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[0:00] Bobby Steggert: I'm Bobby Steggert, and this is The Quiet Part Out Loud.

[0:15] Bobby Steggert: Welcome back to The Quiet Part Out Loud. It is back to school season, which is my favorite time of the year. The air is a little bit cooler. If you're my mom, you'll remember that our annual pilgrimage to Staples for school supplies was basically my version of Disney World. I'm rested, I'm vacationed, and I'm ready to take on an exciting new season of episodes. I also got to reflect on the show so far. And as you know, I had the great privilege of relying on colleagues and friends, many in my own generation, and with a similar path in the theater world. And looking forward, no worries, we'll hear from some Broadway favorites for sure, but my goal is also to expand into broader territory, and my hope is that you will expand with me.

We'll hear from a wider range of ages. I'm finding that there is wisdom in every generational experience. It's also important to me to hear from people of various gender and ethnic backgrounds, and I'm working to make sure there's a broader representation of folks on the show. And finally, I'm opening up these discussions to different kinds of artists. We'll hear from writers and directors and designers and hopefully hear their stories in a way that they have rarely had the chance to share. This season will also bring some more thorough discussion about certain aspects of the human experience that are frankly really typical, ones like addiction and depression, but that are even more hidden and privately managed than some of the topics we've already covered.

The most recent episode was one in which I shared a part of my story, one that I kept silent for years as my front-facing parts worked a way to make sure that I succeeded in the way that I did. And so I wanted to start this season with an amazing conversation with a young woman named Cara Rose DiPietro. She's an already accomplished performer and advocate. Case in point, I learned about her by watching her TED Talk. Let me just put out to the universe that I would love to have my own by the age of 50, let's say. And what most attracted me to her perspective is that she decided to say the quiet part out loud from a very early age. Not only did she decide to risk opening up about an incredibly personal struggle with an eating disorder, but she has done so on a scale and in a widely public fashion that the 25-year-old version of me would have been terrified to consider even for a second.

But in Cara's experience, she has learned that the more honest and transparent and generous she has been with her struggle, the more doors that have opened. Also, pay special attention to the language that we use around the function of an eating disorder. As it is for so many people, it is about so much more than body image. It's about a sense of personal control in an otherwise uncontrollable world. Through her struggle, Cara has learned that an artist is not just their work. An artist has to live. And the definition of success she has developed in her 20s is the definition of success I wasn't able to find until 20 years later. And by sharing her story, not only has she achieved surprising success, but she finds a whole new sense of control that is far healthier. And so, welcome back to season two. I am so happy to begin, and I'm so happy you've joined me.

[3:54] Bobby Steggert: So, I'm really excited to talk to you because I was led to your TED Talk, and I was so inspired that for someone at the beginning of their journey and the beginning of their career, that you were brave enough to open up about something so personal. And what felt so significant to me was that in my generation coming up into the theater biz, the unspoken rule was that you put your head down, you did everything you needed to do to be successful in the system that is the business, and you didn't really let anyone know what you were struggling with. And it's the biggest regret of my life that I went through so many years not telling people what I was struggling with. And so, your being brutally honest about it, I find incredibly inspiring. And I just want you to know that I'm really grateful you're here.

[4:49] Cara Rose DiPietro: Thank you. That means so much. And it's such an honor, too, truly. I appreciate that. I think what would be really helpful, if you're willing, is to talk about the earliest experience you had with disordered eating and with anorexia. What were the things that were contributing to it for you? And something else I think about as a therapist all the time is, how was it functioning for you? What was it doing for you before you realized that you had to change?

[5:14] Cara Rose DiPietro: Yeah, it's so funny because I joke that I've been dealing with this thing in my life for over 50% of my life. My earliest memory of it is from when I was 12 years old. And at the time, it had nothing to do with my body or the way that I looked. I just remember being in middle school and feeling a bit out of control. And I remember being introduced to this thing and finding comfort in it. And I didn't even understand really what it was or what I was doing. And something I always say is that, as my life has evolved, my eating disorder has evolved with it, as all things do. As all forms of addiction or mental illness often do, they adapt and they change with us. But I remember so vividly it just being something that made me feel a bit more in control of my surroundings.

And it's so funny because even as my eating disorder changed and evolved with my life, I can always boil it back down to it being a form of control in a length, in a career, in an industry that often feels like you have none.

[6:20] Bobby Steggert: So when you're 12, what was your connection to what control it gave you?

