July 21, 2026 • 24 mins
Monica Lewinsky and Jennie sit down for a conversation decades in the making. Two women who navigated different but brutal public scrutiny, now reflect on what it means to reclaim your name and choose yourself.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Welcome
to I Choose Me, the podcast about choices. My guest
has made some incredibly bold choices, and I'm really excited
to share her with you. After being launched into an
(00:23):
extremely traumatic spotlight, Monica Lewinsky could have easily disappeared into
a quiet life, but instead she chose to come back
on her own terms with her own podcast, to reclaim
her name and fight against public shaming and cyberbullying. Please
welcome Monica Lewinsky.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I'm really happy you're here because you are pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Ah.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I mean, I look at you and what you've been
doing lately, and I wonder to myself, where did you
find this drink to choose to do this, this reclaiming
of your name and narrative and public persona. Because yeah,
you could have lived under a rock for the rest
of your life after, you know, having open season hunting
(01:13):
on you, but you decided to come up better than ever,
stronger than ever, and you didn't hide what drove you
to the surface.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I did hide for a while. I think that, you know,
it really felt like it was one of those situations
where you literally do or die, and you just keep
doing and doing and doing over and over again. And
(01:47):
I feel incredibly lucky. Jenny, like to first of all,
and thank you for having me. It was so wonderful
having you on reclaiming, and I heard so many incredible
things from people, so I think, yeah, I think for me,
there were just so many moments where I could have
given up, and I think it was really this combination
(02:08):
of things of like being able to I think I
had always been resilient. But one of the things that's
so important I'm sure you've learned this too, is thank God,
resilience is a muscle that we can build, and so
it's not one of those things. It's not like height,
(02:31):
where we're sort of genetically determined to be a certain
way and that's it. I think that we can work
to build those muscles. I was resilient going into ninety
eight and had to be resilient coming out of it
many many times. And I think that's the part that
interests me so much about reclaiming, is the round and
(02:55):
round that we go and it's sort of not over
until we try I am, and I love that part. Right.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
We keep getting another chance, another chance, another chance, and
I love the thought of like you get to create
your own destiny, you get to decide what do you
want to focus on. And you've clearly made a decision
to not focus on what happened. That's been talked about enough,
(03:24):
but to talk about what happens after something like that
happens in your life and how you come back from it.
And that's what's so inspirational. And I think that's why
so many people are like intrigued and want to know,
like how, because what happened was blonkers terrible, all the
(03:45):
fruits and it was like I remember watching it and thinking,
what this is? This is absolutely dreadful the way they
are treating this girl. And because I was on set,
I was watching it, you know, everybody was talking about it,
of course, and it was you know. And also then
I remember, after, you know, the news of breaking. I
(04:10):
remember conversations on set and jokes being made and just
how uncomfortable that whole feeling was for me. But I
could have quite articulated at that age, and I didn't
know how to like stand up for someone else or
myself at that time.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, well, and I'm sure you had a really interesting
perspective because from your young age of becoming famous and
being on this set where there was so much demanded
of you at such a young age, and you're learning
all of these life lessons and trying to navigate how
(04:47):
people treat each other, but particularly women, and even more
particularly young women.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
And we were young women. We were You're a year
younger than me, so we were the same age when
this was happening.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Practically, and it's you know, I think that it's one
of those things I remember being that age and my
mom or other adults in my life, or my dad
or my stepmom sort of saying like, you'll see when
you're older. And internally I was like, what are you
talking about? I am, I'm an adult. I'm over eighteen,
(05:21):
I'm twenty one, I can drink, I can vote. I'm
an adult right and is now at almost fifty three.
I really I look at my friend's kids this age,
or I look at I speak at colleges a lot,
and the young people that I'm meeting, and yeah, just
(05:42):
like you're a.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Baby, I know, you know what. I actually say that
to my daughters. When you're older, you'll see it differently
or you'll understand. And I and now you're just reminded
me that I am my mom.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yeah it is. It's an interesting it's really interesting. And
I also I think too with my situation story, however
we want to label it one of the things that's
always been nightmare.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
That's better.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah. Interesting is that so much is tied to the collective,
and so that's it's not always been just about what
I want to try to do, how I try to
gather my strengths or make plans. It was this dance
(06:38):
with the collective around. You know, we're people going to
be ready for someone who is normally there's a reason
fallen woman. It's like you know that I've fallen in.
