Terrible, Thanks for Asking
“Terrible, Thanks For Asking” is a show by author Nora McInerny that lets real people get real honest about how they’re really doing. It’s sometimes sad, sometimes funny, and almost always both. A production of Feelings & Co.
Latest Episode
Am I grieving right? With Dr. Katherine Shear
In case you didn’t know, we’re still making two episodes a month for our Patreon and Apple Plus subscribers. We wanted to give all of our listeners a little preview of our most recent episode! Consider joining TTFA Premium on Apple to listen to the rest of the episode, get additional bonus episodes, and ad-free…
Featured Episodes
Your Favorite Obituaries
March 25, 2024 • Ep. 236 • 47 min 7 sec
Join us for a special bonus episode of TTFA where Nora reads obituaries submitted by listeners. Laugh, cry, and enjoy the stories in this exclusive episode.
Terrible, Thanks For Everything!!
March 4, 2024 • Ep. 234 • 10 min 20 sec
TTFA is taking a break, but new Patreon episodes will be available until Aug 2024. Join us for exclusive content and our full archive!
Still A Family
August 15, 2023 • Ep. 219 • 1 min 5 sec
When Anaya and Dave Lee fell in love, they saw a whole future with each other. Part of that future included being parents. But when they started trying, they learned creating a family was going to be much more challenging than they expected. They eventually had to ask the question, if a baby doesn’t happen,…
All Terrible, Thanks for Asking Episodes
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How Long Should Grief Last?
In March, a New York Times article made the rounds titled, “How Long Should It Take to Grieve? Psychiatry Has Come Up With an Answer.” And if that sentence alone makes you roll your eyes and want to punch an...
Brettina Has BPD
Our language surrounding mental illness has evolved a lot over the past couple of decades … to a point. There are still some mental illnesses that exist outside of the bounds of most people’s understanding and compassion, that are not...
May 10, 2022
Motherless Day
Some holidays are just more loaded than others, depending on our individual experiences. When you’re grieving the loss of your mother — either because they’ve died or because you don’t have a relationship with them — what the heck are...
Widowed*
Grief comes with so much judgment. Everybody is sure that there’s a right way to do it, and only for a certain length of time. If our grief doesn’t neatly fit into a category, we worry that it’s illegitimate. Erin...
How’s It Going In There? 2022 Edition
In 2020, we asked how it was going in there … wherever it was you were isolating, quarantining, social distancing. Somehow, it’s been *checks watch* TWO YEARS of COVID and so much more, so we thought it was time for...
The Della Diaries
Danielle’s daughter Della was a quintessential “good baby.” She slept through the night almost from the get go. She rarely cried! But when Danielle started weaning her, little Della would just … not eat. Could not eat. Her tiny body...
Lacuna
Growing up, Dani Shapiro never felt like she truly belonged to the orthodox Jewish community she lived in. All around her were kids who dressed and prayed and looked alike … and then, there was Dani — a fair-skinned, fair-haired,...
Tell Me About Them
When someone we love dies, we become the vessels responsible for carrying their memory forward. The people we love stay alive in the big things, of course … but in the little things, too. When a listener shared an inside...
Liam and the Letters
Liam was raised as a girl, but from a very young age he knew that just … didn’t make sense.
The Scammer Speaks
In our “Behind The Scammer” episode, you met Celisia Stanton and Rev. Gonzales, two people who had their life savings stolen from them by their financial adviser, a man named Isaiah Goodman. We intentionally focused that episode on the scammed...
Self-Portrait of My Own Misery
We are all just products of the people who raise us. And they are products of those who raised them. Vanessa Zoltan knows that better than most. She is the grandchild of four Holocaust survivors, and for her, nihilism and...
26 Pages
Many people who have autism are diagnosed at a young age. But today’s guest, Grace, wasn’t diagnosed with autism until she was 27 years old. In the months since the diagnosis, Grace has spent a lot of time reflecting on...
These Are Your Confessions
We recently made an episode called “The Grudge Book” filled with your grudges, and the feedback was SO strong. People felt validated. They laughed. They connected. So Nora got to thinking … did we need an episode that also gave...
January 26, 2022
In Absentia
Olivia is 7 years old when her dad moves out of state to take a new job … and is never heard from again. In high school, a manilla envelope appears in Olivia’s mailbox letting her know the reason she...
We’re Supposed to Be Four
It’s the stuff of romantic comedies: Man meets woman as they’re boarding a flight. The two quickly discover they share many similarities and go on to chat for hours. There’s an instant connection.
October 8, 1988
Suffering can feel like such a singular experience — like there’s no one else in the world who understands what we’re going through. But sometimes, if we look hard enough, we find that our singular experience intersects with another.
Behind The Scammer
We’re culturally obsessed with scammers, con artists and fraudsters. People like Elizabeth Holmes and Bernie Madoff dominate headlines and then get films made and books written documenting what they did and how they did it. But behind the scammers are...
War Stories
Nora’s dad — Vietnam veteran, father of four, advertising copywriter — died seven years ago. And in this episode, the McInerny siblings reflect on who Stephen J. McInerny was.
Why Are You Up?
Sleep experts the world over seem to have countless tips and tricks for getting those eight hours of Zzzs each night. But sometimes our brains just … can’t shut down, no matter what we do. Nora recently asked you, the...
The Grudge Book
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 seat-back pocket on a plane and never saw it again.
Her Name Was Heather
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...
The Gift
Edith Eger was 16 years old when the Nazis invaded Hungary during World War II. She was imprisoned at Auschwitz concentration camp with her family.
Cynthia
Cynthia is a Latina adult woman living with autism.
Happyish Holidays 2020
This episode features conversations with people doing the best they can in difficult circumstances. Like Dr. Lucy Kalanithi, whose husband Dr. Paul Kalanithi was a notable and rising brain surgeon who wrote When Breath Becomes Air, a bestselling memoir about...
Miss North Dakota
In 2012, Rosie became the first Black woman to win the Miss North Dakota pageant. She got to do what she loves most — play music and perform! — and she won scholarship money to pay down her student loab...