Episode 296: A Great Red Lip with Emily Farris
Kate gets a facial and Doree shares her current bedtime wind-down. Then, they invite Emily Farris on to chat about her new book (I‘ll Just Be Five More Minutes: And Other Tales from My ADHD Brain), navigating an ADHD diagnosis as an adult, divorce as a form of self-care, and how she developed her signature red lip.
Mentioned in this Episode
To leave a voicemail or text for a future episode, reach them at 781-591-0390. You can also email the podcast at forever35podcast@gmail.com.
Visit forever35podcast.com for links to everything they mention on the show or shopmyshelf.us/forever35.
Follow the podcast on Instagram (@Forever35Podcast) and join the Forever35 Facebook Group (Password: Serums).
Sign up for the newsletter! At forever35podcast.com/newsletter.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.
Transcript
Kate: Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Kate Spencer.
Doree: And I'm Doree Shafrir.
Kate: And we are not experts.
Doree: We're not, we're two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.
Kate: I got a facial for the first time yesterday in a year, and it was truly humbling because it was my friend Brie, who is a wonderful facialist, and I had never seen her before. I had just never gotten my act together. And she knows I do this podcast and she was like, tell me about your skincare routine. And I was like, I don't know, it's kind of a mess. Have I learned nothing doing this podcast, but it was a lovely facial and she gave me a lactic acid peel.
Doree: Oh, how was that
Kate: my skin? I love the way that feels. It's like a mask. It has a little bit of a tingly sensation. And just because my skin feels so dull, just dull, just kind of like, and it's very nice and bright and it was very nice. I've just felt very refreshing to kind of, I don't know. I truly can't remember the last time I had a facial. It was just a nice indulgence and I really enjoyed it and I truly noticed a nice difference today. So that's kind of nice.
Doree: That's nice. I love that.
Kate: Yeah, I was Quite Chuffed, if you will. I also fell asleep and I also have this anxiety now when I get things like a facial or a massage, if you will, that I'm going to start snoring because I snore.
Doree: Oh, Interesting. But don't you think they've heard it and seen it all?
Kate: I'm sure. Of course. I just am more self-conscious about my, it's not that I think I will be the first person to ever snore. It's more that I feel just, I guess that all of a sudden I'm going to be like,
Doree: Yeah, I hear you. I hear you.
Kate: So I kept kind of dozing off because it was in one of those heated beds
Doree: That's so cozy
Kate: Foam. It was memory. I got in this thing and I was like, forget it, I'm out. This is way more comfortable than the bed I sleep in every night. Could I just come sleep on this little tiny facial bed? And it was heated and it was at full blast. I sleep with a heating pad every night right now. I mean, I like to be almost cooked like a chicken.
Doree: I was going to ask, is there such a thing as a heated bed?
Kate: There are heated blankets, but I dunno If there is a heated bed,
Doree: you know how you can get a car with heated seats?
Kate: Yes. Is there a heated bed?
Doree: Is there a heated bed? This is what I'm wondering.
Kate: I don't know, but I would honestly, in the winter, I would love a heated bed. We would have to have two twin beds. I wouldn't be able to share a bed with Anthony because he needs a cool bed. And I truly in the winter. You know how at the beginning of this podcast we talked about our bedtime routines. I was actually going to bring this up to you as a topic at some point because I would be really curious how our bedtime routines have changed and evolved over the years of doing this show. Because me getting into bed right now, it's such a production that it's like, it's like humbling. I'm putting on
Doree: Interesting
Kate: A boot on one foot for my plantar fasciitis, put my retainer in, I tape my mouth shut, then I've got my under leg pillow, a heating pad to warm me up, big ass socks and an eye mask plus white noise.
Doree: I didn't wear an eye mask and earplugs when I started this podcast, I don't think. But it has made an immeasurable difference, I think, in the quality of my sleep.
Kate: Yeah. Well now we need heated beds.
Doree: Now I just need a heated bed. Yeah, exactly.
Kate: Sorry, you were going to say that You also do something else.
Doree: No, I was just going to say I also put a pillow under my knees, which I think also helps. Yes. Now, Kate, you tested me about something last night that I feel is relevant to this discussion about your telephone.
Kate: Talk to me, tell the people what I did.
Doree: Well, you said, and I'm paraphrasing because, oh wait, I think I can find the actual text. Kate, this was two nights ago you said, I'm about to do something very brave and try to sleep with my phone in the kitchen tonight. Prayers appreciated.
Kate: Yes. And you know what, actually, this was the kind of thing where I was like, I could talk about this on the podcast, but I've talked about trying this so many times that I'm embarrassed to admit that I have failed at this so many times. Here's what happens. So my husband is often gone for very long chunks of time for his job, and most recently he was gone for half of August, all of September, half of October. And when he's not here, I feel more comfortable with my phone on my bedside table. Yes. Just for, I don't know, emergencies. I mean, would it make a, who knows? Would I even know how to open my phone in an emergency? Probably not, but whatever. So when he returns, I don't then go put my phone in the kitchen. I'm like, oh. But I love it at my bedside table because what I love to do is watch friends episodes while I get ready for bed. And then I like to do some New York Times games and then I scroll. And then also I was in the very bad habit of waking up with my alarm, but then just grabbing my phone and looking at it immediately. And when I do that, it's really hard for me to get out of bed head. And I also have just kind of been reflecting on the fact that it's hard for me to go wash my face at night without my phone.
