Rachel Bloom brings humor and transparency to her debut book, I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are (Grand Central Publishing), a collection of comic essays, accounts of her childhood, school years and her journey into Crazy Ex-Girlfriend success.
In the book, out Tuesday, Bloom particularly opens up about her mental health journey, including experiencing the onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder. “When I was working on the ‘Jafar and the Wet Bandits’ chapter, I turned in that chapter a day before I was induced and the second I was induced, I started to have kind of those feelings again, intrusive thoughts. It just sometimes comes in when a big life event is about to happen,” Bloom told The Hollywood Reporter. “I had to step back from the book because I had suddenly been writing so much about this. It made me actually more in my head, which is always the slight danger about writing too much about one’s mental health.”
In one moment of the chapter, Bloom recalls feeling elated after learning she was able to pitch Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, until the excitement began morphing into what she called “the bad,” leaving her unable to sleep as her mind raced with anxiety and intrusive thoughts. “In dealing with that part of myself, I could then actually go back to that chapter and just remind myself, this is not a thing that’s gone for good. It’s just something that sometimes happens in my mind. That’s the way my brain is and that’s okay,” Bloom said.
Below, The Hollywood Reporter shares an excerpt.
Then in May 2013, I received an email that would change my life forever: the screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna had seen my music videos and wanted to discuss doing a potential musical TV show with me. Within ten minutes of us meeting, Aline pitched me the idea of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, I went nuts for it, and we were off to the races. In what seemed like seconds, she and I had a full pitch for a television show.
I couldn’t contain my excitement the night before the first round of pitches. This was it. It was all happening for me. All I had to do now was not fuck up the pitch, and—Oh shit, it’s already 12:30 a.m.?!
I put my head down on the pillow to go to sleep. Nothing happened. As minutes passed and I still wasn’t asleep, I panicked. “Oh God. What if I don’t sleep so I’m too tired tomorrow and I fuck up the pitch and it ruins my life?” You would be right in remarking that I took it from A to C real quick.
And just like the night before fourth grade, I didn’t sleep at all the night before the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend pitches.
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter