Airdate: October 22, 2025
Julie Rose: How do you quiet that critical voice in your
head?
Anne Abel: The first class, they say, "Get on the
floor and slither across like a snake," and I'm like, "I can't do
this," but then I thought, "If I just stand here, I'm gonna stand out
more than if I get on the floor and slither," so I slithered.
Julie Rose: Hey, it's Julie. Welcome to Uncomfy, a show about sticking with moments that challenge us even when they're uncomfortable. And I get it, nobody likes to be Uncomfy, but I've learned from experience, and maybe you have too, that sometimes a little discomfort has benefits if we can stay open and curious about it. And that's what we're here to explore, so let's get Uncomfy. I'm joined today by Anne Abel. She's an author and a former English teacher who suffers from severe recurrent depression. Her new memoir called "High Hopes" is about how when she was nearly 60, she discovered Bruce Springsteen and his music, and then she went to Australia on her own to see him perform eight concerts in five cities. This was on his High Hopes tour, so that was in 2014. Anne came home, she won a StorySLAM at The Moth for recounting that adventure, and she's since become a social media influencer with more than a half a million followers on TikTok and Instagram who love her day in the life stories. Anne Abel, hi, what fun to have you with us today.
Anne Abel: Thank you so much for having me, Julie.
Julie Rose: Just so people know what a big deal this
was, how out of character was it for you to go off to Australia on your own for
nearly a month to go to rock concerts of all things?
Anne Abel: Well, it was an act of desperation, believe it or not. I was not going for fun. I was 60. At the age of 59, I had never been to a concert. My parents didn't believe in music or fun. But then, Labor Day weekend, 2012, my son and daughter-in-law came at the last minute to Philadelphia to visit, to go to a Bruce Springsteen concert. I knew nothing about the man and had no interest in seeing him, but a few hours before the show, I decided I would push myself up off the couch to go because I wanted to spend time with them. Now, that summer, I had undergone my third regimen of ECT, electroconvulsive therapy to treat severe recurrent depression. The treatment had to be stopped halfway through because I was losing my memory. I did not remember the July wedding of my son and daughter-in-law. I didn't remember the ceremony, the guests, anything. We get to the concert, and we sit down at our seats and they start to show me, um, tell me wedding stories and show me pictures, and in one picture, they're flanked by her parents on one side, and my husband, Andy, me on the other, and they're beaming, her parents are smiling, Andy's smiling, I'm just staring directly into the camera, trance-like, vacant. I'm not smiling or frowning, I'm not there. And when they showed me this picture, I just felt a jab in my heart. I felt like a tourist in my own life. I didn't remember these things, and then suddenly, the crowd mysteriously rose in unison, and I rose too, and up on the giant screen was the face of a man with the biggest, kindest smile I had ever seen, and my heart just opened for this man and the 40 thousand people around me. I was swaying and clapping and smiling. I was not sitting, and this man at 62 was three years older than me, and he did not stop, and if he could keep going, I could. And for three plus hours, Bruce Springsteen's energy, enthusiasm, and humanity lifted me. He made me feel like I had a chance. And then a year later, after having one desk too many thrown at me at the Community College of Philadelphia where I had taught for five years, I just walked out the door and thought, "I'm never coming back," but as soon as I was in my car making a U-turn going home, I was panicking. With my sons grown and living on opposite coasts and my husband traveling, without the structure and focus of the classroom, I'd fall back into the abyss, and I needed a lifeline really fast. And then I remembered how hopeful and alive I felt at Springsteen concerts, and somewhere I'd seen that he was touring in Australia in four months, and I remember the exact, where I was as I was merging onto the expressway, and I thought, "I know! I'll go to Australia in February and follow the 2014 High Hopes tour. Now, I just wanna say, so I went home, and I booked the trip. I didn't take my jacket off. I just Googled, "Australia travel agent." The first five who popped up, I wrote to them. The next day, one called me. I have to admit, I hate to travel, I hate to be alone, and remember, I hadn't known who this guy was a year earlier, but I'm not the kind of person who can just sit alone on her family room couch trying to figure out, I, I would've just slid right back. I wasn't doing ECT again. The third time was a disaster, and I figured I was 60 years old. I knew myself as well as any mental health person. I, I just needed to do something. I was terrified. If I could have just disappeared in a wisp of smoke and not left anyone in this world sad about my leaving, I would've preferred that, but that wasn't an option, and I didn't go to change. I just went for structure and focus, but I came home a different person.
Julie Rose: Anne, would you tell us a little more about how you experience your depression? What is, what were you so afraid of that you knew was coming, coming if you didn't do something?
Anne Abel: Just, every step was an, a, I'm much better now. When I came back from this trip at the age of 60, it was the beginning of a transformation that continues today, but I don't think depression is something that, for me anyhow, you cure. I'm better, and I'm better at managing it, and I've made changes since I came back from Australia. I have made a series of baby steps, that has actually changed my life and made me much better. But every morning I wake up, I feel like such a loser. I wake up with my stomach kind of tied up, and I have to say to myself, "There's nothing wrong." There's not, you know, just I turn off my brain, and I just get my, I love reading newspapers, get myself to breakfast and the papers. And right now, the one, one thing that helps me and always has helped me is working out. Every morning, though, I, and if my husband's home and, and I'll say, "Oh, I feel so bad," and he'll say, "This is your worst, the worst part of your day," and every time I, after I work out, I feel better, but, you know, I stand next to this elliptical or bike and I have to say to myself, "Just view this as an experiment. Just do it and see how you feel afterwards," and in, until I went to Australia, it would just be so hard to put one foot in front of the other, and working out, sometimes it would, I would feel better after, but I'm very disciplined. The only non-negative word either parent ever used to describe me was "persevering," and I am that.
Julie Rose: It, it's still pretty
remarkable that you even got on the plane to go to Australia because I would've
been having second thoughts the minute I booked that. Like, "Oh, what a
waste of money. Oh, I'm such an idiot. What do I think I'm gonna get out of
this? I hate being alone. I hate traveling," right? Like, "Oh,"
whatever.
Anne Abel: I was, and, you know, I, the minute I booked the trip, the voice in my head said, "You're doing what? Anne Abel, you are so pathetic. You have nothing better to do with your life than chase an aging rock," and for three, for four months, all I heard was, "You, you're pathetic," but I just, I didn't let it stop me. It was, I didn't know. I, I did not question it. And I'll tell you, I'm someone who committed herself to a psychiatric hospital, I committed myself to having ECT. Do you know how terrifying those things are? But I did it because I will do anything no matter how terrifying if I think it might help me.
Julie Rose: Because you discovered something while you were in Australia, so, so talk, tell us about a moment where you discovered, uh, you know, an experience where you started to realize like, "Oh, I,"
Anne Abel: I was embarrassed, you know? I was embarrassed to tell people what I was doing. Meanwhile, I get on the plane, and the flight attendant says to me, "Why are you coming to Australia?" And I'm, like, wincing, and I'll tell you, I had a wedding ring, which I actually broke the clasp at the first concert, but I was so glad I had this wedding ring so people would think at least there was one person in this world I was connected to. I wasn't just some weird woman with no connections running around chasing this rock star. So, she said, "Why are you here? Why are you coming to Australia?" So, I winced, and I told her what I was doing, and her eyes just lit up, and she said, "Oh," you know, not only did she say nice things, but then a little while later a colleague of hers came over and said, "I hear," it was as if by, you know, and this happened a lot in Australia. People would ask me why I was there, and I would tell them, and many people called me courageous. Young people told me they couldn't get their mothers off a couch to go to a movie or a church bazaar, things they did before they retired. And each time someone there said something positive about me, as disbelieving as I was, I stepped outside myself and tried to see the me they were seeing, so, you know, the kindness of strangers had a big impact. at home. People were rolling their eyes that I was doing this. They didn't appreciate or under, care or understand that I was fighting for my life. But, so, there was that aspect, and then there was Bruce Springsteen. In Sydney, he did a solo encore of "Dream Baby Dream". Growing up, I had never been allowed to dream. I never even thought about dreaming. I was so busy trying to do everything I was told to do and hoping that each achievement would have my parents finally accepting me that I never thought about what I wanted to do or be. But this night in, in Sydney, watching Bruce Springsteen sing, "Dream Baby Dream", I felt as if he were imploring himself to dream, and the music just filled me and lifted me, and I floated out of the arena that night feeling as if I could dream, and it didn't happen right away, but I believe that once you feel something, it's easier to recreate it. But I, when I came home, it was the first time in my life I had a positive ball of energy, and a story, the first time I had a story about me that I was proud of, a story that I wanted to tell, and that's "High Hopes."
