Michael talks to Courtney Cook about borderline personality disorder in her life and the media, her path to publishing her first graphic memoir with Tin House, dealing with the vulnerability and secrets in autobiographical books in real life, and more.
Michael talks to Courtney Cook about borderline personality disorder in her life and the media, her path to publishing her first graphic memoir with Tin House, dealing with the vulnerability and secrets in autobiographical books in real life, and more.
Courtney Cooks’s personal essays have been published by outlets such as The Guardian, The Rumpus, Hobart, Lunch Ticket, and Split Lip Magazine. And her graphic memoir, THE WAY SHE FEELS: MY LIFE ON THE BORDERLINE IN PICTURES AND PIECES, is out today from Tin House.
Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.
Michael Wheaton 00:06
Welcome back to The Lives of Writers, a podcast presented by Autofocus, an online lit mag dedicated to artful autobiographical writing, which you can read today at autofoculit.com and follow on Twitter and Instagram: @autofocuslit. I'm the publisher and editor of Autofocus, Michael Wheaton. Today on the show, I talk with Courtney Cook. Courtney Cook's personal essays have been published by outlets such as The Guardian, The Rumpus, Hobart, Lunch Ticket, and Split Lip Magazine. And her graphic memoir, The Way She Feels: My Life on the Borderline in Pictures and Pieces is out today from Tin House. Alright, let's get to it. This is my conversation with Courtney Cook.
Courtney Cook 00:49
...if that mix of bright and cheery colors with talk of wanting to die isn't gonna work for you, maybe my book isn't for you. And that's totally cool, you know.
Michael Wheaton 01:05
I want to talk a little bit about the first piece in the book, "The Blow Dryer Is Full of Souls and Other Facts in Lists." I actually first read that on Split Lip. I loved it by itself, but in the book as the first piece, it just works so well. Because throughout the book in the other essays, you kind of take things that like stick out in those lists, like, Oh, that's so interesting, and then eventually, there might be an essay about it, or an essay will kind of mention something and go into something from that. And it, you know, creates this kind of beautiful cohesion in it. But you know, one thing in the in the lists that also works so well for the book is the tone of it, even though it's humoristic, the tone of it is so distanced and like clinical, and it's just so perfect for the book because it's about... that piece particularly gives you kind of the overview of like the diagnoses that you've had. Like when, I think it was like 13, I think I wrote down, when you were diagnosed with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.
Courtney Cook 02:13
Yeah. And they speculated that I had BPD, but it didn't come to full diagnosis for 10 years.
Michael Wheaton 02:20
Yeah, I think it said 23, right. But one thing in that piece where you talk about when you were born, and your skull gets crushed in like five places from mismatch forceps. It's like, you're rolling along in this piece, and it's like, Lexapro's fun, INFP, and then it dips into the real issue. Then all of a sudden this comes in. And it's like you're searching for like... is this the reason or not? And when I read that thing about how doctors didn't collectively agree that babies had the capacity to feel pain until like 12 months or whatever, and they believed that until 1999, I was like, What?
Courtney Cook 03:08
Yeah, I was also very horrified by that. Yeah, obviously there were some doctors who were like, Yeah, for sure. But there were, I think, there's some people who were just like, No, that can't work. It's a very odd thing. Especially because 1999 isn't that long ago.
Michael Wheaton 03:24
And it was 1995 it said, when you were born. And so you had the neurosurgery. And then they didn't give you the morphine for pain. Or they said, you got Tylenol for like two days and then nothing. And then you kind of put in layman's terms, how that could effect someone, which I wrote it down. It's like, "Persistent, unmanaged pain fundamentally changes the way the body perceives stimuli, painful or not. And these changes can last long into adulthood, rewiring the sufferer's brain." And I think that's like, Man, that fact must be really something to contend with. I mean, I guess in a way, it doesn't matter, right? It happened. And...
