"Chandler", Matthew Perry.
This sad addict died young at the age of 54. He experienced all kinds of glorious and painful moments in his short life. He was abandoned, indifferent, bullied, watched, and pursued. He has been cursed, he is an "unaccompanied child", he is a tennis boy, he is "Chandler", he is a patient of many diseases. His untimely death left everyone who knew "Chandler" and Matthew Perry sighing.
As an adult, Matthew Perry spent most of his time in medical institutions of one kind or another. In order to survive, he turned himself into an occupational patient. Before his death, he suffered respiratory arrest and passed out during treatment more than once, or to put it another way - died of pain - and once even broke his ribs. He paid a price for his addiction to alcohol and drugs that was more than he could bear. He tortured the people around him, was teased and tortured by fate, lost his lover, lost the ability to perceive life, and finally lost his devastated road. Body. After he starred in "Friends" and became a popular actor, news about his addiction, childhood experiences, and romance gossips have not stopped. He has also suffered negation from all sides because of his uncontrolled desires.
At the age of 52, he wrote a book called "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing". He also thought about naming it "Unaccompanied Minor". . He is always looking for some initial reason for all the pain, it may be a person or an event. In the second month after he was born, he took phenobarbital because of his crying. As soon as the medicine came off, he fell asleep and "stopped." The single mother who raised him can have some quiet time. When he was 5 years old, he was put on a plane and flew far away to find another relative, becoming an "unaccompanied child."
Can, and to what extent, one can trace the circumstances of one's life back to childhood? This is, I'm afraid, uncertain. What makes Matthew Perry more convincing is that he completely tells the various stages of childhood, adolescence and adulthood, connecting all the experiences of "when" and "why". Now, the Chinese translation of "Friends, Lovers and Big Trouble" has also been published. We excerpt some of its content and share it with book friends who know "Chandler".
The following content is excerpted from "Friends, Lovers, and Big Trouble" with the permission of the publisher. It covers Matthew Perry's treatment, early life, and his best day: he would like to wake up on the same day every day. The excerpt has been omitted, the title is that of the excerpter, and the annotations can be found in the original book.
"To all those who suffer, you know I'm talking about you." These are the words he wrote on the title page. Original author of
| [Add] Matthew Perry
"Old Friends, Lovers, and Big Trouble", [Add] written by Matthew Perry, translated by Chen Lei, Yilin Publishing House, January 2024.
I am still alive
No one believes that terrible things will happen to them. Until misfortune really strikes. No one survives intestinal perforation, aspiration pneumonia, or being put on an ECMO (an artificial heart-lung machine). Until someone actually survives.
That's me.
I am writing this while sitting in a rented house overlooking the Pacific Ocean. (My own house, also down the street, is being renovated – they said it would take six months, so I’d estimate it would be about a year.) A pair of red-tailed hawks circled the canyon below, BMW Hill Garden Homes The area extends along this canyon down to the water's edge. It's a gorgeous spring day in Los Angeles. I've been busy this morning hanging pictures on the wall (or rather, hiring people to hang them - I'm not that handy). I’ve fallen in love with art over the past few years, and if you look hard enough you’ll spot a Banksy or two. I'm also busy writing the second draft of a movie script. There was a freshly poured Diet Coke in the glass and a full pack of Marlboros in the pocket. Sometimes, these two things are enough.
is sometimes available.
I keep thinking about this strange, inescapable reality: I am alive.
Matthew Perry and his sister."Please note: If I have a goatee, it means I'm taking Vicodin or other opioids," he wrote under the photo accompanying his autobiography. (Illustration for "Friends, Lovers, and Big Trouble")
These four words are more magical than you might imagine, considering the disadvantages I faced; for me, they have an anomalous and The dazzling texture looks like rocks brought back from a distant planet. No one can be quite sure. If you died, people would be shocked, but no one would be surprised. It's a very strange world to live in. The first thing that these four words
made me feel - I am still alive - was a deep sense of gratitude. If you've ever had an experience as close to heaven as I did, you didn't actually have the choice or opportunity to choose to be grateful: it literally sat on your living room table, like a big book for your coffee table - and you almost You won't notice it, but it's there. Yet lurking within that gratitude, buried deep in the hint of anise and faint licorice of Diet Coke, filling my lungs with every puff of every cigarette, was a lingering pain.
