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I don’t want anyone to make the same mistakes that I did. I’m not someone you should ask for a blueprint. I’m not going to say there is no blueprint to success. There is! Sociopaths have the blueprint. They’ll even sell it to you cheap. The problem is? You can buy a blueprint from a sociopath, but it will only work out for you if you’re also a sociopath.

I’m not implying that only sociopaths succeed. Some of my best friends are successful, non-sociopaths. I guess I’m one myself, which is why I can’t give you a blueprint. I made mine up as I went along, and I wouldn’t wish the ridiculousness that I made up and went-on-along-with on anyone else.

My only advice is, and this is great advice actually, don’t be anything like me in 1998 when I first moved to NYC as an aspiring actor, comedian, dancer, writer, whatever job you’ll give me in show business. So, naturally my big idea was to spend my first day in The City at a taping of the Sally Jessy Raphael talk show. I wasn’t looking to make any show business connections at the Sally Jessy Raphael taping. I wasn’t that stupid. I just wanted to see how television worked.

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I don’t know if you anyone’s ever told you this but going through your journal that you wrote and reading it is an important part of the learning process and building self-reliance. You get to see how you’ve improved, and surprise yourself with things that you don’t even remember upsetting you so much or you don’t remember all of the wisdom that was always in you, or you don’t remember something helpful that someone once said to you, unless of course, you go back and read the damn thing.

Here’s some wisdom from my journal 2023-2026.

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1.) write something

2.) write something illuminating (to me)

is because I spent 30 minutes doing a somatic nervous system lesson (involving using my own neurotools like self-massage, impact on the bones, standing regulation, breathing stuff, etc.) bringing myself not into regulation (that’s not really a thing, only a misleading marketing term) but bringing my nervous system into SAFETY.

I think that as an AuDHD woman in perimenopause, my nervous system is pretty much stuck in FREEZE more often than I'd like to admit (because I'm soooooo in touch with this stuff, I get all like, What? I still have to pay attention to this shit and get unstuck EVERY DAMN DAY?) I gotta admit that the act of writing the two big things I'm working on right now; a script, and stories for my show at Joe’s Pub in NYC on August 28th (please get tickets) is difficult for me because my nervous system doesn’t feel safe writing.

Intellectualizing it does not help. The work is in integrating what I might suspect is going on inside of my head, and allowing my nervous system to get moving, allow feelings, sensations, to be present, felt, moved through, and then that fucking relief.

I belong to this monthly membership at an incredible resource called The Rewire on this website/company called Brain Based. There are daily classes, all of it archived for on demand viewing, and I’m making a commitment to doing a class per day. I must proselytize for just a second. I had a moment of being open to doing something that my brain suggested before rebelling and I jumped at it. During a physically uncomfortable bought of writer’s block this morning, I stopped writing (not writing) and chose to address my nervous system which I suspected, based on all of the psychoeducation I've had around ‘this stuff’, that if I’m feeling this uncomfortable, I have to bring my nervous system into safety.

I was right. Thirty minutes later, I was FREE. It felt as satisfying as dipping a finger in a jar of Vaseline and twisting off a ring. I got so unstuck that I sat and wrote. And wrote. Andwroteandwroteandwrote. It looked like what writing looks like in the movies. You know, the kind of writing when someone actually sits down and types, instead of the other way to write which is to organize ice cubes in the freezer.

I wrote a rough draft, (and not too shitty either!), on a story I have been trying to crack. I figured out a way in, which is going to be the style of writing instead of the inciting incident, and even how to connect the end of that story to the beginning of a seemingly unrelated story.

BUT before all that writing, I committed to doing my free write first which left me staring at the page (screen), facing a realization about what needs to be set on fire. Had I not gotten unstuck in my body first, I'm not sure my brain would have revealed itself to me.

Here is today’s free-write:

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I don’t believe that perfection exists, except maybe when it comes to drawing a straight line correctly with a ruler. I don’t believe that anything creative can ever be perfect. I’ll fight you with my tiny fists if you ever try to tell me that my work isn’t good because it isn’t perfect and I’d have a gang of non-perfectionists here on Substack who would back me up. But like shovel hitting rock, I'm striking something that’s stopping my dig. Whenever I start to write, clang! I feel as though I’m in a massive skill regression.

Perfect? I don’t even know if what I’m going to write is GOOD. I don’t even mean GOOD-good, like “Wow, that was GOOD.” I don’t mean that my writing won’t be “good enough” in the therapy sense (you are enough!). I mean that it won’t be good AT ALL. “This is writing? Oh. I didn’t know. It looks more like moldy bread.”

If what I was going to write was objectively GOOD but just BORING, I would be so happy. (I think.) I have so much inside of me, that I don’t think is boring, but I can’t get it out. It’s like I don’t even know how to speak or write English. I used to write every day. I blogged back in the 1990’s. I just had to look at that twice because I was sure I’d typed the wrong years. 1990’s looks like it should be in a book next to a picture of a pilgrim. But that’s right. 1998. I blogged. I was full of confidence. Completely unearned confidence, God bless her/me.

