Courtney Maum, THE YEAR OF THE HORSES: A Memoir
[0:01]Hi, this is Vivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast.
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[0:38]Enjoy the show!
[0:41]Courtney Mom is the author of The Year of the Horses, a memoir.
[0:45]She is also the author of three acclaimed novels, as well as the popular guidebook before and
[0:50]after the book deal.
[0:52]Her other novels include Touch and Custolegry, and she has been on this podcast to discuss
[0:57]both of those already, so you can flip back through the episodes and listen to those
[1:02]if you haven't gotten enough after this episode.
[1:04]The by the way, before and after the book deal, is a writer's guide to finishing, publishing,
[1:08]promoting, and surviving your first book, which many of you out there could probably
[1:12]use.
[1:13]A nominee for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, Courtney's writing, has been widely published
[1:17]in such outlets as The New York Times and O, The Oprah Magazine, and her short story,
[1:21]This Is Not Your Fault, was turned into an audible original.
[1:24]She is the founder of the collaborative artist residency, The Cabins, host of the monthly
[1:29]writing of fiction series, at Edith Wortens' Amount, and she pens the bi-monthly newsletter,
[1:34]get published, stay published, out of her house in Lachield County, where she lives with
[1:38]her daughter, husband, and cat.
[1:40]There she is!
[1:42]Welcome, Courtney!
[1:43]This is what your third time on Monster and O Time to Read Vex, touch the leg right here
[1:49]on the horses!
[1:50]I mean, amazing!
[1:51]So exciting!
[1:53]Thank you for having me again!
[1:56]I said to Kyle at the beginning of the book, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm reading about
[1:59]Courtney Moms' Depression, and he's like, was she depressed because she got stuck in Mexico?
[2:03]I think that was like writing that other novel, I was like, no!
[2:08]Definitely not, no, that was a very happy time in my life.
[2:14]Okay, so what we met two years ago, I was so surprised by everything in this book.
[2:22]I did not know.
[2:23]I had like a totally different, not even, I don't even know, perception of you.
[2:30]Like, I am just, I was like, really, and I flipped, I'm like, this is her book, right?
[2:37]Really?
[2:38]Well, I mean, you know what, that actually makes me happy to hear, because something
[2:42]I think that so many of us struggle with, and I'm sure that you fall into this camp,
[2:46]because, you know, you're a public person, and people look at your social media and
[2:52]everything you're doing, and they must, many people must think, oh my gosh, Zibi, has
[2:56]it all, she's doing it all, she's spinning all the plates, and as you well know, social
[3:02]media is fun, and you know, to a certain extent it can be authentic, but it's also sort
[3:08]of becomes our job to, let's see, you know, look a certain way in public, right?
[3:17]And I do think, unfortunately, that social media has allowed us to become lazy and kind
[3:26]of poor friends to one another, because we rely a little bit too much on the feed, the social
[3:32]media feed, to stand in for what might actually be happening in someone's life.
[3:37]So right, you see people out in the bound, and they'll say, oh my gosh, it looks like from
[3:42]Instagram, like, you're doing all the things, you're in all the places, and that blocks
[3:45]you from actually being able to say, how you really are, because what are you going to
[3:51]do to negate yourself, you know, or say, oh no, those images are fake, right?
[3:56]It's a very delicate dance, and it's, I think, with the pandemic, a silver lining is that
[4:04]people are a little bit more tuned to saying, but are you really okay, you know what's
[4:08]really going on?
[4:09]And I'm happy to see that shift, but yeah, certainly people, I, you know, I think really
[4:19]you're that we have a lot in common, like, I'm a taskmaster, I do the things, I time management
[4:24]really well, and it wasn't convenient for a lot of people in my life for me to fall apart.
[4:31]So they kind of decided not to see it.
[4:35]Okay, first of all, you're a childhood, so you grew up in Greenwich, and your dad was
[4:42]on Wall Street in the city, and you went to Greenwich Academy or something like that.