I can't help but ask myself a difficult question: Why? Why am I still alive? I have an inkling of an answer, but it's not yet formed. It's not far from helping others, I know that but don't know exactly how to answer it. Undoubtedly the greatest good thing I can do is if a fellow alcoholic comes to me and asks if I can help them stop drinking, I will say yes and then actually follow up and take action. I can help desperate people gain sobriety. I think the answer to the question "Why am I still alive?" lies somewhere in this. After all, I’ve found that it’s the only thing that truly satisfies me. It is undeniable that God is present in this matter.
But, you know, when I feel like I'm not good enough, I can't answer the question "why" in the affirmative. You can't give up something you don't have. And most of the time, I was stuck with these nagging thoughts: I wasn’t good enough, I didn’t matter, I was too attention-hungry. These thoughts make me uncomfortable. I need love, but I don't believe in love.
Stills from the filming of the first season of "Friends".
If I put aside my career and the character of Chandler and show you who I really am, you might notice me, but worse, you might notice me and leave me. And I can't accept it. I can't bear that ending. Can't bear it anymore. That will turn me into a speck of dust and annihilate me.
So, I'll leave you alone.
"Unaccompanied minor"
I am fifty-two years old. Insomnia is no longer such a cute thing.
Every house I have lived in has a beautiful view outside the window. That's the most important factor for me.
When I was five years old, I was put on a plane from Montreal, Canada, where my mother and I lived, to Los Angeles, California, to visit my dad. I was what was called an "unaccompanied minor" at the time. It was a common practice back then to send children on airplanes alone—people would let kids fly alone at that age. That wasn't right, but people did it anyway. For maybe a millisecond, I thought this was going to be an exciting adventure, but then I realized that I was too young to fly alone, and it was so scary (and ridiculous). You should send someone to take me! I'm only five years old. Is everyone crazy?
Childhood Matthew Perry.(Image for "Friends, Lovers, and Big Trouble")
Which choice cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars in therapy? Can I get my money back please?
When you fly alone as an unaccompanied minor, you can indeed get various benefits. For example, you will have a small sign with the words "Unaccompanied Minor" hanging around your neck, and you can also enjoy early boarding rights, children's rights, etc. Dedicated lounges, countless snacks, personal escorts to board the plane... this probably should have been a great experience (later, after I became famous, I enjoyed all these and more special treatments at many airports, But each time it reminded me of my first time on a plane and I hated the treatment). The flight attendants were supposed to be looking after me, but they were busy serving champagne in economy class (which they did in the 1970s when anything could happen). The two-drink limit was also lifted shortly before I flew solo, so the flight felt like six hours in Sodom and Gomorrah. There was a stink of alcohol everywhere and the guy sitting next to me must have had ten Old Fashioneds. I can't imagine why any adult would want to drink glass after glass of the same wine...ugh, I was so naive.
When I'm brave enough, I press the little service button, but that's not often. The flight attendant, wearing hot 1970s style boots and shorts, came over and ruffled my hair before going about her business.
I'm fucking scared. I tried to read my Highlights magazine, but every time the plane bumped in the sky I knew I was going to die. No one told me this was normal, no one could give me a comforting look. My feet couldn't even reach the floor. I was too scared to lower my seat back and take a nap, so I just stayed awake, waiting for the next bump, worrying over and over what it would be like to fall from 35,000 feet. Feel.
I didn’t fall, at least not literally. Eventually, the plane began its descent into the beautiful California night. I could see the lights flickering and the streets spreading out in every direction like a giant sparkling magic carpet with wide shadows (I knew now, they were hills), and I pressed my little face against the cabin window. , the city pulsates towards me. I remember so vividly that I thought those lights and all that beauty meant I was about to have a parent.
In 2002, Matthew Perry was nominated for the Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series, and he took his mother with him. (Picture for "Friends, Lovers, and Big Trouble")
Not having my parents with me on that flight was one of the many reasons why I have been trapped in a sense of abandonment my whole life... If I'm good enough, then They wouldn't leave me alone with no company, would they? Shouldn't everything work according to this logic? Other children are accompanied by their parents. But I only have a small brand and a magazine.
Why did that little guy fly alone? It's really terrible, maybe someone should fly to Canada to pick him up? I've often wondered about this question, but never dared to ask it.
I don't like tit for tat. I have many questions to ask. But they didn't say it out loud.
For a long time I found myself constantly getting into trouble and trying to find someone to blame, anything and anyone.
I spent a lot of my life in hospitals. Being in the hospital can make the best of us start practicing self-compassion, and I worked hard at self-compassion. Every time I lay in bed, I would find myself retracing my life, turning over each moment as if it were a puzzling discovery from an archaeological dig, trying to find some explanation for my life. Why do we spend so much time stuck in uneasy and painful emotions. I’ve always understood where the real pain comes from.
My answer is a pill
I was born on August 19, 1969, a Tuesday, to former Odd Fellows John Bennett Perry and former Miss Canadian University Snow Queen Susan Marie Longford Son of virtue. There was a huge storm the night I was born (of course); everyone played Monopoly while waiting for me to show up (of course). The day I came to this planet was about a month after man landed on the moon and the day after Woodstock—so, between the perfection of the universe and all the mess of Yasgur Farm 5 Somewhere, I had a life, interrupting someone's chance to get to the Hollywood Esplanade 6 hotel.
Matthew Perry in his mother's arms. (Picture for "Friends, Lovers, and Big Trouble")
I came into this world crying and couldn't stop crying. Cried for weeks. I was a colicky kid—I had stomach issues from the beginning. My parents were driven crazy by my unstoppable crying. Is this kid crazy? Worried, they took me to the doctor. That was 1969, a prehistoric time compared to now. That said, I don't know how advanced a civilization would have to be to think that giving phenobarbital to a baby who has just breathed God's gift of air for a month can - at best - count as... A pediatric treatment option worth considering. In the 1960s, however, it was not uncommon for parents of children with colic to quietly prescribe a dose of barbiturates. Some older doctors were convinced of the power of this therapy - which, I mean, "prescribes barbiturates to a newborn baby who cries incessantly."
I want to express my opinion clearly on this issue. I don't blame my parents for this. The child keeps crying day and night. Something is obviously wrong. The doctor prescribes a medicine. He is not the only one who thinks this is a good treatment plan. So you give the medicine to the child. The child Stopped crying. It was a different era after all.
There I was, on my anxious mother's knee, crying into her twenty-one-year-old shoulders, while some dinosaur in a white coat sat behind his large oak desk, barely looking up. For a moment, he clicked his tongue a few times with bad breath, complained about "these parents these days," and then wrote down a prescription for an addictive, major barbiturate.
I was noisy and needed attention all the time, and the answer was a pill. (Well, that sounds about the same as when I was in my damn twenties.)
I was told that I took it in the second month of my life, between thirty and sixty days Phenobarbital. That's an important time in a baby's development, especially when it comes to sleep. (Fifty years later, I still have trouble sleeping.) Once the phenobarbital begins to take effect, I fall asleep. Apparently, I cried and cried, and then the medicine came, and then I passed out, which made my father burst out laughing. He's not heartless, drugged babies are really funny. In some of the photos of me as a baby, you can see me on a high, nodding like an addict even though I was only seven weeks old. I guess that was oddly appropriate for a child born the day after Woodstock.
Matthew Perry and his father participate in the ice hockey invitational tournament. (Picture for "Friends, Lovers, and Big Trouble")
I crave attention; I am not the kid with the cute smile that everyone expects. I'm going to take this medicine and shut my mouth.