Doree: Oh, interesting.
Kate: Or without a podcast playing without a TV show on my phone. And I have just kind of been thinking about in ways in which I'm trying to reduce stress for myself because I have a lot of stuff going on and a big thing I need to be doing is reducing stress. And I think part of that is stimulation. And I'm trying to kind of reflect on how often I am stimulating myself in my phone when it's time for me to be winding down. So two nights ago when I texted you that I was like, I made myself wash my face and get ready to brush my teeth without the phone. Last night I did it. I had the phone in there, but then I did put it in the kitchen again. And I feel I'm way more able to kind of go calm down, read, I journal, I read, and then I turn the light off or I fall asleep with my Kindle. I'm way more inclined to do those things. It's easier for me to kind of come down without the phone there. And I really also getting up in the morning and trying not to look at my phone first thing. And that's much easier when the phone's just in the kitchen. So I'll get up, I'll go get my coffee, I'll try to do my morning pages, or I'll tidy up the living room or make sure my first kid who has to wake up is awake. And I just feel like I'm more present. But this is not something I've ever been able to put into practice. So I'm playing around with it and I'm trying to just think of it as like, I'll just try it. It's not going to be perfect, or I'm not going to suddenly have these amazing practices. But I have been kind of reflecting on how I need to constantly be stimulated and why that is and why it's uncomfortable for me to go pee without my phone. Sometimes I'll walk to go to pee and then I'm like, I don't have my phone. Go back and get my phone and then go to the toilet to pee. I'm not even talking about a poop, Doree, I'm talking about a short tinkle.
Doree: Wow. Okay.
Kate: I mean, I feel like we've talked about you have your iPad in your room at night and I know do puzzles and stuff, but when, let's say you go to the bathroom to brush your teeth, floss, wash your face, do those things, do you have either a podcast, an audio book, a TV show, or your phone with you? Or are you able to separate from your phone?
Doree: I do not. When I am doing those things, my phone is already in its nighttime home in the kitchen.
Kate: And you're able to just do that without something else happening?
Doree: Yes.
Kate: Wow, that's amazing.
Doree: I mean, we're not talking about a very long period of time For me, I don't know how long all this takes. You would say me,
Kate: It doesn't take a long time.
Doree: Probably takes me five to seven minutes. It's not that long. When I was using a facial device, I was bringing my iPad in because that was like five concentrate, no, 10 minutes, 10 concentrated minutes of just standing there with a device. And that was boring. And I would bring my iPad in, but just for my regular bedtime routine, no. I just do it. And then I get in bed, I take my vitamin D, I put my cuticle oil on, I write in my one line a day journal, and then I do the crossword and I maybe sometimes I read and then I go to sleep.
Kate: Wait a second, you had a step in there that I wanted to reflect on. Cuticle oil, vitamin D? No, the vitamin D. Oh, vitamin D. You do that at night?
Doree: I do.
Kate: Is there a reason vitamin D is happening at night? I do. My don't
Doree: Morning. I don't know. It's probably better to take it in the morning just for some reason I got in the habit of taking it at night and now I take it at night. But as I've mentioned on this podcast, it seems to be working. So
Kate: Yeah, you do you with that vitamin
Doree: DI I'm going to keep doing me, you know what I'm saying? Vitamin
Kate: Doree. Vitamin D, vitamin vitamin. Doree.
Doree: Doree.
Kate: I am getting back into drinking magnesium at night as well to kind of help me settle down. And that is a very nice, have you seen the trend of sleepy girl drinks? Have you followed those? I think this is a TikTok thing. It's basically just, Oh, yes.
Doree: Have you seen, there was an article today about how people now are constantly trying to coin terms on TikTok,
Kate: Like suck a girl drink. I didn't see this, but it's like hot girl walk and girl time dinner.
Doree: Yes, yes, exactly. Everyone's trying to come, Yeah, everyone's coming up trying to come up with, so
Kate: When you said, I would like to read that article,
Doree: Sleepy Girl Drink, I was like, oh, that's one of those things.
Kate: It is. It's literally called the Sleepy Girl Mocktail and it's just cherry juice, some maybe melatonin or magnesium. And then I think they were using the Poppy probiotic drink, but I just put a bubbly water, but I just did magnesium and bubbly water and it was delicious. But yes, it's all, everything now has a coined name, but it's stuff people have been doing forever.
Doree: Totally. Exactly. Exactly.
Kate: It's just got a cute name to it.
Doree: So funny.
Kate: This is kind of a random question that I just wanted to pose for no reason other than I'm curious, have you ever slept in a waterbed?
Doree: I've never slept in one. My uncle had one when I was a kid, and I always thought it was fun to sort of lull around on it. Matt said his parents had one.
Kate: I've never slept. I feel like it would be hard to sleep in. I don't feel like water beds are really a thing anymore.
Doree: No, they're not. I think it was bad for insurance. They would leak and flood your house also, they're not good for you. It's better for your back to sleep on a firmer mattress, not something like completely
Kate: Like a buoyant bed.
Doree: Yes. Hope that's my nightmare.