[4:47]Oh, whole thing, yeah.
[4:48]Oh my gosh, and you owned a horse, and well, I thought we owned a horse, but it turned
[4:53]out it was a lease, but yeah, so I feel like that's the same, whatever, partial lease
[4:59]up piece.
[5:00]Yeah.
[5:01]So I'm like, I don't even know what your time is, but fine.
[5:03]Yeah, it was still very fortunate, privileged childhood, yeah.
[5:07]And yet there was so much that was going on, like in every family, like that doesn't
[5:12]protect you from everything.
[5:13]The story about your brother, well, his health issues, and the moment in the pool where
[5:18]you found him sort of floating in the pool and resuscitated him with his seizures and everything,
[5:22]and you know, you explain later what they found out about his dual sort of heart condition
[5:26]or whatever it was actually causing it, but that you felt this need to be this perfectionist
[5:31]while your brother was really suffering.
[5:33]And I feel like that often happens when there's a problem, right, that some child that
[5:38]soaks up all the attention, or maybe you were just going to be like that anyway.
[5:42]But I don't know, speak about him growing up with him, like your whole family dynamic
[5:50]and how it had to sort of take that, the bounce and the, yeah, my brother's health
[5:57]issues started to manifest when he was just turning five and I was about nine, which coincided
[6:04]with the dissolution of my parents' marriage, which I was not a coincidence.
[6:09]My dad only wanted one child, you know, has five, but he really did, you know, he wanted
[6:17]one kid and my mom fought and fought, she really wanted a second child.
[6:23]By the time my brother's health issues began, my dad was just, you know, checked out
[6:30]in many, in many ways, and he, it's like hard to speak about because it was so
[6:39]opaque back then the best doctors in the country could not figure out what was going on
[6:44]when my brother kept having these sudden cardiac arrests, you know, which is a five,
[6:50]six, seven year old is incredibly dangerous and rare.
[6:54]And he was, my mom more or less moved into this hotel room by the Yale New Haven children's
[7:01]hospital.
[7:02]And, you know, I was alone a lot, I stayed with friends, I eventually ended up moving
[7:09]into my father's house in high school and my brother's health had just completely deteriorated.
[7:16]And I don't know, I just self-sufficiency to me became absolutely crucial.
[7:23]It was the only way I could see to go forward.
[7:25]I mean, I, when I moved in with my dad, he lived in this development called Conyers Farm,
[7:30]which is actually where the Greenwich Polo Club is.
[7:33]And, you know, my friends were really far away, but I couldn't stand.
[7:37]She just been locked up in this house.
[7:39]My dad was never there.
[7:41]I didn't know where he was and I started the longest and it's biking.
[7:46]I, my dad, I credit him for this.
[7:49]I really do.
[7:50]He wouldn't give me an allowance.
[7:51]You know, it's a Greenwich in the 80s.
[7:53]My friends were very fancy and I talk about this in the book that going out for sushi,
[7:56]they're doing all these things.
[7:58]And I wanted to at least be at the table, right?
[8:01]The literally, so I started, I think my first job was when I was 13 and I always had
[8:06]a job, which was very unusual in my social circle and that, the feeling that if I can
[8:15]rely on myself emotionally, financially, professionally, that'll be okay, has never left
[8:22]me.
[8:23]And that's what made my unraveling so hard for me because I was in denial about it myself
[8:29]because I'd always just risen to the occasion.
[8:32]You know, no matter what, I'd worked through it, I'm a solution finder.
[8:37]That's sort of my forte and I fell apart, you know, and it seemed like the only one
[8:44]who could pick me back up was, was me.
[8:47]Well, it turned out to be horses, but that took me a while, so it's that, and oh, my wonderful
[8:53]man, Joe, young Joe, the world's youngest therapist.
[9:01]You wrote about your struggle with anorexia, how it wasn't even really addressed or
[9:08]called that.
[9:09]It was just like whatever, you know, like people just praised you for it or ignored it
[9:16]or, and you had a line later where you said, you know, if my daughter were to go into
[9:21]her room at five o'clock every night, any grape nuts, and that's it.
[9:24]Like I would throw myself at her feet or like make her do this and back then that's just
[9:29]like what happened.
[9:30]Nobody even noticed, and then of course there were surges later, tell me a little more
[9:35]about that.
[9:36]Yeah.
[9:37]I mean, that I think to me that section of the book or those sections remain the hardest
[9:42]for me because, you know, I write about this moment in the book when my, the world's youngest
[9:47]and smartest therapist, Joe.
[9:50]It's really trying to encourage me to understand that, you know, I did have reasons to be sad
[9:55]that there was emotional neglect in my childhood, which I was just really like, no.
[10:00]I wasn't neglected, they gave me everything and he brought up this question of the anorexia
[10:06]and it opened up this Pandora's box where I thought like, no, I wasn't hiding it from anyone.
[10:11]They just decided not to say anything except for, you know, I think there's two people in the book
[10:16]who say something. You know, the wound reopened because I shared this book with my family
[10:21]and their reaction was just like, God, what was what was in the water in the 1980s
[10:31]and Greenwich, Connecticut? You know, my mom was like, I don't know, I thought you were just a
[10:36]picky eater and I didn't want to call you out on it. You know, you were so kind of, I don't know,
[10:43]difficult in those days. And then my stepmother, I sat her down and said, you know, you're
[10:50]going to read some material because honestly, the house we lived in was just so big that it
[10:54]was hard to know what anyone was doing and any given time. So I thought, well, maybe they just,
[10:58]maybe they think I'm having a banquet or something. And she, you know, I sat her down and I said,
[11:04]you know, there'll be some material in this that you might not be aware of and I get into the
[11:10]disordered eating. I struggled with it without even reading it. She said, oh, we knew you were
[11:16]anorexic. What? Yeah. So no follow up. You know, so that's fine. I'll sit with that. You know,
[11:25]I'll sit with that, right? We have things in our families that will never be tied up with a
[11:30]bow or we all have our stuff. But that didn't feel great. It doesn't feel great. But, you know,
[11:37]the gift of motherhood, if one is the chooses that path is that I can try to course correct
[11:45]for my own child if she, you know, encounters whatever it is, right? Be a little more in her face
[11:53]and annoy the hell out of her and, you know, just watch out for these things. I mean, we're living
[11:59]in a different time, even the language that we use to talk about things, the fact that, you know,
[12:04]like my daughter can choose from a variety of genders. And you know, she thinks they're
[12:11]things are different. And so I think, um, I hope that she's growing up with a, a community of,
[12:17]of friends who will have the courage to say to her if anything ever went wrong, whatever it is,
[12:24]to call her out on it and open up, you know, have a hard discussion instead of just this
[12:29]toxic silence, which is so, it's so American. You know, because if this had been happening,
[12:38]now I'm married to a Frenchman and I can tell you whatever I go back to visit his family,
[12:46]my family now, but, you know, if I've gained an ounce lost a pound, like I'm going to hear about it,
[12:54]French people, my mother-in-law, who I just love, I love so much. She's never greeted me without
[13:00]saying like, oh, you looked tired, you know, or like the taking stock of the other person's
[13:07]appearance and calling them out on stuff is, um, very French. So, you know, I do think, I do
[13:13]think it's a, it's a, listen, it's not great, right, to walk around and comment on people's bodies
[13:19]and stuff. But there is, I think, a dangerous middle zone where, especially now, like I,
[13:27]you know, we're starting to get back out in the world and seeing people haven't seen in a long
[13:30]time and some bodies have changed, right? Some people have gained quite a lot of weight,
[13:36]some have lost a lot of weight, some look bloated from what definitely, as a daughter of
[13:40]alcoholics, looks to me like alcoholism. And, you know, it's hard to gauge, it's hard to gauge
[13:48]when you just sense with people that something's off. If I push, if I press, if I try to find
[13:54]what's going on, will the day I'm break, you know, in a way that's going to flood everything or
[14:00]it's this a welcome intrusion that these are navigational, emotional navigational skills that
[14:08]we're not really taught. I mean, especially those, well, I shouldn't generalize, but I'll speak
[14:14]about my own experience growing, growing up in Connecticut, you know, the given example was to
[14:20]sweep things under the rug to be good at everything, be fun, be up for everything and, you know,
[14:28]land a banker husband and learn how to throw great dinner party and, you know, whatever was
[14:35]happening on the side, the prescription pill bottles, the vodka, all that stuff, like, it's just
[14:42]not talk about it, you know, it was very up-dike. Wow. Wait, let's go back to what you said a second
[14:48]ago about sleep, because that was also a big thing. I mean, you had serious serious insomnia,
[14:54]and I mean, the way you described it with like this gray pal or you got in the, you know,
[15:01]anger, I mean, sleep, when you're sleep deprived, we'll just talk about it and all. Well, yeah,
[15:06]I mean, the, so I have had chronic insomnia since the unfortunate age of seven, and it gets really
[15:14]triggered in changes in habits, so like travel or when I was younger, it would manifest with
[15:21]sleepovers or social, too much social interaction gets me a little jazzed up, and it's basically
[15:28]an electrical current. I can't turn off periods of anxiety. I mean, there's lots of things that
[15:34]fuel up my insomnia, but during the year that I write about in the book, I mean, I still don't
[15:43]know exactly what led to it. I mean, I saw a lot of doctors. I saw a lot of holistic practitioners.
[15:49]I was in adrenal almost failure. So there was definitely some hormonal issues, but I stopped sleeping
[15:56]for almost for like two and a half, almost three months. And, you know, I would get 45 minutes
[16:03]here and there and two hours that even sleeping medications weren't working. Nothing could get me
[16:11]to sleep. I mean, people gave me all kinds of, I have beautiful friends here where I live who
[16:15]were running around with little ziplocks, going to all the people and gathering up all different
[16:20]kinds of pills for me to try. And I mean, I tried hardcore stuff and nothing was working. It was like
[16:27]this, I don't know if I was trying to break myself to like maybe fully collapse so that some other
[16:33]people in my life would kind of rise up and help or what. But you know, so whenever I talk about this
[16:37]book, I do always say it was an insomnia-fueled depression because it did not come out of nowhere.
[16:43]When I sleep properly, I have a very positive outlook and I always have. But that precipice for me
[16:51]is always really close. And it's like, you know, I don't think I'll ever beat beat it. It's still my
[16:58]insomnia makes it really hard for me to accept invitations to teach. You know, at like summer writing
[17:05]workshops or to apply to retreats myself because I know if I stay home with my
[17:12]schedule that I'll be able to work, I'll be able to write, I'll be a decent version of myself
[17:17]but I can't guarantee that if I go away, it makes me nervous about travel. I do it, do it anyway.