I can't get up, lady, except it's archetypical, you know,
And so I think in that way too. That's where
(06:58):
the sort of social psychologists and me is always fascinated.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Monica's strength and determination to choose herself are exactly what
this podcast is all about. I was thinking, even when
it comes to choosing how we want to look in
our lives, what we want to wear, how do we
want to present ourselves? And that is exactly why I
created me by Jenny Garth with QVC. It is a
(07:25):
collection designed to help women feel confident, comfortable, and effortlessly
stylish at every stage of life. So if you're inclined,
please head over to QVC dot com and explore Me
by Jenny Garth. All of our newest collections and styling
tips can also be found by following us on Instagram
(07:47):
at me by Jenny Garth. I love our clothes. I
feel great in them, and I think you will too.
Did you want to go into psychology when you were
younger before all of this?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, my undergraduate was in psychology, and my masters, which
I got after everything happened, was social psychology. So I
had been interested in college. I was really interested in
forensic psychology, so I took a class that was about
designing psychological instruments, so the tests we take, and I
(08:24):
remember this sort of this the module that was kind
of around jury selection, and I was really fascinated by
the kinds of tests that were used to uncover bias.
And then I was also fascinated by the test that
would sort of you know, tease apart someone's personality and
(08:46):
were they you know, a version of a monster or not?
Oh god, that was you know. That was also the
time this was. This was in the world of silence
of the lambs. So I was like, I am going
to go work for the.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
FBI, Jodie Foster exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Cover monsters, and as I like to joke, instead it
was like the political monsters. And I got investigated by
the FBI wrong verb, you know, not working for or with,
but investigated by. So yeah, but I think that that
understanding of the complexity of people and the complexity you know,
(09:27):
of myself, which I sort of already felt was a
burden before everything happened.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Why did you feel like your complexity was a burden?
Were you a layered young person as a teenager?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yes, I think even I think even as a little
kid that there there's certain photos of me that there's
a pensiveness unlike me at three years old that I
just think that's not normal. You know, where where did
that heaviness come from? Or you just see this heaviness.
(10:02):
And I think I was sensitive from a long time.
And also you know it's having had this late stage
diagnosis for women, which often happens in perimenopauseitive ADHD. I
now understand that a lot of my sensitivity was rejection
dysphoria and so that's also interesting. You know, it feels like,
(10:26):
I think for many of us, a little like Memento,
where we're sort of going, oh, that's why this happened,
and this happened, and I felt this way and I
didn't know how to when.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
You like look back at my life knowing what's what's
rejection dysphoria.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
It is a part. Not everybody with ADHD has it,
but it's a part where you experience normal rejection as
physically intense as like physical pain it is. It is
close to unbearable, and its rise.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Rough to walk around with.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
And especially I think as a young woman trying to navigate.
I mean it happens for men too, but you know,
a young woman trying to navigate relationships and you know
all of those things. And so it helped me understand
why I I stayed stuck on certain people or in
(11:26):
certain situations, you know, because the rejection felt unbearable, and
so I think I kept at it of like nope,
I can fix it. I can fix this. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah, I know a lot of people that I've been
like that. I feel like I've gone through that era
for sure. Do you feel like you're you're past that
you're not susceptible to this.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
No. I think that it's more I have a lot
more tools to understand stand it, right. And so much
of the work my therapist, who's a trauma psychiatrist, has
done with me, which kind of annoyed me at first
because I thought I was like, well, this is never
(12:14):
going to fix me, Like we have to hurry up.
I've lost all this time, like fix me, fix me,
fix me. And really so much of it was about
finding self acceptance and you know, those moments where it
would be, you know, like this mantra of like, yeah,
sometimes when I'm feeling X, Y and Z, I do ABC,
(12:38):
you know, and that's what I do, right, and really
trying to excuse me sit in not judging myself and
blaming myself, right, which is that first layer. So I
think for me, where that intersex here is around recognizing
that that I'm like, okay, I am rejection sensitive and
(13:06):
so and I had a therapist tell me that a
long time ago, but it never came under the rubric
of ADHD, you know, or I don't even know that
they had a name for it at that point. And
so I think that knowing that that happens to me
allows me to to just be a little gentler, and
(13:29):
then the gentleness allows me to maybe step out of
it faster, not it not hurt quite as much.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
So true, Yes, I've found that, like once you can
take the time to sort of self examine where where
you went wrong in life? Where what were the painful moments?