I did have some skill. There was a voice. There was proper grammar. Like, even the way that I just wrote “there was.” Is that the best I can do? That looks like something an English teacher would circle in red. Wait, also, “would circle”, is that too passive? Should it read: ‘An English teacher circles in red?’ Would everyone be captivated, reading such a driving tense? At what point should I just never write the word “like” again? Even if I’m not writing it in a Valley Girl slang way? I noticed I wrote “just” another filler word, another passive word, but I like the rhythm of those words.

This is what my brain does to me when I write. I’m not trying to be cute or rely on the character of my Inner Critic as a writing trope. I’m free-writing. I’m letting it flow over here and I’m catching every thought that flows out of my head and trickles down my spine, where it goes to live somewhere down in my hips I suppose. I’m calling out my thoughts as a way to show myself that there’s a constant hum, or tape playing in the background of my mind. CONSTANTLY. Is it destructive? Is it right? I think a lot of us have had a skill regression from being online too much. Sorry, I didn’t mean to suddenly make this a “we” problem.

I read many books at a time and on average one book per week. I don’t watch that much TV and I lot of my screen time is spent watching journaling tutorials on You Tube or time management ADHD advice videos. But yes, of course, I scroll Tik Tok (much more fun than Instagram. Even when I see the same video from a creator on Tik Tok that I first saw on Instagram, it’s more fun on Tik Tok.) That has to be breaking my brain but again, I don’t do it a LOT. But maybe AT ALL is a lot? I’m perimenopause and AuDHD but I’m medicated and I've recently added the antihistamine/Famotidine combo. Shit, forgot to take it today. I’ll do that in one second. I hope the gingerale in the glass on my kitchen table is flat enough to swallow a couple of pills with because I don’t want to try and find my water bottle. I think I left it on the subway.

Do I need to go back to school for basic English? Writing? Something? Or is my style of writing “my style” - as in, it can’t be bad because it’s stylistic! The kind of writing that a square complains about and their anti-rules friend says, “You just don’t get it. We’re in a post academic world.” All I know is that I have so many ideas and maybe I’ll just list them here and that will give me the courage to at least try to write TERRIBLE versions of these articles, free-writes, posts, whatever anyone wants to call them. Journals. I think this is called Jen Kirkman Journal. I mean it like the word “digest” not journal as in diary.

Okay, here’s the list of things that I want to write about, that my brain ruminates on, instead of writing. I promise myself, as we near Virgo season, I can feel the stars lining up for my Sun and Rising signs. My brain will come back to me and I’ll realize that all along, all that I needed to do was practice. Writing is the only solution for not writing.

Okay, okay. Here’s that list. My hands are cramping up at the thought of even writing a LIST of the stories that I want to write. I thought that this would be a low-pressure way to start in on them. Just write the list. Oh my God, I’m about to stand up and go do something. But what? Oh, take those pills. That’s productive. I’m not procrastinating. I’m not! If I don’t take the pills, then I’m procrastinating that. Hang on. I’ll be right back.

• I didn’t get to title my first book what I wanted, which was “You’ll Change Your Mind.” Simon & Schuster said it would upset moms. Instead I had to call it, “I Can Barely Take Care Of Myself”.

• S&S told me that I could not write a book about divorce because it’s too divisive of a topic and people who have been divorced don’t want to read about it. (WRONG).

• The guy who did my wallpaper in my bedroom back in Los Angeles, who said to me, “With your crazy decor, you’re making it very clear that there’s no room for a man in your life.”

• The guy who shampooed my rugs in LA telling his crew to go home while he stayed for four hours and asked me questions about what I was writing. I called the owner of the company - a woman - and we had a long talk about dangerous men being in women’s homes and I got a full refund.

• Feeling really restricted about what I can write because even putting things behind a paywall because this weird person, who is not in my life, gets all stirred up thinking that “something is wrong” and they start bothering people who know me inquiring about my mental health.

• My failed late Christmas card plan of 2025/2026.

• Wondering if my Bad Therapist was actually some kind of narcissist.

• Confession. I don’t really like having plants.

• My retina white flashes, the getting older symptom that I never hear anyone talk about.

• My frustration with doctors in their late 30’s, women, who are incurious and dismissive about perimenopause. My petty rage. I want to know them in ten years when perimenopause comes for them and I want to, “I told you so” them until they cry.

• The Statue of Liberty is still standing. I see it from my roof every day.

• Madonna.

• Madonna again.

• Fuck it. Madonna a third time.

This felt good. I didn’t get up to take the antihistamine/Famotidine. The urge passed and I let the list be typed. I’ll get up and take those pills now. Oh, there’s my water bottle! It’s on the couch. Okay. SEND.

xo, jen

Come see me in NYC Aug 28th at Joe’s Pub

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About that second one...that’s what I am writing about today. I’m writing about how my words hit a wall trying to support my title, “I Was Really Canceled by Netflix, Not Louis C.K.” I’m not trying to be click-bait-y, I just know that it is technically baiting you to be clicking.