[17:23]I love to travel. But, you know, I do a lot of research to try to figure out, you know,
[17:28]are we going to end up next to a noisy? You know, it's a real, it's a chronic illness. It's
[17:34]something that I just have to roll with but I have to really, really watch out for not going past
[17:40]that point of social stimulation that flicks the switch and makes it impossible even with
[17:46]medication to turn it off. But, but yeah, the year of the horses is very much about how
[17:53]among all the different things I was trying acupuncture, talk therapy, couples therapy,
[18:00]massage, different forms of exercise. Many antidepressants, it was returning to this childhood
[18:07]passion of mine that that gave me a way out, you know, and I still, I joke with my editorial
[18:14]team now, like, I'll require a horse at every, on every book tour, please, because it has become
[18:22]sort of an emotional sport thing for me. No, I love how you said how it was so obvious to you that you
[18:29]had to manipulate your own energy levels to calm down the horse, right? And like, you know,
[18:35]breathing, even just like calming down your breathing, how that was such a profound effect and like,
[18:40]you had no choice or else you would be scaring the horse. Right. And you would, especially if you
[18:44]were on the horse and you get on and you're blocking your breath and you have your shoulders raised,
[18:48]which is just my, my go to duo, right, stop breathing, raise my shoulders, tense, the horse goes into
[18:55]flight, not fight, flight, and they bolt or they rear or they spin really quickly and throw you off
[19:03]because you're saying to them, be very, very afraid. And they say of what? And you, as an anxious,
[19:10]you know, depressed person says, I don't know. I don't know what to be afraid of, which makes it even
[19:15]scarier. So facing the fears that are inherent with horseback riding has literally been the most
[19:24]powerful and obvious healing for me because now when, you know, the way I've trained myself now,
[19:33]because I do want to keep riding. I want to not overcome my fears, but learn how to meet them better,
[19:39]right? So if I'm on horse now and I see, for example, oh gosh, someone's redoing their roof down the
[19:46]the road and there's weird things flying up, blue tarp, flapping around. It's my job to really
[19:55]lower my heart rate, start breathing, have a heavier body and just let the horse
[20:00]Just know like, hey, you're gonna feel a little jittery,
[20:02]but I'm here and I'm calm and I've got you.
[20:05]And I'm truly able to carry that over now in a way
[20:09]where I wasn't before.
[20:10]So like, for example, I have a book coming,
[20:14]the moment at which you and I are speaking my books
[20:17]about a week out from publication.
[20:19]And you know, if I remember how I was with my second book,
[20:23]a week out, I mean, I was awful.
[20:27]I was a wreck.
[20:28]I was doing such terrible things.
[20:31]So seeing how other people's books were performing,
[20:34]you know, it just felt like it's my book or nothing else.
[20:38]And I so self-concerned and anxious and jealous
[20:46]and like just not in a positive space.
[20:48]I felt very desperate, you know, about that publication
[20:52]because with my first book,
[20:53]you don't know what the heck to expect.
[20:54]So it's a very nice place to be.
[20:56]The second I think is the hardest
[20:58]because I had a nice go with my first book, right?
[21:02]And now I have to say, you know,
[21:05]some of it's just maturity,
[21:06]but a lot of it is really thanks to the writing
[21:10]because I just now am able to truly look
[21:13]at the weeks ahead and say, okay,
[21:15]here's what I can control and here's what I can't.
[21:19]And here's the energy I have and the emotional resources
[21:23]I have and here's where I can expand them
[21:25]and here's where I can,
[21:27]and it's just everything feels a lot more simple
[21:30]and when things start to feel not simple and frenetic,
[21:33]I just think I literally picture myself in front of a horse
[21:38]with the ears before in the middle or back.
[21:40]And if the answer is back, which means
[21:43]you're making me really anxious
[21:45]and this is a visualization activity I do all the time.
[21:49]It's intrinsic to me now, I just changed my posture
[21:52]and I change my breathing
[21:54]and I become heavier in my body
[21:57]and I calm myself down and I am able now to do that.
[22:00]I just still have the wakeups in the middle of the night
[22:02]but I used to spiral completely into this swamp
[22:07]of like anxiety, it's just the two a and the four a.m.
[22:10]wake us, I would just lose my mind, you know?
[22:13]Like, oh my God, I won't be able to function
[22:16]and I'll be late with my book deal.
[22:17]You just start going into these crazy avenues of anxiety
[22:22]and I do this visualization,
[22:25]I'll wake up in two in the morning and think,
[22:26]okay, that's all right.
[22:27]You still have many, many hours in front of you
[22:30]before you need to be awake.
[22:32]Like, I breathe, I picture the horse,
[22:34]I try to imagine the horse's smell
[22:36]and generally it works.