[6:27] Cara Rose DiPietro: I think it just made me feel okay. It's something that my eating disorder really has boiled down to. And when I got to school and as I got older, and it became very tied into my career and how I navigated it in this industry, it was maybe I can't be the best. Maybe I can't be the prettiest. Maybe I can't be the most talented. Maybe I can't be this or that. I can be the smallest. I can be the best at this. This I can be the best at. In fact, I am the best at it. And I would just hold on. And I remember in middle school, just like being in middle school and having braces and having a pixie cut and trying to figure out who I was and figuring out who my friends were and feeling so out of control and also switching schools and socially feeling like I didn't fit in. But this one thing made me feel like I was really good at something. And we all seek that out regardless of what it is.

[7:18] Bobby Steggert: Right. It made you feel proficient. How were you introduced to the idea of restricting your calories?

[7:24] Cara Rose DiPietro: Gosh, I don't even remember because at the time, it really had nothing to do with food. It was just it was a way that I everything around me felt like it was buzzing. And this made things very quiet. There was someone that I went to school with that struggled with it. And I remember watching her do it and being like, maybe that'll work for me. And I liked the way that it made me feel. And often any form of to me when I talk about things like eating disorders, I equate it with addiction, because at the end of the day, the thing that I have found the most common and most universal, regardless of how you struggle with any sort of eating disorder, whether it be restrictive, whether it be binge eating, whether it be bulimia.

It all boils down to this feeling that it gives you this high. And I remember the first time that I really felt that. I remember like being in the cafeteria and being able to say no, while the people around me were saying yes. And that gave me a sense of power when I felt very powerless.

[8:26] Bobby Steggert: Were you paying any negative consequences at that point?

[8:31] Cara Rose DiPietro: It's funny, not that I realized, but I do remember when I was a senior in high school, going in for like my physical that I had to go in before anyone goes to college. I scented my growth. I don't know if I would be. Maybe it would have stopped at that point anyways. But I remember looking at my chart and my doctor showing that to me being like, these timelines add up. Your growth stopped here. And I've been five one ever since that was it. And so who knows if I would have grown anymore. That was the first time that I really understood the physical consequences when I didn't feel super invincible, because you always do. And we always do. We're like, oh, it happens to other people won't happen to me, but it will. That was the first time I was really introduced to any sort of physical consequence that my actions might have.

[9:19] Bobby Steggert: Were you on the opposite end of the spectrum, rewarded by people's reactions to you by people telling you how good you looked?

[9:24] Cara Rose DiPietro: To be honest, when I was in high school, I was very sneaky. And I loved this thing so much. And it's so important to me. It's interesting looking back at it and the things that I chose to do and how I chose to navigate it and how differently it was when I became an adult. But as much as being small and being a certain size meant to me, I never let myself get to a point where someone would have to intervene because I knew I needed it. And I had that foresight to be like, if I just tiptoe this bridge, if I don't change too much, if I just keep it at bay a little bit, then no one can tell me that I have a problem and no one can intervene. And to be honest, like my physical body didn't change a whole lot.

It was something that was so constant in my life that my quote unquote sick body was my norm and a thing that people knew about me. And I was very fortunate that I wasn't in an environment where my body was being hypercriticized. I wasn't in dance classes where the way that I looked was being scrutinized. All things considered, people always ask me, like, what was the thing? Was there a thing that happened? And the answer is always no. I grew up with the best parents and the best friends in the best environments. Sometimes we're just predisposed to things that find us.

[10:48] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, you make such a good point about that sense of control. You were so good at controlling it that you even knew how to maintain it without people being worried.

[10:57] Cara Rose DiPietro: We become so manipulative. I always say that this thing, my eating disorder, makes me very ugly to the people that I love the most. And one of those reasons is because it's so manipulative. You just learn to be very selfish and it makes you very ugly to the people that just want to help you because in your brain, they don't want to help you. They want to hurt you. You're helping you.

[11:21] Bobby Steggert: In terms of that, what do you remember feeling most ashamed about in terms of that defensive response?

[11:28] Cara Rose DiPietro: Oh, my gosh, the way I treated my mom. I think about that so often. I think with any sort of addiction. When it comes to recovery, you go through some sort of withdrawal, whether it be physical, mental, when you take this thing away that you have been so codependent on, the automatic response is that mental illness. My eating disorder fought like hell to protect me. And so when I first went to treatment, going into my senior year of high school, which was something that I advocated for, that I was like, I need this. I don't know what to do.

[12:10] Bobby Steggert: You weren't facing any pressure?

[12:13] Cara Rose DiPietro: No, it was it had gotten to a point where I was just tired. I was so tired and I was like, I don't know.

