Alyson Stoner, SEMI-WELL-ADJUSTED DESPITE LITERALLY EVERYTHING: A Memoir
[0:00]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Book to Zibi.
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[0:44]Allison Stoner is the author of semi-well-adjusted despite literally everything I'm
[0:50]more.
[0:51]Allison is a multi-disciplinary entertainer, author, and the founder and CEO of Movement
[0:55]Genius, a mental health company providing therapist-led content to improve well-being.
[1:01]As the writer and host of the award-winning Dear Hollywood podcast, Stoner advocates for
[1:05]industry and policy reform, centering the protection of children in traditional and digital
[1:10]media.
[1:11]With multiple certifications and 15 years of group facilitation experience, they've led
[1:15]and contributed to programming for the United Nations, the World Health Organization,
[1:19]LGBTQIA Plus Centers, and Leading Universities.
[1:23]During childhood, Stoner appeared in over 200 films, TV shows, and tours, including Camp
[1:29]Brock, Phineas and Ferb, Step Up, Cheaper by the Desert, and Iconic Music Videos with
[1:34]Missy Elliott and Eminem.
[1:35]Today, they're focused on impact-driven and community-based initiatives, such as designing
[1:40]artist-well-being essentials, a robust digital toolkit, including expert-led education
[1:45]and tools for performers to pursue their passions in a healthy and sustainable way.
[1:50]Next, Stoner is releasing their debut memoir, semi-well-adjusted, despite literally everything.
[1:56]Welcome, Allison.
[1:57]Thank you so much for coming on Totally Book to the Zivi to talk about semi-well-adjusted,
[2:02]despite literally everything.
[2:04]Congratulations.
[2:05]Thank you for having me.
[2:06]Thank you.
[2:07]I could not put your book down.
[2:08]Oh, my gosh.
[2:09]The amount you have gone through in your life, the stories, the fact that you're such
[2:13]this accomplished entrepreneur at this point, and you're a great writer, it's pretty impressive
[2:18]as a package, honestly.
[2:19]I'm not just saying that.
[2:21]That's very kind.
[2:22]I will say writing actually was my preferred form of personal processing from a young age.
[2:28]So I wasn't ever planning on sharing it in this way, but in many ways, while it's
[2:36]very trying to dig into the deep crevices of your own psyche and relate them to the entire
[2:42]world, it also was really beautiful that I could couple my processing with the medium
[2:48]that comes most naturally.
[2:50]And why did you want to share this with the world?
[2:53]Why not process for yourself?
[2:54]That's a great question because I want to be clear that personally, I'm less inclined
[3:00]to share my early experiences unless I see a greater purpose.
[3:05]I can reserve that kind of processing for therapy and for healing in my own community.
[3:11]But what I noticed is that there's been this repeated pattern of memoirs and documentaries
[3:17]highlighting the experiences of former child performers and or high performing children.
[3:24]And they repeat very similar cadences, downward spirals.
[3:29]And yet no one has unpacked the surrounding ecosystem.
[3:33]And no one has presented ways of potentially intervening.
[3:37]And so now that I'm a mental health practitioner, I thought I can not only share some of these
[3:44]untold stories from the sets growing up.
[3:47]I can also present ideas that hopefully connect new dots across media culture, child development,
[3:54]industry protocols, and now that we're all in this increasingly digital and interconnected
[4:00]world, experiences that were once reserved for young people in the public eye are actually
[4:07]now things we're all facing, things like issues with privacy and mental health issues related
[4:14]to technology use, parasocial relationships.
[4:18]So I jokingly say, you know, come for the childhood chaos, but stay for the cultural
[4:24]critique and hopefully this book really services a lot of, a lot of timely conversations.
[4:32]Of course.
[4:33]And you do a really good job of explaining the ecosystem, as you mentioned.
[4:36]I mean, there's some things I could not believe when I read them that they didn't do
[4:40]background checks, the background checks weren't required on the workers who were surrounding
[4:45]the kids.
[4:46]So there were no, there could be child sex predators on set.