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The Thing I Keep Not Doing

I need to write this brain dump but I keep not doing it because my brain is telling me that this has to turn into a “free-write” that I publish on Substack because that’s a thing that I said I was going to do 3-5 times per week. What’s the difference between a Brain Dump and a Free Write? I don’t know. I mean, I guess a brain dump is more of a stressed-out to-do list where I just can’t seem to start what I’m doing because I have no plan to do what I’m doing and when to do it but I also just want to “get a few things out of the way quick” (they’re never quick, they’re entire projects that take me to 8pm and then I realize that I haven’t eaten, worked out, contacted humans, rested, and now it’s that weird zone where it’s too late to start anything and too early to go to bed, and so I go to bed and zone out until midnight which is hours later than I want to be asleep and then the whole hell starts the next day.)

ANYWAY

So, What Is a Free Write?

I guess that’s the difference. Oh wait, I didn’t define what a “free write” is. A free write is a non-polished essay. It’s interesting to read because it’s pretty subconscious but I’m writing it knowing consciously that someone will read it. And so a brain dump is more like, “No one is gonna see this.” But I can tell by the way that I’m writing this brain dump that it’s turning into a free write about the difference between brain dumps and free-writes.

I’m just letting my fingers type fast and I’m going with what I feel like. I think that I’m going with what I feel like. Maybe this is what I really feel like. Part of me thinks that I need to have a very private journaling session where I talk shit about everyone but I think I’ll reserve that for my hand-written journal.

How I Do These: 750 Words

When I do these fast-type things I use this thing called 750 words. I’m not a sponsor of them. I just love it and try to use it every day. It counts your words as you type and the type font is typewriter and when you hit 750 there is confetti. I think I did an essay about this already called “I am fueled by confetti” or something like that. Okay, anyway. I have this weird aversion to mentioning things twice. “Jen, you already mentioned this 750 words thing in another essay! People will unsubscribe! You’re a broken record!” When in reality, one of the reasons that I think I did not become more successful as a stand-up comedian is that I kept changing. I didn’t just do 87 iterations of “I don’t want kids” and “I’m so glad that I got divorced.” But that’s branding, baby! And I don’t know how to brand or maybe I do but I’m bored by branding.

Okay, The Actual Brain Dump

Okay, anyway, I think I’ll do the brain dump part. Here’s what’s stressing me the fuck out today: I have to make a schedule for July. I have to decide what days to work on my ADHD podcast, what days to create the episodes by researching, and writing a semi-script, what days to film and record, what days to edit and post, what days to promote, ugh, I have to make so many videos for social media to promote this podcast and I don’t even know if they convert. Whatever. I have to do it. Then I have to decide what days to work on my personal/comedy podcast “I Seem Fun Reboot 2026” - and then I have to pick what days to continue working on the second draft of a script that I’m writing that no one is asking me to write or paying me to write but hopefully it lands me a job. And I could even start to write the second episode. I don’t give a fuck. I’ll write a whole first season of a show before anyone buys it. I believe in it.

Okay, then I have to figure out what days I’m going to really sit down and polish up some essays and write some that are meant for reading out loud - I have a show in NYC coming up at Joe’s Pub on August 28th which is my birthday. I’m very worried that weirdos and non-weirdos alike from various areas of my life are going to buy tickets and come to NYC for this so I keep trying to keep it on the DL that it’s my birthday but I also like mentioning it in case it makes people buy tickets but I fear all of the wrong people will buy tickets. We are not hanging out after the show! It is not a birthday party! It’s just something to do on my birthday and when I’m on stage, that’s what I’m doing. When I’m off stage, I’m going to bed. I may even get a bed and put it backstage so that I don’t have to go home after. I’ll leave in the morning. God, imagine if they let me do that. Though, I’d be scared there alone at night, backstage. It wouldn’t be worth the lack of commute.

The Rest of the List

What else do I need to do? Oh yes, schedule times to also write things that I’ll publish here. Schedule times to see friends, read for fun, work out, do life admin, do business admin. Oh, and promote the companies that I have affiliations with so I can get those random $5 payments here and there. That shit can add up! If I promote it. Constantly. Like it’s a full-time job. Hence, why I don’t promote it. What else? Oh, right. I have to come up with things to keep my Co-Work Community engaged, that’s this online business I started where you work on Zoom every day with strangers, like you’re all just there hanging out and it keeps you accountable. I’ll write a whole separate thing on that because it’s an awesome thing and my community is way cheaper than the other ones.