Courtney Cook 04:07
Yeah, it is odd, though. I mean, I think grappling with... I feel like I think about this stuff constantly, not only in this regard, but I live off a really busy street, for instance, and I'm right beside a taco restaurant, and people know that things are reopening or leaving very drunk very loudly at night, and it bugs me and I'm like, Oh, I wish... I'd originally wanted to live in a different neighborhood in Chicago, but then I chose the one I'm in because I felt like it was more centrally located. And now of course, I spent all my time in the neighborhood I wanted to live in, and I'm like, Oh, it's so annoying. I wish I'd done with that. But like, I met my boyfriend, he was a TaskRabbit I hired to hang pictures on my wall. And then I go like, Oh, but if I hadn't moved here, maybe he wouldn't have been my TaskRabbit and I'm really happy with that... qnd so I do things like this constnatly. I'm like, Oh, but what if I didn't do this? But then I'm like, you know, nothing I guess can... the butterfly effect blah blah... nothing can exist without the first thing existing. So it is odd to think who could I have been if this hadn't happened? Or what would my brain chemistry have been like? Because my family has a very deep history of extreme anxiety, OCD, depression, different ways those things manifest, but mine has been the really loud one. While many people have it, obviously, it's all bad, there's no competition of who's is worse, but mine has definitely proved difficult. And so it is strange to think like, Oh, if this one thing didn't happen, maybe I could be completely different. And that's also strange to think about for me. I grappled a lot when I was first diagnosed with borderline, because it is a personality disorder. I was like, I want to get better. And I want to heal and whatever that looks like, but if it's a personality disorder, how do I extract myself from that? And what characteristics are me and what is borderline? And is there even a distinct difference in that? It's still off, I think, sometimes to try to figure out,. Yeah that essay where I'm like, I wish I could look in the mirror and point to the part of me that's broken or the part of me that's the thing that needs removing, like an appendix that's gonna burst or something. But it's all I don't know. It's all mishmashed. It's something.
Michael Wheaton 06:43
Yeah, and there's the piece in the book that is kind of the origin story for how the book came about. Where you, I forget the exact title, but you're Googling borderline personality disorder, and you're like...
Courtney Cook 06:58
Yeah, it's "I Googled Borderline Personality Disorder and I Wanted to Run for the Hills."
Michael Wheaton 07:02
Yeah, and it talks about how it's been represented in media. And then in a way you're like, Okay, well, I'm going to participate in this discourse here and try to get the stigma off of it and kind of set... you know, some of the realities, and I think you do a really great job of that. But I was wondering if you couldtalk a little bit about some of the places you've seen borderline in the media, maybe recently and what you see going on there. Do you see representations getting better?
Courtney Cook 07:45
I think I've been disappointed recently like... so Claudia Conway, who is...
Michael Wheaton 07:55
Oh, Kellyanne?
Courtney Cook 07:56
Kellyanne Conway, there we go. So Kellyanne and Claudia have had a very public feud. Probably partially, Claudia is 15 or 16, and going through it, just as we all do at 15 and 16, butting heads with our parents, exacerbated by the fact that Claudia is a hardcore leftist. And her mom was working for Trump. And there was just a lot of strife there. And Claudia has said that her mom is abusive, and provided evidence that seems to definitely suggest that and, I'm trying to use like legal terms, like no one's been proven anything, but when Claudia was posting about the hardships and abuse that she was facing, many people were like, Well, this is clear borderline behavior, and asserting that that's why Kellyanne is abusive or acting the way she does. And it's a bummer to see people try to support one person by putting down a large community of other people, especially because many people with borderline have a trauma or a series of traumas that have kind of exacerbated this fear of abandonment and these feelings of not being good enough. And, like anything that goes along with borderline and obviously it must be somewhat biological and chemical and somewhat environment-based and who knows how it comes about, but many people have had extreme hardship and so to know that people are suffering and living with something that's really difficult, and although I wanted to portray my experience with BPD in my book as authentic to what my life is, and that it's not all awful and it's not all bad and they're certainly happy and funny moments, but it would also be untrue or like equally as untrue to say it isn't really tough a lot of the time. And so I don't know, it bums me out when people are like, Oh, someone's an abuser, they must have borderline, because many people who have borderline were abused themselves, or even if not abused, it comes from a place of deep hurt. And so you don't need to rub salt in the wound, I guess. But also, so borderline is in a, it's called Cluster B, personality disorders. It's the way they're grouped. And I think Custer A is like schizoaffective disorder and things along that realm. And Cluster B effects emotions and perceptions of self. And so the categorization totally makes sense when you break it down like that. But the other things in that category are narcissistic personality disorder and I believe what we colloquially call being a sociopath, and having an inability to feel empathy. And I'm