Danielle Henderson, THE UGLY CRY

[1:24]Zibby Owens: Hi. This is Zippy Owens, and you're listening to the award winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology, which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have Time to: A Quarantine Anthology. All proceeds of that book go to COVID nineteen Vaccine Research. And I'm the editor in chief of Moms Don't Have Time to Write, a new publication on Medium, and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there. And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens, and my website is zibbyowens.com. Okay. Now back to this amazing podcast. Welcome

[2:01]Danielle Henderson: to Pub Day Tuesday, where I'm featuring a few episodes of authors who have books coming out today. I hope you enjoy this one. Danielle Henderson is the author of The A Memoir. Danielle is a TV writer whose credits include Maniac, Divorce, and Difficult People. A retired freelance writer and former editor for Rookie, she has been published by The New York Times, The Guardian, Afar Magazine, BuzzFeed, and The Cut. A book based on her popular website, Feminist Ryan Gosling, was released in 2012. Danielle currently co hosts the podcast I Saw What You Did There with Millie de Chirico about the weird ways we respond to and learn to love movies. She likes to watch old episodes of Doctor Who when she is on deadline. One of her tattoos is based on the movie Rocky, and she will never stop using the Oxford comma. Little literary joke for everybody here. Anyway, enjoy the episode. Welcome Danielle. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss The Ugly Cry, a memoir. Of course. Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure. So I read this book over the long weekend with my kids around. And as these things kept happening, I was like, oh my gosh. Now her stepfather's doing and now this is happening. I didn't tell them all of it. But then after a while, were like, mom, this poor woman, you have to stop. And then finally, my daughter's like, can you stop telling us what's happening in this book? Because I kept being like, and now this. And I was like and they were like, is it fiction or nonfiction? And they don't really know what that means. I was like, It's nonfiction. This is her life. It's not just like a story. So anyway, I don't know. I we were all just like, you know, empathizing with you so much from various points of our development. Oh, well, please, please tell them that I turned out totally rad. I will tell them that. I already told them. I was like, no, it's fine. She's a TV writer. She wrote a book. Everything's good. Oh my gosh. Okay. So Danielle, tell listeners what your book is about, even though that's a really hard question given that it's your life. But what is this book about? Why did you decide to even write a memoir? Why did you decide to be open about everything that happened and put it all out there? Yeah, so this is a book about my life up to age 18. And the reason I decided to write this memoir and write my story is that for years I just thought, well, everyone's got a story. Everyone has a, you know, something things happen in their life. Like I'm not any more special than anyone else. And I still think that, but I think that what my childhood experiences were, were definitely quite different from most people I've met. And I was talking with a few friends and they said, you know, you should really just write this down. You should just write this down. You are a writer. So I think that the timing of it is that I really just reached a point in my current life, my adulthood, where it didn't feel like I was mining the experience as a sort of therapy for myself. Felt like, Oh yeah, that's a thing that happened that I can now explain, so I probably should. So that's kind of where it came from for me. Well, there was so much in here. I mean, from your mom, the fact that your mom decided to leave at one point and follow her boyfriend who was horrific and like that alone would have been enough, you know? Yeah. This is like, there's this whole thing and like, Dayenu, like it would have been enough. Had she left you to never to not have any plans during the day, Dayenu, you know, anyway. Exactly. Right. But, you know, one thing that struck me, and I feel terrible making light of this because but I guess humor, as you show in your book, you know, humor is sort of one way to get through the worst of times, really. And you're unburdening, which in part is by writing this book too, right? Getting it even more out there was so helpful when you finally confessed to your grandmother what had been going on with your not even your stepfather, what do you call him? Step boyfriend? Exactly. My mom's boyfriend. Your mom's boyfriend.

[6:01]Zibby Owens: And your grandmother's cursing, by the way, was like hilarious.