Where did you experience suffering?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Where did you beautifully in your book?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Like, once you step back and you look at it,
then you're able to like accept it in a different
way and take accountability for your parts and things. I
can totally relate to that. And how Yes, now you
have the perception the ability to step back and even
in those trigger moments when you want to go back
to that automatic thinking of what your survival technique was
(14:18):
in your case being sensitive to rejection, you have the
ability of the clarity to think, hmm, I have a
choice right now, I can choose differently.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Sometimes it's still hard. You know, I've had like a
difficult work situation in the last few weeks, and so
every time I get an email on this thing, I
notice in my body, you know it, my heart rate
is going, my anxiety is up, my armor is coming
on and you know it's just I think sometimes even
(14:53):
just the ability to recognize that's not something I would
have been able to do a long time.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Ago, Right, you would just take and run.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, and you know sometimes that still happens. But you
know that's zero to sixty pause, rage, We're trying.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yes, this work that you've done with your trauma therapist
is incredible. I can see the impact that it's had
on you. And thank goodness you sawt therapy because you
needed to. I mean, that was huge and unlike anyone
(15:35):
else has ever experienced. So I'm very happy for that.
Would you call that you've talked about it before your
dark decade?
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, you know, I think that there was. My My
dark decade was this mix of this sort of aftermath
plan falling apart over and over and over again. And
on the one hand, and what that forced me to
do was, you know, to have to work on different
(16:06):
aspects of myself, most of which I did in that
period through less traditional therapies. But I did, you know,
I started working with my current trauma psychiatrist in two
thousand and thirteen or fourteen, so that was sort of
(16:28):
almost she held my hand as I re emerged in
many ways versus enduring that period.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
I'm wondering this because I experienced this recently. I was
doing an interview a podcast with someone. They showed me
a clip of an interview that I had done in
the nineties, and it was I didn't, I hadn't, I
had forgotten about it. And it was an interview with
Arsenio Hall and he basically said you're a slut, You're
(17:01):
a whore on national television and young me Jenny sitting
there trying to smile through it and not in my
mind thinking how what is happening? And how do I
get out of that? And now, as a grown woman,
watching that is heartbreaking to see. And I wondered if
you felt that way, especially when I rewatched the Barbara
(17:22):
Walters interview.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Well, I'll say this, I have not rewatched it. I
had to watch a few a handful of clips for
something the other year, and just even watching a few
clips was really hard. And some of what I think
is complicated is teasing out for myself what was hard,
(17:47):
what was going to be hard no matter what because
of the time, like my personal life, where it was
going to be hard no matter what because of how
we treated young women back then, and even as much
as we wanted hope and think that women are going
to be are portive and supportive and our best champions.
(18:07):
I you know, I think that Barbara thought she was
doing a good job. Barbara thought she was setting me
up for success. And it's complicated, you know, And she's
not here anymore. So I you know, I imagine at
some point I will need to sit down and watch that.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
But I just saw this young woman smiling as I
did in that embarrassing moment, and not knowing any other
way to do it but to be yourself and smile
and try to make everybody happy even though you're so uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Well, I think too. I think for me, there were
these two other layers to it. Also. One is I
have this horrible habit of laughing and smiling when I'm nervous.
So even as a kid like I'd get in trouble
for shit because I'd laugh.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
I have a kid like that and all. Yeah, And so.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
It was my parents and be like, well you wouldn't
be laughing. This is no laughing matter, you know. And
it's like it is to me because I can't help it,
you know. So I think my younger brother benefited from
that quite a bit. But I got blamed for shit.
But I think also the other is I was so naive.
(19:28):
I talked a bit about this in the documentary that
was done on Barbara a few years ago. Of I
so naively thought like, oh, okay, people hate me because
they don't know me yet, and I haven't been able
to speak for myself legally, and all anybody knows is
(19:49):
sort of the worst things about me, the gossip about me,
these horrible tapes, like twenty hours of recorded phone calls
that you know, none of us realizes how hattie and
horrible we are in these loose, sort of free flowing moments.