[12:16] Cara Rose DiPietro: To do. Um, and my parents were very supportive of it and we were very fortunate to be somewhere that was able to provide us with the services that we needed as a family. But, yeah, the way that I treated my mom and the fact that I never got to apologize. She passed away in 2020 and I know I never would need to apologize, but I think back to the way that I treated her when she was putting her whole life on hold for me as an adolescent at the time and I'll never be able to apologize. And I carry that with me daily. A care that sounds so hard to hold. It's definitely complicated. It's definitely, it's interesting. Yeah, it's an uncomfy feeling that I continue to sort through very often. I really appreciate you sharing that. I know that's hard and complicated and present still.

[13:09] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, for sure. What did treatment do and how did it work and how did it not work that time in senior year?

[13:15] Cara Rose DiPietro: Yeah, it worked for me. It was exactly what I needed. It was hard. And at the time I was an adolescent, so a lot of times when it comes to mental health treatment and specifically more involved where you are either living there or you are spending like a day program there, they separate you between adolescents and adults. And adolescents typically range from a young age to 17 and then 18 and up is considered adults. And so because I was an adolescent at the time, I didn't make any of the choices. All the control was taken away from me. So I had a meal plan that was set for me by my dietitian and the meals that were prepared, I didn't prepare. They were prepared by my mom and they were brought every day.

And so were the snacks and all of those kinds of stuff. And we were put into individual therapy and family therapy, nutritional counseling. And then once you set down to different lower levels, you would have an outpatient team. And it was great. I mean, it wasn't great. You know what I mean? It wasn't, but it did what it was supposed to do. And it was really hard. But at the end of the day, I remember heading into my senior year in a much better place than I was. And part of that was because the people around me were aware of what was going on and I was being held accountable, but also because I was given the tools to face this thing head on. But I think the challenging part was the one thing that it didn't give me was how to do it myself when no one was holding me accountable. And that's why everything changed when I got to school. And it was like, oh, wait, it's my turn and I can do whatever I want.

[14:53] Bobby Steggert: Was the control in terms of treatment, the structure and accountability that was provided?

[14:59] Cara Rose DiPietro: Yeah. And I think it was honestly the lack of control. It was the taking away of all the control that was really hard for me at first. I remember being told like, oh, no, you're not going to pack your own lunches and your breakfast. I was like, what do you mean? And freaking out. Because even at the end of the day, even if you had to go into treatment and your body had to change and you had to put on the weight you lost or eat more food than you were eating before, at least you were doing it on your terms. But it's hard when it's not. I remember that being like, well, what do you mean? I can't absolutely micromanage every single thing that comes in here.

[15:34] Bobby Steggert: What was it like to see your body changing?

[15:38] Cara Rose DiPietro: Oh, it was so hard. It was so hard. That's the hardest part. Every time, every time it's and that's one of the biggest things that when I start to find myself falling into old patterns and behaviors, that's always something I think back to. Think about how long it has taken you to be semi-okay with the way that you look on a good day. Think about how long it took and how you're going to have to literally start over again if you do this again. It was so hard. But it was, I wasn't in an environment where I was really looking at myself every day, specifically when I was in high school. I didn't own a full-length mirror. I wasn't really in dance classes every day like I was in college. So as much as I felt my body change and there were certain things that I saw, I wasn't spending hours looking at myself every day like I was in college.

[16:31] So then we go to a musical theater conservatory.

[16:35] Cara Rose DiPietro: The best place on the planet for anyone dealing with this.

[16:39] Bobby Steggert: I remember it well. And while I was male and not a dancer, I remember the pressure to conform to certain shapes, if you will. For me, it was about, oh, you need to be a leading man. You can't let on that you're gay. You can't let on that you have any femininity in you, which was bullshit. So tell me about the different pressures that started to add to the mix once you were studying in school.

[17:03] Cara Rose DiPietro: It was crazy. It was like a night and day shift. I didn't really realize at the time, going back to what you were saying about the pressure to look a certain way. I think it's so interesting to talk about because I think it's so nuanced and layered depending on how you identify. Like I know for something that we talk about to wear blue in the face, but we talk about my experience as a woman in a collegiate music theater program. And we're starting to have those conversations and break things down. But when it comes to men, it's like you just have to put on all this muscle and you have to be muscular. And that's just the way it is. And we're not ready to talk about that one. But I remember so vividly going to school.

I had never been to the gym. I was like, I had never been. And the joke was that anytime you went to the gym, there was always a music theater major there. There was always an acting major there. Always. And that was the joke. And I didn't really understand why. And then I started noticing. I'll never forget the first time that I watched a upperclassman replace lunch with the gym. I remember it so vividly being like, oh no, I'm not going to go. I'm actually going to go to the gym because it's the only time I have to go today. And I was like, whoa, I should be doing that.

[18:28] Bobby Steggert: So these were cultural behaviors amongst your classmates, as opposed to something that was explicitly told to you.

[18:32] Cara Rose DiPietro: Yes. It's so interesting because I think you hear horror stories about people who go to these programs and the things that they are told and the things that they are praised and rewarded for. In my experience at Yuan, I never really had that. I had really wonderful professors who always really supported me. And there was really only one moment that I can remember being praised for a weight loss, but it was one time. It was one time I had gotten back from summer stock and it was a really hard summer for me. And physically, my body did look different. So I remember a teacher being like, oh, you've lost weight. You look great. But there was never this pressure. There was never a, you didn't get this because you look a certain way. But that also goes to be said that regardless of how I feel about my body, at the end of the day, this industry perceived me as a petite, thin woman, regardless of how I choose to perceive myself.

[19:25] So the way that I navigated my program is very different than other people navigated theirs who are in different bodies. But something I always say is that I believe, which is it's a hot take, but I believe that this culture that we cultivate of working yourself into the ground and prioritizing other things over your health comes from us. And that we cultivate that and it comes from a place of insecurity and we don't even realize that we're doing it.

[19:52] Bobby Steggert: It's also structural. If you think about how few jobs there are and how many performers there are, you have to drop everything to jump at the chance.

[20:02] Cara Rose DiPietro: Yes. And our industry thrives off of this idea of this hustle and this grind. And to some extent, that is true, but at what cost? And I think specifically in college, when you're just starting to get a taste of what this industry is like, it feels incredibly all or nothing. And that's really dangerous, especially when you're in this transitional time of your life as a human and you're living on your own for the first time and you're in a new state and you don't know anyone and you're doing all of these things socially and professionally that you've never done. So adding this pressure of this is the start of the rest of your life is crazy.

[20:41] Bobby Steggert: What do you remember in terms of what you were sharing with your friends and classmates and what you were not?

[20:45] Cara Rose DiPietro: Gosh, it was funny because I've always been a bit of an open book in terms of my life. I'm a chronic oversharer. I love just meeting you and off the bat, here it is, here's my whole life story and just a little sprinkle of something I probably shouldn't have shared with you right off the bat. My college roommate was really supportive and she always knew. She always knew. And I think to some extent everyone knew. When you go to Broadway school and you're just 20 people in a class, everyone knows each other's business, but doesn't necessarily talk about it. So I remember sharing things with my college roommate and later on my roommates as I moved to an apartment and my classmates who generally knew what was going on.

It was just something that I, to be honest, felt would always be a part of my life. It's something that I made peace with. I will never fully recover, which I think also is a complicated term that I now have different thoughts on, but it was one of those things like I will always deal with this. This will always be a part of my life and it will always have to be and that's okay and I'll figure it out. And it wasn't until my senior year when I had a different mindset around it and obviously I had done a lot of work and therapy over the years to unlearn that mentality, but I would share. But I think people just knew.

[22:05] Bobby Steggert: As we all do, we all know a little bit too much of each other's business in those environments. What did people knowing, or you're assuming they knew, what did that do to the behaviors? Did it affect?

[22:16] Cara Rose DiPietro: Oh yeah. It was a big part of who I was. It was a big part of my identity. To be honest, it still is and that's something I'm kind of, you work through a lot. The things that you become passionate about and become big parts of your life, become large parts of your identity, then what cost? And I think this thing, my eating disorder, was a huge part of who I was and who I thought people wanted me to be. And I think a lot of that kind of stemmed into this, everyone knows that I have this thing, so I have to look like I do.

[22:51] Bobby Steggert: I really get that. We can really identify with our struggles in a really complicated way. It goes into this whole idea of being sick enough that we all struggle with in any sort of mental health. We always think that, oh, this person is worse than I am, or this person is this, and this person is that. And with eating disorders, it's hard because it's a mental illness, right? It's a mental illness with physical consequences. Oftentimes, it is only when we get to a point where the physical consequences are consequences that help is provided. And that's a societal thing. It's also a thing that we have to deal with in terms of insurance. A lot of times, insurance won't cover any sort of treatment, which is almost always out of pocket when it comes to mental health services, unless you are incredibly unwell. And so we think that we have to get to this point to deserve it, to validate it, but it's never enough.

[23:43] Bobby Steggert: So may I ask, you were young and you didn't know early on that it was as big of a problem as it was. You went to treatment, and then you go to college, and you go back into the disordered eating and everything around it. Was there then an additional layer of shame because you had gone through treatment, because you were regressing in some way?

[24:05] Cara Rose DiPietro: Yeah, absolutely. And it's that idea of, it's when you sit down, you realize you're like, shit, here we go again. Here we go again. Towards the middle to end of my freshman year of college, and I was like, oh, I need more support. And in hindsight, I don't know why I went into school.