[6:04]Danielle Henderson: But then you said, My depression still came back in waves, poking holes in moments that should have felt happier, But it felt less like I was carrying the weight of a secret and more that I was part of a family. Unburdening myself didn't cure me and it would be another five years before I knew that I was suffering from depression or that I would be in a relationship with it for the rest of my life. I didn't yet know that I would take almost a dozen different antidepressants before I found the combination that worked best. I wouldn't learn to think about depression as something that occasionally happened to me as a part of my wiring, not a bomb waiting to go off all the time until I was 39 years old. One more sentence. And it wasn't until my forties when I learned in therapy how to integrate my thoughts in order to avoid sinking to the bottom of the depression well, learned how to notice warning signs and actions I could take before things got too bad. The first time I felt confident and happy again at the same time, I was 43 years old. Yeah. So take us through a little bit about when all of the events sort of came to the fore, when you felt like at your lowest point ever and how you coped with it. Well, yeah, I think my lowest point ever was certainly in my teens when I had a tremendous amount of suicidal ideation. And what that means is that I constantly wanted to die, but I didn't actually know how to do it. And so I would try these little things. Wrote about one of them in the book where I took, you know, the point of a compass and thought maybe I would, you know, cut my wrists or, but I just couldn't do it. It hurt, you know, it hurt really bad. So there was, you know, my brain is not always my friend, but in those moments, it certainly was. And I think that it felt like my lowest moment because it was the one that those are the moments that pushed me more to action where I thought about not wanting to be here. But, you know, crippling depression is pretty low in and of itself, whether you have suicidal ideation or not. And so throughout my life and throughout my adulthood, there would be moments where I couldn't get out of bed or where it was so hard for me to drag myself to work, which I constantly had to do. I didn't have the kind of support where that allowed me to rest and sit with my feelings. And so I had to work and usually work a lot. Like I usually had more than one job and I would drag myself to work, get through it and then just come home and cry and collapse. And, you know, I had horrible insomnia for most of my life. You know, there were just, there've been a lot of low moments. There've been a lot of low moments, but I think that, you know, the way that I wrote about it in the book in relation to kind of telegraphing a little bit of what my life was like as an adult is that you can unburden yourself and you can tell people the things that are hurting you as a way to get some kind of immediate relief. And there is immediate relief in that, but it doesn't cure you. And I think that when I stopped looking for a cure is when I actually started feeling better more often. And when I say in the book that it wasn't until I was 43 years old that I figured it out is because it's true. It really wasn't until the last year, as I was finishing writing this book that I realized, Oh, I've actually dealt with a lot of this. I've actually come pretty far in this. And my therapy is helping. And it's helping me recognize, over the past few years, it's helped me really recognize some patterns that are destructive to me that I can recognize enough to stop and to change. And I never felt like that was possible. I thought, for a very, very, very long time that this is just how I am. And in a lot of ways it is, it is just how I am. I do get affected more deeply than some people because of my wiring and because of the things that happened to me. I get affected very deeply by certain things. But what's changed is my ability to react to them in a way that's more positive and to react to them in a way that doesn't destabilize me completely. And a lot of that is really just finding a support system outside of myself, which never felt like it was possible to do when I was younger. So that's also a reason that I wanted to write this book. I think that it would be somewhat false for me to say that I wrote it for my younger self because I feel like that kid did not have the tools to process a book like this. But I did write it with the knowledge that there will be people who are going through similar things. And maybe there's something I can say that they haven't heard that'll set them off on a path to their own healing. Well, I think we need to give your therapist a standing ovation at this point. Can just, you're going have to share his or her phone number wide and large, because I feel like so often nobody ever says like, wow, my therapy is really working. Everyone's just I like, don't know, it's great when it actually works. I know, I had a friend recently who started therapy for the very first time. And we were talking, we were having coffee and she said, I've got a choice of kind of interviewing some therapists and there's one that I feel like I can go to and just kind of, she'll just listen to me. But this other one is really challenging and it kind of freaks me out. And I like grip the chair and I was like, go for the challenging one. Go for the one that challenges you because if you want, you have people in your life to talk to who will just listen to you. You want therapy to be something that puts you on a path to healing and that helps you recognize things about yourself that you don't even know yet. At least for me, that's what I needed. And so yeah, I definitely give major props to therapy constantly. And I even thank my therapists in book. Thank both of my therapists because I had a therapist that I was working with in New York when I started the book and a therapist that I'm working with now. So I thank them both. Wow. You also mentioned in the book how one way you coped, at least at the time with everything, was through reading and, you know, sort of staying inside and reading everything and get your hands on. Is that