Julie Rose: What did you learn about managing your
depression, coping with your depression more effectively?
Anne Abel: Well, I'll tell you, over there, and I was wrestling with some family issues, and there were some real, it was, 26 days is a long time to be alone, and the only people I talked to except for some concert seat people were people I was paying, you know, and it got exponentially more lonely, and there were times I had, like an, an interaction with one of my sons, and I would, I just felt myself going down, down, but I had no one, no one to count on, so I learned to just, like, sit there with this feeling. I just sat there with this feeling sometimes and let it pass, or, there was one example, I was feeling so bad, and there was a concert that night, and I had someone picking me up. I thought, "I'll just go and tell him, you know, I don't wanna go," but then I was already at the car, so I get in the car and I say to him, "Look, if I decide to go when we get there, I'm going to leave the concert early," and he said, "I've never heard of anyone leaving a Springsteen concert," and then he started, we started talking, and I didn't know it then, but I'm an extrovert. I thought I was an introvert, but I was an extrovert in depressed clothing, and, just, he's talking to me about concerts, and he gave me some energy. You know, by the time we got to the concert, I was feeling better. He said, "Well, sure, I'll be around if you wanna," and I didn't leave early, but it, you know, I pushed myself out. I, I, I pushed myself, and, um, and I learned that if I, even if I'm feeling horrible, just let, feel horrible for a little, feel horrible, just be there with it, and it, it passes. It's crazy. I don't understand it, but it does pass, and you don't believe it when you're in it, but it does.
Julie Rose: Anne Abel, tell me a little bit about deciding to kind of get out there so publicly with your stories, um, because as someone who's prone to a lot of self-criticism and feeling very sensitive about, "Oh, people, are they liking me?" And, "People think I'm a loser," and, you know, that kind of stuff that you were experiencing, the last thing a lot of times that I wanna do is put stuff out so that the whole internet can tell me I'm a loser, you know? How have you, how have you dealt with that, and what is it like to be so public now with your almost a million followers?
Anne Abel: Well, when I came back, really, I had this, you know, I was always, I was a writer for many years, and when I came home from Australia, I knew that was a story. I knew, first of all, you've got Bruce Springsteen involved. I knew doing this and coming back feeling the way I did was a story that I wanted other people to hear, like, and that it's never too late. Look, I'm 72 now. This trip, I was 60. A year ago, if you, people say, "What would your younger self say to you? I say, "What would my 71-year-old self say to me?" But I ended up getting my husband to move to Chicago. I mean, I came home with this ball of energy. He had been unhappy at work for a co, a couple years, I had just ignored it. I came home, and it was like, "All right, we're gonna go. You need a change of scenery." We get to Chicago in January, it's eight degrees out. He goes off to work. He's as happy as can be. I quickly flunked out of improv, and then I,
Julie Rose: oh, you tried improv?