Coming Up With a System

What else? I guess I have to come up with a system, based on my energy levels and things like that. So what times of what days do I do what things? And oh FUCK, I forgot I’m getting certified in somatic exercise teaching and my student-ship expires on August 1st so I have to teach a dozen or so classes before then and study for a test and shit, shit, shit. Okay, the next 29 days are going to be busy. Okay. Okay. I have printed out 3 July calendars on paper so I can start plotting what goes where. That’s a huge cognitive load. My brain is screaming at me that this morning routine thing isn’t working out even though doing a brain dump in the morning with the coffee I made is part of it. Shit, I left my coffee on the counter and I have a TENS stim machine going on my Morton’s neuroma on my right foot so I have to turn the machine off and get up and get the coffee.

And... I Feel Better

Oh my God. I actually feel better. I actually feel fucking better after getting this all out of my head.

That’s amazing how that works. I hope this inspires you to write a brain dump and please let me know how it goes in the comments. For real. I wanna know!

xo, jen

I’ve pitched lots of TV shows to networks, production companies, etc. I’ve sold 4 pilots in the span of my career, which just means I was paid to write the pilot episode of a TV show idea. Then it would get discussed and dissected by the people who bought it, along with their BIG BOSS(ES), who weren’t in the room at the pitch, to see if they wanted to film it.

I never made it past the selling and the writing. Hey, no complaints here! That’s a great way to make half a living some years. I never felt bad about myself when my pilots didn’t get filmed, either. Why? It really never felt personal, or like I wasn’t ‘good’ enough. It always went something like this:

I go to the pitch meeting, where a handful of TV development executives, all women, are very excited to hear the idea, because it fits right in with what the BIG BOSSES have told them the network wants this year. A show with a strong female character POV. Or a show that centers around friendships and not family! Or a show where someone doesn’t have kids! Whatever it is… there were some years when my pitches really lined up with what the BIG BOSSES said they wanted and what the female development executives really wanted and believed in.

I pitch. They delight. I sell it in the room, meaning that when I finish my forty-five-minute pitch, they say, “Let’s do it!” (in other words, they’ll pay me to write it up as a script). Or I get the call a couple of days later that I sold it. I begin writing. I get some notes during the process from said women. I implement the notes, or pretend to, whatever I think is called for. (You might think the ‘pretending to’ is why things don’t get filmed, but successfully pretending to implement their not-great notes is a skill, and if done correctly, they’ll tell you that you did a great job doing so.) Then the final draft is turned in, and I wait weeks.

Eventually we get the call that it will not be going forward to filming, but the handful of female development executives loved it, they championed it, and, as it turns out, the BIG BOSSES have decided they want all nuclear-family-oriented pilots this season, or that they want more shows about the school sports team. They’re not lying. It all checks out when I see the pilots that are going forward in the trades. Really, I’m only left wondering why the BIG BOSSES thought they wanted the opposite of what their network does at all.

ANYWAY.

This one particular year (honestly, I don’t remember which one) was the first time that I actually had to let the executives know that

women are literally humans.

See, what I didn’t mention above is that even though I’ve sold ideas, I still had to pitch those eventual sales to networks and production companies that said NO as well. Sometimes two networks said YES, and I had to decide which one to go with; I always chose the one that didn’t seem to think my idea was weird. Other times you can tell a network says YES because they know someone else said YES and they don’t want to look uncool, but they don’t really believe in it and don’t really get it.

So, with all those No’s and Cuz-I-Had-To-Yes’s in my experience… what did they all have in common? The development executives, both men and women (but usually mainly men, and I’m sorry, fellas, yes, even gay men), did not understand stories about a woman who wasn’t looking for a man, didn’t want kids, and maybe was happily divorced; a woman questioning her life choices, but not from a hating-herself place, more from a ‘how can I figure out what I want to do, in the way that’s the most fun and the least amount of work’ place.

One thing my ideas always had in common was that the shows were about a woman trying to live in a world where it seemed like everyone around her valued different things. She was often the only single person at a couples’ dinner, or the only childfree person at a baby shower, and she’d frequently get pulled aside by people who were ‘doing things right,’ people who confessed that they wished they were more like her, only to put their masks back on and go back to their lives. This confused a lot of TV execs, who would ask me how it was a comedy. It wasn’t as rude as I just made it sound. They have to ask; even if they’re cracking up laughing, they’ll want to know how it stays a comedy throughout the season, even as the characters face conflict.

But a lot of the time, I had this conversation:

“Is she a strong woman?”

“Oh, yes. A very strong woman, with a strong POV. Strong, strong, all day long.”

“How?”

“Because she doesn’t question herself, even though the people in her life, and society at large, question her life choices.”

“So, people are confused by her?”

“Kind of! Everyone thinks she’s a hot mess, but she doesn’t think that!”

“Is that going to confuse the audience?”

That’s the part where I’d deflate (only on the inside), like a day-old balloon.

It felt like a child asking me an absurdly simple question, like, “Why does the mailman deliver mail?” It’s like: How deep do you want me to answer this, kid? Do you want me to say, “Cuz that’s his job”? Or do you want me to go into a detailed history of the United States Postal Service? Or do you want me to get into why people even write letters? Or have to pay bills?

