when they said they were so proud of me, I think it came right from this soul. Yes. And it meant so much. And I think it took a long time to get there. But the longer it takes to get there, the longer the journey, the more incredible the moment, because you have had so long to wait for it, that when it finally arrives, you're able to welcome it with flowers and joy and love and so much. And that's what that did to me. And it's interesting because navigating that success also comes with, and you know this, like you'll have this high one day and the next day in publishing, you'll have the lowest of lows.

31:41Like someone has written a terrible review about this book, which has hit this New York Times bestseller, but it may have had like a terrible review. I heard this thing that you said about rejection and you were quoting another writer, a kind of mentor of yours. Yes. That having things rejected is like having them returned to you. Yes. Which I loved. Tell us a little bit about that because I think anyone listening or watching this who is undergoing a period of rejection for whatever reason, whether it be professional or personal, will get so much from hearing this. So the incredible poet, Dean Atta, who I'm very fortunate to call friend, Dean just won a BAFTA for his short film, Two Black Boys in Paradise.

32:24He's a wonderful person to talk to when it comes to things like this, because he consistently talks about, you know, the way that you fail as a writer and why it means more. And so he talked about how he never sees, at least now, never sees something rejected as rejected. He says it's returned, which means it has another home or you have to work on it more. Or maybe the idea needs to have a different genesis, like it needs to go elsewhere. And that's just not the right place for it. And I thought that was such a beautiful way to look at the concept of rejection. it's so good and so profound and i even think you can apply it to something like dating i mean i went through so much rejection when i was online dating through the apps in my late 30s and actually that idea of you've been returned to yourself yeah because this person or this relationship was not the right fit exactly for the precious cargo that you carry it's such a helpful way of seeing it.

33:27Oh, so true. So true. Yeah. Let's get back to your failures because your second failure is a fallout from a BuzzFeed article that made you go viral. Now, I don't know. I think this might be a nice thing to hear because I have no idea about this particular article or what happened. I have only ever known you as this spectacular poet, playwright, artist, novelist. so tell us about this article and when it appeared and what happened so I think I had just got onto Instagram and the reason I got onto Instagram was because I realized that my work was being shared on there and there was no way for me to people were like cutting the credit out and stuff which it's an odd thing to do like don't you want to know where the words came from because I think with poetry it is important to know the genesis of words because I believe that art is political and therefore the body that creates it, it comes from anywhere.

34:28Yes. And let's not erase the voice of the person. I mean, that's the whole point. I literally joined Instagram because I thought I was going to start putting work out there. And so I must have been on there for about two months, three months, maybe, or maybe a year. It was quite a short time that I'd really been starting posting my work. and BuzzFeed wrote this article about me out of the blue. And they said like, you know, today in brown feminist awesomeness, there's this poet and they were doing lots of that. They were sharing artists at the time. They were doing lots of great work. And I gained 20 ,000 followers overnight out of it.

35:07I went from essentially maybe like 5 ,000 followers to 25 ,000 overnight, which is an enormous rise. But I also became Twitter's main character for my bad poetry. And, you know, as someone who already has all of those years of rejections behind me, and so has already got that like imposter syndrome of questioning myself and self-doubt and watching people pillory, take my work out of context because they all excerpts and pillory my work and say, she's shite at this. I can't believe someone who's 28 wrote this. Why is she being allowed to do this? Like, I don't think people like this should be allowed to write poetry.

35:51And I remember this was the most disconcerting experience. At the time, I was still sharing photos of myself because the feed was, it was my Instagram, only 5 ,000 people on there. So I was sharing like photos of myself every now and then. And someone shared a photo of me. And they basically said people aren't following her for the poetry, they're following her because she looks like this. And it was like, it was a photo of me that I'd put up that I was at the beach in a bikini at the time. And I remember what that did to my brain, because I was like, oh, they're going to think that like, the only reason people want to follow me is because I look a certain way.

36:34And I didn't share a photo of myself on my feed for eight or nine years after that. It's only in the last two or three years where I suddenly I've become comfortable with it again, really. But it really, it's so strange the way we perceive ourselves. Because all of this other stuff people were saying about my work, it's not that I haven't already thought it myself, right? So none of it was new. It hurt. It was the first time I've been part of a pile on for writing poetry, which is a weird thing to be piled on for. They weren't even like upset about the content of the poems because it was all about trauma and pain.