Kate: It's my nightmare too. Rolling over and there's just waves as you rock. It's a fascinating weird trend that I wonder how it even got started. I don't know anything about waterbeds, but now I'm kind of genuinely curious. Doree, I think we should hop on over into our conversation with our guest today because it was really wonderful and I'm really excited to get to share this interview with our listeners today. Our guest today is Emily Farris. Emily is wonderful. She's a longtime friend of the pod and a listener of the pod, but she's also a senior commerce writer at Bon Appetit and her first essay collection called, I'll just be Five More Minutes and Other Tales from my A DH Brain just came out last week. She's just hilarious and brilliant and so funny to talk to. And as you'll probably hear in our conversation, her book was very meaningful for me to read as a person who was diagnosed with a DD as an adult. But I think as Doree, I think you would agree that it really resonates with everybody. She's an incredibly sharp and witty writer and person. She also lives in Kansas City. I want to point that out. Missouri, not Kansas, Kansas City, Missouri, go Chiefs. I guess.
Doree: Yeah,
Kate: before we bring you that conversation, just a friendly reminder that you can find everything we chat about on our website, which is Forever35podcast.com. We are on Instagram @Forever35podcast. You can join our patreon at patreon.com/Forever35 where you can get access to bonus content including our weekly casual chats, which are exactly what they sound like to friends chitchatting about all sorts of things.
Doree: Just two casually chatting
Kate: and it gets very casual in a good way. It's very open. You can also shop our favorite products at Shopmy.US/forever35. Most importantly, if you would like to reach us, we have a voicemail and a text message number. That number is (781) 5 9 1 0 3 9 0. Email us anytime at Forever35podcast@gmail.com. Alright, we're going to take a break and we'll be right back with Emily. Emily, welcome to the pod. We're so glad you're here.
Emily: Hi friends. So Glad to be here.
Kate: I was just kind of already babbling to you about the big feelings I had reading your book. Well, I'm about to babble to you about the big feelings, which I imagine is going to now happen to you a lot as more and more people get their hands on your book, which is like, this was reading my own life story in so many ways, even though we have very different life stories and that is very healing and moving and it's just such a act of service from you as the author. So thank you,
Emily: Thank you, thank you for reading it and for saying that it was very important to me to write a book that people like me, like you, like us, could relate to. And I feel like that book didn't really exist in a way that wasn't self help.
Kate: Yes, yes. It's such a crucial distinction
Emily: Yeah, and I am not qualified to tell anyone how to help themselves with anything that's not like crafts or lipstick or fixing your hair color when you mess it up. I can help you fix any ADHD mistake you have made by going way out of your scope of knowledge to do something. I can fix that stuff. But big life things, I'm not qualified for that. So what I could do and what I could give was to write my own experiences and write my own shame. I overshared something that people with A DHD tend to do. I overshared my own shame to make other people feel more seen and less alone.
Kate: Well, thank you for doing that because you did, you succeeded. And for me as an a DD person, that diagnosis is self-care. But to start our interview, as you know, we like to touch on a self-care practice that our guest has. What is yours? It could be current, it could be lifelong. What is like if someone was like ham, Emily, what is self-care to you? What are you doing,
Emily: Kate? We're going to go deep. Doree. Kate, are you ready for this?
Doree: Yes, I am so ready.
Kate: That's what we're here for
Emily: Okay. Well, I want to say that I, on surface level self-care greatly improved for me as an longtime listener of Forever35. So I was an original listener and really the first year of the podcast became a VIB rouge level at Sephora because
Kate: Thanks a lot for that humble breath.
Emily: Thanks for that. So my skin is very well hydrated. It might take very good care of it. I do a lot of surface level self-care skincare. I stay out of the sun. I wear sunscreen. I don't go outside without a hat. I take a lot of baths. I get a lot of massages. And I have found in the last few years that no amount of physical self-care was accomplishing that feeling of being fully cared for. And when I stepped back and started to look at the stressors in my life, here's where we're going to go deep. I recently decided to leave my marriage as an act of self-care and self-love. And you probably already know that because it was all over the internet recently, which in a way was also an act of self-care. So I decided to leave my marriage not long before my book came out. My marriage had been, my husband and I were not perfectly matched as far as temperaments and attachment styles, and it was causing a lot of misery. And I decided I wasn't going to let the marriage, not him, the marriage suck the joy out of my book launch. And so I chose my own joy and I wrote about it last week on Cup of Joe, maybe it'll be, I don't know when you're airing this, because I didn't want to spend my book party answering the question, where's Kyle, your husband?
Doree: Smart.
Emily: So I've been a little selfish and I'm choosing my own joy and I have chronic pain I've had has gone away. My body feels better. I started running, weight is such a weird topic, but weight that has been uncomfortable for me that I've been trying to lose just kind of fell off when I started moving more. And I think my body was like, oh, we can let go of.
Kate: Wow. I wanted to ask you, Emily, because I read your piece and Cup of Joe when it came out, and this line, it's a really beautiful piece about the ending of a marriage and kind of how it correlated with some things in your book. But this line really stuck out to me and it's right at the end and you write, I'm more okay with that, which I believe with the divorce than I feel the world wants me to be this soon. And I thought this was really powerful because there is still this kind of expectation on how you're supposed to feel or behave or act after a marriage ends. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that. I'm wondering if you've had the experience of people expecting you to be a certain way since making the choice to end your marriage and how you are going against that.