[24:32] Cara Rose DiPietro: I was like, great, I'm set. I don't need to set up a therapist. I don't need to set anything. That's crazy. I don't recommend that you do that and that you utilize mental health services or you work before you get there to set something up. But because of that, I met someone who changed my life. And it's the reason that I'm even sitting with you today and talking, and that was my nutritionist, Laura. I met her my freshman year. And like I said, eating disorders and mental illness make us very ugly to the people that want to help us the most. I always took that I had two nutritionists in my life before Laura, and I literally bullied them. Like I was so mean and nasty to these people. Oh my gosh, I like think about the things I did.

And it's so crazy. And I remember going into my first appointment with Laura, because the therapist I was working with at the time was like, you need to see her along with me. It can't just be me. And I told her that. I was like, just so you know, I bullied every single nutritionist I've ever seen. And she was like, whoa, okay, heard. Good to know. And she was one of the most important people in my life for four years, and is the one that inspired me to do what I do today.

[25:45] Bobby Steggert: How does she change your relationship to food most fundamentally?

[25:50] Cara Rose DiPietro: I think it was the way that she treated me. A lot of times when I had seen other doctors, it felt very clinical. It felt very transactional, didn't feel like they were on my side. And seeing Laura was so important to me, because we were talking about more than just food. We were talking about my life and this career and what it's like to navigate an industry that often praises and rewards people for neglecting their health and trying to choose your recovery amidst an impossible scenario, specifically in college. And she just became someone who was also very real with me. And it was always on my terms. We go back to control and how important it was to me. And something that she would always say to me, she's like, I can't force you to do this.

I cannot force you to do anything. And she saw me through some great times. She saw me when I was at the best of my best. She saw me at the lowest of my lows. And I remember there being a point when I was so angry and so frustrated and was not doing okay. And she was like, Kara, listen, I can't force you to do anything. I can tell you what to do. I can lead you to the water, but I can't force you to drink it. You don't have to come see me next week. You don't have to. And I think her letting it be on my terms was really important to me.

[27:12] Bobby Steggert: She allowed you to understand the control you did have beyond the disordering thing.

[27:18] Cara Rose DiPietro: Yes, absolutely.

[27:25] Bobby Steggert: We'll be right back. The other thing I'm really fascinated about is how you decided to take the control of sharing your story with the world. And I guess the follow-up question to that is, did you know that's what you were doing? Or has it snowballed into that? Tell me about that process.

[27:47] Cara Rose DiPietro: Yeah, totally snowballed. It's so crazy how it all happened. And it's the same thing with social media. It just happened accidentally, and I just kept doing it. And I don't exactly remember the first moment that I really shared about it online. I had talked about it publicly on social media before I really had a presence, before it was something that I was actively doing. I would share, oh, this is something I've struggled with, and this is something on National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. It was something I was public about, but it wasn't something that was a passion of mine, that I was actively speaking about to other people. But I do remember having this platform, sitting in, I was in Washington, D.C. at the time doing Catch Me If You Can.

And I remember sitting in the apartment that I was in and being like, gosh, if I had seen someone doing eight shows a week, eating three meals and three snacks that followed full ones, that would follow the exchanges in my meal plan that I was on when I was at a maintenance point of my recovery, it would have changed my life. Would have literally changed my life. And I remember making, I'm not a huge fan of what I eat in the days, unless they're like actively promoting like, this is how I'm able to sustain myself in my life. So I remember doing that. I remember making, this is how I fuel my body, doing eight shows a week, also in recovery. And I remember going back to my original meal plan that I wasn't following anymore because I was at a place where I didn't have to, and I was able to use my better judgment and listen to my body.

And building Meals and Snacks that day around that to share it. And I was so astounded at the response. And so I just kept talking about it. And I just kept talking about it. And once again, I'm just such an oversharer. And my rule is if 14-year-old Kara needed to hear it, and it won't take anything from 25-year-old Kara to say, I'll say it. And it wasn't taking anything from me, and it was actually giving me things. And so I just kept talking about it. And I kept talking about it. And here we are today. So...

[30:00] Bobby Steggert: Big picture, what control has sharing it given you?

[30:05] Cara Rose DiPietro: Accountability is what it's really given me. It's given me a lot of accountability. I'm never someone that will ever say I'm fully recovered, because I don't think that's really how recovery works. I think recovery is a live word and an action that we have to choose. And I think sometimes we're going to be in places where our recovery is so strong that we don't have to think about it for weeks. And there are other instances where you have to wake up and choose it every day. And for the most part, it's something that I have to wake up and choose every single day. And so having this presence on social media, it's a double-edged sword, right? But the good thing that it has provided me with is a sense of accountability, like people are looking to you.

