Welcome to Nobody Told Me.

I'm Laura Owens, and I'm Jan Black.

Our guest on this episode has had a very rocky young life, and she writes about it in an

extremely honest and gripping manner in her new book.

Joining us is Emmy Neatfeld, who is here to tell us more about her journey

through family dysfunction, foster care, psych wards, and homelessness. And after all of that,

she ended up at Harvard, Google, and Facebook. It's an amazing story, and Emmy's book is called

Acceptance, a Memoir. It's received a rave

review from the New York Times book review in addition to being named a Best Book of 2022 by Amazon.

Emmy, thank you so very much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me.

This book was a long time in the making. It started years ago before publication. What's behind the

title of the book, Acceptance? The title started out almost ironically, where when I was a teenager

and I was in mental health treatment, it really focused on telling kids, like, you have to accept your situation.

And for me, at that point in my life, I really, really hated that advice. And I was like,

I am going to get out of here and make a better life for myself. And so it started with kind of that

ironic meaning. But over time,

it did change where I started to think more and more about, okay, how do I come to terms with

the stuff that happened in my life and move forward without it holding me back?

As a teenager, you went into a psych ward and actually liked it. And I'm wondering if you could take a step back and tell us what your upbringing was like that made you actually like being in a psych ward. I think you have to be the first person I've ever heard to say that.

I feel like I met other kids who liked it too. It all kind of depends on where you're

coming from, what your point of references. So for me, my parents divorced when I was 11 years old

and I moved in with my mom who struggled with compulsive shopping and hoarding.

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