Emily: Yeah. I mean, it happened. I think the thing that made me want to write that line was that we had started seeing a new marriage counselor, which I say in that piece in the cup of Joe Peace, I say it was our fourth. And I had already asked for a separation when we went to our first session with this therapist. And by the time we came back to our next session, two weeks later, I had decided I wanted a divorce and we decided we were going to stay in therapy for a while because we do have two small kids and we have had really poor communication throughout our relationship. And so we want to try and fix that now if we can. Maybe it'll be easier without trying to also be married. And at one point, my husband, soon to be ex was talking about things and pain, and I wasn't reacting in the way I think that either of them expected me to with my face or my words. And the therapist said, where's the humanity? I was pissed. I realized that I wasn't grieving because I wasn't grieving at the exact time and in the exact way that they expected me to. There was this idea that I lack humanity or empathy or feelings. But when I started to think about it, I have been grieving the end of my marriage for a long time. And I actually went back and I called it out to the therapist and to my husband, soon to be X, we'll say X now we'll call X. We're still legally married, but we'll say X from this point forward. And I called it out and I said, I think that was unfair because there have been so many times throughout this separation in the last year, in the last years that I have gone to him crying and grieving and saying, this is sad. And he didn't react to me, but because we weren't in front of a therapist, he didn't get called out for it. But because I'm sitting here on this couch and not reacting in the way that you expect me to react in this moment, now there's this idea that I am an unfeeling cold person, not, I have lots of feelings, so many feelings. When I run now I run to fes. I feel it all because one, I'm a very slow runner. And two, I feel it all. I have lots of feelings. But I have learned, I think partially being a person with a DHD who didn't get diagnosed until I was 35. I learned to, and I grew up with invalidating parents. Terrible combination. I learned to mask my emotions to survive hard moments and difficult situations and uncomfortable being called out on a therapist's couch. But it doesn't mean I lack humanity, it just means I processed things in a different way and at a different time. And I think that is something that I'm sure probably women in general, but definitely neurodivergent women, people think, oh, she's cold. She doesn't have feelings, she doesn't feel this. Or they think people with autistic people don't feel things, but neurodivergent, people often process things in ways that feel safe to us because growing up, the ways that we started to process, we were shamed or punished or outcast for processing things in the ways that felt natural to us. And so in order to survive in society and be normal or fit in or have friends or get validation from our parents, we learned how to control and mask our emotions and deal with them in the ways that felt safe to us. And that's what I was doing on that therapist couch. And it happened with another therapist over the summer. I didn't respond in the way he thought I should. And he said, what he basically said was, he called me autistic narcissist. We didn't go back to that therapist. Yeah, yeah. It's infuriating as a woman and as a neurodivergent woman to just have these callouts, especially from mental health professionals. And I think especially when you're dealing with anybody, whether you're a mental health professional, a parent, a friend, a coworker, when you're dealing with someone, especially someone who is neurodivergent, but all people process feelings differently and in the ways that feel safe. And for them, you can't expect someone to grieve or process a feeling in the same way you do. And just because they don't, doesn't mean they don't have feelings. And as I've written on my own and I have an essay coming out with Liz Lynn's and her men Yell at Me newsletter, I,
Kate: good one,
Emily: Do a lot of my emotional processing on the page. I'm a writer. That's how I learned to cope with things as a child because people would shut me down before I finished making my point or tell me why I was wrong. Or I like to interject humor in very inappropriate places, and people don't like that. But I like to lighten the mood with some levity every now and then, but that makes people uncomfortable. And so I was about to say, I'm sorry if the way that I process things makes you uncomfortable, but you know what? I'm not sorry anymore. I'm just not. I'm done being, sorry,
Kate: Kind of resonate in terms of the idea of masking and having an undiagnosed, having undiagnosed A DD or A DHD, excuse me, for so long. Is that part of it for you, part of your experience and rediscovering who you are?
Emily: Yeah. I mean, just saying I'm sorry and being sorry or not being sorry.
Kate: Well, I just really resonated a lot about, and I would love to talk about rejection sensitivity and this kind of, there's a lot of overcompensating and self-deprecation that I think goes along often with ADHD, especially with women. And so it's interesting to me to hear you say that. And I'm just curious if that's been a shift, this kind of idea that you are no longer apologetic for who you are, how you process things.
Emily: I would like to no longer be apologetic, but I'm 41 years old and old habits die hard.
Kate: They sure do.
Emily: I have found that I am coming out of this marriage and coming into this book launch and just into my forties with a lot more self love and self awareness, but I do still, I mean, self-deprecation is kind of my brand of humor. It's how I learned to when I felt like a weirdo who couldn't before other kids made fun of me. I just made fun of myself. And I do it in my writing and I still do it as an adult. I make jokes. I am the butt of my own joke, am the punchline. And it has worked for me. And I don't think that I'm cruel to myself, but as I wrote in the Cup of Joe piece, I definitely, I left out anything that might've made anyone else my parents a little bit. Obviously your parents are kind of fair game. So the errors of my parents, many few of them are revealed in the book, but I wasn't going, I never wanted to make my ex look bad in the book. And I still don't, when I'm writing am protective of him because I care about him and he's the father of my children, and I don't need to air the details of our dirty laundry. I'm like, there's the pile of laundry. I'm not going to show you his underwear, but there's a pile of dirty laundry after that. Lots of pile actually, because I have ADHD and laundry is my housekeeping. Achilles heel.
Doree: Did he read the book before you?
Emily: He has not read the book.
Doree: He has not read the book.