37:12There were some people who were saying that she's never experienced trauma or pain, which was painful, but they weren't upset about the content. They were upset that I was writing about it and that the way I was writing about it, I can work with that. It's when someone said the only reason, it's not because of her words, it's because of what she looks like. That got under my skin deeply. And I didn't post for a few days because for me, I saw becoming the main character of Twitter as a massive failure, a failure on my own part. I was like, I should have done better sharing my work. I should have posted the whole poem somehow.

37:50I should have left links. Maybe this won't have happened to me then. Of course, the internet was still a new animal to me at the time. I didn't realize, and now we do know a lot better once the internet has you in its headlights, it's like blood in the water. They're like sharks. There is nothing you could have done once someone had decided that you were enemy number one of the day for writing poetry. It doesn't matter. I wrote to the wonderful woman who wrote the article, who was another brown girl. and I said like how do I navigate this I don't want you to pull down the article I think you've done so well by me and I really thank you and she said you know this happens to people like there are so many and I think she told me a few people's names that it had happened to and I went and looked up their work and their work was beautiful and I was like oh this is just a subjective and it'll blow over it'll be fine and I've gained so much out of it like I know I'm only focusing on the failures of like being the main character and all these people saying terrible things.

38:50But I've gained so much out of it. Yes. You know, I did carry that though. Nine years of not posting myself. That sounds to me like shame. Did you feel shame? Massively. I felt shame because I thought if I hadn't shared this, these like bikini photos and these like photos of myself, like maybe, maybe I called it upon myself by doing that. like you know that that notion of you asked for it our relationship with like the digital world and misogyny has changed a lot but at the time the internet felt a lot more democratic so any criticism that you got didn't feel immediately like misogyny because a lot of it was coming from women and you know at the time I didn't think that like women could be that deeply misogynistic that they could do something like that.

39:43I've learned since. Like if it had been a man who had said it, I think I would have rationalized it away somehow. But a woman had said it. And I was like, she must have seen something that I've done wrong. Women still elicit so much ire online. Women of color, then there's a whole other gradient of violence directed towards them. how do you cope with that now because you must still experience it absolutely so one thing i've learned about the internet and i want everyone to hear this very clearly because i think it'll happen to everyone at some point or the other you will make a mistake you will say something or do something and it will be fully in error you will have a legacy of not saying or doing those things you will make a mistake and the internet will come down hard on you.

40:40And what they want you to do is double down because the internet wants to create clout out of you. If you double down, they get like days, weeks of memes, of bullying you, of just, you know, constantly yelling at you, you become like their target. If you apologize, the internet resents you even more because you're shutting that down. So you should apologize because you're taking your personhood back. And also it is the right thing to do if you've messed up, you apologize. But just remember, because you're apologizing, there are going to be people on there who are going to say, who are going to try and push you because they are looking for a reason to continue to hate you so that they can continue to make use you for clout, right?

41:30They'll say your apology isn't sincere enough. You can repost your apology. They'll say be specific about the harm you caused. You'll be specific. Unblock all of the people that were abusing you. You can do that. They are looking to see where there is a line that you finally exercise a boundary and go, okay, now you are asking for too much. I've done everything you can, I can. And then they have a reason to hate you all over again and create, turn you into the main character. That is the psychology of the internet. The smartest thing you can do and the kindest thing you can do and the most accountable thing you can do is put up an apology and try and make amends as far as you can and then walk away.

42:12Don't carry on over there. Let people say whatever they want about you. I had a very disconcerting experience as someone who's queer and brown because they were looking for a reason to hate me, suddenly they were like, she's straight and white. She's definitely, so this rumor started that I was straight and white. And it was wild the way that they just ran with it. But also the thing that bothered me in that situation was, why did you have to erase my identities? Why did you do that? That is an insane thing to do. And try to find identities that you felt more comfortable attacking. Like, why do you feel so comfortable attacking people that you're actively looking to take to practice erasure?

43:00And then so this is what I always say to people. Apologize because it's the right thing to do and the accountable thing to do. And then make amends and walk away. With your specific example, though, there was nothing to apologize for. So presumably you didn't apologize for my poetry. To continue to write your poetry. No, I've made mistakes. We've been on the internet for 15 years. Like sometimes I failed in language. Sometimes I'm not communicated an idea properly. I have apologized. You said at the top of this failure that although it was deeply challenging and difficult to go through, it ended up giving you so much.

43:39What did it give you? Community. Other than this wisdom. Okay, it gave you community. So it's 20 ,000 people who followed me. That community that I gained out of that, there was so many young women, so many older women. And, you know, there were women in their 60s that followed me. And they, this community of women grew around me. Amazing women. Women were doing incredible things, were nurses and doctors. Some of them were therapists. And they were like, we're using your work to talk to our patients. Like the work just began to go out into these communities of women. They were people who use them as mindfulness exercises, the poems like they felt seen.