[4:49]And there wouldn't have been any, that was one of your suggestions too at the end where
[4:53]you come up with this great list of how people can be more protected.
[4:56]But that's just one of the reasons.
[4:58]And as you point out, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on how people could be better,
[5:02]but that no one really had training in dealing with kids, like even a camp counselor, you get
[5:07]like a little bit of training, speaking from a camp counselor.
[5:10]But as someone who just like deals with kids routinely, what should people have known?
[5:14]How could you, how can the industry institute something like that?
[5:19]I think there are assumptions that children are simply adults in training.
[5:25]And that the cognitive structure of a child's brain is the same as an adult.
[5:30]And in reality, a child, you know, for anyone who's raised children, you recognize they
[5:36]haven't fully developed the capacity for logic and reasoning.
[5:40]Some ages, you're still hardly differentiating between fantasy and reality.
[5:46]You obviously haven't formed your own sense of identity.
[5:48]So a lot of your behavior is based on whatever is modeled or normalized or, you know, feels
[5:54]like a strategy to make sure your essential needs are met.
[5:58]And so the training on set, if anything, it mostly reflects things like best practices
[6:04]don't cuss around the children.
[6:07]Well sure, that's a starting point, but we're actually working with people who are in
[6:11]fundamentally different states of development and states of being.
[6:15]And so I designed a couple of different tools already.
[6:19]One of them is the artist while being a central school kid.
[6:22]And it equips performers with specific, you know, exercises such as getting into and out
[6:28]of character, things that are unique to the performing arts experiences.
[6:33]But also it can't always go back to just the individual because these families and these
[6:38]young people are navigating a completely foreign environment.
[6:42]They have no way of assessing the short and long term implications of removing the child
[6:47]from school or having their social network shift from bonding with someone in the neighborhood
[6:53]to assigning autographs for fans who are their age or competing against all these other
[7:00]children in this room.
[7:03]There are a lot of ways that I think we can create preventative resources on boarding
[7:08]manuals that you would receive, you know, for any job.
[7:11]And then we also have to look at larger solutions, of course, around policy and legislative
[7:18]protections because, you know, what's this saying when you can't rise to your values,
[7:23]you'll fall back on the structures.
[7:25]And so the structures right now aren't, they're not sufficient enough.
[7:29]Well, it's really wonderful that you're an advocate, somebody who's been on the inside
[7:33]and that you're helping all these families.
[7:35]It's really amazing.
[7:37]Hope so.
[7:38]That's the commitment.
[7:40]Well, you share after reading your whole story, you see why you feel so compelled to do this.
[7:45]And you went through so much on set.
[7:48]And it seems yes, so glamorous to be a child star.
[7:50]But some of the things you went through and some of the ways that the industry just didn't
[7:54]take your mental health into account were really staggering.
[7:57]There's one moment when you finally sought treatment for your eating disorder.
[8:02]And you, and that was hard, right?
[8:03]You had to pull yourself out of the fray and admit to all of this.
[8:07]And then you get that addition, which by this point in your story, we know how you feel when
[8:11]you get the yes, you know, I have to prepare for this that like hit of adrenaline.
[8:15]And you're literally getting treatment and auditioning for the Hunger Games, which is so
[8:19]ironic, right?
[8:20]And yes, you had the frame of mind to say, okay, actually, I can't do this.
[8:25]But nobody else was really protecting you.
[8:27]Talk about that time in your life and how you came, how you had the inner strength to change
[8:33]the course of the of your narrative.
[8:36]Oh, I appreciate that connotation.
[8:38]I'm not sure it felt like strength so much as real desperation and a real assessment that
[8:45]my health was deteriorating rapidly.
[8:48]And if I didn't do some kind of intervention, even self imposed, I would potentially
[8:55]reach some kind of fatal end via eating disorders, burnout, et cetera.
[9:01]So I, I remember being in treatment and as a performer in the industry, people want you
[9:07]to be, of course, ready at their back in call.
[9:10]And it's a lot of last minute auditions.
[9:13]It's a lot of pressure to maintain momentum.
[9:16]You know, if you're out of sight, you're out of mind.
[9:18]And so I can understand from a professional standpoint how my team was trying to hold
[9:24]a career together while I sought support, you know, elsewhere, however, when you yourself
[9:32]are the product being commodified, there are a lot of confusing signals where your inner,
[9:39]you know, your psychological and physiological needs are absolutely dismissed.
[9:46]And what is prioritized is whatever keeps the business running.
[9:51]And so I was 17 still at this time.
[9:55]And I, I had to make some really hard decisions, but what happened in treatment.
[10:00]meant that I'm forever grateful for. It was actually the first environment where I experienced
[10:06]consistency, stability. I had, I was surrounded by adults who weren't on my payroll, who weren't
[10:13]commissioning checks, who actually were there in service of my well-being. Wow, like that was a
[10:18]novel idea. And because of that environmental shift, I was able to actually heal and recover. It's
[10:27]hard to heal when you're going 150 miles an hour. And when 15 adults depend on you to support
[10:34]their livelihood and feed their families at home. So while I know there's a lot of stigma around
[10:40]help seeking and especially professional treatment and particularly inpatient, that was actually,
[10:47]I think, the degree of a shift that was needed to counter the kind of extreme circumstance that I
[10:54]was in. Wow. And you have this ability to just put on sort of a happy face, right? You're,
[11:01]you just want to say yes, you're so eager to please. And in all the best ways, like it's from the
[11:07]night, the greatest place. And yet you often, well, now you're much better as you, you know,
[11:12]talk about it in the book, but you were stifling down your own needs emotionally and everything.
[11:17]How are you going to make sure that in the course of book publicity for this deeply emotional
[11:22]thing that you don't fall into the same trap of just pushing yourself and pushing yourself?
[11:26]That is a great question. And I set up some systems and structures before entering the campaign.
[11:32]Now I will be doing, you know, around 50 to 100 interviews appearances over the span of a short
[11:40]period. And I recognize that if I aspire toward the ideal morning routine and perfect quote-unquote
[11:48]self-care according to social media, I will set myself up for failure. So I'm not aiming for
[11:55]perfection here. What I am doing is trying to pick a few key ways to stay afloat. And for me,
[12:03]it's the basics. It's sleep. It's nourishing my body. And it's having someone as a support lever
[12:11]in case I need to say, hey, I, something, you know, something's gone awry. But I'm really grateful
[12:18]that I've been practicing. I've been flexing these muscles now for so long. And in fact, my entire
[12:23]company, Movement Genius, is dedicated to these kinds of micro resets and stress relief techniques
[12:32]so that we don't experience what some people call trigger stacking. If over the course of the day,
[12:37]you never take a moment to, you know, open the can of pop that's just being shaken constantly.
[12:43]Yeah, it's going to explode at the end of the day. But if, if we can find ways to to, I'll just
[12:50]allow a little bit of that tension to release it, I think makes a huge difference. And I think we
[12:56]all made that at this point. Modern life and pace and it's a lot to be alive in 2025. I think
[13:05]the name of the book is semi-well-adjusted is the unofficial mood of this year.
[13:11]I think that's why it's resonating because everyone, nobody feels like they're totally well-adjusted,
[13:16]right? We're all just trying to do our best. Well, if I can quickly build on that, sometimes my
[13:21]former partner presented this and I thought it was really helpful. So, you know, our mind and body
[13:27]systems follow an ancient speed of evolution. Meanwhile, our systems and governments, etc.,
[13:35]live somewhere in medieval structures. And then technology is at this absolutely
[13:42]faster than fast pace. And so we've got to negotiate all of these different
[13:47]paces all within our minds and bodies on a daily basis. So, of course, we're feeling the effects.
[13:54]So, how do you use your tools? And actually, there was one scene in the book that was so devastating.