Emily: He read some of the essays but has not read the book, which offended me, not too much because I think also part of being a person who grew up undiagnosed and also having a somewhat public persona, being a writer, an essayist, I've been writing personal narrative my entire career at this point. It's pretty hard to offend me, but it hurt that he wasn't like the second I got my arcs, my advanced reading copies that he wasn't like, oh my God, I want to read it. I wanted that. I want someone, especially because I'm my most vulnerable on the page, that is where I lay my soul bare and tell you who I really am and the things that have hurt me and brought me joy and made me laugh. It's my memoir, it's a memoir and essays that is who, if you want to know who I'm, she's a little more self-deprecating than I would like to be. And I left some things out. But that is that it paints such a picture of how I've gotten to where I am and who I'm, and now he hasn't read the book. And maybe he will, after all is said and done, and maybe he won't. And I, as my good friend, Christine, who is not my therapist, but is a therapist, told me from this point, I need to start really paying more attention to separating my feelings from his feelings. Because for so long, his feelings really affected me. And I still absorb that. And I'm still, again, this probably has a lot to do with having undiagnosed A DH adhd, but walking around on eggshells and being afraid of messing up and always feeling like I've done something wrong and he's going to be mad at me and I messed up and I'm not a good partner, and I'm failing at this, and I'm failing at that, and I'm behind here and I'm behind there and I got the bills. And so just being always so worried that I was going to do something wrong and upset him. And so it's again, separating myself from that self-deprecation, extracting my emotions from his. But we're still living in a house hopefully not for much longer. And so I think the physical space will definitely help me to separate that because then I can feel more free in my home. But yeah, I feel like I have come out of this in a much better place. Again, more healed and more than the world wants me to be. But I know I still have a lot of work to do.
Doree: That's a very perceptive, I think it's hard to kind of come to that conclusion.
Kate: Okay. Well, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Doree: I am wondering, as you were writing this book of essays, were there things that you looked back on that you changed your perspective on as you were writing about them?
Emily: Yes.
Doree: Did you reinterpret events? And I'm curious how that played out.
Emily: Absolutely. I mean, yes, this essay about a celebrity who really wanted to be friends.
Kate: Oh my gosh, that's a wild story. It's buckle up, buckle up.
Emily: When it was happening to me, I was just like, oh my God. These people, they are out of their minds. They are. So what are they doing? Why are they weirdly obsessed with me? There's something wrong with them. And when I went back to write the essay, I realized how I had played a part in their thinking that I was much more involved with their lives than I really wanted to be. And I think that's another thing that happens with ADHD because I know it. I see this in memes a lot about divergent women who we are enthusiastic conversationalists when you get us going. And often that is interpreted as flirting or romantic interest or just more interest than I actually have. And looking back, that's happened a lot where I've been at a conference and I've just gone up and talked to some guy at a bar and he'd be like, I'm gay, I'm engaged. I'm like, I'm not hitting on you. I'm just trying to have a conversation at a conference. You're a person. You look like somebody I'd be friends with. And yeah, I think looking back at all of those times, I would think, oh God, that guy's a creep. That electrician's such a creep. He thinks he's texting me, trying to sleep with me. What a creep. And I'm like, oh, shit. I probably gave him that idea just by being so grateful that he was fixing my light switch at the last whatever. I can fix my own light switch, but fixing something. I don't know. I think that happened looking back. So yeah, when I was writing that essay about this celebrity who was mad, when I wanted to stop replying to his emails, I realized that I had been very enthusiastic at first, oh, look, shiny new object. Yes, I'll reply to all your emails, 30 emails a day. And then I'm like, oh, okay. I want to move on to something else. And then he's left hanging. So I can see the kind of reevaluating my role in some of these stories that were just wild, funny stories. Like, oh, okay, now I can see how I may have given people the wrong idea. It doesn't mean that him threatening my life was acceptable because it was not. But I can see now how my actions played a role in his feeling suddenly rejected or let down or something.
Doree: Yeah. Wow.
Kate: I relate to that so much,
Emily: and I feel like every day there's still something new. So I got diagnosed when I was almost 36, and now I'm what? Almost 42. So that's like six years math words, not math. It would've been better if I would've said real ages, not the almost ages. Anyway, I still am finding things every day is something I'm like, oh, I wonder, is it shit? Is that my A DH adhd? Is that, yeah. Okay, interesting. And so that happens. It still happens, and I think it will happen. It's not always like, okay, this is a symptom of a DH adhd. It's like, oh. So that thing happened when I was a kid, and I probably reacted that way because my brain is not like everyone else's brain. And so then I believed this thing about myself, or I believed this thing about love, or I believed this thing about careers, and it really shaped my worldview and the way that I interact with people. And it, I'm grateful that I got diagnosed when I did. My dad didn't get diagnosed until his sixties.
Kate: Wow.
Emily: And no one told me, when I told my stepmom that I got diagnosed, she said, oh, interesting. Your dad got diagnosed with that a few years ago and your Uncle John too.
Doree: Wait. And no one, no one told me, no one decided to fill you in.
Emily: No.
Doree: Interesting.