Ironically, barbiturates and I have had a very strange relationship over the years. You may be surprised to know that since 2001, I have been sober most of the time. Except I've had sixty or seventy accidents over the years. If you want to stay awake when these accidents happen (which I do every time), then you are given medications to help you stay awake.You may ask, what kind of medicine is it? You guessed it: phenobarbital! Barbiturates help calm you down when you're trying to rid your body of whatever other crap that is; and, I've been taking them since I was thirty days old, so as an adult, I just Just pick up what you left behind. During my time in addiction treatment, I was in desperate need of emotional support and feeling very unwell—I’m sorry to say, I was the world’s worst patient.
Detox therapy is hell. When de-addicted, I could only lie in bed and watch the time go by, knowing in my heart that I was still far from getting better. During addiction treatment, I felt like I was dying. I feel like the treatment will never end. It felt like my insides were trying to crawl out of my body. I'm shaking, I'm sweating. I was like that baby who couldn't stop crying before the medicine was prescribed. I knew I was going to suffer in hell for seven days, but I still chose to be high for four hours. (I told you I was crazy at this stage, right?) Sometimes I had to be locked up for months just to break the cycle.
During addiction treatment, "good" is a distant memory or a word found on cards from Hallmark. I was like a little kid, begging for any medicine that could help relieve my symptoms—and this grown man, who looked so polished on the cover of People magazine, was begging for a cure. I would give up everything - every car, every house, all my money - just to make the symptoms go away. When the treatment is finally over, you are so grateful that you will never put yourself through that again. Until three weeks later, you find yourself in the exact same situation again.
is crazy. I'm mad.
Just like when I was a baby, I didn't want to spend too long dealing with the internal issues, because now that there's medication to fix them, well, that's easy. And that was my education.
A day that cannot be repeated
You know how during the coronavirus pandemic, some people feel like they are living the same day over and over again?
Below is the day I want to spend over and over again (this is my Groundhog Day of Groundhog Days). In fact, I hope every day for the rest of my life is a repeat of that day. but I can not. So the only way to get past that day is to tell it like a story and see if that helps.
Of course, it is impossible to make that day happen again.
It was the last day of 1995 in Taos, New Mexico. We played rugby in the snow all afternoon. Me, my girlfriend Julia Roberts, and a group of our friends. She was the biggest movie star in the world, and I was on the biggest TV series.
Stills from "Friends" Season 2 (1995). The
pursuit was initially conducted via fax. Somewhere in this world, there is a stack of faxes about two feet long - two feet of sweet words, full of verses and reveries, about two big stars falling in love with each other, connected in a beautiful and romantic way.
I was very proud at that time. I am the center of everything and nothing can hurt me. The incandescent flame of fame is mine - I keep passing my hand through the flame, but my hand remains intact; here is the center of the incombustible. I didn’t know it at this time, but fame could never fill the hole, but at the moment, it covered it up well for the time being, thank you very much.
The first season of "Friends" was a huge success, and I basically eased into the second season. I've been on Letterman's show and I'm getting ready to go on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. We were on the cover of People and Rolling Stone, which were two big things at the time. Now, film offers are coming. Of course they're coming towards me. I'm getting everything I want. There is also a million-dollar movie offer here, and there is a million-dollar movie offer there. I hadn’t met Julia Roberts yet, but it was destined. After
something happened that only happens to famous people. Marta Kaufman came to me and said maybe I should send flowers to Julia Roberts.
You mean the biggest star in the universe, Julia Roberts?
"Sure, okay, why?" I asked.
It turned out that they sent Julia an invitation to appear in the post-Super Bowl episode of Season 2, and Julia said that she would only be willing to participate if she appeared in my storyline. Let me say it again - she was only willing to participate if she was part of my storyline. (Did I get lucky this year or something?) But first, I had to show her my love.
I have been thinking hard for a long time, what should I write on the card? I wanted it to sound professional and star-to-star. (Okay, star vs. super star.) But I also wanted there to be some emotion worthy of what she said earlier. I'm still proud of my decision. I gave her three dozen red roses, and the card read:
The only thing more exciting than you attending the show is that I finally have an excuse to send you flowers.
is not bad, right? I dread going to bed at night, but I can still charm when I need to. But my work is far from done. Her response was that if I could explain quantum physics to her, then she would agree to star. Wow. First, I was communicating with the woman "whose lipstick was born for"; then, I had to study hard.
