{"id":106350,"date":"2023-06-30T10:33:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-30T14:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=106350"},"modified":"2023-07-05T12:48:00","modified_gmt":"2023-07-05T16:48:00","slug":"jennette-mccurdy-im-glad-my-mom-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/jennette-mccurdy-im-glad-my-mom-died\/","title":{"rendered":"Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died: Book Overview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Have you ever wondered what goes on in the life of a child star? In what ways did Jennette McCurdy’s mother<\/a> abuse her? How is she learning to heal?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A child star’s life isn’t always glamorous, and in some instances, it’s downright toxic. In I\u2019m Glad My Mom Died<\/em>, Jennette McCurdy describes the turbulent connection between her acting career and her relationship with her mother, Debra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read below for a brief overview of Jennette McCurdy’s I\u2019m Glad My Mom Died<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m Glad My Mom Died<\/em> by Jennette McCurdy<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Former child star Jennette McCurdy’s I\u2019m Glad My Mom Died<\/em><\/a> explores the ways in which her acting career and her entire identity are inextricably linked with her difficult, often traumatic, relationship with her mom, Debra. Debra\u2019s control over McCurdy\u2019s life is so complete that it extends even beyond Debra\u2019s death from cancer when McCurdy is 21; it isn\u2019t until years later that McCurdy starts to recover from her childhood in earnest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy is best known for her roles in the popular Nickelodeon TV show iCarly<\/em> (2007-2012) and its spinoff, Sam & Cat<\/em> (2013-2014). She left TV acting in 2018, after which she wrote and directed a number of short films. I\u2019m Glad My Mom Died<\/em> originated in a one-woman show of the same name that she wrote and performed in Los Angeles from 2020 to 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our overview divides McCurdy\u2019s life into three chronological phases. Within each phase, we discuss McCurdy\u2019s story by topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Part 1<\/strong>, we\u2019ll look at McCurdy\u2019s toxic relationship with her mom, which dominates every aspect of her childhood and young adulthood. We\u2019ll explore how her mom\u2019s behavior negatively affects five areas of McCurdy\u2019s life: her home life, her relationship with her dad, her acting career, her disordered eating and drinking, and her efforts to be independent from her mom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Part 2<\/strong>, we\u2019ll discuss Debra\u2019s death and its effects on McCurdy\u2019s personal life and acting career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Part 3<\/strong>, we\u2019ll examine McCurdy\u2019s recovery from childhood trauma, including her therapy and treatment for eating disorders as well as her experience of coming to terms with her mom\u2019s abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part 1: McCurdy\u2019s Difficult Relationship With Her Mom<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy\u2019s relationship with her mom dominates every aspect of her childhood and young adulthood. In this section, we\u2019ll examine how Debra\u2019s behavior colors McCurdy\u2019s home life, her relationship with her dad, her acting career, her disordered eating and drinking, and her efforts to be independent from Debra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy\u2019s Troubled Home Life<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

From early childhood, McCurdy lives with her family in Garden Grove, California, about an hour and a half from Hollywood. She notes that residents call the city \u201cgarbage grove\u201d because so many \u201cwhite trash\u201d people live there. She lives with her mom and dad, her three brothers, and her mom\u2019s parents. The family doesn\u2019t have much money and frequently pays their rent late or underpays it<\/strong>, even with McCurdy\u2019s dad and grandparents all chipping in. Her grandparents work minimum-wage jobs; her dad works two blue-collar jobs. Debra home-schools her four kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy\u2019s home life is marred by Debra\u2019s mental and physical illnesses, including Debra\u2019s hoarding, her volatile mental and emotional state, and her cancer. These issues cause McCurdy to feel constantly anxious, guilty, and responsible for her mom\u2019s health and happiness<\/a>.<\/strong> However, she loves her mom deeply and, as a child, she\u2019s unaware of how much her uncomfortable feelings are a reaction to Debra\u2019s behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy\u2019s Relationship With Her Dad <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Debra\u2019s behavior also complicates McCurdy\u2019s relationship with her dad, Mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debra belittles her husband to his face and to McCurdy when he\u2019s not around. Mark is mostly distant and not affectionate with McCurdy throughout her childhood; the one time he does try to take her for a bike ride to get smoothies, Debra yells at him for not getting McCurdy home on time for an acting class. McCurdy wishes she were close to her dad like she is with her mom, but unlike her relationship with her mom, she doesn\u2019t know what she needs to do to make him happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years later, after McCurdy\u2019s mom dies, Mark reveals to McCurdy that he\u2019s not her biological father or the biological father of two of her brothers. McCurdy realizes that her mom lied to her children about their dad throughout her life, depriving them of a relationship with their biological father. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debra\u2019s Control of McCurdy\u2019s Acting Career<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Whereas Debra\u2019s behavior influences McCurdy\u2019s home life and her relationship with her dad, when it comes to acting, Debra controls McCurdy\u2019s career completely\u2014including the decision to act in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debra had always wanted to be an actress, but her parents wouldn\u2019t let her. When McCurdy is six, Debra tells her that she should be an actress because Debra wants to give McCurdy the life she never had. McCurdy knows being an actress is what she has to do to make her mom happy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debra takes McCurdy to audition for an agency and McCurdy is accepted as a background actor. She starts to get more work because she\u2019s good at cooperating and doing what she\u2019s told, which she says are important traits for a child actor. She auditions to work as a principal actor with a better-known agent, and she doesn\u2019t get it, but Debra talks the agent into taking McCurdy on as long as she takes acting classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy hates the acting classes. She doesn\u2019t enjoy acting at all, but she\u2019s glad it makes her mom happy.<\/strong> To add to the discomfort, Debra insists on sitting in on her acting class, so McCurdy has the additional pressure of knowing her mom is watching, judging, and coaching her (by using facial expressions and mouthing the lines).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy becomes known for crying on cue. To do so, she has to imagine horrible things happening to her family. It makes her miserable, but she usually books roles if she cries on cue in the audition. After she\u2019s done this for a while, she has one audition where a part of her rebels against having to feel so much pain again, and she isn\u2019t able to cry. After the audition, she tells her mom that she doesn\u2019t want to act anymore. Her mom throws a fit, crying and banging on the steering wheel.<\/strong> When McCurdy retracts her statement, her mom stops crying immediately. McCurdy notices that she\u2019s not the only one who can cry on cue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As McCurdy gets older, she starts to notice that some of her mom\u2019s expressions and actions seem fake\u2014as if they\u2019ve been rehearsed. <\/strong>And some of McCurdy\u2019s own words and behavior around her mom are also a form of acting: performances designed to please her mom. For example, when McCurdy writes a screenplay and presents it to her mom, thinking she\u2019ll be proud, her mom looks into the distance with a rehearsed \u201cwistful\u201d expression on her face and tells McCurdy she hopes she doesn\u2019t like writing more than acting. McCurdy responds that of course she doesn\u2019t\u2014because she knows that\u2019s what her mom wants to hear. Debra says she wants McCurdy to keep her actress\u2019s \u201cpeach butt\u201d and not get a fat writer\u2019s butt; she also says that the plot of McCurdy\u2019s screenplay has already been done in another movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After many years of guest-starring on episodes of TV shows, McCurdy books a role as a series regular on the Nickelodeon show iCarly<\/em>. McCurdy\u2019s regular paychecks bring her family financial stability. The show becomes successful, and McCurdy becomes increasingly famous. The attention adds to her anxiety: Strangers approach her everywhere she goes and she\u2019s resentful and apprehensive about constantly having to interact with them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When McCurdy is about 17, she begins to resent her mom for the first time. Her mom controls every aspect of McCurdy\u2019s acting career, down to how she signs her name for autographs. It had always been her mom\u2019s dream for McCurdy to act, and McCurdy had always wanted her mom to be happy. But now that McCurdy is successful, she starts to realize that her mom is happy and she\u2019s not. She feels like her mom used her. <\/strong>Sometimes she even hates her mom, but she immediately feels guilty and tells herself how much she loves her mom and is grateful to her. Near the end of the book, McCurdy describes her mom as a narcissist<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy\u2019s Eating Disorders and Drinking<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Just as she controls McCurdy\u2019s acting career, Debra also controls McCurdy\u2019s eating, and she steers her into anorexia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a child, McCurdy is afraid to grow older because her mom wants her to stay young and small, in part because Debra thinks McCurdy can book more roles if she looks young for her age. When McCurdy is 11 and starts puberty, she asks her mom what she can do to stop developing, and her mom introduces her to what she calls \u201ccalorie restriction,\u201d a form of extremely strict dieting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy and her mom bond over their careful calorie counting and weekly weighing sessions (during which Debra also measures McCurdy\u2019s thighs with a measuring tape). In six months, McCurdy drops three clothing sizes. Her doctor and others become concerned that she has anorexia. Debra lies to the doctor and says she hasn\u2019t noticed any changes in McCurdy\u2019s eating habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy starts a music career as a teenager because her manager says that\u2019s what all the child actors are doing. Right before she goes on a tour of American malls to promote her music, her mom\u2019s cancer comes back, so Debra is unable to go with her. It\u2019s the first time in McCurdy\u2019s life that she experiences what it\u2019s like to be away from her mom for more than a few hours.