Emily: That side of my family. So my mom's, my parents divorced when I was three. My mom's side of the family, they will call each other out and yell at each other about everything. My dad's side of the family, somebody could be dying. And they're just like, we don't talk about that. So yeah, nobody talked about that. Actually when I was writing the, there's some mental health issues that have been alluded to on my dad's side of the family. And I tried to get family members to talk to me and told, got put in my place about it because I don't want to share too much because if this family member listens, I don't want them to get mad at me. But looking back at the circumstances of this person's supposed activities and actions and the way that they acted, I think that if I were put in that position, in that period of time with so few resources and being taken out of a career to raise children and not being able to talk about what was going on in my head and in my life and being overwhelmed, I can see how I might've acted in those ways too. And so I really wanted to explore that. And there's so much shame and stigma around mental health that I couldn't even get anyone in my family to talk to me about it.
Kate: And so you mentioned the shame and stigma around mental health. And I think especially after a diagnosis as an adult, there's a lot of big feelings. And I'm so glad you talk about this, and I'm glad that for other people who maybe have families who don't want to talk about mental health, your book is kind of like a found family in many ways, or what has been your feelings roller coaster after receiving a diagnosis?
Emily: I, they're mixed. So when I got diagnosed, it was this big sigh of relief, and I cried a lot, and I'm going to probably cry a little bit talking about it, and I talk about this in the first essay in the book. But I remember being a kid and trying to, being told all the time how smart I was and how talented I was. But I couldn't test into the talented and gifted program and timing out of the GRE on reading comprehension, even though I was a professional writer and being so horribly bad at money, seeing all of my friends just have a savings account and being able to buy a plane ticket without freaking out about moving money or going into the red. And so getting the diagnosis gave me an explanation, and that felt so validating. And I also was sad because of all of everything I missed out on the tools, the tools I missed out. If I would've been diagnosed as a kid, I could have learned how everything, I'm bad at money and bad at laundry, and those are superficial things. One thing that I was really bad at that I have done a lot of therapy to get better at is emotional regulation. And I didn't know how to regulate my emotions in healthy ways. And I stuffed them down and I drank a lot and I pushed people away, and I processed things on my own and not externally. And so people probably thought I was a stone cold bitch, and I was an angry, angry kid too. I had a short temper. So I was sad for younger me. I'm not sad for me now because I am. So I very happy and I think I'm grateful for everything that led me to exactly where in this hotel room, talking to you guys right now. I'm so happy to be here right now today. And I feel like I have some really impressive skills, so many things I can do because I had to learn how to do them, or I just wanted to learn how to do them. And I feel like even with this divorce, people are like, oh, the stress. I'm like, whatever. I was like, I can handle financial stress, real estate stress, kids stress, money stress. I can handle all of that. It was the emotional stress that was really causing me just the deep, deep physical feeling like I was failing and I couldn't cope all this other shit. I can handle that because I've been handling that my whole life, and now I can handle it. And I have tools and I have a good credit score, and I have a full-time job because of the therapy and the meds and the self-awareness. And so I'm not sad for myself now, but I am sad for baby Emily and little girl Emily and how cruel I was to her and how the world misunderstood her. And I'm sad for baby Emily. But overall, I feel like the diagnosis, it was maybe a little late, a belated gift. And I want to make people feel less alone with my writing. I have a platform, I have a book. I'm able to tell my story, and hopefully it will make other little baby Emily's feel less like stone cold bitch weirdos.
Kate: Well, and you also celebrate the ways in which being neurodivergent can be such a gift in terms of it offers and enhances who we are in so many ways. And I love that you touch on that, right? It's not just being diagnosed is not just a negative thing. These are your superpowers too, in a lot of ways.
Emily: Oh, Absolutely. I think of Neurodivergence. My brain is not bad and my brain is not broken, even though people have tried to tell me that it is different, and my brain isn't necessarily wired for a nine to five desk job. And it turns out it wasn't wired for a conventional marriage with small kids to a person who wanted a conventional marriage setup. But my brain can do lots of amazing things, and I can pick up a new skill overnight like, oh, you need video editing. I don't know how to do that. By the next morning, oh, look, here's three videos I just edited. I just stayed up all night and edited video, or I started when I was a kid, I started dyeing my own hair, and I do my own hair color, and when something's broken, I just fix it. I just figure out how to fix it. And if I need to take it apart to figure out how it goes back together, I just do that and I will hyperfocus on something until I figure it out. And for me, look at this, I figured it out. But then if I have a husband over here who's like, why are you spending seven hours fixing that vintage fan and not spending time with your family? So yeah, I don't always fit into this version of a person that the world expects me to be, but I'm still a pretty awesome person who can fix a fan because I took it apart and my brain figured out how it worked.
Kate: Emily, can I ask you about lipstick? Because I was going to ask you about lipstick anyway. This is a question I have every time I look at a picture of you. And so when I knew we were talking, and then I remember the essay in your book about, is it your Aunt Frida?
Emily: My Grandma Frida.
Kate: Okay. Who gives you this great, I mean, amongst other very questionable, horrible advice from people from that generation. She does have very good advice that lipstick is the only makeup you can put on in public. And I feel like you have a really fantastic signature lip that I'm obsessed with. Can you just give us one, what is this color? What is this lipstick? I just want just a very shameless, I want to know exactly the product so I can copy you. But two, what was your journey with a red lip? And yours is an orangey red.
Doree: It an orangey red.
Emily: Well, first of all, I just want to say Kate and Doree, that it has been my dream since you launched this podcast in 2018 to come on and talk about lipstick. So thank you for asking.
Kate: Here we are finally. The moment has happened.