44:17And it was all women. And they uplifted me so much and they gave me so much in those moments. And I was like, I'm so lucky that BuzzFeed article was written because I would not have met so many incredible women. I first met Quinetta when I started reaching out to women in prison. For years, I thought I knew why she killed a man. But the more I dug in, the more I realized that nothing was quite so simple. I was just so scared that I was about to die. She did some things she shouldn't have did. She made a big mistake. What She Buried is coming August 1st to The Binge. Search for What She Buried wherever you get your podcasts.

44:57subscribers to the binge can listen to all episodes all at once ad free well hello my name is simon mayo well hello my name is mark kermode friendly chortle uh on this week's take what's going on well we've got something for everyone we have a review of pinocchio unstrong which is a horror movie we have ask eugene which is a documentary and we have a new animated version of animal farm with our very special guest it's director andy circus Because do not miss a minute. It's the take. Talking of womanhood and the great gifts that it gives us, but also the erasure that happens when we try to talk about things that we experience brings us on to your final failure, which is, as you put it, years of gaslighting myself about my body and pretending I was absolutely fine because everyone else said so.

45:48Talk to us about this, because you did actually make a health discovery. Yes. But for many years, you were living with chronic pain. Yes. Yes. So I had two separate issues where I came up against a wall for decades. The first one was my scoliosis. So I have a curve in my spine, which in the winters was brutal. Like I felt like I was, you know, 95 years old and I could not get out of bed because the pain was so bad. And so many doctors kept telling me it was my posture. You're just sitting like this and that's why there's pain all the way down your back. Until finally I went to a doctor and they did like a scan.

46:33And it wasn't very visible then. It's more visible now. But they were like, oh my God, you've got a curve in your spine. Like there's a name for that. It's called scoliosis. And just something that has caused you pain being named. And I just was like, oh my God. Like, so it wasn't my posture. It wasn't me doing something to cause this pain for myself. I actively have a problem inside my body that I can't fix. And then they gave me all these amazing exercises like cat cow pose and everything. It just really helped. But the second thing that I really struggled with was polycystic ovaries. And the way that it was discovered was because I used to get these really painful cystic acne pimples all over my face.

47:15They never come to a head. They just sit under your skin and they cause you so much pain. And I went to a dermatologist and, you know, they prescribed me some creams and they were like, you know, retinoids and this, that and the other should help. None of it helped. And then so finally, my dermatologist said, I want you to go and get yourself tested for both polycystic and endometriosis. Because sometimes, you know, for polycystic, they say that you put on weight, sometimes you don't have to put on weight and you can have all of the symptoms. And I was so lucky that this one dermatologist who's probably seen it before went, go and get yourself tested, got myself tested.

47:55And yeah, I have polycystic ovaries and it, you know, major fertility issues with polycystic ovaries. One in three women suffers with this, but it takes 10 years of presenting with symptoms before you get diagnosed. the pimples weren't because I wasn't eating properly they were not because I had done something to my skin they were not you know all of the problems I was having with my body it wasn't because I had bad posture what do young girls do when we when we can't control the outer world around us we try to control our bodies as much as we can and this is how we end up with eating disorders that that's so many of the young women that I know including myself went through it as teenagers.

48:38Well, again, I relate to so much of what you're saying, as you know, because we've bonded over this. I also have a long fertility journey. And I think you've identified something so crucial there, which is that as women, I mean, many women, let's not say all women, but we are so conditioned often by social strictures to internalize bodily failure as our own to carry. And as you rightly say, then we seek to control it. And if we are alpha type people, we're used to working hard, putting in the effort and getting the results. And then suddenly you're confronted with something that isn't responding to this strategy.

49:21And on top of that, my experience of the medical system is that it encourages women to internalize that failure that so often the medical language for women is the language of failure so when it comes to fertility I've spoken about this before but very often I was told I was failing to respond to IVF drugs a friend of mine was told she had an incompetent cervix you know inhospitable womb these are these are phrases that luckily now are changing but definitely at the time you felt that you were bearing the brunt of that how much was that your experience that you were being told that you were wrong in some way yeah this is like there's something wrong with your womb right like that's literally the language around it there's something wrong with your womb aka you are doing something wrong that is causing it and I like I remember like feeling even with polycystic ovaries, like it's been diagnosed now and everything.