I've realized that the words that I say and the things that I do carry so much weight to so many people. And that is something that has been made very clear to me in the last year of my life and getting to meet people and meet a lot of young people that follow me on social media is just how impactful my words and my actions are. And so it's something that forces me to sit down with myself and remember that this isn't just about me anymore. It's about so many more people. And in turn, it forces me to really keep pushing in this thing that I could so easily just let myself go back into.

[31:25] Bobby Steggert: I'm thinking about the word influence because of course, we use it very glibly about, oh, they're an influencer, right? But you are talking about the genuine influence you have over people's health, over people's willingness to look at the larger picture and to be honest with themselves. That's beautiful that you understand how you can help so many people. I'm also really curious about what the double-edged sword means to you. What loss of control has resulted from having such a presence?

[31:49] Cara Rose DiPietro: It's complicated and it's something I've never really talked about, but I'm happy to talk about it and I'm in a place where I can and I think it would be beneficial. It's very complicated when you're struggling and I'm very intentional about what I post, especially when it comes to mental health and recovery content. And I think if you have a social media platform, other people's triggers are not your responsibility, but what is your responsibility is knowing what you're saying and who it is impacting, knowing your audience and knowing that there is some girl in the middle of Ohio who is 12 years old and wants to do what you do. And so when you post something that might glamorize a disordered behavior, that girl is going to look at that post and go, that's what I have to do to get to where she is.

[32:53] Bobby Steggert: You're afraid of the opposite effect?

[32:56] Cara Rose DiPietro: Gosh, when I'm struggling, yeah. We talked about how my body changing affected me and I have had to, we call it weight restoring. I've had to weight restore a few times. Recovery is an ongoing thing and we have times when things are good and we have time when things are bad. But what was really interesting was navigating bouncing back from a really tough period in public when it felt like everyone was watching me. And that was the first time that I had ever felt like I was being praised for the way that I looked.

[33:28] Bobby Steggert: I can also tell that you lead with optimism, with joy. Have you led in terms of your platform with pain? Have you led with tears? Have you led with grief?

[33:37] Cara Rose DiPietro: Yeah, occasionally. Occasionally. I think something I really try to focus on is showing not just the highest highs of this industry, but also the lowest lows. And sometimes that looks like rejection. Sometimes that looks like dealing with mental health. Sometimes that looks like talking about grief and the ugly parts of it. It's funny, I used to do it a lot more than I do now. And I think it's because I go back to the whole control thing. Something I become very obsessed with is how I am perceived and knowing who's watching and what they're going to think and what they're going to say.

[34:14] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, but it's tough sometimes when you're going through those dark moments that you don't want to share, but you feel like people are counting on you.

[34:19] Cara Rose DiPietro: And I know something that I said to someone recently when I was really struggling this last year, I was like, I feel like I'm lying. I feel like I'm lying to people. But I don't know what else to do.

[34:31] Bobby Steggert: How do you protect yourself from the onslaught of responses?

[34:35] Cara Rose DiPietro: I'll post a picture on Instagram and I'll be very distracted by the 100 hearts I might get. What is it like to post something and then the risk is that you're checking in all day with the thousands of responses?

[34:48] Cara Rose DiPietro: I have been very lucky that I have somehow curated a very kind corner of the internet. When it comes to hate and people in the comment sections, I have been so fortunate, specifically on TikTok. Instagram, I think, is a lawless place. And some of the comments that I get on Instagram are just out of this world unkind. But they're so unkind to a point that you just have to laugh at it. You have to distance yourself from it in some sort of way. Something that I always have to remind myself too is that when people are saying negative things, it's actually not about me. When they're saying negative things, there's this horrible Reddit community called NYC Influencer Snark, which sounds as awful as it is.

And it's just a place for people to hate on other people on the internet. And I remember the first time I saw my name on there and seeing what people were saying about me. And something I have to remind myself is that those people are having such trouble with themselves and the way that they feel about themselves, that spending even a moment trying to tear someone else down that is experiencing any sort of joy is the only thing that will bring them validation. And that it actually has nothing to do with me. And even if I try to defend myself, even if I try to stand up for myself, it's not going to work. Because at the end of the day, they just want to hate you so they can hate you. They can hate something. And so I have to take myself out of the equation. And it can't be personal for me.

[36:24] Bobby Steggert: That sounds right. And I would imagine that some days you can't fully invest in that storyline.