still a way that you cope? Did that follow you forever? Is that just like one of the things you love to do? 100%, especially in this past year and not being able to travel and really being housebound. Like I did not really leave my apartment very much during the pandemic. And I miss traveling. That was something that was a gift I was able to give to myself eventually. You know, I found ways to travel in my 20s when I was super broke. But then I also found ways to start traveling internationally when I started, you know, my TV writing career. And I miss it. I would take myself to different places for my birthday every year. A couple of years ago, I took two friends with me. We went to Amsterdam, rented a houseboat. And like, I miss that kind of thing. So reading helped get me back into a place where I could travel without moving. Thank you, Jumeirah Kwai. And I really did. And I never forgot that because I've always been an avid and voracious reader. But I think I took for granted how much I got from books until I was stuck in my house for a year. And so yeah, absolutely. That has followed me. And it started so simply, I remember vividly reading The Secret Garden and just reading, I didn't have a garden growing up. Barely had a yard. And so just reading about these little places that people would go and that you could, you know, kind of find this new, I remember that, you know, the description of the key going in the lock and just the wonder, just the sense of absolute wonder has just never left me. You know, it's funny because even now when you say like a secret garden, in my head, I have the image of what I first like put there when I read that book, right? Like the you know, like I have like vines all over and like a door and like I can see it as if I'm reliving it just by you mentioning it. It's amazing how we can all do that. It's so cool. It's so cool. It's a great trick of the brain. Great trick of the brain. It's a gift. It's a gift. And I think that I do think it's a gift because I realized again, much later in life that a lot of people don't like to read, which I never really understood. I thought, well, everyone reads something sometime. No, there are a lot of people who flat out do not read. It's true. It's so true. My daughter even, who's almost eight, she was like, I was reading before bed and she was like, Why do you read that? Why don't you read books with pictures? And I was like, because this is even better. The pictures are in my brain. Yes. I just like That did not work. That did not work. She's like, mom, you're constantly Yeah. Telling me not to live at She's like, whatever. And went back to like reading about dragons. Whatever. Which is its own kind of escape. I applaud that. Read about those dragons. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince. Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for every day. Lighter fabrics, better materials, pieces that just feel good the moment you put them on and look effortless. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high quality essentials. Think breathable linen, soft organic cotton, washable silk, but without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated but still easy. 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[16:51]Danielle Henderson: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So what is your I mean, not to like well, I'm really curious what your relationship is like now with the cast of characters in the book, but I don't mean for you to like give anything away or like, I don't know what kind of suspense, you know, because you don't know necessarily how things are going as you're reading. But can you talk at all about your relationships with your mom? And I know unfortunately your grandmother's mentioned all that and my gosh. But you did mention in the acknowledgements that like this was some sort of coming together with your mom again. And so I was wondering what that was about. Yeah, I just, well, I just purchased a home. I just purchased my first house and then moved back to my hometown. And thank you. The reason I did that was for my grandmother. And she is developing dementia and her mother, my great grandmother had Alzheimer's. So it's not a total shock, but I just feel like she's going to very quickly be getting to a point where she can't live on her own or doesn't want to live on her own. So I bought this house pretty much for her. And our relationship is great. It's as great as it's always been. She came over on Saturday with my brother and his partner. And she was dancing to Stevie Wonder in the kitchen and she was making fun of all the stuff in my house. I showed her her room and she was like, boy. I don't know. She's like, I love your house, but I don't know if I need all this room. I don't know if I wanna move in here with you. And I'm like, you're moving in because I bought it for you. So we are very tight, we're very close. I just love her to death. I love her to bits. And I feel like as I've gotten older, I know that it's such a gift to have my grandmother still in my life when I'm in my mid 40s. And I feel very lucky that we've known each other for so long and developed such a great relationship that it's only gotten better as I've gotten older and better. So I'm grateful for that. And my brother and I are tremendously close. We had a very rocky childhood and teenage relationship. But we talked about it actually after my book came, after I wrote the book, I sent him the finished PDF. So before the hardcover even came I wanted him to read it. And what was strange is that I don't let people read things as I'm writing it. I don't want the interference of their thought process in my story. And there's a lot of this book that I didn't or couldn't write because it wasn't my story, Especially a lot of stuff with my brother and his side of what happened to us as kids. And so I did send it to him after though. And he sent me just, he's such a sweetheart of a person. And he just sent me the nicest text. And then we started talking on the phone because he felt like he felt guilt, you know, he felt really guilty. And he said, you know, I feel like I wasn't there for you when you were a kid and you were really going