Why can't I just let this stuff go?

Why can't I just let my mothers mean comments just kind of roll away and not internalize

them, you know?

And I really tried for a long time to do that, but probably because of my own mental health

issues, I was not able to do that.

So in the ideal world where everyone's like 100% mentally healthy and strong and tough,

maybe we wouldn't have a strangement, but that's not the real world.

Hey y'all, and welcome to Unladylike where we find out what happens when women break

the rules and decide to not just let this stuff go.

I'm Kristen.

I'm Caroline and that was Harriet Brown describing a type of breakup that you're not supposed

to talk about or even really consider.

And you're definitely not supposed to tell the whole world about it.

Like Harriet did in her book, Shadowdaughter, a memoir of a strangement.

I actually did not want to write this book.

I distinctly did not want to write it and I didn't want to write it for a long time.

And then at some point I felt like I have to write it because this is something that we

don't talk about.

You know, really the impetus for writing the book was so other people didn't feel alone

with their horrible, strangement stories.

And so they knew like, hey, this doesn't make you a freak and it doesn't make you an evil

person and it doesn't mean that you're incapable of love.

...