[36:31] Cara Rose DiPietro: Yeah. And on those days, you have your friends that do the same thing, and you call them, and you have a glass of wine, and I call my stepmom or my dad or my partner. And something that Laura actually taught me that I always say is if you let all your emotions...

[36:49] Cara Rose DiPietro: And you don't talk about things, you'll give yourself an emotional UTI, and it'll all explode. And so, whenever I do have those moments where, are you kidding me? What do you mean? I have those people that I can go to to cool down, so it doesn't come out on the internet.

[37:12] Bobby Steggert: We'll be right back. Will you tell me how losing your mom informs your relationship to control?

[37:20] Cara Rose DiPietro: Yeah, I lost my mom at a crazy time. Everyone says that when you lose a parent, it feels like your world is falling apart. I lost my parent and the world literally fell apart. I lost my mom in January of 2020, which is so crazy. My parents were separated, so I was next of kin when my mom passed away, and it was very sudden. It was very, very sudden. Without going too much into the details of how she passed away, my mom passed, and I flew home from school. I was a junior in college, and I flew home in January. I was in the middle of rehearsals for We Will Rock You, the Queen musical at UM University, and I just had to pick up my stuff, and I left, and we planned the funerals, planned the services.

Talk about that hustle and grind culture. Nothing stops. You stuff it down, and you figure it out. We buried my mom. I got on a plane, and I went to audition at the Muny. Then immediately after that, I flew back to Elan, North Carolina, and we went into tech week for We Will Rock You, and I did that. That summer, I was supposed to go to Timberlake Playhouse and be in their resident company for summer stock. Then three weeks later, the world shut down. We all ended up in this house. It was me, my dad, my brother, and my dad's girlfriend, who we barely knew. It was all of the control that I thought I had over my life and all the things like, even if my mom is gone, I can still do this. I can still have a career. I can still do this. It can't all be for nothing. Stopped. It forced me to, for lack of a better word, deal with my shit.

[39:00] Bobby Steggert: What does that ultimately mean, deal with my shit?

[39:05] Cara Rose DiPietro: Not stuff it down, not put little band-aids over a broken bone and figure it'll be fine, and just put it on the back burner. I love putting things on the back burner and thinking that, oh, this thing is really hard right now, but if I can just do this, and this can be good, then it'll all be okay. I don't know what I would have done if I had gone to summer stock that summer, if I had kept going to school. There's a lot of my grief that I haven't dealt with, and there's a lot of things that I still haven't talked about because I'm still not ready to talk about it and don't totally have the verbiage for it yet. Specifically, right when it happened, it was like all control that I thought was immediately taken away by COVID.

It was a blessing in disguise. I look back at the time at home, quote-unquote, very fondly. I think it was very foundational for my family now, and the way that we all love each other so much, and the relationships that we have. I think about all the things that wouldn't have happened in my relationship with the woman who's now my stepmom, and how incredibly foundational it is in my life, and how I would have just continued to use theater in my career as a way to just push down those thoughts and not acknowledge them.

[40:20] Bobby Steggert: You're mentioning this gratitude for a lack of control, which is such an interesting dichotomy. You mentioned that in terms of treatment, too. I so relate to that. When our control has been ripped from us, it's really sometimes the best opportunity to learn acceptance.

[40:34] Cara Rose DiPietro: It's like when we're forced to. I think back on that time with COVID, I was forced to. We couldn't go anywhere. I think oftentimes life will force us when we have exhausted all of our other options. You have to do this. A lot of that is taking away all the control and leaving you sometimes at rock bottom. This is something else I'm really curious about. As I mentioned earlier, when I was coming up in the business, it was such a monolithic thing. It was work to attain this one goal, which is Broadway employment. What does it mean to you that through sharing your story, you have more than one career, more than one purpose? What control has it given you, and what's complicated about that?

[41:28] Cara Rose DiPietro: I think it's something I never dreamed I would have. I never thought I would have multiple careers that all were geared towards the same end goal. I think the cool sense of control that specifically social media has given me is that things feel like they're on my terms a little bit more. I feel oftentimes in school, we are told that we are at the mercy of the people that are perceiving us, but social media is cool because it's this tool that gives us the power to control how we are being perceived. Something I always joke about with people is I say, you're absolutely crazy if you think I ever post anything on accident. As much fun as I like to have on social media, at the end of the day, it's a tool.

It's a tool to get me to where I want to be the most. Obviously, there are good things and bad things that go along with all of social media. But at the end of the day, it's given me this sense of control and agency over my career and who I am and what I want to be, and has given me the knowledge that I actually can be a multifaceted human being, that I can do other things and still pursue this passion and this career, if that makes sense.

[42:42] Bobby Steggert: It does. How does it inform your identity as an artist?