[22:39]It's, you know, and I'm just so grateful to have to to have that.
[22:47]Amazing.
[22:49]I have like a bizillion more questions
[22:50]but what, what book, what are you working on now?
[22:53]Do you have another novel coming or what are you,
[22:55]what are you doing?
[22:56]I feel like you always have a million projects.
[22:57]Well, I do, I do usually have a million projects
[23:00]and I started up two different projects
[23:03]before it kind of really went into pre-publication mode.
[23:06]One was a proposal, non-fiction proposal
[23:10]and the other was a novel
[23:10]and I was like full steam ahead on both.
[23:13]And then I just reached a point honestly Zebbi
[23:15]where I thought, oh my God, screw it.
[23:17]This time, I don't know what's next
[23:19]and I'm just gonna enjoy, well, excuse the pun, the ride.
[23:24]I wanna go out, I'm so lucky that my publisher
[23:28]independent publisher is sending me on tour.
[23:31]I'm just gonna be centered and invest myself
[23:35]in this journey and take some time off.
[23:40]You know, I've had a book come out every two years since 2014.
[23:44]Honestly, it's so hard to have a book out right now
[23:46]that you do sometimes wonder why the hell am I going to say?
[23:50]You know, it works so hard and you have such an amazing
[23:54]editorial team and you sell 45 copies and, you know, that's nice.
[23:58]So I'm gonna try to hustle slightly less.
[24:03]I'm gonna try and maybe it won't work.
[24:05]And then see, I don't know.
[24:06]I've got a bunch of different ideas
[24:08]but I'd like to have an actual summer.
[24:12]You know, I'd like to have a lazy summer,
[24:13]one of those summers where you just, you feel bored.
[24:16]Like I would love to have some boredom in my life.
[24:18]Yeah, so we'll see.
[24:21]And then, you know, I'm gonna try to not be hurried
[24:24]and pick up, I'll do something
[24:26]but I haven't decided on the direction.
[24:30]So we'll see.
[24:31]I love it.
[24:32]I, you know, even your whole demeanor is feeling
[24:36]like very in control and intentional
[24:39]and mindful and all the right things, you know.
[24:42]Well, that's thanks to the horses
[24:43]because I know that people have told me like,
[24:48]oh my God, when I first met you, years ago like,
[24:52]you were too much.
[24:53]I didn't think, actually Tony Perez at Tinhouse
[24:56]who he's no longer, I mean, he's sort of an editor at large
[25:01]but I had like a editor, you know,
[25:02]when I went to the Tinhouse Writers Workshop as a student,
[25:06]I did one of those sit downs with a gatekeeper, right?
[25:08]And he was the gatekeeper as an editor of Tinhouse and he told
[25:12]me later because we became friends.
[25:14]He was like, oh my God, you were exhausting.
[25:17]Your energy was like the tsunami
[25:19]and I thought this is just the worst person in the world.
[25:22]And he said, now you're one of my favorite people
[25:23]but you know that, that energy management like,
[25:27]it's something also, I'm getting better at not as good
[25:31]as I am with the horses but with my child
[25:33]who in the book I really work through like,
[25:36]or show I think the reader,
[25:38]how my distraction and anxiety and worry
[25:41]was imprinting on my child
[25:45]who as a two and a three-year-old she was just constantly crying
[25:50]and kicking and having temper tantrums only with me
[25:52]now with my husband.
[25:54]And now it's the same thing, like with her,
[25:57]again, I don't always master this,
[25:58]but I find if I'm in that crazy place,
[26:02]if I'm in that crazy pre-pub space
[26:04]where you have to be on all the platforms,
[26:05]you have to respond to everything
[26:06]and set up the Facebook invitations to your events
[26:09]and you know, you've been there.
[26:11]I need to do that away from her.
[26:13]She does not need that whirlpool around her.
[26:18]You know, and I try, I try.
