Former Nickelodeon star Jennette McCurdy is opening up about her traumatic childhood.
The 30-year-old wrote her memoir titled âIâm Glad My Mom Died,â avaliable August 9, which details the Abuse she endured at the hands of her mother, Debra, who died in 2013 after a battle with breast cancer.
The âiCarlyâ star grew up poor and her mother, who aspired to become an actress, imposed that on her when her dream fell through, according to The Washington Post.
Debra also controlled her daughterâs life by giving McCurdy showers until she was 16 years old, shaving her legs, and performing breast and vaginal exams to check for cancerous lumps.
âShe worked really hard to keep our relationship very private. I now see it as conditioning, but at the time I thought, âOh, Mommy and me have a relationship thatâs so special. Like when you have a best friend and you have all these secrets and that feels like a form of intimacy. Thatâs exactly what my mom did with me â only it wasnât friendship. It was Abuse,â McCurdy said in an interview with The Post.
McCurdyâs life also revolved around pleasing her mother and feeling guilty if she didnât obey.
In an attempt to garner more roles, Debra would restrict McCurdyâs calories in her meals so that she could delay her daughterâs puberty, which led her to become anorexic at 11 years old, according to McCurdy.
She also struggled with binge eating and bulimia later on which led to tooth decay from when she would vomit.
Her drastic weight loss brought concern to those around her, like her dance teacher and pediatrician, but nonetheless, no one intervened.
âWhat would happen if anybody tried to step in was my mom would completely turn off toward them. Sheâd go cold,â McCurdy explained. âIf my dance instructor had continued to press, Iâm sure my mom would have just pulled me out of dance. If somebody from church had said something, we wouldnât show up at that ward anymore. Like, she could not be challenged.â
It wasnât until her motherâs death in 2013 that McCurdy would actually get the help she needed by going to therapy.
âThat got me to the point where I was able to accept my mom was abusive,â she said.
Child Abuse is reported every 10 seconds in the United States, according to ChildHelp.
However, this realization âwas a very slow-moving process, excruciating in a lot of ways,â according to McCurdy.
âComing to terms with the reality of what my life had been was not simple. It was not painless. It was through consistent work and exploration that it became freeing and healing,â she said.
Despite the Abuse she endured, McCurdy said there isnât any âactive form of dysfunctionâ in her life now.
âIâm in a good place, which is such a weird thing to say. I feel more fulfilled than I ever have, and I wish it wasnât new, but it is very new for me,â she said.