When I first began this book, I’d been out of rehab for 30 days. I was in the cloud of delirium that comes with new sobriety — the world was suddenly so LOUD, and I thought that meant I knew what I was hearing. If you’d told me then that the writing process would take me through the next seven years, I probably would have ripped up my contract and chucked my laptop in the tub. Throughout my twenties, writing was all pure immediacy. I’d have an experience, put some version of it through the filter of fantasy, and it would be playing on television six months later. Writing was how I processed as it was happening. I hadn’t lived enough life to deal with it in retrospect. I didn’t understand the value of time — to heal us, to make sense of where we’ve been, to actually change the patterns we keep replaying in our work and our art. The gift this book has given me over the last seven years was that it was always there. No matter what changed — my location, my body, my mind — there was a constant: this place I could go to try and make sense of the story. When we finally set a publication date for Famesick, I felt something like grief. One of my steadiest companions was leaving. But it’s time. And I’m so excited to be able to tell you, in the best way I know how, about:
💫 years of impossible magic and years I thought I wouldn’t survive
💫 illness and addiction and heartbreak
💫 the lessons I no longer feel ashamed of having had to learn
Famesick is, ostensibly, about the years 2010–2020 — a decade in which my life changed profoundly and permanently, in which nearly every strand of my DNA reconstituted itself. But it’s also about illness as teacher, body as tattletale, our societal relationship to women on the edge, and the conditions that create art vs. the conditions that create happiness. (Also: being in Hollywood while watching from the sidelines, like a goth girl at the cheerleader’s slumber party, wondering if she can call her mom from the landline without being overheard.) It’s about me — but whenever I write about me, I hope, deeply, that it’s also about you.
Pre-order Famesick at the link in bio. I can’t wait to see you in April, book in hand, ready to talk.
Happy Mother’s Day to the woman whose mind is my bible. Because of you, I will never: rush during magic hour, let guests go hungry, assume I know what someone else is thinking, wear formal shorts, or forget that I am totally and completely loved. Thank you for always taking my side during parent teacher conferences, even when it was very much the wrong one. I’ve got your back right back, girly.
The Brits love a pub crawl, and this was one of a different sort. Thank you to all the lovely learned booksellers for your recs- my suitcase is gonna be heeeavy this week.
Screaming, crying, throwing up. Which, to be fair, I do a lot of in this book- but this time it’s for a much more joyful reason: I am bowled over by the support you have shown Famesick. Almost two decades into my career, I know enough to know what a rare and special thing is to feel seen and heard, and this release has given me the opportunity to see and hear so many of you. I missed that.
And I don’t take a single one of you for granted. I am honored by every book in every pair of hands/ears and that Famesick made the #1 spot on the NYTimes, London Sunday Times, USA TODAY, and Indie Bookseller Bestseller lists.
Thank you. Truly.
Always your girl,
xxL
Been allowing myself to to appreciate the kindness re: Famesick, but as usual @aw reminded me that the book is also trying to shed light on something bigger (bc she is not, in fact, a Marnie at all!) and that there are many people as desperate for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrom resources as I once was.
That’s the thing about misunderstood chronic conditions, especially in women- out of necessity, we become each other’s healers. I was led to diagnosis through another EDS gal (thank you Marjorie!) and I am also lucky enough to have two wise, passionate female doctors- Dr. Alexis Cutchins in NYC and Dr. Ravleen Sabharwal in London. Dr Cutchins is a renowned cardiologist with an expertise in EDS/MCas/Pots, something she dug into because she saw an underserved patient population. Dr. Sabharwal is a brilliant internist full of kindness and true curiosity, who shows up full of compassion and research. I’ve learned that the most important quality in a doctor for an EDS patient is whether or not they’re willing to listen. Our understanding of these conditions is growing and changing all the time. Your doctor should want to grow with you.
I’ve been very privileged to be able to access care. I never forget that. I’m aware of (and enraged by) the ways the medical system is not serving so many. I’m not a doctor, but I have learned some lessons in the near-decade since I was diagnosed. The biggest is that that dealing with a chronic diagnosis involves creating your own “healing curriculum.” You are the best reporter of your own symptoms and needs- your blood work can only say so much.