[13:59]And we see you trying to engage all the tools that you know so well. And you don't have to talk
[14:05]about this. I'm sure it's a super sensitive. I mean, it's obviously a sensitive subject, but
[14:09]you chose to explain it or you chose to talk about it in the book. This horrific moment where
[14:13]you're raped by this man and you go into all this detail and you're sitting in your car after
[14:19]just trying to use whatever tools you can to get through it. Tell me about that. And also,
[14:26]why you included that? How you want to help people with it? And just like how you're feeling
[14:31]about that whole thing. And I'm so sorry it happened to you and to all the other people that this
[14:36]man attacked. Yes, thank you. I wanted to include it for a few reasons. One of them was because
[14:44]after I experienced it firsthand, I learned how prevalent it is. It was shocking to think of how
[14:52]many people in my life. Just by sheer statistics had experienced something similar or even worse and
[15:01]more extreme. And I recognized that this person was in a position of power and he absolutely abused
[15:09]that power. And I also recognized I had a history of experiencing different dynamics that
[15:18]led to me feeling taken advantage of or being taken advantage of. And while my therapist at the time
[15:27]made it clear, re-victimization is still, you're not going to blame the victim and survivor
[15:36]for another person's absolute mishandling of a situation and non-consensual imposition of power.
[15:43]And simultaneously, I just was so confused and wondered, what can I do? Is there anything else I
[15:51]could have done? That event in particular was out of my control. But from here, where can I go?
[15:58]And the reality is, unfortunately, we still collectively have to actively create safer spaces and
[16:07]have different kinds of shifts in society where it is safe for people of all identities and
[16:12]embodiments to go out and live live their lives. And for me personally, I threaded it all the way
[16:21]to being a child where, on set, I was conditioned to make myself available to whomever for whatever
[16:31]aim. I was never instructed to have any sense of bodily autonomy, let alone to set boundaries,
[16:39]let alone to even recognize that a boundary had been transgressed. Now, I'm not at all blaming myself.
[16:45]I had done lots of work already leading up to this moment. I truly was in a position where I could
[16:51]not get out. However, I do see a pattern for myself in making sure that from here on out,
[17:02]I know where I start, where I end, and I'm constantly reminding myself of my conscious agency.
[17:08]And I'm going to do the best that I can with that agency and then recognize that yes,
[17:12]still some things happen beyond our control. I'm so sorry. Like, that's, I'm just so sorry.
[17:19]Thank you. You have another moment where I really felt your like sense of despair and where does
[17:26]my life go from here when you realized your bank account was down to zero and you had been taken
[17:30]advantage of by many, many people that you trusted and realize that your education was not what
[17:37]you had been told it was that you hadn't, you know, that you weren't ready to sort of go back on
[17:41]and even though you always knew you would go to college because you're super bright, obviously,
[17:45]that you couldn't even get back on track that and you just had this moment where you're like,
[17:48]oh my gosh, like now, now what? Like, it's all gone. What was it all for? How do you feel
[17:55]about that moment? And also, I'm just, how do you keep coming back from these hard times?
[18:02]Well, you don't have a, you have a choice, I suppose. But I, I had to believe that there was
[18:13]something beyond this experience. I had to. What's important, I think, to name here is that this
[18:20]experience is unfortunately not uncommon for children who are in similar or adjacent positions,
[18:28]whether it's athletics or academia or entertainment. There are ways where we might be initially
[18:36]trying to support a young person's development and we see a knack for a special skill and we
[18:41]invest all the energy and resources into that part of their lives. And we don't realize that every
[18:46]other domain has been disrupted or dismissed. And so for me, it was almost as if each pillar that
[18:54]would have held up a person and to support their, you know, future trajectory was just crumbling
[19:02]left and right. And, you know, the finances, I can feel the catch in my throat, beyond feeling
[19:10]shocked and first in denial. I, I also was so scared. I was so scared that I wasn't going to be
[19:20]competent enough to recognize and to prevent it from happening again. Who's to say, I thought I was
[19:26]giving my best shot at being responsible and conscientious with spending and saving and even investing.
[19:34]And it still happened. And I was scared that, you know, I was at the age where I'm now out on my own.
[19:41]So I'm no longer at home able to lean on family. And I've got to make something work and I have to
[19:48]make it work quickly. And then, of course, I was scared of all of the relationships I was losing
[19:55]in the process and having to reckon with other people's be
[20:00]Hey, you're in decision making.