Emily: My dream has been realized. I can die happy now. Wait, lemme talk about it first though. Okay, so I have been wearing red lipstick since high school, probably different colors of red. When I first moved to New York, I remember this Anna Suey color, and it was in the black. I got it at Sephora. I remember seeing a picture of Caroline Bessette Kennedy with her pale face and her just deep red lip. I was like, I want to look like that. But I looked like a platinum pixie cut with all black trying to be like beatnik. It was the year 2000. It was an interesting, there's actually, I'll send you a picture after this, but I just started wearing a red lip every day. So I wore it in high school some, but then I went through my frosted lip color, my frosted lip phase, the Clinique pearly gates in the late nineties. But the red lip just felt like a manifestation of what was going on in my head For some reason. And the color has evolved. It's very orangey red. Now, the thing that I'm going to tell you that is not going to satisfy your lipstick desire is that it's not just one color and it's not always the same color.
Kate: You're doing combos
Emily: I blend. I do combo, combos, blend. I blend. I always blend.
Kate: This has happened to me before and it's both inspiring and devastating because I can't just run out and buy it. But I appreciate that you have created your own shade that works for you.
Emily: I've created many shades. I have this box of red lipsticks, and depending on the texture and how matte, or I don't really do shiny, but depending on the look I'm going for, I will mix different. They're always like a shade of orangey red or maybe a little bit more blue based red. But it's always a mix and a lipstick tip that I feel like I learned this on social media, maybe even in the original Forever35 group. I don't know. I think somebody maybe posted a tip from a makeup artist is that after you put on your lipstick, you take a fluffy eyeshadow brush and you just kind of go around the edge and soften it a little. And that for me, as I started to get older, I was like, God, my lipstick looks really harsh. I don't want to look harsh. And when I started softening the edge just a little bit, I went from feeling like just this harsh red, like cold to just this beautiful, soft, but bold lip. And I do it every day. I carry a little brush in my purse everywhere I go because I do put on lipstick in public. I always touch it up. And that has just changed my lipstick game. And I feel like it has changed the way my face looks in lipstick and everybody's shade is going to be a little different. I do have one that is linked in my Instagram bio. My Instagram is that Emily Farris, and it's a neon red, and I love it, but sometimes I don't always wear it every day because it doesn't. I'd like to change up the color depending on my mood and my outfit and my nails. I like to match my nails to my lips.
Kate: I know they do match your nails today too. They look very good.
Emily: Well, I have my book party tonight, so I took the lipstick that I was going to wear tonight, and I took it to my nail lady, who I've been going to since 2015. And I said, okay, we got to match this. Exactly. And so I don't do a lot of color. I wear a lot of gray and black. That's my vibe with clothes. And so for me, my color pops are with my lips and my nails, and I really wanted them to match tonight.
Kate: Now, can I just circle back to the eye shadow brush on the lip? Are you blending it in on, is it blending the line or is it just kind of softening the actual lip texture?
Emily: Just softening the edge of the lip. Yeah.
Kate: Okay. Now wait, I had another question. Hold on. It's going to come back. Oh, yes. Are you a red lip person? All the time. Every day. Even if you are in pajamas, picking up a rotisserie chicken,
Emily: I would say 50% of the time I'm in pajamas picking up a rotisserie chicken. I do have on red lipstick, but there are days that I don't work from home. And sometimes I'll go into a Zoom meeting every once in a while and it's just my small team or whatever. And I'll go into a Zoom meeting and by day I write for a Bon Appetit and Epicurious. If it's just like my little commerce team of people I talk to all the time, I'll go into a meeting with no makeup, no lipstick. If I've been, I did a daycare drop off and walked the dog and got to rush to this meeting. But most of the time I have my red lip. If nothing else, I have my red lip and the thing I it else
Kate: If nothing else.
Emily: And the thing I love about the red lip is that I feel like I can go anywhere in jeans and I will not be underdressed.
Kate: No, it feels so put together to me all the time. And also, will you go otherwise makeup lists, but always do the red lip?
Emily: Yes, though I will often because I stay out of the sun. So after I soften the edge of my blip, I often take that eyeshadow brush and kind of dab a little color on my cheeks to look alive.
Kate: Is there any other skincare or beauty product as a person who is familiar with the podcast that you feel called to share today with us?
Emily: I mean, have so many. I am just a huge fan of hydration. I hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. One is, a friend of mine has this very small skincare line with just two products, and I think one has been sold out forever. But they have this squalane serum that I'm obsessed with. It's called Super Squalane, and the company is called Good Skin Day. And I love it and it's a splurge, but I love it. I also started, I stayed in a fancy hotel, like a boutique hotel in Kansas City called No Vacancy. Not long after I told my husband I wanted a divorce and they had La Labo sent all 33 shampoo and conditioner and body wash in the room. And I washed my hair with it, and my hair has never air dried so well in my life. And so now I spend $130 for 15 ounces of shampoo and conditioner total, not really in my budget, especially as a future divorce hay, but it is a life-changing shampoo and conditioner, which seems so weird. But I usually just use whatever smells good at Target and I love it. My hair just air dries so beautifully, and I love the texture, and it feels like it has movement and yeah, I really cut back on my actives. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.
Kate: Yeah. Amen. Well, Emily, it's been so great to get to talk to you. Obviously your book is out now. Wherever folks can get books, pick it up. It's so funny and heartfelt and informative and validating. You do not need to be a person with a ADHD to read it.