For me, shifts have come from managing stress, particularly utilizing vagus nerve stimulation, and learning to pace my energy (spoon theory!) Keep a notebook where you list what kicks off flares- stimuli, foods, certain interactions that throw your nervous system into chaos. And remember that just because other people your age are eating or exercising in a certain way, your norm may not be the same as theirs.
If you’re looking for more literature and resources, check out the Ehler-Danlos society.
Love to all my bendy babies, my chic zebras, my friends wearing hospital bracelets today 🦓❤️🥹
The last week was a whirlwind- marched through it all with as much purpose as I could, vowing hourly to be both boundaried and present, self-protective and open to connection- an impossible dance, really, the feminine dance! But I wanted to do everything I couldn’t almost ten years ago when I last poked my head out to this degree. The good thing was I knew why I was doing it, and I didn’t leave very much room to really experience the reality of putting the (my) last two decades in print. That’s a sort of goodbye, isn’t it? The real reason to lay down our definitive telling is so that we can move on.
At least that’s what I’ve concluded after getting in the car in Boston at 1:30am Friday, to barrel toward the plane that would take me away from my first homeland and back to my adopted one. So on a new highway I put my headphones on, cranked up my current favorite woman with feelings anthem (Stupid Bitches by Grace Ives) and had one of those unstuck in time, “did I just do acid by accident?” moments: I was every Lena who has ever worn headphones! Lena at 23 in LA, taking Fountain to my first meeting with HBO. Lena at 8, my first Walkman blowing my mind. Lena at 25, 29, 33, watching a new city pass. Lena at 35 falling in love, Lena at 38 missing her parents. I was the Lena who wrote the book and the Lena who was scared to write the book. And then, finally, I was the Lena who has finished the book.
Suddenly and surprisingly I was sobbing (rarer than you’d think!) It was this big feeling that the story I’d been carrying around was not the story I was living. The stuff in those pages was over. The only thing I could compare it to was when something feels interminable- and then… it passes.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to everyone who has welcomed the book with such gentleness and care. Thank you to everyone who has come and laughed with us on the tour. Thank you to everyone who has made this great passing through possible. I am full of a very dense gratitude, a gratitude that has shifted something previously quite unshiftable.
It’s a feeling I wish for everyone I love, have loved, will love, don’t know. I love meeting you here, on the other side🥹♥️👋
@lenadunham made a career out of hypervulnerability. On the cusp of 40—and armed with a new memoir that peers back at her own heavily scrutinized youth—she’s finally letting us in again.
In her new memoir, ‘Famesick,’ the CULT100 cover star—and writer, director, actor, voice of her generation reveals the full extremity of the highs—and lows—to which ‘Girls’ propelled her at the age of 25, detailing the pressure, addiction, and chronic illness tied to her endometriosis and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome diagnoses that ensued.
The book is a portrait of fame and its costs, but also an investigation into how it’s nothing short of excruciating to be young and in possession of a complicated body and complicated relationships. With its arrival, Dunham seems to be signaling a willingness to start playing “Lena Dunham” for us again. She is still staying off Twitter, but she did get on Substack last year. And her next projects will give die-hard ‘Girls’ fans the chance to grow up alongside her. Her rom-com with Natalie Portman, who plays a 40-something therapist dating on both ends of an age gap, is currently in post-production. Dunham’s relief about reaching life’s fourth floor is palpable: “I feel like I’m getting closer to what my inner persona always was—a weird old woman in knitwear on the street,” she tells @deeeliacai in her cover story.
Link in bio to read the profile, and order your copy of the 2026 CULT100 issue before the full list drops.
1/ Lena wears a top by @simonerocha_
3/ Suit, tie, and pin by @willychavarria with a shirt by @kennethcole .
Editor-in-Chief: @sarahgharrelson
Words: @deeeliacai
Photography: @maddyrotman
Styling: @dionemdavis
Prop Styling: @bailey.rose.brown
Hair: @peterbutlerhair
Makeup Artist: @itsmatin
Tailor: @chl0e.box
Production: @mayyamiro for @noted.collective
Casting: @specialprojectsmedia
Makeup: @valentino.beauty
// The 100 individuals on CULTURED’s third annual CULT100 list span disciplines and generations. Some are household names, others operate behind the scenes. All of them are choosing risk over reward, curiosity over cynicism, and are shaping culture in real time. Each offers something that the algorithm never will. //