But I just I really thought, Okay, now people are
(20:10):
going to get to know me, and they're not hate me.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
I didn't hate you when I watched it. I felt
it felt for you, and I felt like, God, bless
her little heart. She's smiling and trying to make the
best of this mess.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yeah, but it was, you know, and they're they're you know,
you might have had an experience like this. They're not
many people for whom they're their very first television interview
is someone like a Barbara Walters or Ante correct, and
(20:44):
so it wasn't even I had had the experience of
being interviewed and then watching it back, you know, like
you probably know this now too. I learned the hard way. Oh,
sarcasm doesn't work print interview. Like you could be sarcastic
(21:04):
in a TV interview or a podcast radio and people
hear it in your voice, but a print interview, it's
it doesn't necessarily translate, right, But so we learn those things.
And I think even if the Barbara Walters interview had
been maybe my third or fifth, you know, the only
other interviews I'd had were with a you know, independent
(21:25):
counsel's office and Congress, and so you know, that was
a little different than the lights. And you know, so
there's so many I guess for me, there's so many
moments from that wide time period of my life that
I regret that It's like, I don't know, the ones
(21:46):
in that interview are sort of lower on the list,
if that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
But you know, I mean I found myself, you know,
really feeling for that young girl. Thank you, jeez, what
you've been put through. But what you're doing now, this
determination to advocate out loud for public shaming, cyberbullying, and resilience.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
These are bold moves that you're making. How did you
get to choosing this path?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
You know? It was it really was unexpected in many ways,
and it stemmed I talk a little about this in
my TED talk, but it stemmed from this experience I
had with my mom around Tyler Clemente, who was a
young eighteen year old freshman in college who had been
(22:45):
publicly shamed and he died by suicide jumping off the
George Washington Bridge. And I had been away for the
weekend when the news hit, and so I knew nothing
and was like on the phone with my momving home
from Davis, California, having seen my best friend from college
for the weekend, and as you know, my mom just
(23:07):
started she was like, Oh, there's that poor family and
that poor boy, and she just started to get so upset.
And as she's explaining to me what happened, you know,
I just I realized later that I was seeing this
her reliving what I hadn't been able to see in
(23:28):
ninety eight because I was so consumed by my own experiences, right,
and also the narcissism of youth, and so what really
transpired for me is I thought about it more and
Brene Brown had started to talk about shaming, public shaming.
She really opened that conversation, and then I just started
(23:52):
to think, Okay, well, I'm still here, and maybe there's
a way that some people might be able to get
something that I can help.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Okay, this conversation is so good. We will come back
for more with Monica Lewinsky. Please watch for part two
soon
You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Welcome
to I Choose Me, the podcast about choices. My guest
has made some incredibly bold choices, and I'm really excited
to share her with you. After being launched into an
(00:23):
extremely traumatic spotlight, Monica Lewinsky could have easily disappeared into
a quiet life, but instead she chose to come back
on her own terms with her own podcast, to reclaim
her name and fight against public shaming and cyberbullying. Please
welcome Monica Lewinsky.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I'm really happy you're here because you are pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Ah.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I mean, I look at you and what you've been
doing lately, and I wonder to myself, where did you
find this drink to choose to do this, this reclaiming
of your name and narrative and public persona. Because yeah,
you could have lived under a rock for the rest
of your life after, you know, having open season hunting
(01:13):
on you, but you decided to come up better than ever,
stronger than ever, and you didn't hide what drove you
to the surface.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I did hide for a while. I think that, you know,
it really felt like it was one of those situations
where you literally do or die, and you just keep
doing and doing and doing over and over again. And
(01:47):
I feel incredibly lucky. Jenny, like to first of all,
and thank you for having me. It was so wonderful
having you on reclaiming, and I heard so many incredible
things from people, so I think, yeah, I think for me,
there were just so many moments where I could have
given up, and I think it was really this combination
(02:08):
of things of like being able to I think I
had always been resilient. But one of the things that's
so important I'm sure you've learned this too, is thank God,
resilience is a muscle that we can build, and so
it's not one of those things. It's not like height,
(02:31):
where we're sort of genetically determined to be a certain
way and that's it. I think that we can work
to build those muscles. I was resilient going into ninety
eight and had to be resilient coming out of it
many many times. And I think that's the part that
interests me so much about reclaiming, is the round and
(02:55):
round that we go and it's sort of not over
until we try I am, and I love that part. Right.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
We keep getting another chance, another chance, another chance, and
I love the thought of like you get to create
your own destiny, you get to decide what do you
want to focus on. And you've clearly made a decision
to not focus on what happened. That's been talked about enough,
(03:24):
but to talk about what happens after something like that
happens in your life and how you come back from it.