50:23I remember that feeling. I must have done something to have caused my ovaries to be polycystic. Interesting. I'm so sorry you felt that. But so many of us do, I think. You know, I think because again, I come from a culture where I remember watching, divorce was not common when I was growing up. And I think a couple of my mom's friends, some of the most incredible women you will ever meet, like just absolute badasses, right? And were in like relationships with maybe not the kindest of people, went through a divorce, only a couple of them. The amount of people, despite all of everyone knowing that that person that they were with was the one in the wrong, still they got blamed for it.

51:08Still, they were told like, there's something wrong with you, because why couldn't you just make it work? And so culturally, I kind of come from a space where women are blamed. Women are blamed even when there's a glaringly, when it's glaringly obvious that it's not their fault. So for me, I felt like for a long time, I thought maybe it was because I had an ED, I ended up with polycystic ovaries. I was like, maybe that was it. Like I punished my body so severely for not performing and like, you know, and controlled it to the degree that I ended up with this, like something to do with nutrition, surely.

51:45And it's so weird how once an idea like that gets into your head, it doesn't go away. It's like with an ED, it doesn't ever fully go away. Like there's always something that could trigger it. I'll never forget, I was really young the first time they kind of sort of suspected it, but it was shut down quite quickly because just the idea for my parents that their daughter might not be able to have a child was so difficult for them to bear. I must have been about 14. I was having really painful periods. That's something that I go through, such painful periods. And so my mom took me to the doctor. And so the doctor was like, she may have fertility issues because there wasn't a word for it quite then.

52:27And I came home and my mom tells my dad. And the first thing he says is, why my kid? And I was 14 years old and I remember thinking, why anyone's kid? Right. But also imagine how it feels to be a child and hearing that. Yes. Because then you feel like I did this. I must have done something to make him feel like that. And he didn't mean it that way, But that's how I perceived it. He was just sad, as any father would be when they're confronted with difficult news. But I perceived it as, no, I did something wrong because look at what I've done to him by being this way. What is your relationship with the idea of children now?

53:20you know it's very funny I've got lots of children in community around me because all my friends have children and children I've looked after I've taken to school and you know made food for and stuff I've got nieces and I've got a godson guide son as because they're not religious so like a guide son as they say and I just love kids I think they're fantastic I think they have these bright open eyes and they look at the world like there's so much hope in it and what better thing to be a poet or an auntie poet of these beautiful bright-eyed children. My fiancé and I, we've talked about it recently, and we are like kind of moving into that space of thinking, yeah, that's, we should maybe consider, because we can give a child a lot.

54:06But then also, my consistent worry is the world around us and climate change and what kind of world am I bringing my child into? And will my child have like a full natural life? So these are big things. So even if I was, and I, you know, my, my fiance, lovely gentleman, he says that you'd make a fantastic mother. He'd make a great dad. But do we want, what kind, do we want to bring a child into a world that we know? So these are big questions. I think every parent has to ask themselves this question before they bring little people into this world, because they're a huge responsibility. And we've spoken quite a bit in this conversation about your parents and the ups and downs and the depths of your relationship with them.

54:57Where are you now as a daughter? You know, I've watched both my parents over the last four years go through something, which has just left me in awe of them. In the last four years, I've lost a grandparent a year. Thank you. It's been, I'd lost my grandmother two weeks ago. So it's been, it's been. Oh, Nikita, I'm so sorry. Thank you. She was the, she was my heart. And I'm very lucky to have been her granddaughter. I lost my grandfather, her husband a year ago, and he was my radical elder. He gave me all my good history and my good politics and a strong Kashmiri man with a very big tender heart.

55:37I will miss them forever. but my parents have just been the most incredible people because they navigated not just death but palliative care how incredible and how brave and how strong they are to have done all of these things for their parents and have it's not easy to watch a parent go and all of my grandparents they lived to their 90s and they suffered in the end. It's not easy to watch a parent suffer. Someone who is, both of my grandfathers were in the army. There were these massive figures in our lives, but especially my parents' lives. I think watching your parents go through that and become the elders in the family entirely shifts your perspective on them.

56:25And it teaches you that now you are the ones that have to look after because eventually you will become those elders that transition teaches you so much and I am so in awe especially of my mother the grace with which she has you know held people through her parents death my brother and me her mother when her husband died like what a woman I can use those same words about you Nikita Gill what grace what strength, what poetry. Thank you so much for the work that you give us. And thank you for the woman that you are. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. Same, because you are incredible. I'm so privileged to be here.

57:11Thank you so much for listening and watching. This episode has been brought to you by Dove Whole Body Deodorant. Please do follow How to Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts, please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.