hesitant to claim any mental illness or any thing that someone might be dealing with as inherently bad, because everyone's dealt a card, and even if you don't naturally have the ability to feel empathy, that's not to say you're innately awful, like I'm sure as many people learn to adapt to what is going on, I'm sure there are great people who live with that. But it is disappointing when I... the purpose of my book, I guess, is to try and eliminate some of these stigmas that I'm talking about. And then if you look up my book, the algorithm on \wherever suggests like Escaping Narcissistic Borderline Abuse, How to Divorce a Borderline Wife, like How to Heal from the Borderline Narcissistic Abuse from People with No Empathy. And I'm like, wow, if that isn' the exact reason why I wrote this, I don't know what is. Yeah, it makes sense if you're a robot, and you're like, Oh, Cluster B, okay, we're putting these together. But--and I haven't read those books, maybe they're really helpful for people who have undergone terrible things from terrible people. But I just don't think that... I would be hesitant to say like any disorder means you're inherently bad or something. And when I say hesistant, I mean, I don't think that. It definitely comes up. And I do think there's been more, I guess, acceptance or kindness towards people who have any sort of mental illness. But there certainly a faster pace of normalization or acceptance, or even tolerance when it comes to anxiety or depression or things that I always say are more palatable or maybe easier to understand. Because I think people can... it makes sense, probably. If you're someone who has never felt depressed, but had a day where you were really bummed and couldn't get out of bed, it's probably easier to say, like, I get how that could be a bummer if it was like continuing, or like, I felt anxious over things, so I can see how that would really suck if that was like your constant state. But I think for things that are scarier, because they're less understood or they probably don't happen in like a microcosm in that way. Like I haven't been affected by you know, if I was seeing things that weren't there, hearing things that weren't there, but because I could imagine that would be a lot harder if you haven't experienced it to fathom even what that would be like that. That fear based reaction is what probably I think creates the terrible perception of those disorders, that class, or whatever it might be, just like when you can't even put yourself in their shoes a little bit, then it creates this big thing. And so I write in the book, you can sympathize or empathize with people who have depression or anxiety, but it's harder to be like, yeah, I use this example. Like my friends ran into each other at CVS and I suddenly thought everyone hated me and tha5 I was an awful person. And people are like, Well, that doesn't make sense. And it's like, yes, but that also doesn't mean I didn't feel that way. And yeah, in instances where it's harder to understand, it's a lot harder to extend that kindness to people and so I'm glad that we're making strides decidedly to accept and understand, or even if we can't understand, just acknowledge that people are dealing with these things and they're not bad people because of it, but it is... There are some things that are moving at a certainly a different pace than others.
Michael Wheaton 15:19
I think part of it also is it's largely been invisible as a topic of discussion in our culture. And like you said, you wish you could look in the mirror and kind of isolate it, or something. And so I think it's something that people have heard the term borderline personality disorder, but they have no idea what it is.And you wouldn't... you might know someone who has it, and you could have no absolute idea, or how it affects them, and when and why. And so I think part of what's great about your book is it gives a human face, a very human face, to something that a lot of people have maybe heard of, but don't really understand. Like I enjoyed reading the book for many reasons, but I also was informed.
Courtney Cook 16:11
Yeah, that was definitely a goal to educate, at least somewhat. I'm not trying to be the face of anything, or say this is exactly...
Michael Wheaton 16:21
Oh I didn't mean...
Courtney Cook 16:22
No, I know. But I think sometimes people think that I am the face of borderline or everyone experiences this in the way that I do. And I don't think anything is experienced, in the same way, like my depression looks different than someone else's depression, just as my anxiety does, or just my humor, and what I think is really nice... everything's different depending on the person. And so I had a Goodreads review where someone said I decided not to buy this for my friends with BPD because I don't think that they'd... like this isn't how they experienced BPD. And I was like, One, that's totally fine. You don't have to buy it for your friends with BPD. But also, I have never made the claim that everyone experiences it in the way that I do. And I don't want it to be like a how-to manual or like this is exactly what it's like. And it's a memoir, so it is going to talk about my stuff, but I wanted on the same hand, it's like I don't want to say this is how it is. But also I want to say this is how it is for me. And in that I think hopefully anyone, even if you don't have BPD, can catch glimmers of themselves in it, just even if you don't have mental illness, I'd hope, Oh, yeah, it was really hard to be 13 and not know where I fit in the world, or like it was weird to feel unsettled in who I was when I was 16 and couldn't quite figure out what was going on. And I think these are human experiences more than they're just experiences of people with borderline or mental illness.
Michael Wheaton 18:01
I think it's also doing your work in the book a disservice to just say, It's a borderline book.
Courtney Cook 18:07
I love that.
Michael Wheaton 18:09
That just happens to be the experience that you're writing about and in particular in this book, but for me, like I said, there's a lot of reasons I enjoy it and only some of them have to do with what it's about, so...
Courtney Cook 18:28
Yeah. I mean I think also when you just brought up the essay of me Googling borderline, that is kind of the impetus for me wanting to compile the essays. But many of the essays I wrote before I was diagnosed with borderline. And I didn't set out to write a book about borderline. Once I was diagnosed, I was like, wait, all the essays I've been writing for years are circulating around this topic. I think they're in the same universe. I think they'd be stronger together. They're in conversation. And this is why I think compiling them is important. But it's definitely it's not a book where every chapter is explicitly dealing with the same thing. And I think that's important because just as even though I do have this struggle with what's borderline and what's Courtney. I also, if I am someone with borderline, and you can't extract one from another, all my experiences are informed by that at least somewhat. So I have an essay about thinking about like religion and God and what it means to be spiritual or have a belief in something or seek solace somewhere else when the world feels like it's falling apart. AKA Trump becomes president, and you know, it's like that is informed by my experience as someone with borderline, or me adopting senior pets is informed by my experiences having borderline, like everything is touched by it because that's my life. And so it doesn't need to be said all the time, so it's like that's the groundwork we've set. And now we can just talk about what I want to talk about, an, you have that first essay to ground you in like, Alright, this is perhaps why it happened, here are some things you should know about me off the bat, whether it's what I to listen to on Spotify or my Myers Briggs, and then we can just go from there and apply that as you will, as you see fit.
Michael Wheaton 20:28
Exactly. I see you as an autobiographical writer and it just happens that the realm of experience right now that you're writing about mainly has to do with borderline, but it doesn't mean that it's the only place you can stand.
Courtney Cook 20:48
Yeah, for sure. I appreciate that. Because I do I sometimes worry. I don't want to pigeonhole myself. I think when I was first diagnosed with borderline, it was so revelatory for me, because it connected all these dots that just felt scattered and it all came together. And I felt that, claiming that identity and really leaning into that was really important for me at the time, because it felt like it gave me answers or stability or understanding and clarity that I'd never had. But now that I'm further in my healing journey, I guess, and just feel differently, it's like the book... I got my book deal when I'd been diagnosed with borderline just under a year. And I did write more essays after I got my contract and whatnot, but now that I'm two, three years out from that diagnosis, nearly three years, it feels like I'm at just a totally different place. And so I always had seen writers talk about how, by the time a book comes out, the writing has improved, or they would do it differently. But you know, it's acts as this time capsule. And I think that's particularly true for my book, because some of the coping mechanisms I talked about in the book, I don't use anymore, or I talked about how Abilify saved my life. And now I think it's like a devil drug. So, you know, things change. And it's interesting too, I was really proud of myself when I was writing these essays and claiming that identity really, really strongly and feeling really tied to it. And I'm also really proud of myself now that that feels like a less important facet of my life. And although I think it's definitely important and a piece of me... I do feel icky when people are... I don't want to ever have someone have me in their head as just like, she's borderline personality disorder sentient, like she's a tangible version. That feels really terrible to me. Because just as I said earlier that I don't want to be boring. Like when people... if someone wants to be like, "Courtney is..." if the first thing they said is kind, I'd be oh, that means boring.I want to be kind, but first, I want to be creative and funny and spunky and enthusiastic and whatever else. And I feel similarly if the first thing when someone thinks Courtney/borderline, I'd be like, Okay, well, now I hate you. You know, I'd be like, no I'm offended. It's certainly on the list, but probably out of the top five, I'd say, it'd be cool if someone at first was like, she's really funny and caring, like I want a few things to come before "she's mentally ill." And obviously to go back, that experience informs every facet of my life, but it doesn't have to be the shouting in the back, the echo behind everything. It can just be like that's there, we can acknowledge it, doesn't have to be like a ghost or weird thing, but also it doesn't have to be the only thing anyone thinks about or talks about me. So definitely, I love writing about my life and