[26:20]I think I nail it maybe two days out of the week
[26:23]but two, if I wanna come receptive, loving child,
[26:29]I need to present that front myself
[26:32]and I find that in my friendships now
[26:35]and like this is all, thanks slightly to Joe.
[26:39]Got to give Joe credit.
[26:41]World's youngest therapist and to the horses.
[26:44]I was not able, I used to think that my frenetic energy
[26:48]was like fun and alluring, you know?
[26:51]And it's not that I'm denying my true self.
[26:53]It's just that manic energy can make other people
[26:58]feel manic, you know, and that can be fun.
[27:00]If you're, you know, there's time and a place
[27:02]for very high up energy, but I now better realize
[27:06]or better see, I can see it, like a force field.
[27:09]I can see because of the horses,
[27:11]they've trained me to see it.
[27:12]What my energy is doing to other people.
[27:15]Like you've harnessed it, either.
[27:17]Yeah, yeah, but you know, that's the thing about,
[27:20]it's a non-verbal communication,
[27:23]which I always believe in.
[27:24]But when you stand in front of a horse
[27:28]and see their ears pinned back for no other reason than you,
[27:32]whatever it is you're bringing is making them pin their ears,
[27:37]which is the only time the horses look unattractive.
[27:40]And you do whatever you need to do, loosen up your shoulders
[27:43]and breathe and then watch the ears go forward.
[27:47]That's better than any couples counseling I ever invested in,
[27:50]you know, like it's pretty quick.
[27:52]You don't even need a riding lesson, you know?
[27:55]Yeah, just need to get in front of a horse.
[27:57]Now don't, don't, don't take that to go trespassing
[28:00]on other people's farms because the liability is,
[28:03]but equine therapy is real, very powerful.
[28:09]And it works for, it works for some people
[28:13]who are unable to find solace in therapies
[28:18]that work very well for other people.
[28:20]It's been tremendously beneficial for war veterans
[28:28]who just don't have the language, perhaps,
[28:31]because they've been kind of raised in the military sphere
[28:36]to not talk about things and to just follow orders
[28:39]and asking someone who, you know,
[28:43]came up in that kind of environment to talk to someone
[28:48]on a couch and to pay them to listen,
[28:51]like for a lot of people, that just doesn't work.
[28:53]And for me, I have to say again, I love Joe with all my heart
[28:57]and I'm so lucky to have found him.
[29:00]My 23-year-old psychologist,
[29:03]but I will say it was so resistant to therapy
[29:07]because I've always been able to sort things out myself
[29:10]and I would just think, go for a run, write a short story,
[29:14]figure it out and move on, like you're gonna pay someone
[29:16]to listen to you, you know, you're friends.
[29:18]But, you know, sometimes you do need to pay someone
[29:24]to whatever, touch your head, rub shoulders,
[29:28]hug you, there's a reason that professional
[29:32]cuddlers exist, right?
[29:33]Yeah, it goes back to your novel touch.
[29:36]Yeah.
[29:37]I think the importance of that.
[29:38]Well, you know, I feel like a lot of your earlier life,
[29:42]not even so earlier.
[29:43]I feel like you've been crying out your behaviors
[29:47]have been one of these like cries for help in a way
[29:51]and yet still, they're not heard.
[29:54]Yeah.
[29:55]It's like, what do you do when you're,
[29:57]when you're last-ditch efforts to get a t-
[30:00]tension, fail.
[30:02]And what happens is you pick yourself up
[30:05]and you learn how to see yourself,
[30:06]which is what you did.
[30:07]And it's really amazing and inspiring.
[30:09]So I think it's really cool.
[30:11]And it's a great lesson for other people
[30:13]to find whatever their thing is and realize
[30:16]that sometimes we can't rely on the people
[30:19]who maybe we want to come forward for us,
[30:21]but it's something that has to come through from ourselves.
[30:24]That's true.
[30:25]And also I think it's hard,
[30:28]especially for women who are socialized
[30:30]to just kind of do all the things and spin all the plates.