Doree: Correct.
Kate: But if folks want to find you elsewhere on the internet, where can we turn?
Emily: I am that Emily Farris everywhere, so I'm that Emily Farris on Substack, on Instagram, on Facebook. I mean, I guess I'm still hanging out on Twitter, hanging on by a thread over there. I don't know. But yeah, I'm that Emily Farris and it's F-A-R-R-I-S, and everyone likes to spell it with an E, but it's F-A-R-R-I-S. Thank you so, so much. It was so nice to connect with you guys. It's been so long since we've chatted, so
Doree: It's been a long Yeah. Thank you for doing this. Thank you.
Kate: Yeah, thank you so much.
Doree: And good luck with all your book stuff.
Emily: Thank you.
Kate: I love Emily's red lip, Doree.
Doree: Yes. She has a great red lip. We also didn't talk about her glasses, but I do really like her glasses.
Kate: I just want to say she has a great personal style that I want to copy.
Doree: Yes, yes.
Kate: So if you see me suddenly looking a lot like Emily with a really nice, juicy, bold, orangy red lip and a nice middle part, and some big ass glasses, it's because she looks amazing. I like her choices.
Doree: Yeah.
Kate: I like her fashion sense.
Doree: I love that for you.
Kate: Thank you. I mean, I really do love her lip color. And I also just love the idea. And I don't know if I love this for me, but I just love the idea of one signature thing that you'd have. It's almost comforting, I think, to know you have a signature thing.
Doree: To have a thing.
Kate: Yeah. I don't have to figure out what lip color I'm wearing. I know I'm an orangey red lip almost every time. Yeah.
Doree: Love that.
Kate: Well, Let's just transition here and oh, hold on. Anthony's going to just jog by. He's going to get his lunch, I think. Are you getting your lunch? Yeah. Okay. We shut the door away. You thank you love you. Bye. Well, Anthony King cameo. Okay, Doree, I want to transition into our intention space because
Doree: let's do that.
Kate: Last week you had put your intention was rainy day coziness, not sadness. Now we've had a really extreme weather front here in Los Angeles.
Doree: It's true.
Kate: That quite frankly, has made me feel kind of wacky. How did this go for you?
Doree: It was okay. It was little weird. The rain really started Sunday afternoon. Monday. My son did not have school. I canceled school because of the rain,
Kate: Because of the rain,
Doree: And that just made things a little bit weird. And then even Tuesday when I took him to school, I barely left the house the rest of the day. I don't know, I just started feeling a little like, Ooh. And it was like, oh, it's really raining. It's raining a lot.
Kate: There were landslides. I don't know if you follow past Forever35 guest, Melissa Broder on Instagram. But her car was swept away in the mud. And some people really, neither of us did, but some really sustained a lot of damage. And it actually was pretty scary.
Doree: So I wouldn't say that I had sad seasonal affective disorder from the rain. But when I woke up this morning and I saw that it was sunny out, I was like, oh, that's nice. Now it's getting cloudy again. But I know it was a nice little respite this week. I'm trying to manage my life stress and not let it overtake everything, because I sometimes find that I get paralyzed when I have so much stress that I can't get anything done and there's things I need to get done. So I'm going to try to figure that out this week.
Kate: Okay. Well, I'm here for you if you need support.
Doree: Thanks, Kate. How about you?
Kate: Well, I think last week I had talked about how I am working on eliminating histamines from my life and also trying to help my body have less reasons to react to the histamine that is inside my body. So that is going, I do feel really good. That's part of that is with the phone. That's part of the phone thing that's changing stuff that I've been eating, which is really challenging. But that being said, my symptoms are reduced and so I feel pretty good. And then I also have been trying to turn off all the lights to save electricity because we have had some high electricity bills and we don't need that. Also better for the world. So I would say doing okay on both those fronts.
Doree: Great.
Kate: Now that being said, my intention this week is one that's been, I dunno, staring me in the face for months, which is that I need to clean up the dumping corner of my bedroom. Now, do you have a dumping area?
Doree: Oh yeah. The bedroom is a nightmare.
Kate: I mean, I should say this isn't the only messy part of my bedroom, but I have a corner of the bedroom where there's just a pile of stuff. Everything from a photo from my wedding to physical therapy tools for my foot. I mean, it's just to a LED face mask. I mean, it's just a pile of shit. And I need to figure out homes for these things. And it stresses me out every time I look at it. But nothing is less appealing than dealing with it. It's like, what's worse? The pile? Or dealing with the pile. I don't fucking know. But I put it in here because when I actually set intentions on this podcast, I feel like it holds me to task more.
Doree: Well, that's good.
Kate: So here it is.
Doree: Here it is. Here we are.
Kate: The dumping corner, the dumping. Okay.
Doree: I like this idea of tackling the dumping corner.
Kate: Well, I feel like something that you have said before, which has resonated with me, is everything has to have a home and has to go with. And right now my bedroom is filled with a lot of things that don't have homes. Where does my Navage nasal cleaner go? I don't know. Right now it's on my dresser.
Doree: Okay. Yep.
Kate: So got to find some homes for things, Doree.
Doree: We need homes. They all need homes.
Kate: They all need homes. Well, on that note, Forever35 is hosted and produced by Doree Shafrir and Kate Spencer. It's produced and edited by Sam Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager, and our network partner is Acast. Thank you for being a listener.
Doree: Thanks everybody.