So I’d answer the children executives with:

“No, the audience won’t be confused. What’s funny is how she reacts to the world reacting to her, because she truly doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere, even though she’s a functioning adult! Which is very relatable! Don’t we all feel that way?”

See, there’s usually no template for a woman like this, unless, of course, she’s a slut or a drunk (nothing wrong with either, but that wasn’t my angle).

I’d usually say, “Imagine if this were a man; it would be like a character Seth Rogen might play.”

They’d light up. We know that name! Seth Rogen! A man!

Then they’d go dark again. “But it’s a woman.”

Yes. It’s a woman.

At one point, a man said to me, “I don’t get it. How could she be a woman but be like Seth Rogen?”

That’s when I grew so exasperated that I said:

“WOMEN ARE LITERALLY HUMANS!”

Silence. Then I did my usual cover, where I said that so many people (of course, no one in this room!) think women are either mothers, or wanna-be mothers, or powerful executives who are bitches, but most women are just humans, doing their best, making tons of mistakes, and feeling judged (like me, right now, in this pitch!). The room would be like, “Oh, totally. We hate people who don’t understand that. Well, thanks for coming in.”

That’s the origin story of the “Women Are Literally Humans” tank top, designed with a 1970s-ish font and color scheme. A lot of people think it’s a deep political statement, like a “Get Your Laws Off My Body” kind of thing. That works too, if that’s what you want to wear it for. But the original intent was simply to state that women are humans. Period. I’d love to make a shirt that says, “Dear God, can women be mediocre sometimes?” or “What’s with this Strong Female POV bullshit?”

If you’re a woman who is literally a human, perhaps you want to wear this tank top at the gym while you’re selecting those 5-pound weights, or at home while you’re having a hot flash. Big shocker, even men can wear these, too! All genders are welcome. There are two styles of tank: a sleeveless top and a racerback.

These are made by Seen Merch, produced in America and shipped to you from their warehouse, where they live. It’s a great company, and I’m trying to get rid of all my merch since I don’t tour anymore. So if you want one of these tanks, conceived of by me and my true Hollywood story, get them before they’re gone!

I’ll make it super easy with details below.

In the blue racerback tank see below for how many are left in each size:

S (sold out), M (8), L (5), XL (7), 2X (sold out)

Click For More Info & To Buy

In the black sleeveless tank:

S (5), M (15), L (10), XL (7)

Click For More Info & To Buy

xo, jen

If you picture something folded, a towel, a slice of pizza, you get the idea, the two ends that touch remind me of my 50’s and my teens. These periods in my life feel similar in that I really feel, like, THIS IS ME. And unfortunately, I can’t articulate it any better than that. I have a small knowing that this will be the predominant feeling of this decade. This is the still immature older-age-decade. There’s such a sweetness to this decade. I find myself feeling really content despite (gestures wildly towards the world) everything. My middle years, say, age 23-50 are also very much me, but those years are a fraternal twin. We just don’t look anything alike but we share the same DNA.

These free-writes that I’m doing almost daily remind me of writing in my teens, minus the computer. I’d have HATED how much I love computers now. One of my first standup bits (it wasn’t funny but hey, I was trying to say something important! LOL) was about how I hate Bill Gates for wanting us all to stay inside on computers. I mean, seeing as he was all up in Epstein’s Island, was I wrong about this guy being the worst? To put it stupidly mildly?

Anyway, I’m thinking about the poetry zine I co-authored in high school, with my two gay-male friends, David and Forrest. I mention that they’re gay to really set the scene, that there was that pure comfortability that a girl feels around boys who want nothing from her other than true friendship. I wrote under the pseudonym Lola Miss. I don’t know why I didn’t use my real name, seeing as I was handing them out to anyone with arms in my high school hallways. I know that I always loved the name Lola because of Barry Manilow’s song Copacabana. The principal didn’t like our little zine and told us we had to stop making it. She said that it was morose and depressing, and we were like, “Yeah, exactly. We’re teenagers writing poetry. Umm….is there any other way to be?”

I found a copy of that zine (God, I wish I remembered the name!) in 2019. It kind of broke my heart to read it because I could see now from the principal’s POV, it sounded like the three of us were on the edge. But we really weren’t. We were full of such JOY. We were happy to be feeling SO MUCH. We loved life. We were very much aware that this was a sweet spot, no responsibilities, endless time to be creative, and we didn’t have to buy our own staplers. Anyway, the same month that I found that zine, I heard from Forrest, now Chris, who was passing through Chicago right when I had a show there. I hadn’t spoken to him since high school. The timing was magical. He came to my show, and backstage I gave him the zine. I wanted him to be the keeper of this only living copy (I think). I had taken photos of my poems and that was enough for me. (Of course, I deleted them by mistake, because ADHD, and yes it’s been on my to-do list for 7 years now, to reach out to Chris and see if he can snap some pics of what Lola Miss was saying.)