[30:34]But sometimes we have to ask for help,
[30:39]actually use our words and ask for help.
[30:41]And then forgive people if the help doesn't show up
[30:45]in the way that our type A brains wanted it,
[30:48]that's something I still struggle with with my husband.
[30:51]Like Mother's Day is approaching, right?
[30:53]So I have very specific ideas of what I would like him
[30:57]to show up for me that day.
[31:01]And now I'm presented with choice.
[31:03]I can either tell him flat out or hope
[31:07]that he'll get my secret, right?
[31:09]Yeah, and beat his point.
[31:11]So looking back now if I had the courage and less shame,
[31:20]I wish I'd just gone on the phone with a friend
[31:23]and said, hey, I need you to drive out for the weekend
[31:25]with like 10 boxes of mac and cheese.
[31:28]And I don't know, tequila or I need a hug or, you know?
[31:34]And instead of these vague, like, oh, I'm okay.
[31:38]I don't really busy.
[31:42]These are code words.
[31:44]So if people can start using their words
[31:47]and not, you know, it can seem embarrassing,
[31:50]but you gotta help people to help you.
[31:53]So if you tell someone, I'm really struggling,
[31:56]oh, well, what can I do?
[31:59]Nothing.
[31:59]Well, that's not helpful actually.
[32:01]So say to someone, I'm really struggling.
[32:04]How could I help?
[32:05]It would be an enormous help if you could clean my bathroom.
[32:09]I don't know, right?
[32:10]Like, it would be an enormous,
[32:11]I just need someone to watch Netflix with me tonight.
[32:14]Sometimes it seems very small things, yeah.
[32:17]And that makes the person helping feel so good too.
[32:19]Like, how do you, I mean, do what she write them?
[32:22]It's so hard when you're faced with a depressed person,
[32:26]and they don't know what they need.
[32:28]And you don't know how it's very overwhelming, right?
[32:30]So let help people help you.
[32:35]Courtney, thank you.
[32:36]I personally have known you, you know,
[32:39]I wouldn't say superficially, but, you know,
[32:41]the way they know each other.
[32:42]Now there's like this whole new level.
[32:44]And I'm just so glad you shared it.
[32:47]It's amazing.
[32:48]It's, anyway, thank you.
[32:50]And well, thank you for taking the time to read my,
[32:55]my memoir and share it with audiences so appreciating.
[32:58]So it's kind of when it arrived in them.
[33:01]Anyway, it's great to thank you.
[33:02]Thank you, Zibi, for your time.
[33:04]And of course.
[33:05]Good luck.
[33:06]And stay calm.
[33:07]And, you know, I love your board summer idea.
[33:10]I love it.
[33:11]I just love it.
[33:12]I hope that's, yeah, it's goals.
[33:13]Hashtag goals.
[33:14]Hashtag goals.
[33:15]Hashtag board.
[33:16]I wish you a little board into somewhere, Zibi.
[33:20]I'll get there.
[33:21]Thank you very much.
[33:22]Bye-bye.
[33:23]Bye-bye.
[33:25]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens.
[33:26]And you're listening to the award-winning podcast.
[33:28]Moms don't have time to read books.
[33:30]If you like this podcast, you will love my new anthology
[33:33]called Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids.
[33:36]Check it out and you'll hear from 49 authors
[33:38]about all sorts of things.
[33:39]Moms don't have time to do.
[33:41]All the authors have been on this podcast.
[33:43]Also, check out my TikTok at with Zibi and Tracy.
[33:46]My other podcast, Sex Talk with Zibi and Tracy.
[33:49]Check out Moms Don't Have Time to Write on Medium.
[33:51]And, of course, my new publishing company called Zibi Books.
[33:55]And now back to our daily author interview site
[33:58]and a quick hello from some of my kids.
[34:00]Hi, hi, hello.
[34:01]Enjoy the show.