<\/strong> She notices that a lot of her anxiety disappears. Although she\u2019s still nervous about her performances, she\u2019s enjoying herself. She feels free and she starts eating a lot more. She realizes how exhausting it is to constantly monitor her mom and be exactly the way her mom wants her to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the experience of being able to eat whatever she wants without worrying about what her mom will think, McCurdy starts binge eating frequently. She feels like her body is making up for having starved itself for so long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy tries alcohol for the first time when she\u2019s 21. She loves it because when she\u2019s drunk, her inner critic\u2014which is mostly the voice of her mom criticizing and judging her\u2014is silenced. She proceeds to get very drunk every night for three weeks after she first tries alcohol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the day her mom dies, McCurdy binges on food and alcohol then forces herself to throw up<\/strong>. This is the beginning of McCurdy\u2019s long battle with bulimia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lack of Emotional and Physical Boundaries Between Debra and McCurdy<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy and her mom are so close that there are few emotional or physical boundaries between them. When teenaged McCurdy finally starts to assert some independence<\/a> from her mom, Debra punishes her for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debra doesn\u2019t have many friends and, until McCurdy meets her co-star Miranda Cosgrove on iCarly<\/em>, McCurdy doesn\u2019t, either. When McCurdy is a young girl, Debra tells her repeatedly that she is her best friend and that she\u2019d rather have McCurdy than any man. It makes McCurdy feel special to be so close to her mom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout McCurdy\u2019s childhood\u2014until she is 17\u2014Debra showers with her. Sometimes Debra showers with both McCurdy and her brother Scottie, who is 16. This makes McCurdy and her brother extremely uncomfortable. Debra says she has to shower with her because she was trained as a hairstylist and only she knows how to properly shampoo and condition McCurdy\u2019s hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the showers, Debra performs breast and vaginal \u201cexams\u201d on McCurdy.<\/strong> She says this is to check for cancer. McCurdy dissociates from her body when this is happening and thinks hard about Disneyland to remove herself mentally from her present reality. When the \u201cexams\u201d are over, McCurdy feels immense relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Debra\u2019s cancer comes back, she\u2019s in a wheelchair and unable to drive McCurdy to the set of her show. McCurdy is 18 but Debra didn\u2019t want her to learn to drive because she said her time would be better used doing other things, such as practicing lines. So she arranges for McCurdy to get her own apartment closer to the set. McCurdy is excited to finally be living on her own, but on her first night there, Debra invites herself over to spend the night\u2014and never leaves. She sleeps in McCurdy\u2019s bed with her; it\u2019s hard for McCurdy to sleep because Debra clings to her all night.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day, McCurdy lies to Debra that she\u2019s having a sleepover with Miranda Cosgrove, whom she had grown close to, so she could spend the night with a man. Debra detects the lie and screams at McCurdy that she\u2019s a dirty whore, throwing a remote control at her<\/strong>. McCurdy goes on to have a relationship with the man, but she keeps it secret from her mom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When McCurdy and her boyfriend go on vacation to Hawaii together, McCurdy tells her mom that she\u2019s with a gay friend (the only men Debra wants McCurdy to spend time with are Mormons and gay men). However, the paparazzi take photos of McCurdy and her boyfriend together. Upon seeing the shots in the news, Debra goes ballistic. She calls McCurdy about 100 times, leaving her voicemails, and sending her emails in which she tells McCurdy she\u2019s a slut, evil, and a monster<\/strong>, and she also goes into detail about the sex she imagines McCurdy and her boyfriend are having. Debra goes so far as to post a note to McCurdy\u2019s fan page about how awful she is. She accuses McCurdy of causing her cancer to come back and says that she and McCurdy\u2019s brothers all disown McCurdy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part 2: Debra\u2019s Death<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Debra dies when McCurdy is 21, leaving McCurdy feeling lost and unsure of who she is. In this section, we\u2019ll discuss McCurdy\u2019s initial reaction to Debra\u2019s death, as well as the effect of Debra\u2019s death on McCurdy\u2019s acting career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debra\u2019s Death Sends McCurdy Into a Tailspin<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Jenette\u2019s mom\u2019s death causes her to stop caring about many things and feel angrier about others. She continues drinking and binging and purging. She exercises excessively: running 5-10 miles every other day and 13 miles twice a week. She feels bitter about things like her co-star, Ariana Grande\u2019s, regular absences from the set in pursuit of her singing<\/a> career. She loses her virginity to a man when she\u2019s drunk just to get it over with, even though she doesn\u2019t really want to have sex with him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also realizes that she\u2019s spent her life focusing on her mom\u2014trying to understand her and doing whatever it takes to make her happy\u2014and has never focused on understanding or getting to know herself<\/strong>. She feels lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy Reconsiders Her Acting Career After Debra\u2019s Death<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