through a lot and you were processing a lot. And I didn't see that. And I said, Yeah, but you know, we were both kids and we were both figuring it out. And neither one of us knew how to do that. But it got us talking basically. And I think that again, looking back now at our relationship in our 40s, I feel really grateful that we, you know, starting in our, you know, like late teens, early 20s, we really started to kind of like each other as people. That was a real blessing actually, because it doesn't always have to go that way. And a lot of families are, you know, quite literally torn apart by this kind of thing. And so we kept each other close and I feel good about that. And with my mom, slightly more complicated, but I truly did not speak to my mom for about twenty years. And I would hear about her through my grandmother or my brother. And they would say, because they all kind of live in the area still. And they would report back to me about her kind of, but I personally didn't talk to her. And it wasn't until this past March, my aunt Renee, who I mentioned in the book, she died of breast cancer. She had stage four breast cancer. I was with her a lot during the last year of her life because she lived in California. And she said to me at one point, she's like, I I'll never forgive your mom for what she did to you kids. She just couldn't get over it and it really affected their relationship. But she said, you know, I just, I know you don't need a mom, but I want you to try to just talk to her and see if there's anything there worth keeping because it's, you know, it's hard to, I think she was worried that I would be kind of hardening my heart in a way that she didn't want me to. So she said, I think you should try. And I said, Oh, my cat's visiting. And I said, you know what, okay, typical Henderson move, your dying wish is a shitty one that was forcing me to do something I might not wanna do. Great, that's my family to a T. But I kinda, I gave it a shot and my way into that and the way I started kind of bridging that gap was I called my mom and I said, you know, your sister's dying of cancer and she wants to see you. Do you want to come out? And she did. So I flew my mom and my brother out to see my aunt and she was eager to talk. And she says, you know, I know we have a lot to discuss, but she seemed more so than any other time in my life. Like she wanted to build a relationship. And so I stayed open to that and I'm still staying open to it. She was here on Saturday night too, she came over, but I think it's going to be different because I'm approaching this from the point of view of someone who really doesn't need parenting and doesn't need that mother connection. I have found that outside of myself. And I have found that in other ways in my life. And so I'm personally trying to figure out what is this relationship even going to be? Is it going to be a friendship? Is it going to be looser than that? Is it going to be more, you know, civil and not necessarily as close? So, I'm still figuring it out, but I'm open to her in a way that I haven't been in twenty years. And so that's something that I can see as a net positive while I still try to protect myself because she's still exactly who she's always been. And all the things that led her to abandoning us and not being there for us, it's still very much a part of who she is. That's, I mean, talk about something that's really big of somebody. I mean, that is really big and generous and open hearted of you. So whatever comes of it, like you've already done the good thing. So good for you. I mean, it's amazing. Wow. Wait, tell me two seconds about your TV writing career. Like, how are you doing that? How did that all even get started? Great question. Absolutely great question. I always say that my resume reads like I've been on the run from the law because I don't The only thing I've ever done intentionally is say yes to work because I needed money. Like that's all I've ever done is say yes, I'll do this. I'll try it. So TV writing was never in the cards for me because I didn't go to school to study it. Didn't have a family member working in the business. And I didn't know, I couldn't find the door, let alone the doorknob, like I couldn't find the door to walk through. So when I actually I left my PhD program, was studying in Seattle, and I got divorced, moved back to New York, left my PhD program, and started freelance writing. And I had been freelance writing during my master's degree. And it was kind of my escape was my escape into pop culture. And I wrote about, you know, The Real Housewives and the TV recaps for Vulture. And that's how my agent found me, my TV agent. She really liked the way I wrote about television. And she reached out and said, have you ever considered writing for television? And I was like, who is this? Like what? What are you talking about? But without that nudge, I wouldn't be doing this. And she, you know, we worked for a year and I just, I learned, I taught myself how to write TV scripts. And I learned how to do that by reading a lot of TV scripts. And when I started to see the rhythm of it and the pattern, I thought, well, oh, this is already how I think like I think in dialogue, so this is not difficult. Then I think in descriptors, and it's not to say that writing a show easy, isn't difficult, but it wasn't hard for me to make the transition. So I wrote a script or wrote it, you know, on spec for free for nobody. And because of my feminist Ryan Gosling book, I'd met Julie Klausner. I was a guest on her podcast and we became actual friends like, you know, when I moved to New York and we hung out. So when Difficult People was being made and I told her, hey, this lady reached out to me and asked if I wanted to write for television. She was like, you should come to the room, like come to the difficult people room for a week or two and just see if you like it, you know, like just to see what it's like. And I'm so grateful to her for that because what I got from that was realizing, okay, my writing career is incredibly solitary. I sit in a room by myself, there's lots of tears, there's lots of snacks and it just happens. And to be in a room, doing collaborative writing