Anyway, there’s something about perimenopause that brings me back to that teenaged girl who loved to sit in her room, or anywhere really, and write poetry, without caring if it’s good or correct. I mean this literally and figuratively, whether it’s poetry or just me being me, dressing how I want, etc.

Okay, any other perimeno peeps experiencing the return of certain SMELLS? I swear I can smell things that I haven’t smelled since I was a teenager. It’s like when a perfume gets reissued and you catch a whiff and BOOM, the molecules in your body change and you’re RIGHT BACK THERE - wherever that is. It smells like summer in the late 1980’s to me, and I’m hundreds of miles from where I grew up but sometimes the wind will just waft by and I’m struck. Is there some quantum superposition thing going on here? Am I just inches from an invisible wall leading to another dimension where I’m 15? Is it memory? Or is it more?

It’s too bad that perimenopause is only NOW being talked about and studied. If it had been at all acknowledged ever, I imagine we’d now be at the part where people are studying why our sense of smell has the ability to conjure up memories on its own.

Well, that’s about all my brain has today on that topic. Happy smells to all of you middle-aged women. xo, jen

Photo “Lola Miss” in the high school cafeteria 1989

I'm back on stage 8/28! Get info!

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Here is another tale from a session (there were many, actually) with My Former Bad Therapist where she talked about, who I call (to myself) her ‘Coke-y Ex-Boyfriend.’

She always talked about this bad-at-staying-sober coke addict ex of hers, and she would always (wrongly) equate it to a relationship that I was in. I was in this best-friends/benefits/situation-ship that was on again/off again for years. Admittedly, I was the offender in keeping it that way. Career first! Every time we were “off again”, I was spiraling. And every time we were “on again”, I was unsure. I was always, like, unsure. Ambivalence seems too calm a word for how I felt. I was a pin-ball flinging myself through the machine when no one was playing.

Long story short, we were kind of a bad combination. Neither of us bad people on our own, just a bad combination. That invisible trauma bond that brings people together brought us together, blah, blah, blah. Oh! Also, he wasn’t a cocaine addict past or present.

She would interrupt me right when I was at the nugget of what I thought the problem was (me - the aforementioned pin-ball)

“You know, this reminds me. I had this ex.”

Every time she told it, I’d be like,

“You’ve told me this. You told me this last week.”

She dated this coke addict who said he was sober. Or he was sober for a bit and they broke up so that he could work a program, but then one of them would slip and call the other, and they’d start up again. He always lied to her about his sobriety. I’d sit there not able to glean ANYTHING from this example. I get that we don’t have to have identical experiences for her disclosure to help me see myself in a situation. Sure, the whole on-again/off-again, that pull, that confusion. I get it. But I didn’t need an example to get what she was getting at. There was no need for disclosure. In fact, there was a need to listen to ME talk about MY story.

I’d tune her out and just think, I wouldn’t date a cocaine addict. Like, I just wouldn’t. I’m sorry. It just does not appeal to me.

She’s going on and on, she loves this part.

“He said he was sober, but he was a liar, because if an addict is moving their lips? They’re lying.”

That’s not her line. That’s a saying. Anyway.

“…and so then I went through his duffel bag, and I found condoms. But we didn’t use condoms…”

And I almost said it with her, “Because you had an IUD”.

Every time she told this story, I thought of Mr. Big taking up space at Aidan’s cabin, barging in to get comforted by Carrie when he got ghosted by the Hollywood actress.

“See, she can reach me, but I can’t get her.”

Anyway, the end of the story of My Former Bad Therapist and her Coke-y Ex Boyfriend is that he was cheating. She was so addicted to him that she pretended that he wasn’t until she couldn’t take it anymore. And she walked away from this toxic relationship! She told the Universe that she was done with losers and she met her would-be-husband three months later!

But

“You know, I still... every once in a while, I go to his Facebook page. And I still get that little charge, so that’s how I know I have to stay away and in a no-contact with him.”

WHO SAYS THIS IN THERAPY? USUALLY THE PATIENT. NOT THE THERAPIST!

I am the luckiest person. I don’t go pain shopping. I do not stalk any ex’s social media, or anyone who has hurt me or who I could be jealous of. Nope. Not even tempted. I DESPISE that gut punch feeling of seeing something that makes me feel less than. It’s not worth it. I have no magic bullet or method of living that got me to this place. It’s such an awful sensation that I want to avoid, it feels as natural to me as avoiding roller-coasters and touching oysters.

I still think that

A.) I shouldn’t know that story

B.) She shouldn’t tell me that story (every week)

C.) She’s a married woman with kids and she’s still looking at her Coke-Y Ex-Boyfriend’s Facebook page and getting charged up? Which takes me back to Point A. You probably shouldn’t admit that in a therapy session to anyone except ANOTHER THERAPIST.