Anne Abel: Yes, and I was, what do you do? You go to Chicago, it's eight degrees out? Improv. I was terrified of that, but I went, and I'll tell you the first class, they say, "Get on the floor and slither across like a snake," and I'm like, "I can't do this," and the people weren't half my age, they were a quarter, but then I thought, "If I just stand here, I'm gonna stand out more than if I get on the floor and slither," so I slithered, and I loved watching these other people. These kids were great, and they were looking for their own little groups to go on, and no one wanted me, and after six weeks, I pretty much got kicked out of the class, and I came home, and my new dog walker's there. I say, "What do you do when you're not walking dogs?" And she said, "I host a storytelling open mic, there's a string of them across the city, and I also tell stories of The Moth." I had never heard of storytelling, I had never heard of The Moth, but I knew I had this one story, and I don't let fears, I had never stood in front of a mic or on a stage. I forced myself to go to open mics. They were in the backs of bars. I'd never even been to bars, and I started hobbling around telling this story, and then I started telling other stories, and then a new friend said, "You've gotta come with me to The Moth," so I went, and when we got there, he said, "You've gotta put your name in to tell a story." Yes, I was terrified, but I never, I never say "No" to anything that I think might be good for me. I put my name in, I was called as the 10th and last storyteller, and I literally stumbled on the stairs up to the stage. The lights were so bright. I'd never been on a stage. I couldn't see the audience, but I could, as I spoke, I could hear them laughing and gasping, and I told a five minute story about Australia, and I won. And my whole life, my parents had told me I had nothing interesting to say, but now the people at The Moth and the people at the open mics and other story shows I was in, they were telling me something different, and their interest inspired me to break through this writer's block and write what is now "High Hopes," and in the meantime, while an editor had that, I ended up during the lockdown writing "Mattie, Milo, and Me,"
Julie Rose: another memoir of yours.
Anne Abel: Yes, it came out April 2024, and right before that book came out, the publisher said, "You need to go on social media to promote the book." Now, to me, social media was Facebook. Someone had put me on it 15 years ago. I didn't know anything. Well, now I'm in New York City, another dog walker comes in, and I said to her, "Do you know anyone who does social media?" And she gave me the name of this young man, he was then 19, now he's 20, who did social media for, he's a computer science major at the City University of New York. Well, I now call him "Maestro" or "Steven Spielberg." We've had 25 viral videos since November, and people, at first, they'd be writing and they'd say, "Your voice is so calming, soothing. You inspire me," and I was like, "What are these people talking?" I, it was surreal. Like, I'd always been told I had nothing to say, and I, I'll just say, um, we did one up Bryant, uh, Holiday Park here last December. It was, I didn't think it was a big deal, uh, and I would never have done this if we weren't doing it for social media, but the next, after it was posted, a woman wrote on the comments and she said, "Anne, I was having trouble getting into the holiday spirit, but seeing your video gave me a glimmer of hope," and that's when I realized what it's all about. By sharing our stories with one another, we can offer each other a glimmer of hope, inspiration, and even some fun, and that's what, that's, to me, what stories are about, like, connecting and validating and just making, you're not alone. You're not alone.
Julie Rose: Anne Abel is an author and a storyteller. Her new memoir is called "High Hopes," all about her adventures with Bruce Springsteen's music. You can also find all her work at anneabelauthor.com. It's ABEL, Anne Abel. And if you wanna follow her on TikTok and Instagram, look for annesima, SIMA, abel, ABEL, @annesimaabel. Anne, thank you so much for sharing.
Anne Abel: All right. Thank you, Julie.
Julie Rose: And thank you for getting Uncomfy with us today. I'm curious to know how you deal with the self-critical voices in your own head, or what's a terrifying thing that you have found the courage to do lately? What did leaning into that discomfort bring for you? I'd love to hear your story. Email me at uncomfy@byu.edu, or connect with us on social media; we are @uncomfy.podcast on Instagram. Let's keep the conversation going. Uncomfy is a BYUradio podcast. Samuel Benson produces it, and the team includes Hyobin Kim and Sam Payne. Our theme music was composed by Kelsey Nay. I'm Julie Rose. I can't wait to get Uncomfy with you again next week.
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