my experiences and that's super prominent at this time. But maybe when I'm 50, I'm writing about birds or something. Who knows, you know, and I want to be open to that, have people also not be like, if she's not this then she's not Courtney as I know her. Especially because so many artists, myself included, I think get in this like terrible cycle of "I can't get better because if I get better then I'll lose what makes me an artist, what makes me a writer, what I'll be able to write about, I'll lose my, my thing, my sparkle." But it's dull because I think mental illness often removes the sparkle from life. But it's this trap of yeah, I want to get better, but who will I be without it? Or how will I create? And I don't want to ever feel that way because I did when I was young. I was like how could I... Who will I be if I'm not sad? And now knowing that my life is just going to be a cycle of good and bad and back again, and that's cool, and I always find that way back to whatever side I'm on. And I know it's ultimately going to sway to the other one, so I just have to wait out and use my coping mechanisms and whatever. And it's much easier to say now when I'm happy than when I'm bumming. But I think it's a dangerous idea to be like, oh, Courtne, the mental illness girl, mental illness writer, because then if I'm in a good place, like now, then it leaves you with feeling like you've nothing. And that's the opposite. It's like better. So I should just... let me write a birds if I want or whatever. I don't know why birds are on it today. I think I was watching cat TV with my cat. She looks at the TV and thinks she can get them. And so birds.
Michael Wheaton 25:35
One thing I wanted to ask you about writing the book... when you sent it in to your agent, and then then Tin House, or however that worked. I don't know how that worked. You can explain in a minute, but one thing I wanted to know was, did you do the whole thing in InDesign or whatever program? Like, did you put it in the format of the book? Or is it something you worked on later?
Courtney Cook 26:02
So I had a really unique and unexpected publication experience. I don't have an agent. I've never had an agent. Basically, I went to Tin House Writers Workshop. And they have, by lottery, you can meet with editors and industry professionals, and show them your query letter, maybe show them an excerpt, and then get advice for when you're actually queryoing and showing the the real deal people. I mean, they're the real deal but in a more formal context, and I was matched with Maisie Cochran, who is my editor, and I showed her "The Blow Dryer Is Full of Souls and Other Facts in Lists" and my query letter, and she was like, I love this so much it makes my hands sweat. You have to promise to show it to me when you're done. I love it. And I was like, What? Because that was certainly not what I went in thinking was going to happen at all. And so then the rest of the weekI started befriending everyone who worked at at Tin House and India, one of the women that works there, came up to me and she was like, if your ears are tingling, it's because we're all talking about you. We're obsessed with you. And I was like, wow amazing. And I didn't want to tell anyone in like my cohort, because I didn't want to brag or be an asshole. So I was just really happy inside. And also Tin House was amazing. That whole workshop was so invigorating and inspiring. And everyone was so supportive of one another that I bet if I had said that people would have been really kind, but I just was like, This is my little weird secret. And then I went home, and just furiously worked on my book. And then I sent it to Maisie maybe a month after Tin House, and I drew a doodle of myself. And I said, hey, Maisie, you said you loved my essay so much it made your hands sweat. Want to work together? And then I sent her it. And I got my contract shortly after. But that was just all very lucky. And you know, things falling into place because I don't think Tin House accepts on unagented or unsolicited manuscripts and stuff like that. And while I was at Tin House, I actually queried a bunch of agents. I tried to get an agent and no one even... I got like, nobody responded. I got ghosted. And then people had said, Oh, well, now that you've your deal, agents will totally want to work with you, because they get easy money if you already have the contract and I still haven't gotten responses. And I mean, I queried like two more after that and they didn't respond. I was like, okay, it's fine. Maybe I'll do that in the future. But I'm still very much just like doing this myself or whatever. But no, I honestly am very annoyed with myself, because I don't know any of Adobe Creative Suite. I fully went to art school. I drew everything in Procreate, which is not even a vector-based program. It's so annoying. I'm trying to... yesterday, I downloaded Illustrator. And I was like, we're doing it, we're finally doing it. So everything was a Microsoft Word document where I just like did that option where you put text around this image and I just clocked in places. And then I was just really lucky that Diane, who does the graphic design at Tin House was the master of InDesign and just laid it out really nicely. I didn't even really...
Michael Wheaton 29:39
So you sent the drawings separately, or they were just on the document?