And that's what's so inspirational. And I think that's why
so many people are like intrigued and want to know,
like how, because what happened was blonkers terrible, all the
(03:45):
fruits and it was like I remember watching it and thinking,
what this is? This is absolutely dreadful the way they
are treating this girl. And because I was on set,
I was watching it, you know, everybody was talking about it,
of course, and it was you know. And also then
I remember, after, you know, the news of breaking. I
(04:10):
remember conversations on set and jokes being made and just
how uncomfortable that whole feeling was for me. But I
could have quite articulated at that age, and I didn't
know how to like stand up for someone else or
myself at that time.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, well, and I'm sure you had a really interesting
perspective because from your young age of becoming famous and
being on this set where there was so much demanded
of you at such a young age, and you're learning
all of these life lessons and trying to navigate how
(04:47):
people treat each other, but particularly women, and even more
particularly young women.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
And we were young women. We were You're a year
younger than me, so we were the same age when
this was happening.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Practically, and it's you know, I think that it's one
of those things I remember being that age and my
mom or other adults in my life, or my dad
or my stepmom sort of saying like, you'll see when
you're older. And internally I was like, what are you
talking about? I am, I'm an adult. I'm over eighteen,
(05:21):
I'm twenty one, I can drink, I can vote. I'm
an adult right and is now at almost fifty three.
I really I look at my friend's kids this age,
or I look at I speak at colleges a lot,
and the young people that I'm meeting, and yeah, just
(05:42):
like you're a.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Baby, I know, you know what. I actually say that
to my daughters. When you're older, you'll see it differently
or you'll understand. And I and now you're just reminded
me that I am my mom.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yeah it is. It's an interesting it's really interesting. And
I also I think too with my situation story, however
we want to label it one of the things that's
always been nightmare.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
That's better.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah. Interesting is that so much is tied to the collective,
and so that's it's not always been just about what
I want to try to do, how I try to
gather my strengths or make plans. It was this dance
(06:38):
with the collective around. You know, we're people going to
be ready for someone who is normally there's a reason
fallen woman. It's like you know that I've fallen in.
I can't get up, lady, except it's archetypical, you know,
And so I think in that way too. That's where
(06:58):
the sort of social psychologists and me is always fascinated.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Monica's strength and determination to choose herself are exactly what
this podcast is all about. I was thinking, even when
it comes to choosing how we want to look in
our lives, what we want to wear, how do we
want to present ourselves? And that is exactly why I
created me by Jenny Garth with QVC. It is a
(07:25):
collection designed to help women feel confident, comfortable, and effortlessly
stylish at every stage of life. So if you're inclined,
please head over to QVC dot com and explore Me
by Jenny Garth. All of our newest collections and styling
tips can also be found by following us on Instagram
(07:47):
at me by Jenny Garth. I love our clothes. I
feel great in them, and I think you will too.
Did you want to go into psychology when you were
younger before all of this?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, my undergraduate was in psychology, and my masters, which
I got after everything happened, was social psychology. So I
had been interested in college. I was really interested in
forensic psychology, so I took a class that was about
designing psychological instruments, so the tests we take, and I
(08:24):
remember this sort of this the module that was kind
of around jury selection, and I was really fascinated by
the kinds of tests that were used to uncover bias.
And then I was also fascinated by the test that
would sort of you know, tease apart someone's personality and
(08:46):
were they you know, a version of a monster or not?
Oh god, that was you know. That was also the
time this was. This was in the world of silence
of the lambs. So I was like, I am going
to go work for the.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
FBI, Jodie Foster exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Cover monsters, and as I like to joke, instead it
was like the political monsters. And I got investigated by
the FBI wrong verb, you know, not working for or with,
but investigated by. So yeah, but I think that that
understanding of the complexity of people and the complexity you know,
(09:27):
of myself, which I sort of already felt was a
burden before everything happened.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Why did you feel like your complexity was a burden?
Were you a layered young person as a teenager?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yes, I think even I think even as a little
kid that there there's certain photos of me that there's
a pensiveness unlike me at three years old that I
just think that's not normal. You know, where where did
that heaviness come from? Or you just see this heaviness.
(10:02):
And I think I was sensitive from a long time.
