Review: Life Will Be the Death of Me…and You Too! by Chelsea Handler
I discovered comedian Chelsea Handler’s late-night show Chelsea Lately during my senior year of high school. I immediately fell in love with the half hour of comedy filled interviews and panel guests she included every night. One only needed to watch thirty seconds to see that Chelsea’s signature comedy style was insulting and putting down her friends, guests, and fellow celebrities. But as a teenager with little to no life experience at that point, I found this show format hilarious!
Chelsea Lately ended in August of 2014. She left the show at the E Network; then from 2016-2017 she had a different talk show called Chelsea over on Netflix. This was a much more elevated, socially conscious show than her original one on E. On one episode of this show, she interviewed psychiatrist Dan Siegel. Thus, began her journey with therapy.
Chelsea’s book Life Will Be the Death of Me is about her journey through therapy with Dan and how it changed her for life for the better. She talks about being angry about the result of the 2016 presidential election and how she needs to have more empathy for others. What she did not expect to learn was that she had unresolved trauma in her life. Chelsea suffered from the tragic, unexpected loss of her brother as a child and never truly grieved. This has naturally had a profound impact on her and her relationships throughout her life.
Chelsea has been deeply changed by her journey through therapy (though she will tell you that she HATES the word ‘journey’ used this way). While she has retained her sense of humor, it is no longer about belittling others and using their differences as a basis upon which to make jokes. She uses hilarious stories about her recent years to demonstrate what she’s learned about herself. She talks about her love for her dogs, how a moment involving oranges changed everything for her, and even about her trip to Peru to try the hallucinogenic drug ayahuasca.
Chelsea has since gotten more involved and socially conscious. She has begun to use her platform to educate others, mostly regarding the topic of privilege. She always held the belief that she got to where she is in life because she busted her ass and worked for it. What she has come to realize is that she has benefited from white privilege. Race was never something that held her back. She has started to educate others as well with the recent release of her Netflix documentary, Hello, Privilege It’s Me, Chelsea and helping to elect more women in government.
I was naturally drawn to Chelsea’s new book because I’ve always been a big fan and I own almost all of her other books. We have some odd things in common: we’ve both had and lost a dog named Chunk, our birthdays are only a day a part, and we’ve both experienced the traumatic and sudden loss of an immediate family member. When I found out that her new book was about her own experience with therapy at the same time that I was beginning therapy, I knew I had to read it. I first listened to it on audiobook and then immediately purchased the hard copy because it was so relevant to my life.
I too experienced a traumatic loss and had not grieved properly. Though it took Chelsea decades, I was fresh from the traumatic and unexpected death of my mother on Thanksgiving weekend of 2017. I was up past midnight on 11/26/17. I was awake late at night watching The Blind Side after wrapping Christmas gifts at home by myself in my apartment. It was unusual for me to be awake that late. At 1:48AM my phone rang and I saw that it was my sister calling, which was strange. I answered it jokingly “Jessie, it’s almost 2:00AM, what the hell do you want?” She was crying and my first thought was that something must have happened to her dog Robby. I never would’ve guessed what she said: “The paramedics are here trying to revive Mom.” I screamed, jumped up, ran downstairs and jumped in my car and drove over to my parents’ house, and drove us to the hospital where we received the worst news of our lives. That’s how fast our lives changed forever.
I had to call all of our family and wake them up to tell them what had happened. Instead of feeling the intense, unbearable pain of my mom’s death when she was perfectly fine the day before, I sprang into action. I called everyone in my family to deliver the news. I drove to my place in the middle of the night to pack a bag so that I could go stay with my grandmother for the time being to make sure that she was okay after suffering the loss of her youngest child. Planning her funeral, writing the obituary, writing and delivering the eulogy were the easy parts. They kept me busy. This is the hard part: the delayed grief. Every time something good or bad happens I reach for my phone to call my mom and then it hits me that I can’t. When I realized that I had never had the opportunity to properly grieve, I knew I needed to do something. I honestly can’t remember when or how
I realized that therapy was the answer, but I discovered so many important things about myself when I did. I tried one therapist who did help a lot but I was needing something more. I took a break and eventually ended up with the therapist that I am with now. She has been incredible and has helped me find techniques to not only deal with the PTSD of my mom’s death and my childhood, but she’s helped me develop tools to begin taking care of myself again.
Grief does not go away if you don’t go through it. It sits there and shows up in unexpected ways until you deal with it. It’s a lifelong process but the initial grieving steps must be experienced, whether you go through them immediately after the loss, or you wait like I did.
So many people hold the belief that therapy is for broken people or for the weak. That could not be any further from the truth. Seeking and reaching for help when you need it is the absolute strongest thing that a person can do. Even if you don’t think you’ve suffered from a tragedy or have had a difficult life, there is something to gain from therapy for everyone.
On a side note, my therapist ALSO loves Chelsea Handler’s new book. So, it is therapist approved! If you’re like me and want even more after reading this incredible book, check our Chelsea’s short term podcast by the same title Chelsea Handler: Life Will Be the Death of Me