Courtney Cook 29:42
They were in the document, but it would be like paragraph, drawing, paragraph, paragraph, drawing. They didn't wrap. It wasn't as in conversation as they are now and the drawings that are in the book, not one of them existed when I sent the manuscript over. There were drawings certainly, but not these at all. And most of my editing actually was redrawing or completely drawing new drawings to suit the book. And those drawings changed many times over the course of writing it as well. So it was like if I have my mom's friend who was like a second mom to me growing up, and I love her, she read the book when I just submitted and just found my contract. And she was like, Well, I can't wait to have it be published. And I was like, I think you should read it again, because it's not the same book at all. Yeah, I'd say 75% of that is because the drawings are just completely different. So yeah, it's really weird because my style has also evolved a lot in terms of how I draw things, likethe announcement I did for my book that I was like, Oh, I got a book deal, the style is not at all the style that my book is drawn in. And I'm almost, sometimes, I'm like, should I hide that? Is that not cohesive? And I'm like, whatever. No one is thinking about it the way I am. No one's like, oh, that Instagram looks weird. Like no one cares. But always I care. But yeah, I think in writing, in drawing a lot I found my voice. But similar to how I said earlier, the book is a time capsule, like there are drawings I look at now, and I'm like, Oh, I think if I were given the opportunity to draw it differently, I would. But as I said, there are things in the book that I don't relate to anymore. And that doesn't mean they're untrue. It just means I've changed as people do all the time. And so it's this weird little like, Hey, this is me in this moment, and now there's me now and I'm sure in a year there'll be a different me. And that's weird with borderline because there's unstable sense of self is of borderline like, it's a big symptom. And so I struggle with like, is, the change I'm undergoing authentic? Is it what everyone does? Is it normal? Or is it growing up? Or is this a symptom, but I think it's probably mostly normal. I think most people just change over their lives. And that's how life works, I'm pretty sure.
Michael Wheaton 32:17
For me, yeah. One thing I wanted to talk to you about was living in your real life with the vulnerability that exists in the book. I wrote this quote down. It's in the essay, "Oops, I'm Bleeding Again."
Courtney Cook 32:29
Yep, that's the one. That's the one I'm always like ooo... it is what it is. I remember, I'm sorry, before you get to your question, I'm going to tell this little story. I saw Melissa Broder speak at The Booksmith in San Francisco, which is hosting an event for me on the 30th, where I'll be in conversation with Mara Altman. I'm really excited about it. Because that's also where I met Mara. so it's like this cool coming together via Zoom. But I love the booksmith... shout out. Someone asked Melissa, about So Sad Today even though it was an event for her first work of fiction, The Pisces, and So Sad Today is her essay collection. And they ask something similar, like how does she deal with vulnerability. She is extremely vulnerable in that book. And she talks about... she has an essay in So Sad Today where she talks about her vomit fetish. And she was like, I want to rip it out now. She's like, I'm horrified that it's in the book, it makes me ill and not in a hot way. To have that in there. And I think maybe she just leaned into the vulnerability thing and I sometimes feel, not that I want to rip it out because I actually think that's an essay that I view is really important, and it's probably what I would say is the best essay in the book, or the one I'm most proud of because it is the most vulnerable or scary or whatever. But when people are like, Oh, how do you feel about the book coming out? Or how do you feel about having been so vulnerable in the text? I can get down with everything except that one. And I feel this weird way where I'm like, everyone in the world is allowed to read that essay, except people who know me, anyone, but if you're my grandparents, please dear God just skip it. So that's my ground work. Please ask your question.
Michael Wheaton 34:25
Buy a bunch of copies for your family, rip it out and give it to them.
Courtney Cook 34:28
Right? I just hope they're too awkward to even talk about it. That's... I'm betting on that. That they're just like, we're not gonna bring it up at Thanksgiving and like, thank God. Let's argue politics like always, keep it the classic.
