I'm Also Glad Jennette's Mom Died by Amelya

I'm Also Glad Jennette's Mom Died by Amelya - October 2023 Scholarship Essay

After years of not reading (out of spite for the books I had to read throughout highschool), the first book I picked up after graduation was “I’m Glad My Mom Died” By Jennette McCurdy. My mom had been telling me to read it for months, and I finally caved and decided I would try it out. I had assumed I would find it boring, I had never been interested in memoirs. But once I started I couldn’t stop. Her writing captivated me, as did her story.
Her writing style was so incredible. The chapters were short and simple, but somehow so impactful. Every chapter, a different memory written from her perspective at the time it happened. Jennette is amazingly self aware and brave. She shared memories of every kind, happy, sad, angry, even embarrassing ones. She would show how things from her childhood continued to affect her as an adult by switching back and forth between these memories. Every word was so impactful and meaningful, nothing felt out of place.
Not only was her writing so impactful on me, so was her story. Jennette was a big part of so many childhoods, at the expense of her own. I loved her character on “iCarly” and “Sam & Cat.” She was hilarious and an amazing actor. It was sad to read that she never wanted to act, she only did it to please her mom. In fact everything she did was just for her mom. Her mom taught her that being anorexic was healthy, made her feel like becoming a woman was wrong, and guilt tripped her into being a major people pleaser. The most devastating thing was that Jennette thought this was normal and that her mother did nothing wrong FOR YEARS. She even blocked her first therapist for even questioning anything her mother did in her childhood.
The biggest thing that stuck with me was when she wrote about shame cycles. Essentially she would have shame about eating food, make herself throw up, then feel more shame, then make herself throw up more, until she had shoved the emotion so far down it felt gone. This impacted me the most because I have dealt with the same cycle. I didn’t have Bulimia like she did, but I have had a lot of shame in my life and I resulted to hurting myself physically and emotionally to try and make the shame go away. I felt like I wasn’t alone when I read this part of the book and the way she explained it helped me to really understand what my own mind was doing.