was something I'd never done before. And so to be in a room with smart people just saying funny things and jokes and ideas was revelatory to me. And I loved it. I loved it for that reason from the beginning that I got to actually sit and talk with people about writing before we wrote anything. So that's how my TV writing career started. I was hired on divorce after that and my agent was like, all right, let's get you working. And it went from there. Oh my gosh, that's a really Yeah. Cool So what shows are you working on now? Any shows or what are you doing? Well, right now I've leveled up a little bit. I'm actually running my first show. Wow. Yeah. So as a showrunner, you're still a writer, but you're handling all the moving parts. So you're doing all the, you know, you're kind of a manager, like you're doing all the budget stuff over here, but then you're doing all the writing and crafting a story over here. So I'm working on a show for Lina Waite for Amazon, and it hasn't been announced yet, so I won't talk about it. But it's incredibly fun. And it's a great progression for me at this point in my life, but also at this point in my career. Like I am ready for this, and it's been wonderful. So we're just developing a story around an idea right now. And if they like it, then it will get picked up for a full series and I'll get to do it 10 more times. Wow. I'm so excited for you. I mean, that is amazing. The book is amazing. Like all of it I mean, it's a really your whole life is just a super inspiring story of, you know, perseverance and knowing who you are and getting through stuff and having, you know, you're just so bright, obviously. And it's really awesome to see you applying these gifts and then like entertaining, teaching and inspiring other people. It's very cool. Thank you so much. Thank you. That's nice to hear because I don't ever think of it that way. Usually it's the panic when I wake up like, okay, what do I have to do today? Like how many things do have to do today? But yeah, it's nice. That's very nice to hear. So thank you. I wake up in a panic too, but sometimes it takes the other person to see that all the little things and all the emails, there's a greater purpose and it's great. It's really good. The panic adds up. Yeah, the panic adds up. It goes somewhere for a reason. So what final advice would you have for aspiring authors? This is always something that I don't know if I'm good at giving this kind of advice because I'm not lofty about it at all. I come from a very practical place. And I think that one thing that I am very proud of myself for having done, which I would recommend to anyone who's an aspiring writer or author is to write every day. So I've always kept journals. I've always kept blogs. I've always written, even if I was just writing for myself, even without knowing where it was going, if it would ever be seen, if it would ever be published. I wrote for myself. And I think that helps you develop your own voice. And people, I like to read people who are writing in their own voice when they're writing nonfiction work. But even if you're writing fiction, you're developing a style. And it's important for you to know not just what you want to say, but how you want to say it and how you want to convey it. So that's my first bit of advice is to write every day and to write for yourself, but also eyes on your own plate. It's so easy to look at what other people have and what other people have done and to say like, I could have done that better. Or I wish that was me. Keep your head down, blinders on, don't look at what anyone else is doing. There are so many pathways into publishing. And there are so many pathways into connecting to people through the written word that how you do it is no longer as important as the fact that you do it. So don't worry about the fact that this person might've had it easier and their parents are the actual owners of a publishing company. So they got a book when they were 17. It doesn't matter. Don't put those time restrictions on yourself. Don't put those limits on yourself. Develop your voice, write about what's important to you and see what's important to you and know what's important to you before you start really looking to put it out there in the world. That was great advice. What are you talking about? Guess I always feel like people are looking like, here's how you find an agent, here's how you find a manager, here's how you find it. I don't know. Like I looked into all of that. No. People are not looking for that necessarily. This is great. That was great. Eyes on your own plate. Meanwhile, wrote my whole college thesis about how what we notice about what other people eat beside us tells us about ourselves. It's the application of social comparison theory to eating situations. So yeah, my eyes are never on my own plate, at least in literal terms, but perhaps That's applicable. That's still applicable in a very different way. But when it comes to writing eyes on your own plate. Yeah, exactly. And I think it's helpful too, because I think, for example, writing for Vulture and being a freelance writer for all these different publications that helped get my name out there in a way that I didn't plan. I literally did it because I'm like, I need a job and I wanna write for a living. So that's how I did it. But I think that that helped me in retrospect. So I think it is useful. Yeah, just say yes. You have Yes. Your Just say yes. Do anything for money. That's the worst thing that can happen. Know that I want emblazoned on my tombstone. Do anything for money and then I'll be soon well into the afterlife. Oh my gosh. Wow. Well, Danielle, such a pleasure. Congratulations on your book. And I wish you all the best. Thank you so much. This is lovely. And again, thank you so much for having me on. It's my pleasure. Take care. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to part of my June Book Blast. I hope you enjoy it. Come back tomorrow for more.

[32:12]Zibby Owens: Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens and at moms don't have time to read books. Also sign up for my at zibbyowens.com

[32:23]Danielle Henderson: and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.