Michael Wheaton 34:44
But the reason I bring it up is because in the essay itself you bring up having not written about it and being glad about it. So I wrote down this quote, because when you read the quote for... I guess I'm spoiling it for people who are going to read the book... but when you read it, you're like, Ohhh, because you realize you just did what you didn't want to do. Where it's, it says, "When I pulled on my underwear, I looked at my cuts and thanked God I have never written about them." And here you are writing about them. And so that's why that line really makes you stop, wait, wait, hold on, you just did it. So that kind of my impetus for the question. Here's obviously something you didn't want to write about and were thankful that you did not write about and then here you are, knowing that, and then doing it anyway. And I think it is a beautiful essay and definitely one of the most powerful ones in the book, and obviously, you must have known that this was territory you didn't want to go into, but that as quote unquote people can call autobiographical writers selfish and narcissistic. I do believe that while yes, sure, in some ways, yeah, we're all... obviously, people who write about themselves are a little self interested. But I mean, I am.
Courtney Cook 36:10
I mean, I totally am. I'm like, Yeah, what's going on in here, trying to figure it out.
Michael Wheaton 36:15
And it's not a bad thing. But I do think that there's also a part of it that is not selfish. And that if you were just being selfish, you wouldn't write about it, because you know that keeping it to yourself is safer. And I think that there's something going on there where you know that writing about this can make someone feel connected to the situation or to find themselves in it. And to help people. I feel like autobiographical writing functions as that way. It's like, see me, but see you. But also see me, but was that something for you that ultimately, you're like, I am going to write about, you thought that there was enough value there potentially for people? Or am I just maybe like giving, you know, kindness.
Courtney Cook 37:16
I think you're very much in the realm of what happened. I mean, as I write in that essay, that's a behavior that I had never opened up to with partners, or my therapist, and it was like, I'd seen a doctor for a hot sec who told me to duct tape gloves on, like it just wasn't helpful and I just kind of stifled it. And I think the hardest thing for me to still try to understand or make amends with or whatever is that I proudly am like, I have not self harmed in 10/11 years. But that might be a lie. I might do it all the time if this behavior is in that realm. When I write I'm like, Okay, if I used to cut myself with tweezers, and I'm using tweezers a different way, and I'm still bleeding, what is the difference? And I don't know if there is one. And that's sucks to be like, Oh, I thought I did like these many years of progress. And I think I actually switch-addictioned it. And that is frustrating to think that I'm not making the strides that I believe I am. But I think in telling that partner about that behavior and having him be so like, no big deal about it, and just being okay, like, now what, and I was like, what? I've held so much shame and it's this horrific thing in my life where I feel so bad about myself about it. And I think about it all the time. And it's like always in my mind when I'm with, whether it's a partner I've been with a million times, or someone where we're at the beach, or how what I can do, Oh, I can't go in the water, whatever it is. So it's definitely a prominent thing for me. And when he was just like, meh, that was really freeing. Because if he'd been like, it's awful, we'll fix it together and it's so horrific, I think that would have given power to my thinking it's terrible. And to have him be like, okay, well, thanks for telling me and I hope you feel better. Let me know what I can do to help you. That was a really perfect way for him to respond. And yeah, it's like when a kid falls and if you're like AHHH and act like it's a horrible thing, they cry, but if you're like "oopsies" and move on, they follow your lead. I feel like I'm but a toddler in this situation. And he didn't freak me out, I guess. And so I feel like after that reaction and him not thinking it was the devil parable, whatever. I felt empowered enough to write the essay and then I thought the essay was important enough that I showed it to Maisie and Elizabeth, my editors, and that they thought it was important enough to show it to the rest of Tin House. And then it made its way into the book. And then it was like, Okay, so my secret that went from no one to just my boyfriend to just my editors to Tin House to the copy editor to now anyone who's worked on the book, to now people reading my galley, to now world, and no secret anymore. Secret's gone. And in some ways that's really freeing, and in some ways, it's like eh, especially when... I feel somewhat comfortable with discussing my past in terms of self harm in the more conventional sense I guess, or feeling suicidal or having borderline and those things, I feel like I've come to a place where it's still tricky to date and have to disclose those things, or to make a new friend and know that they might think I'm scary all of a sudden if they find out these things, and I'm also I'm wearing a Frog and Toad queer and proud shirt, but it's similar to how I feel when I have to bring up that I'm bisexual, or not have to but I drop in my celebrity crush, and it's like Winona Ryder and they're like, Oh, and it's that moment of that fear of... like I don't think I generally surround myself