A Talk with Melissa Febos: “Turning Toward a More Authentic Life”

In adolescence, you were trapped between your true self and the self you presented to society. You say in Girlhood that you “burned with self-hatred, as if I’d ingested a poison that was slowly blackening my insides.” When were you able to break free? That initial combustion lasted for a few years. I suffered from an eating disorder while I was an adolescent, segued straight into substance abuse and was a high-functioning addict, and then became a non-high-functioning addict. I began to break free when I got sober in my early to mid-twenties. I was still smoking cigarettes and eating a lot of gummy candy, but I was becoming more honest with myself. It was at that point that I pivoted toward the person I am now. People-pleasing and eating disorders and drugs had felt like a shortcut, but they had created work on the back end. I started doing that work—spiritual work, community work, self-work—and things got easier. 

Read the interview here.