Jennette McCurdy has ‘fully recovered' from disordered eating – she wants you to know that you can too

There was a time when Jennette McCurdy, now a bestselling memoirist and successful screenwriter, was best known for her role as ‘Sam’ in the teen show iCarly. Blasted into the hazardous sphere of child stardom, Jennette's life was dictated by the hyper-unrealistic expectations of others, whether it was her fanbase yelling, ‘Where’s your fried chicken, Sam?" at her in the street, or her mother monitoring her ever-diminshing body mass. 

Debra McCurdy, Jennette's mother, passed away in 2013 after battling breast cancer for 15 years. Jennette was 21. Her memoir, ingenuiously titled I'm Glad My Mom Died, instantly captivated the public. Those four words, devastating in their simplicity, turned accepted narratives of victimhood and child-to-parent deference on their head. 

There's more than enough anecdotal material to vindicate Jennette's chosen title; she writes that her mother forced her to endure genital and breast examinations (allegedly to check for lumps), subjecting her to intense emotional abuse, and – perhaps most painfully – introduced her to the treacherous world of calorie restriction. 

We're all exposed to a virulent diet culture that heavily rewards (and profits from) the pursuit of thinness. But for Jennette, the language and practices of dieting were effectively streamlined into her consciousness by her mother, who lied to doctors about her eating habits, bought her diet books, and encouraged her weight loss at every opportunity. Of course, the line between dieting and disordered eating is effectively non-existent, and Jennette's eating habits soon manifested as anorexia – and later, bulimia – as she endeavoured to halt her body's inevitable development. 

“The most difficult thing about recovering from an eating disorder,” Jennette explains, “was [understanding that] that voice was my mum's.

"Early on in my recovery, a therapist suggested that I name the voice in my mind that was enabling me to engage in disordered eating behaviours: to say, “Who is this voice most similar to?” Is it society? Is it that teacher? Is it that bully from seventh grade? 

"I realised that that abusive, self-destructive part of me was my mum's voice. It was deeply difficult to come to terms with and made the recovery process deeply complex."

The recovery process took a while to get off the ground, as Jennette was understandably reluctant to explore the links between the eating disorder and her childhood. She tells me, “My first therapist suggested that my mum was abusive. I quit therapy that day. I didn't go back for at least a year – I couldn't face the reality of the abuse that I'd endured growing up.”  

When she did return to therapy, Jennette decided to tackle the eating disorder first – leaving the childhood stuff for later as she “couldn't have recovered from that eating disorder if [she] was also trying to unpack [her] traumatic upbringing at the same time.” On reflection, Jennette explains that “focusing solely on eating disorder recovery and then – once [she] got a handle on that – trying to get to the bottom of the stuff underneath that… ”was vital for her overall recovery. 

Speaking of which, Jennette McCurdy has made a full recovery from disordered eating. And yes, that is possible. She tells me, “I consider myself fully recovered from eating disorders. I haven't engaged in any binge/purge/restriction addictive behaviour for years now.” 

For Jennette, it's vital to speak out about being fully recovered: “So often I hear people talking about eating disorders as a lifelong recovery, something you can never get over and something that will always haunt you. I just think that's really demotivating, what's the incentive to work on it, then?” 

In the spirit of vulnerability (which appears to come naturally to Jennette) I share that I too – along with thousands of women in the UK – have battled bulimia, and grappled with the fear that it could be a lifelong companion. Jennette explains that she writes about being “fully recovered” with the intention of providing hope to anyone with an eating disorder who happens to read I'm Glad My Mom Died. 

Even before I'm Glad My Mom Died hit the shelves, Jennette had considered it's significance for those with experience of disordered eating. She tells me that at one point, she was asked if she wanted to include trigger warnings in the book. To some readers' confusion, she declined. 

She explains this decision, telling me that one of the first things her eating disorder therapist told her was that, “Everything's going to be a trigger for you. If you're going to try to live your life avoiding triggers, you're hindering your own recovery.” 

Jennette's therapist “Encouraged [her] to be gentle and compassionate with [herself]” when it came to triggers, advising her to “Recognise when [she] was experiencing a trigger, but to allow [her] reaction to be informative and and to provide a way towards healing.”

She summarises, "I felt it was really important to not have any trigger warnings because I thought, "Maybe the person who most needs to read this is the person who wouldn't because of [the fear of] being triggered by it."

When Jennette landed the role of ‘Sam’ – the tomboyish, fried-chicken-eating best friend – in iCarly, she became an overnight celebrity; her life dictated by the wants of her fans, producers, and – of course – her mum. Put simply, she loathed being famous. And it's not hard to see why. 

In 2012, paparazzi took covert photos of her on holiday in Hawaii with her then-partner, which soon hit the international press, prompting her mother to send a vicious email beginning, “You used to be my perfect little angel, but now you are nothing more than a little SLUT, a FLOOZY, ALL USED UP.” She then decried Jennette's “pudgier” appearance, before accusing her of “EATING” her guilt. 

Prior to fulfilling any promotional obligations for I'm Glad My Mom Died, Jennette underwent therapy specifically to help her cope with the press, telling me, “Historically, the press has made me very anxious, so I wanted to make sure that I was grounding myself, taking care of myself and was able to represent myself authentically, which can be difficult to do in the media.” 

It helps that this time around, Jennette is promoting something she's actually passionate about, explaining, “To know that I was talking about something that I believed in, and have the conversations that I wanted to have, was hugely instrumental in shifting my relationship with the media.”  

In a discussion with her therapist, Jennette considered how doing press for I'm Glad My Mom Died would differ to say, iCarly. “I kind of said some version of what I've just told you,” Jennette explains to me, before adding that her therapist pointed out she was "neglecting a pretty big piece," namely her emotional and spiritual growth: 

“My therapist said 'You're going to be able to represent yourself better because you're not who you were at 18 or 21. Now you're 30 – with all the work that you've put in between then and now.'”

Jennette continues, “It was a really helpful reminder of, 'Oh, yeah, I have grown a lot, and I can show up as myself now, and I'm not going to revert. I'm not going to become some smaller version of myself. I can be myself.'”

I'm Glad My Mom Died is by Jennette McCurdy (Simon & Schuster). 

For more from Glamour UK's Lucy Morgan, follow her on Instagram @lucyalexxandra.