with people that I have the worry that they'll dislike me after that, but you still never know and it's scary and so there's this coming out as mentally ill in the same way that I'm coming out as bi or whatever. But I think I have somewhat of some practice in doing that. I've become more comfortable. But coming out as someone who picks at their pubes, like maybe not. And that is like the one thing that when my book is coming out, and my boyfriend is like, oh, like I told my parents you wrote a book, or I told my... I hang out with his brother and his sister in law and their kids all the time, and it's so nice if they decide to support me and read it, but then the idea that I'm at a family dinner, and they're lthinking about my pubes, like that's horrible, right? That's my nightmare. And so yeah, there's this part where it's like ughhh particularly in dating, and it's almost worse when it's not like, oh, I've established intimacy with someone and I'm being vulnerable with them and opening up about this behavior. It's like, Oh, shit, you don't know anything about me, but you know I have wounds. Horrible. But then also that's been something that Kirkus Reviews wrote about in their starred review they gave The Way She Feels and how that essay was... they said that I wrote about skin picking in "nauseating, but necessary detail." And I was like, that's good. I like that, nauseating but necessary. And many people in Goodreads reviews have written about that. And then multiple foundations that are aimed at supporting body focused repetitive behaviors, which is what trichotillomania or dermatillomania, or skin picking and hair pulling, if you want to just say it normally, they've reached out to me about how the essays are really important in that I'm going to hopefully work with them. I've been establishing things where hopefully I can do a book club or a reading or something and find community there. And I think part of my shame derives from like, I don't have anyone that does this. My whole family's pickers, we all pick up things, but once again, I have stood out from the crowd and overachieved in my problem. And so it's like, Yeah, sure. It's also like the body part choice os the thing, like sure you pick at your thumbs and that sucks, but many people pick at their thumbs. Mine is just like what, whatever. And so I think knowing that I will hopefully find more community for myself and maybe that'll eliminate some of the shame and stigma, but also hopefully someone out there is like, maybe they've been like chilling most of their life being like, no one else does this. I'm the weirdo, no one will ever get this behavior. And then maybe they'll read it and be like, Oh, shit, that's cool to know I'm not the only one. And maybe that empowers them to... I don't know, I mean, lik, who am I to say you should change that if I haven't been successful in that endeavor, and I would like to alter it and I think at this stage in my life, I'm more about harm reduction than I am eliminating, because I think that's probably more realistic. And it would be super cool if I could get to that place. But if I'm not even good at reducing right now, I don't know if I can aim for nothing. So y I'm trying to baby step my way in the healing and hopefully that works or whatever. I'm working on it. Always, I guess. But I think it would be cool if, even if they don't feel motivated to stop, that at least it makes them feel like they're not dirty or ugly or monstrous. That would be super cool. And as scary as it is having something as vulnerable or intimate as that in the world and to go from I told one person to it's in a book, it's public knowledge if people choose to acquire that knowledge. I take comfort in the idea that maybe, even if the person doesn't tell me, if there's like one dude out there who's like, oh, sick, I'm not the only one, I think that makes it worthwhile. Even if I'm a little awkward at Thanksgiving dinner, or the next time I have a Sunday with my boyfriend's family. Because there are things in there where I'm like, oh grandma's gonna know I've done cocaine. And it's like, okay, but people can write off like, oh, college, but what this behavior is a little less like "we were all while back then," or like sex, that's like, Oh, I don't want to know, but we all do it, almost everyone's doing it, so I don't want to think about my grandparents boning just as much as they don't want to think about me boning, but we all know it's happening. So this one is not like, oh, we'll do it in private. I very much know that this is not one of those things. So it's who knows what's going on there. I just hoping that some people find it empowering even if that empowerment is just I'm not cray-cray or something, or I'm cray-cray with someone else who's cray-cray, and at least we can be in it together or something.
Michael Wheaton 47:11
I think it helps even people who don't do it in a way, just kind of as an exercise... I mean I feel this way about autobiographical writing that you don't know... it's not always a one to one relatability. And sometimes you don't realize what people can get out of something that you think they can't relate to.
Courtney Cook 47:37
Yeah, that's so true.
Michael Wheaton 47:38
Or something that they can relate to, they might be able to take it to a place that you couldn't even fathom.
Courtney Cook 47:43
Yeah that's a lovely way of putting it as well. Just like that. Hopefully, people can glean from it even if they're not doing my same weird. Their own weird, you know. We all have our own weird.
Michael Wheaton 47:58
Alright, that's my conversation with Courtney Cook. Go buy The Way She Feels Right Now. I mean it. Go buy it. Okay. Til next time.