[42:48] Cara Rose DiPietro: Oh my gosh, it's given me a whole sense of purpose. It's given me agency over the kind of work that I want to do. It also feels like when I'm performing, I'm not just doing it to be the best anymore. A lot of times when I'm performing, and I know that there are people in the audience who have watched my TED Talk, or maybe had the courage to seek out therapy because I talked about something, or had the courage to open up to their parents or their peers or their friends about what they're struggling with. When I'm performing, I'm reminded so vividly that it's not just about my performance. It's about everything that I have done to get to where I am. And it adds a whole nother layer to things, and it makes it mean so much more.

I'm not doing this to be self-indulgent. I'm not doing this to prove that I'm good enough to others. I'm doing this to prove to you and to show to you that you can actively be grieving. You can actively be struggling and fight like hell to make these dreams come true.

[43:43] Bobby Steggert: So what is your dream now? If you can project into the future the life you want, what do you see?

[43:52] Cara Rose DiPietro: I just want to be able to support myself doing the thing that I love. And I think that's going to look different every time I think about it. My dream is to perform. It's my first love. It has always been this. There has been nothing else. And I think if I'm able to not just perform, but be an advocate for change in our industry while I'm doing it, that's the dream. And if I can pay my bills along the way too, that'd be pretty cool.

[44:23] Bobby Steggert: I think one of the reasons I'm so drawn to your story is that I had an amazing career. I did many Broadway shows and at times I could not support myself. And the lack of control there and a lack of purpose outside of my purpose as an actor was what ultimately led me away from that job. And so I see you doing it all and I envy it. And I'm also really impressed by it.

[44:49] Cara Rose DiPietro: Yeah, you have to. And I think a big part of that is protecting your joy for it. I know for social media, that's really important, especially now that it is a part of my income. And I don't just make content about theater and mental health. I make a lot of lifestyle content about very silly things and my life in general. And something that I have always really tried to prioritize is I have to protect my joy for it. Because if you don't love it, why are you doing it? And I think it's the only way to make it sustainable. Once I feel like I have to be posting and I have to be doing these things, the joy leaves. And why am I doing it? And that's the only way that it's sustainable, is that it has to be fun.

And if that means taking a step away from it for a sec, great. I was going to so many ECCs and EPAs this audition season because I felt like I had to. And I had just joined the union and I was like, people will actually have to see me. I just have to go. And I got so burnt out. I got so burnt out that I actually booked a flight. I did leave the state. I was on the A train and was like, oh, I got to go. I got to jet. And I had to stop. I have to. I actually can't go to another ECC or EPA for a minute. I have to stop. I remember there was a time last summer when I was very overwhelmed with life and work. And at the time, I had posted on social media every single day, at least twice a day for two years straight, which is absolutely crazy.

But it is something that I did. And I had never taken a day off. And I took five days off. And the world didn't explode. I think it's all about setting boundaries. I think we're told that we have to do a lot of things. And I think actually we get to do a lot of things. It's just the way that we choose to navigate them that really matters.

[46:36] Bobby Steggert: You took some control. That's our theme today. You took some control in setting those boundaries.

[46:41] Cara Rose DiPietro: Yes, truly. You have to. It's hard, but you have to. As a final question, I think it would be extremely helpful if you're willing to share how your eating disorder affects you today, right in this moment.

[47:01] Cara Rose DiPietro: Oh, goodness. It's something that I have to actively choose to fight against every single day. I think about it very frequently. Oftentimes, it's one of the first things I think of when I wake up, and one of the last things I think of before I go to sleep. It's very complicated, and it's very messy. And this last year of my life put my recovery and my health to the test in a way that it has never been tested before. That's not something that I've really shared publicly, and maybe will one day. But because of that, I'm in a place right now where my recovery is not passive. It's incredibly active. And it's something that I have to choose every day. It's something that I have to be incredibly intentional about. It's something that people in my life hold me accountable for. Gosh, yeah. I'm trying to find the words to totally explain it.

[47:56] Bobby Steggert: I don't think you have to. I think that you're sharing the simple but profound truth that it's still present is a huge service. Because we love linear stories. We love stories about a beginning, a middle, and an end. And that's just not life.

[48:15] Cara Rose DiPietro: No. And I, just as much as anybody else, love to tie everything up in a pretty little bow. I like to make things very palatable. But at the end of the day, life is really messy. And the only thing I can ask myself is to meet myself where I'm at every day, and remember where I want to be, and keep showing up as her. Even if some days it's super ugly. Even if some days it's so easy. Being able to just show up for myself and the younger version of myself that needed the person that I try to be today, that's enough.