I have to admit, I wonder what her Coke-y Ex-Boyfriend is up to these days and if he’s ever looked at her Facebook page. And if he has never looked at her page? I kind of want her to find that out. I’m petty.

xo, jen

I had a therapist for 15 (!) years who was not a very good therapist. I did not know this at the time.

She wasn’t even my first therapist. My first therapist was very good. I saw her a few times when I was 21 and then I moved away. I didn’t get this Former Bad Therapist until I was 30. By then I was a whole mess with years of repeated behaviors stemming from unhealed things and not knowing I was neuorodivergent, and not knowing that things like Patriarchy and so on actually do affect someone’s life as much as their parents or teachers influence….ANYWAY.

I had my suspicions around year 13 (great detective work, Jen!) that she was not so great for me subjectively and perhaps not skilled, objectively. There’s so much here and for now I’m just writing little tidbits, but I will continue to unpack this in a writing way for a long time to come.

Thankfully, I have an amazing therapist now (okay I have two actually, they do two different kinds of things) and it’s been years and we’ve undone some of the damage that my Former Bad Therapist did to my point of view of myself, how things work, and how I can trust the person I’m paying to provide therapy.

ANYWAY I’m getting ahead of myself when all I want to do is laugh and laugh and be like WHAT THE FFFFF about the shit she used to say and God Bless Former Me who really didn’t know enough or have the energy enough to walk out of the room and be like, “Lady, you’re fucking bad at this!”

This Tidbit is About When She Talked Me Into Staying Married (I get that it’s not her fault, blah, blah, blah)

She made no room for me to explore my feelings, she jumped in a lot with “advice” like she was Dear Abby - and oh if you KNEW the irony of what I just wrote but if I told you, then I’d be giving too much away when I’d like to keep her name private since, oh I don’t know, I don’t want her to see this because I still fear (not totally healed yet) that SHE WILL WRITE A COUNTER Substack or something and be like, “Jen was a bad former client.” Which is NOT a thing and if she did it would prove that she IS a FORMER BAD THERAPIST.

Okay, let’s get on with the time she talked me into staying married.

Read more

Damn, ADHD
overthunk and overwhelmed
is no way to be

An Ode To Emotional Intensity

emotions flooded
people gutted. lost my cool.
ADHD fool

i have to pee but
i won’t move, too locked in my
HYPERFOCUS groove

Read more

Ode To Divorce #1

when you get divorced
straight married friends only care
what this means for them

Ode To Divorce #2

when you get divorced
straight married friends only care
how this may change them

Read more

I had a dream last night that we were communicating telepathically I guess.

anyone looking would just see a lady walking down the street in silence. mouth not moving. no one there. no phone to her head. but In the dream I was fully talking to you. with my mind. but it wasn’t in my head. you were in my mind. I don’t think I was in yours cuz you’re dead. and you were also dead in the dream.

anyway you told me that willie nelson offered you an eggplant parm once. and I asked you if you took him up on the offer. I asked if he literally offered it like, he had some and offered you a bite? or he offered to hand you one, like he bought two and had extra? or he offered to make you eggplant parm? And did you eat it?

you got very annoyed and said that I ask too many questions. I ruined your story. it wasn’t a story though.

anyway you told me that you want to watch tv and that you could come to my hotel room. cuz I was walking around the city that you used to live in, in this dream. and so that’s why i’d be at a hotel. but I wasn’t clear on how you’d come to my hotel room to watch tv. since you’re dead.

“Shit I don’t know Jen” and you’re laughing now. then you say, “you could come visit me?

oh wait, no. don’t do that. that would mean ....I forgot.”

I felt sad cuz I forgot too and for one second…

then you said you were hungry now for an eggplant parm and then you asked me what I pictured when I heard the words eggplant parm.

“is that the one that’s inside of bread or the one on spaghetti? hey look at me asking the questions now”

I was snatched from this telepathy and woke up.

it was 4 am. the wind was cartoonishly loud and whistle-y, as it pushed against my windows.

I am writing here today instead of saying “fuck it” I’ll do it tomorrow. Instead of honoring the weird procrastination excuses that I have like:

• it’s 6pm and that’s not when I free write

• I really don’t have time. I have to map out my to-do’s for the week.

• I’ll start over tomorrow and then I’ll intentionally go for a streak of 30 days of making sure to free write. But I can’t start that now because I didn’t write it first on this 30 Day Challenge printable worksheet that I have. I could stop and write in it right now and set an intention to write and then just stop drop and write, right now, but nah.

• It looks like I am writing though. Look at me! I’ll fill in the 30 Day Challenge sheet once I’m done with this 750 word free write. Ugh. It will be doing things a little bit backwards but I think that’s okay. On Day 30 I will NOT remember that I didn’t fill out the sheet first and THEN jump in to begin writing.