After her mom dies, McCurdy is increasingly going through the motions at work. She hates the show she\u2019s on (Sam & Cat<\/em>, a spin-off of iCarly<\/em>) and she hates acting. She agreed to the spin-off because her mom wanted her to do it and because the producers agreed that she could direct an episode. But the date on which she\u2019s supposed to direct keeps getting pushed back until, with very few episodes left to go, it\u2019s pushed off the calendar completely. She feels demoralized. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, she finds out that the show is being canceled. A manager tells her it\u2019s because of a sexual harassment claim against one of the producers. McCurdy had her own experiences with this producer. For example, when she was younger, he pressured her to try alcohol for the first time. He also massaged her shoulders and placed his hand on her knee without her consent, and insisted that she wear a bikini for a scene in iCarly<\/em> even though she felt uncomfortable doing so. Nickelodeon offers McCurdy $300,000 not to talk publicly about her experience with the network. She refuses to take what she considers to be hush money.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After she\u2019s done a couple of seasons of a new show, she decides to take a break from acting. Acting makes her feel much the same way her eating disorder does: like she has no control over her life and is constantly bargaining to be good enough. She wants to take charge of her life, rather than allowing her eating disorder or her acting career to control her. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part 3: McCurdy\u2019s Recovery<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After her mom\u2019s death, McCurdy\u2019s difficult childhood and its lasting, negative effects start to catch up to her, and she begins the process of recovery. In this section, we\u2019ll first explore McCurdy\u2019s experience with therapy and treatment for her eating disorders. Then, we\u2019ll discuss how McCurdy comes to terms with Debra\u2019s abuse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therapy and Treatment for Eating Disorders<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Following her tailspin, McCurdy begins going to a therapist and life coach, Laura. They start by taking stock of McCurdy\u2019s life, determining that she\u2019s binging and purging 5-10 times a day and drinking 8-9 shots of hard alcohol a night. Laura helps McCurdy understand that she\u2019s binging and purging as a way to relieve anxiety caused by pent-up emotions. McCurdy is so spent and exhausted after she purges that she has no energy left for anxiety. In this way, the act serves as self-medication. She learns that one method of addressing her bulimia is by journaling constantly to get her feelings on paper so they aren\u2019t unconsciously propelling her actions.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to Laura\u2019s questions, McCurdy reveals that her mom showed her how to restrict calories when she was 11. Laura says that McCurdy\u2019s mom taught her how to be anorexic and encouraged her anorexia; she says this was abuse. McCurdy has always told herself that her mom wanted what was best for her, and she can\u2019t stomach hearing her mom be called abusive. <\/strong>She quits therapy and returns to her disordered eating with a vengeance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon after McCurdy leaves therapy, her dad tells her that he\u2019s not her biological father. Then, her boyfriend, who\u2019s suddenly become religious despite previously showing no interest in religion, declares that he\u2019s Jesus Christ reincarnated. McCurdy feels as if nothing in her life is certain or under her control. On a flight to Australia for a press junket, she binges and purges the entire time, and the last time, she loses a tooth in the process\u2014her stomach acids had worn down the enamel. When she lands, she finds out her boyfriend is in a mental health facility and may be schizophrenic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things have gotten so bad that she decides to see an eating disorder specialist, Jeff. He starts by having her eliminate any \u201cdieting\u201d behavior: She must get rid of all diet foods in her house and stop exercising, except for walking and stretching. Then she needs to track her eating and purging. Next, he has her attempt to eat three meals a day, with snacks in between. She starts making gradual progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One lesson she learns that hits home for her is the difference between a \u201cslip\u201d and a \u201cslide.\u201d A slip is when you slip up on your road to recovery and return to the behavior you\u2019re trying to quit. You may feel guilt or frustration, which is normal and can even motivate you to change. A slide is when you add shame<\/em> to those feelings of guilt and frustration, beating yourself up or telling yourself you\u2019re a terrible person because you made a mistake. The problem with shame is it tends to spiral, often leading you to slip up more and more. Accepting that you\u2019ll make mistakes on the road to recovery, without going into a \u201cshame spiral\u201d every time you do, can in fact make recovery more likely.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy struggles for years to recover from her eating disorder and has frequent relapses. However, using the techniques she\u2019s learned, McCurdy eventually reaches a point where she\u2019s able to go a year without purging, and she begins to enjoy eating.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming to Terms With Debra\u2019s Abuse<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy visits Debra\u2019s grave regularly after she dies, but as the years pass, she visits less and less frequently. On one of her visits, McCurdy notes all of the superlative adjectives the family had placed on her gravestone and reflects on how she always believed her mom was all of these and more\u2014a kind of goddess who could do no wrong. But now she recognizes the truth: Her mom was a narcissist who emotionally, mentally, and physically abused her.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCurdy catalogs some of the ways that Debra hurt her:<\/p>\n\n\n\n