[20:02]And without receiving any messages from them
[20:05]that they were admitting to being in on it,
[20:08]it wasn't until many years later
[20:11]that I actually received some texts acknowledging
[20:15]that people understood the gravity of what happened.
[20:19]So in some ways, I was almost like, am I being gassed lit?
[20:25]What's real? What's not real?
[20:26]How did this happen?
[20:28]And then with education, that's the one that hurts the most.
[20:34]There's the most grief around because beyond material access
[20:40]and knowledge, access to information, access to tools,
[20:49]to language, to spaces where people can learn.
[20:52]I mean, that's so critical.
[20:55]And so I have a lot of grief there,
[20:58]but I also didn't want to lose any more time.
[21:02]So as quickly as I could figure out how to do so
[21:06]enrolled myself in different certification programs
[21:10]and just said, okay, it's not going to be
[21:12]what I thought it was going to be,
[21:14]but I can't try to keep focusing on the past
[21:16]and remedying it.
[21:17]I really just have to pick up where I am right now
[21:19]and work with what I got.
[21:21]I mean, hats off to you.
[21:22]Seriously, all these turns
[21:25]that you had to really turn the car all the way around.
[21:28]I mean, it takes a lot of strength, obviously.
[21:30]And I wish you hadn't been in those positions,
[21:32]but it's inspiring to see how you were able to do it.
[21:34]I know it will inspire so many other people.
[21:36]Mm, I hope so.
[21:38]And again, just to be clear,
[21:41]this kind of quote unquote resilience,
[21:43]it was earned in tiny breadcrumbs.
[21:46]It was not like I woke up feeling particularly courageous.
[21:50]It really was trying to make sense
[21:53]of the situation at hand and aligning myself
[21:57]to the values I, you know, purported to uphold.
[22:01]And really quickly an image that I think can be helpful
[22:05]sometimes my friend Joan Ball, another author.
[22:08]She mentions that purpose often in our society
[22:11]is painted as a north star.
[22:13]And you're supposed to figure out the destination
[22:16]and then reverse engineer how to get there.
[22:18]Well, for a lot of us,
[22:20]purpose ends up looking a lot more like a constellation.
[22:23]We don't exactly know where we're headed
[22:26]or where we'll end.
[22:27]All we have to do is make our best guess for now.
[22:31]And then maybe bounce around from star to star to star
[22:36]and let that kind of process of sense making
[22:39]lead to a more emergent experience of purpose.
[22:42]The advocacy I do today, I would have never guessed.
[22:46]I didn't even know I would be capable
[22:48]of sitting in on meetings with uniform law commission,
[22:53]drafting language for a bill to protect minors.
[22:56]I mean, trust me, it's accompanied by a lot of search
[23:00]engine activity.
[23:01]I'm sometimes on the phone while googling terms
[23:04]like what am I doing here, how did I get here?
[23:07]But, you know, doing my best to keep up
[23:09]and to contribute something.
[23:11]That's amazing.
[23:13]How do you feel about your whole cohort of stars
[23:16]and people who continue to be famous and nod?
[23:19]You talked a lot about Demi Lovato and your break with her
[23:22]and how you've reunited.
[23:25]And you mentioned a lot of other people along the way
[23:28]when you find yourself in this part of life looking back
[23:32]help trying to help other kids.
[23:34]Like how do you feel like do you have the wind in your sales
[23:38]from the community or are you going it alone?
[23:42]Oh, you know, I have to say I started this deeper inner work
[23:48]potentially at a younger age than many of my peers.
[23:52]So what I'm noticing is that more people
[23:56]are beginning to come forward in their 30s
[23:59]and wonderful.
[24:01]Anytime you feel ready, please do so.
[24:04]I will say it has fell over the last 10 plus years quite lonely.
[24:09]And I didn't want to just sound like someone shouting
[24:13]from the abyss, hey, care about this cause.
