Jamie Lynn Sigler

That's not a lot of time to figure out who you are.

I've been approached over the last decade, ever since I became public about having MS, a handful of times, like, would you ever want to write a book?

Would you ever want to write a memoir?

And I always had this, like, very visceral reaction of, like, no.

Because I didn't want MS to be sort of my only story.

I didn't want it to sort of define me or have it be kind of, I don't know, even my currency, you know what I mean, as my career.

And

Over the past decade, I think I've kind of really learned how to be even more honest and more vulnerable in my sharing and felt such a shift within myself of being comfortable in my truth and not hiding parts of myself, whether for fear of being judged or for fear of my own judgments by myself that I'm projecting out into the world or feeling limited or defined.

And

when I was approached two years ago again to write a memoir, it was all of a sudden kind of like this full body yes.

And in anticipation of thinking of like sort of taking this out and pitching it to publishers, I sat in front of my laptop to see if like what would kind of come out of me if I'm going to start writing.

And this letter to my younger self poured out of me.

And it was just basically like,

Your life is nothing like you imagined.

But what if I told you that, you know, you were on one of the best TV shows to ever be made.

You had an eating disorder.

You got married.

You got divorced.

You live with a neurodegenerative disease.

But the girl that you've told your entire life is a loser and not good enough and a fraud, you love her and you fight for her and you care about her and you're proud of her, even though she walks with a cane and has to wear Depends sometimes.