All Episodes

About six years ago, Nora took a notebook and wrote down all of the grudges she was holding against people ... and then, she left that notebook in a seatback pocket on a plane and never saw it again. We wanted to know what you, our listeners, would put in your own Grudge Book if you had one, and in this episode, we share your responses.

High school is a miserable time for Hannah for all of the usual reasons that our teen years are awful … but also for an extra reason. Hannah is disabled, and she’s living in a world that doesn’t seem to want her to be a part of it.

Melissa is the epitome of responsible. She loves following rules and has spent her whole life trying to be the best person possible. But accidents happen, and one winter morning, a split second changes everything she thought she knew about herself.

It’s rare to have a friendship that actually lasts forever, but that’s what Josie and Miles have. When Miles’s cancer comes back after years of remission, Josie is there for him every step of the way … until there are no more steps to take.

Welcome to the Terrible Reading Club, sponsored by Betterhelp Online Therapy. Think of it as our book club for truly terrible times. Haven’t read the book we’re discussing? Good news: In this reading club, that’s not a requirement. Today, we’re chatting with Anne Lamott about her latest book, Dusk, Night, Dawn, which explores how we see ourselves in the context of seriously dark moments. You can buy Anne’s book from our Bookshop.org storefront or wherever you get books.

Children are often taught to respect and honor their parents. For Elissa, this is complicated by the fact that her mother has narcissistic personality disorder.  Elissa couldn’t escape her mother’s emotional and verbal abuse when she was a child. Now, as an adult, she must learn how to untangle herself from her aging mother’s web and still provide the care she needs.

Adoption is often viewed as a happy ending, and sometimes it is! But for Thenedra, her experiences as a child in the foster care system and later as a trans-racial adoptee were — and still are — much more complicated than that. This is an episode about what can happen when trans-racial foster and adoptive parents are not just unprepared to raise traumatized children, but also unprepared to raise Black children in a predominantly white society.

Our weekly TTFA episodes are and always will be free to all listeners. For folks who want *even more* Terrible in their lives, we created TTFA Premium. A $7.99 / month subscription gets you access to bonus content, exclusive interviews and more!  Here is a sneak preview of what you’ll get when you join us on TTFA Premium. Sign up at TTFA.org/Premium.  Can’t swing the membership fee? No worries! You’ll always be able to listen to our regular episodes at no cost to you.

Our weekly TTFA episodes are and always will be free to all listeners. For folks who want *even more* Terrible in their lives, we created TTFA Premium. A $7.99 / month subscription gets you access to bonus content, exclusive interviews and more!  Here is a sneak preview of what you’ll get when you join us on TTFA Premium. Sign up at TTFA.org/Premium.  Can’t swing the membership fee? No worries! You’ll always be able to listen to our regular episodes at no cost to you.

Here’s a sneak peek of what you’ll get when you join us on TTFA Premium. For $8 a month, you can support our show AND get ad-free episodes and bonus content — including mailbag episodes like this one. Sign up today at TTFA.org/Premium.

If you know what it feels like to be on the brink of an emotional meltdown, you’re not alone. Many of us feel like we’re at the end of a rapidly fraying rope … like we’re falling behind in life and it’s solely our fault … like the reason for our problems is our inability to make lemonade out of climate change and racial injustice and a global pandemic. Nora recently asked folks to share what it’s like to be standing at the edge of an existential crisis, and you responded with your stories.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of folks got really into bread baking. Banana bread! Biscuits! Sourdough! (So much sourdough.) Ashley got into bread baking too, but for an entirely different reason. A week before quarantine began, Ashley’s wife died of a heart attack after years of living with cerebral palsy. Ashley wasn’t just lonely … she was ALONE. So she turned to baking as a way to heal.

Our weekly TTFA episodes are and always will be free to all listeners. For folks who want *even more* Terrible in their lives, we created TTFA Premium. A $7.99 / month subscription gets you access to bonus content, exclusive interviews and more!  Here is a sneak preview of what you’ll get when you join us on TTFA Premium. Sign up at TTFA.org/Premium.  Can’t swing the membership fee? No worries! You’ll always be able to listen to our regular episodes at no cost to you.

Ryan’s life often feels like a Venn diagram. Ryan the person loves listening to metal and The Grateful Dead. Ryan the person is a sneakerhead who reads Punisher comic books at night. Ryan the person is also queer — bisexual — and a recovered alcoholic.  Brother Ryan, on the other hand, is a man who has taken strict religious vows. Brother Ryan is a man who believes in the beauty of communal living. Brother Ryan spends his life dedicated to service through education. These two versions of Ryan must find a way to exist together, or he could lose everything.

In our last episode, you met Leticia and her son Anthony. At the end of part one, things were finally looking good for both mother and son: Anthony had just welcomed his own daughter into the world; Leticia had married a wonderful man and was settling into life in the suburbs. But mental illness is a vicious beast, and in this episode, Leticia revisits 2017 — the last year of Anthony’s life.

Leticia was 16 years old when she got pregnant with her son, Anthony. As you might imagine, raising a child more or less on your own when you’re only 16 is really, really hard. It’s even harder when you’re dealing with your own childhood and generational trauma. This is part one of Leticia and Anthony’s story. Part two coming next week.

Nora loves giving advice, especially when the questions are really easy and really low stakes. In this episode, she answers a few of your frequently asked questions and later teams up with comedian Tig Notaro to dole out some wisdom about grief, friendships and her everlasting love for skater boys.

We all want a good death — a death where we’re surrounded by the people we love and don’t feel any fear or pain. A good death is what Ron Deprez wanted when his body became ravaged by ALS… and thanks to his daughter, Esmé, and Maine’s death with dignity legislation, that’s exactly what he got. In this episode, Esmé Deprez shares her father’s story with us.