[24:16]I really had to think, how do we connect this issue
[24:20]to the audience member who's only ever seen
[24:23]this picture-perfect facade?
[24:25]It can be really hard to empathize with this particular group
[24:29]of people because we're painted as reckless and titled
[24:32]luxury-seeking child performers.
[24:36]And gosh, that could not be further from the truth
[24:38]for most of us, but I'm hoping, I'm starting
[24:43]to see more and more people come forward.
[24:47]And I think social media in some ways
[24:49]can be a service for this movement
[24:53]because we get to cut out the middle person.
[24:55]We don't have to wait for Netflix to sign off on our life story.
[24:59]We can just post something about it right away.
[25:02]So I'm hoping not only for their own healing journeys
[25:05]that they come forward when they're ready,
[25:07]but also societally that we use that as a proxy to examine
[25:13]what we're doing when we share content of young people
[25:16]online now.
[25:18]I see a lot of the same patterns playing out really good
[25:21]intentions, supportive caring parents, proud guardians.
[25:26]And yet none of us were given a digital literacy manual
[25:30]to actually understand where that data goes,
[25:34]how that might affect the young person's educational pathway
[25:37]professional trajectory and just their right to privacy
[25:42]where they can express, process, release, experiment,
[25:46]make mistakes and not have it captured
[25:50]into a permanent digital footprint.
[25:53]So I have four kids and one of them had the opportunity
[25:57]to get a manager and all that.
[26:00]And it's like really into the whole thing.
[26:01]And we decided not to do it.
[26:03]But what would you say to parents who have a child
[26:07]who is talented and who is motivated and wants to keep acting
[26:11]and doing all the stuff, but doesn't want to necessarily
[26:14]be subjected to some conditions which are trying to change
[26:18]have not totally changed?
[26:19]Absolutely.
[26:20]Yes, first I would say, please check out the artist
[26:24]well-being essentials toolkit.
[26:26]We designed it for this exact reason.
[26:29]You're going to receive education on so many different areas
[26:34]and specific tools for navigating these unique situations
[26:37]even lessons specifically for guardians around red flags, pitfalls,
[26:42]things to look out for.
[26:44]And in addition to that, make sure, you know,
[26:48]pace yourself and spend some time in that information gathering stage.
[26:52]Listen to people who have been through it and make the most informed decision.
[26:57]And I like to think of, you know, the whole pie.
[27:00]And if we're dividing it into the different dimensions of our life and well-being,
[27:04]if you start to notice that this part of your child's life
[27:09]is taking up disproportionate space in their overall development and well-being,
[27:14]that might be your clue as to what capacity you can participate in that activity
[27:21]before you need to set some parameters.
[27:23]And yes, of course, the industry, if they like you know,
[27:26]they're not going to encourage you to take a break.
[27:28]So you're going to have to be clear about your own boundaries going into the space
[27:33]and to feel empowered with your parental rights
[27:36]to actually follow through on those boundaries.
[27:39]So just last question, like, would you do it again?
[27:42]Would you go to LA with your mom?
[27:44]Would you have gotten on the flight that you literally, like,
[27:48]were returning the rental car and went back for the ad?
[27:51]Would you have just said, what if I had just gotten on that flight?
[27:54]Like, what would you do differently?
[27:57]At six years old, I didn't have the ability to decide
[28:01]at 32, I would absolutely never do that again.
[28:08]Awesome. Thank you.
[28:09]Thank you for sharing your story.
[28:11]This was so powerful and so well-written, and I read a lot of books.
[28:14]So this was, I mean, really, it's really strong and I'm so happy you shared it.
[28:19]Thank you so much.
[28:20]Thank you.
[28:21]I'm deeply flattered, coming from an avid book reader.
[28:23]That means so much.
[28:25]I don't know. You will be getting lots of praise.
[28:27]I just know it.
[28:28]Oh, thank you.
[28:29]Anyway, thank you so much.
[28:31]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi,
[28:34]formerly momstone have time to read books.
[28:36]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens,
[28:42]and spread the word.
[28:44]Thanks so much.
[28:45]Oh, and bye the books.