• I just did the Cinnamon ritual. I almost did it from the wrong hand. The ritual is to take a pinch of cinnamon and put it in your right palm. Set your intentions for abundance and stand on the threshold of your front doorway, or right before the threshold. Say what you intend to draw in and then blow the cinnamon into the front door. I have an apartment so technically I stood in the hallway and blew into my apartment. I wonder if I did enough cinnamon. It says not to sweep it or vacuum it up until 24 hours but I didn’t blow enough cinnamon for it to accumulate on the rug. At first I put the Cinnamon in my left palm and right before I blew on it - I double checked by Googling and everyone said to use the right hand. But also the left hand is fine too. I don’t want “is fine too.” I want to do it right. When I appropriate someone’s culture and do the Tik Tok version, I want to do it right.

Ah, this feels so good to be writing because I am almost done and see that wasn’t a big deal.

• This is boring though. It’s really simple and I can fool myself and think that anyone reading it will read it as one of those well-written “economy of words” pieces that brilliant people who could use bigger and more words write. This isn’t that. This is a boring free write where I am just putting words so that I can honor my challenge.

• It’s not that real feelings aren’t coming out. I did want to write about the cinnamon ritual because I’m not gainfully employed right now and I’m worried. I’m scared. I’m terrified. And I have to resort to faith that I will come through and I am putting all of my faith in this generic store brand of cinnamon that I bought last month to do the ritual and forgot. But last night I put out the cinnamon on the counter and I remembered to do it today. I remembered a few times. Each time I saw the cinnamon on the counter I remembered. But I couldn’t be bothered to open it and do it when I’d see it earlier in the day. Fucking ADHD. Fucking perimenopause. Connecting any thought to an actual action, it’s like trying to get a toddler’s snow pants on or a cat into a cat carrier or a toddler into a cat carrier and a cat into snow pants. It’s so much effort and it’s not cute, even though it seems cute. It’s not cute.

• But I did it. I did the cinnamon ritual and I am almost done with the free writing.

Why can’t I be a beautiful writer who breaks people’s hearts. Why can’t my writing be passed around online. Why can’t my writing be stolen. It’s not even worth stealing and passing off as your own? Jesus. Tough crowd.

• That would be funny if Jesus had said “tough crowd” as they cheered on his crucifixion. I just had the hardest time spelling that word. I almost thought it was cruci-fiction and I’m sure some self-satisfied dude has already come up with that word, in some ham-fisted essay about why he’s such a genius to be an atheist as though it’s a new thing or a radical thought.

Done.

I am so afraid. I am just sitting here frozen. I feel the fear as heat and stiffness running up the side of my head. Shoulders up the neck to the ears. It’s icy/hot. Extra strength. Just like what’s in the tube.

I don’t want to forgive myself. I do want to forgive myself. I want to freeze in place until I can go back in time and not live in vagueness around this.

I want to blame everyone else. I gave up. I didn’t know how to communicate. Now I know. I’ve learned. I’ve learned! But how long do I have to learn? Because I’m freaking the fuck out.

I’m so angry right now.

What did I do wrong?

Is this truly punishment? Why aren’t the literal cannibal pedophiles being punished?

Blackness, blankness, relief.

That’s the emotional flashback, the CPTSD, the Autism, the ADHD, the Emotional Immaturity. All of the pathologies that make me, me.

Why. Why. Why. Why. Why.

I was frozen. I kept putting it off. I don’t know what I was afraid to feel.

How did this happen ? Vagueness? No boundaries? I don’t fucking know. I really, really don’t.

Is this what I get for helping? I guess I’m here to learn that lesson.

I want to expect miracles but I don’t believe in them. I don’t know if this is predestined but I’d really like it not to be.

I’m so angry. I don’t want to swallow this anger. I am afraid.

I fucking asked that idiot. I told her in no uncertain terms.

I’m a real fuck up. Who is going to take care of me.

Can’t I have a turnaround? Am I in full control of that? Because if you tell me that I am, I will get to work right now on making that happen.

My mother would tell me it means that I’m going to heaven. Fuck heaven. There is no heaven. I don’t give a fuck if there is a heaven. What’s heaven got to do with me here and now.

God, I know I don’t believe in you and I just said that I don’t give a fuck about heaven. But if there’s a god that doesn’t mind that I don’t believe in him or her or heaven, can he/she/they please help?

Why am I going to god? Am I five years old? Because it seems like I’m five years old. This childlike system is dangerous for an adult to still be operating on.

I want to vomit from my eye sockets.

Didn’t I suffer enough that this can all be a wash? Why is spirituality and morality coming into this? This isn’t moral. But it feels like it.

I imagine I feel worse about this than the psychos who run the world who rape and eat children. Not to imply that they eat the ones they’ve raped. I’m sure in their fucked up heads those are two different kinds of children on two different areas of the menu.

Can’t I get any pity for being ashamed? Any gentle care? It seems like now isn’t the time for that. Isn’t that how I got here? By being too easy on myself?

I don’t want to be covered in loser dust.