I built a thing where I would survive alone. I didn’t trust anybody after my parents left and after I had some very close people who died on me. I said, “Whoa, this world will kick your ass and turn you inside out. I don’t trust anything or anybody that I haven’t built myself.”
So you go about building, building, building, building, building, building, building and you keep the world at large at bay. That’s how you live. You believe not only that’s how you live now, that’s how you can live forever. Then you reach a point where you realize, yes, you have built yourself a fortress and you are locked inside. All by your little, lonely self. That’s when you realize, “I’ve got to go outside. I’ve got to go outside. But I don’t like it outside. I don’t like what’s outside. I don’t trust any of the people outside. I only trust myself, when I’m doing what I do. I don’t trust the world at all. The world is dangerous and scary.”
But you’ve got to go. You’ve got to go.
MARGARET CHO—COMEDIAN, WRITER, ACTOR
It all has to do with eating disorders, which has been my major problem, which is why I was an alcoholic and why I took drugs and everything. It’s because I have a crazy eating disorder. I think because my mother’s anorexic, and I was brought up with it. If you felt fat or if you got a little fat, you were almost unlovable and invisible and a worthless person. When I get right down to all of my issues, that’s still that, I think that is the deepest one.
MARIA BAMFORD—COMEDIAN, ACTOR
I think it is genetic because I have an aunt who is bulimic. It’s not my fault.
NIKKI GLASER—COMEDIAN, TELEVISION HOST
The very end of high school, things were changing. I was about to go to college. I got nervous because a boy liked me. For the first time ever, a guy that I liked, liked me, and I got nervous about it. I was excited, and I just didn’t eat for a day because I was nervous, just nerves.
The next day, someone was like, “You look great.” It must have shown right away, and I was like, wait, I just didn’t eat as much yesterday. I’ll just keep doing that, and that’s what just started it. I lost so much weight in a month, I started not being able to stand up, and then I would have to just stand for a couple seconds to catch myself so I wouldn’t pass out. It started getting really scary.
Everyone was like, “You don’t look good,” and I’m like, “I’m not trying to look hot, that’s not the thing.” At first that was the thing and then you can’t stop, and you’re like, well, this is not the thing because I do not look good. That’s my problem with women’s wear, is that our jeans are all so tight. Men are now wearing tighter jeans, so you’re getting a sense of it. When you are a little bit heavier than you usually are, you feel it everywhere. That’s why it’s so nice to wear boyfriend jeans. For a woman, it’s so great, because you don’t feel fat every fucking day that you’re a little bit bloated or whatever.
MELANIE LYNSKEY—ACTOR
My mother had a lot of eating issues when I was growing up, and that’s a tough thing to be around. It’s really an intense thing to see someone not like their own body. And then also to have a lot of weirdness around what you’re eating, when you’re eating. It’s so hard to get rid of it. And I think that’s why now I’m like, “I’m going to eat a fucking cookie.” Once I stopped being so obsessive about my thinking about eating—and my eating—just the freedom from that was overwhelming. It feels really nice to not think about food all the time.
I weigh a lot more than I used to because I don’t think about food all the time. I used to be very skinny, but you would never know because I hated my body and walked around in big clothes. What’s the point? You can never escape it. You’re with yourself all the time. And also, you have to eat. It’s the most inescapable thing to have an issue with.
I was bulimic for ten years. I was never a binge-y bulimic. I was too ashamed to binge eat. But I had such a strict diet and then if I ate anything over it, I would get rid of it. I was just obsessive about my eating. I got in a relationship when I was twenty-one and I really opened up to this person. He said to me, “That’s so violent. What a violent thing to do to yourself.” And I never really thought about it like that. I remember when I was twelve years old and I read about it, I was like, “Oh, great idea.” He started crying and said, “That breaks my heart that you would do that to yourself. It breaks my heart that you can’t experience something delicious.” We’d go out to dinner and I would eat a salad with no dressing. That’s all I would eat.
He started—it sounds weird and controlling—he would make me eat something and not let me know what he was putting in it. He would make something and say, “Stay out of the kitchen,” and I would eat it and I wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom. I started eating pasta and things with oil on them and I freaked out for a few months. And then I was like, “Oh, I’m not getting really fat. Food is delicious. And I feel fucking happy. This is nice.” Then I relapsed for a while, for a few years. I guess when I was around twenty-five I was just done. I still had a lot of feelings about my body, but it just got better and better. Sometimes I look at myself and think, “Well, that’s kind of sexy. So round and bouncy.” It’s like, what’s wrong with that? I don’t know why I was denying that for so long. I was so excited to see all my ribs? Really? Not everyone’s supposed to look like that. It’s beautiful when everyone looks different.
WILL FORTE—COMEDIAN, ACTOR, WRITER
Definitely there is some OCD in my system. For a long time, I just thought that, “Oh, that just affects the things that are very clear.” Like checking the stove, checking the faucets before I go out, making sure the doors are locked.
Then, after a while, you realize, “Oh, these things are also present in other parts of my life.” Then, as you get older, you realize, “Oh, this OCD stuff affects how I am in relationships.” Like leaving a party, it takes me forever to say good-bye because I want that closure on every person. I need to say good-bye to them. I want the happy ending of a movie in every conversation that I’ve had. It’s a sickness, a polite sickness.
Marc
If you leave a party, and you’re like, “Oh, I didn’t say good-bye,” you got to go back, run back in? “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
Will
No, but in my head, I’ll go like, “I’m going to send that person a text tomorrow and say, ‘Sorry I didn’t get to say good-bye,’” or something like that.
Marc
Well, that’s a good OCD.
Will
It can be, but not when you’re in a relationship with somebody, and you’re taking up time with these obsessions. A lot of times, these will be people that maybe I’m not super good friends with. Even if I am good friends with them. They’re not going to care if I say good-bye. I’ll see them again. They’ll say, “Oh, you left early. I didn’t get to say bye.” They don’t care.