And also you know it's having had this late stage
diagnosis for women, which often happens in perimenopauseitive ADHD. I
now understand that a lot of my sensitivity was rejection
dysphoria and so that's also interesting. You know, it feels like,
(10:26):
I think for many of us, a little like Memento,
where we're sort of going, oh, that's why this happened,
and this happened, and I felt this way and I
didn't know how to when.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
You like look back at my life knowing what's what's
rejection dysphoria.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
It is a part. Not everybody with ADHD has it,
but it's a part where you experience normal rejection as
physically intense as like physical pain it is. It is
close to unbearable, and its rise.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Rough to walk around with.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
And especially I think as a young woman trying to navigate.
I mean it happens for men too, but you know,
a young woman trying to navigate relationships and you know
all of those things. And so it helped me understand
why I I stayed stuck on certain people or in
(11:26):
certain situations, you know, because the rejection felt unbearable, and
so I think I kept at it of like nope,
I can fix it. I can fix this. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah, I know a lot of people that I've been
like that. I feel like I've gone through that era
for sure. Do you feel like you're you're past that
you're not susceptible to this.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
No. I think that it's more I have a lot
more tools to understand stand it, right. And so much
of the work my therapist, who's a trauma psychiatrist, has
done with me, which kind of annoyed me at first
because I thought I was like, well, this is never
(12:14):
going to fix me, Like we have to hurry up.
I've lost all this time, like fix me, fix me,
fix me. And really so much of it was about
finding self acceptance and you know, those moments where it
would be, you know, like this mantra of like, yeah,
sometimes when I'm feeling X, Y and Z, I do ABC,
(12:38):
you know, and that's what I do, right, and really
trying to excuse me sit in not judging myself and
blaming myself, right, which is that first layer. So I
think for me, where that intersex here is around recognizing
that that I'm like, okay, I am rejection sensitive and
(13:06):
so and I had a therapist tell me that a
long time ago, but it never came under the rubric
of ADHD, you know, or I don't even know that
they had a name for it at that point. And
so I think that knowing that that happens to me
allows me to to just be a little gentler, and
(13:29):
then the gentleness allows me to maybe step out of
it faster, not it not hurt quite as much.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
So true, Yes, I've found that, like once you can
take the time to sort of self examine where where
you went wrong in life? Where what were the painful moments?
Where did you experience suffering?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Where did you beautifully in your book?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Like, once you step back and you look at it,
then you're able to like accept it in a different
way and take accountability for your parts and things. I
can totally relate to that. And how Yes, now you
have the perception the ability to step back and even
in those trigger moments when you want to go back
to that automatic thinking of what your survival technique was
(14:18):
in your case being sensitive to rejection, you have the
ability of the clarity to think, hmm, I have a
choice right now, I can choose differently.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Sometimes it's still hard. You know, I've had like a
difficult work situation in the last few weeks, and so
every time I get an email on this thing, I
notice in my body, you know it, my heart rate
is going, my anxiety is up, my armor is coming
on and you know it's just I think sometimes even
(14:53):
just the ability to recognize that's not something I would
have been able to do a long time.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Ago, Right, you would just take and run.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, and you know sometimes that still happens. But you
know that's zero to sixty pause, rage, We're trying.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yes, this work that you've done with your trauma therapist
is incredible. I can see the impact that it's had
on you. And thank goodness you sawt therapy because you
needed to. I mean, that was huge and unlike anyone
(15:35):
else has ever experienced. So I'm very happy for that.
Would you call that you've talked about it before your
dark decade?
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, you know, I think that there was. My My
dark decade was this mix of this sort of aftermath
plan falling apart over and over and over again. And
on the one hand, and what that forced me to
do was, you know, to have to work on different
(16:06):
aspects of myself, most of which I did in that
period through less traditional therapies. But I did, you know,
I started working with my current trauma psychiatrist in two
thousand and thirteen or fourteen, so that was sort of
(16:28):
almost she held my hand as I re emerged in
many ways versus enduring that period.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
I'm wondering this because I experienced this recently. I was
doing an interview a podcast with someone. They showed me
a clip of an interview that I had done in
the nineties, and it was I didn't, I hadn't, I
had forgotten about it. And it was an interview with
Arsenio Hall and he basically said you're a slut, You're
(17:01):
a whore on national television and young me Jenny sitting
there trying to smile through it and not in my
mind thinking how what is happening? And how do I
get out of that? And now, as a grown woman,
watching that is heartbreaking to see. And I wondered if
you felt that way, especially when I rewatched the Barbara
(17:22):
Walters interview.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Well, I'll say this, I have not rewatched it. I
had to watch a few a handful of clips for
something the other year, and just even watching a few
clips was really hard. And some of what I think
is complicated is teasing out for myself what was hard,
(17:47):
what was going to be hard no matter what because
of the time, like my personal life, where it was
going to be hard no matter what because of how
we treated young women back then, and even as much
as we wanted hope and think that women are going
to be are portive and supportive and our best champions.
(18:07):
I you know, I think that Barbara thought she was
doing a good job. Barbara thought she was setting me
up for success. And it's complicated, you know, And she's
not here anymore. So I you know, I imagine at
some point I will need to sit down and watch that.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
But I just saw this young woman smiling as I
did in that embarrassing moment, and not knowing any other
way to do it but to be yourself and smile
and try to make everybody happy even though you're so uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Well, I think too. I think for me, there were
these two other layers to it. Also. One is I
have this horrible habit of laughing and smiling when I'm nervous.
So even as a kid like I'd get in trouble
for shit because I'd laugh.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
I have a kid like that and all. Yeah, And so.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
It was my parents and be like, well you wouldn't
be laughing. This is no laughing matter, you know. And
it's like it is to me because I can't help it,
you know. So I think my younger brother benefited from
that quite a bit. But I got blamed for shit.
But I think also the other is I was so naive.
(19:28):
I talked a bit about this in the documentary that
was done on Barbara a few years ago. Of I
so naively thought like, oh, okay, people hate me because
they don't know me yet, and I haven't been able
to speak for myself legally, and all anybody knows is
(19:49):
sort of the worst things about me, the gossip about me,
these horrible tapes, like twenty hours of recorded phone calls
that you know, none of us realizes how hattie and
horrible we are in these loose, sort of free flowing moments.
But I just I really thought, Okay, now people are
(20:10):
going to get to know me, and they're not hate me.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
I didn't hate you when I watched it. I felt
it felt for you, and I felt like, God, bless
her little heart. She's smiling and trying to make the
best of this mess.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yeah, but it was, you know, and they're they're you know,
you might have had an experience like this. They're not
many people for whom they're their very first television interview
is someone like a Barbara Walters or Ante correct, and
(20:44):
so it wasn't even I had had the experience of
being interviewed and then watching it back, you know, like
you probably know this now too. I learned the hard way. Oh,
sarcasm doesn't work print interview. Like you could be sarcastic
(21:04):
in a TV interview or a podcast radio and people
hear it in your voice, but a print interview, it's
it doesn't necessarily translate, right, But so we learn those things.
And I think even if the Barbara Walters interview had
been maybe my third or fifth, you know, the only
other interviews I'd had were with a you know, independent
(21:25):
counsel's office and Congress, and so you know, that was
a little different than the lights. And you know, so
there's so many I guess for me, there's so many
moments from that wide time period of my life that
I regret that It's like, I don't know, the ones
(21:46):
in that interview are sort of lower on the list,
if that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
But you know, I mean I found myself, you know,
really feeling for that young girl. Thank you, jeez, what
you've been put through. But what you're doing now, this
determination to advocate out loud for public shaming, cyberbullying, and resilience.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
These are bold moves that you're making. How did you
get to choosing this path?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
You know? It was it really was unexpected in many ways,
and it stemmed I talk a little about this in
my TED talk, but it stemmed from this experience I
had with my mom around Tyler Clemente, who was a
young eighteen year old freshman in college who had been
(22:45):
publicly shamed and he died by suicide jumping off the
George Washington Bridge. And I had been away for the
weekend when the news hit, and so I knew nothing
and was like on the phone with my momving home
from Davis, California, having seen my best friend from college
for the weekend, and as you know, my mom just
(23:07):
started she was like, Oh, there's that poor family and
that poor boy, and she just started to get so upset.
And as she's explaining to me what happened, you know,
I just I realized later that I was seeing this
her reliving what I hadn't been able to see in
(23:28):
ninety eight because I was so consumed by my own experiences, right,
and also the narcissism of youth, and so what really
transpired for me is I thought about it more and
Brene Brown had started to talk about shaming, public shaming.
She really opened that conversation, and then I just started
(23:52):
to think, Okay, well, I'm still here, and maybe there's
a way that some people might be able to get
something that I can help.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Okay, this conversation is so good. We will come back
for more with Monica Lewinsky. Please watch for part two
soon
Host
Jennie Garth
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