The next day I sent her a paper on wave-particle duality, the uncertainty principle, and quantum entanglement, only some parts of which were metaphors. Years later, Alexa Jung, one of Friends' staff writers, told The Hollywood Reporter: "[Julia] became interested in [Matthew] from a distance because he was so charming. They sent faxes all the time. Flirting. She asked him questions like: 'Why should I date you?' Everyone in the writers room helped him figure out why. He could have handled it just fine on his own without us, but we had no doubt We are all members of Matthew’s team, and we all want to help him come true.”
In the end, all our efforts paid off. Not only did Julia agree to be in the series, she gave me a gift, which was bagels, lots and lots of bagels. Of course, why not? She's the killer Julia Roberts.
Thus began a three-month courtship that began with daily faxes. This was a time before the internet and cell phones – all our communication was done via fax. Lots and lots of faxes, hundreds of them. At first, the faxes teetered on the edge of romance, me sending her verses, asking her to nominate members for the Los Angeles Kings' Triple Crown, and so on. It's not like we weren't both busy - I was filming the most popular series on the planet and she was in France filming Woody Allen's Everybody Says I Love You. (She was busy, of course.) But three or four times a day I would sit by the fax machine, watching the paper slowly reveal her next letter.
Stills from "Everyone Says I Love You" (1996).
I was so excited that some nights I found myself flirting with an attractive woman at a party, only to end the conversation so I could rush home to see if any new faxes had come in. Nine times out of ten you will see one. Those words are so beautiful - the way she strings her sentences together, the way she sees the world, the way she expresses her unique thoughts, it's all so fascinating. I would often read those faxes three or four times, sometimes five times, looking at the paper and laughing like an idiot. It's like she was put on this planet to make the world smile, and now especially to make me smile. I grinned like a fifteen-year-old boy on a first date.
At this time, we haven't even spoken, let alone met.
Then one morning, things changed. Julia's fax suddenly took a romantic turn. I called a friend and said, "I'm afraid I'm going to be in big trouble. You must come here immediately. Tell me if I'm wrong."
After my friend came over, I showed him the fax and he said: "Yes, you're right. You must be in big trouble."
" Then what should I reply? "
" Well, how do you feel? "
"Oh, come on," I said, "tell me what to say.
And just like that, Big Nose Lover and I wrote and sent a fax that turned romantic. Then we stood there, next to the fax machine, you looking at me and I looking at you. The two men just stared. Looking at a machine.
About ten minutes later, the cacophony of the fax machine—thumping, whirring, hissing, messages from outer space—filled my apartment.
“Call me. "Underneath that sentence was her phone number.
I picked up the phone and called Julia Roberts. I was nervous as hell, like I was on Letterman for the first time. But we had a great conversation. It was easy - I made her laugh, and gosh, how she laughed...she was obviously very smart and had an incredible intellect. I could already tell that she was easily the best storyteller I have ever met. Her story was so exciting, in fact, that I even asked her at one point if she had written it in advance.
Five and a half hours later, as we were getting ready to hang up, I realized that I no longer Nervous. From then on, we couldn't stop - talking for five hours today, four hours tomorrow. We were falling; I'm not sure where we were falling, but we were falling.
Clearly, falling Love network.
Stills from the tenth season of Friends (2003).
At the end of April 1996, I went on Jay Leno's "The Tonight Show" and admitted that I was single. Dating Julia Roberts was too difficult for me. I was convinced that she was going to break up with me - and why not? I wasn't good enough, I could never be good enough, I was broken, out of shape, and unlovable. So I took the initiative with the beautiful and talented Julia Roberts broke up so she wouldn't have to deal with the pain of losing her. She might feel like she was giving in to a guy who made a TV show and now he was breaking up with her. I can't Describe the confusion on her face.
original author/[plus] Matthew Perry
excerpt/Luo Dong
introduction part proofreading/Liu Baoqing
"Please note: If I have a goatee, it means I'm taking Vicodin or other opioids," he wrote under the photo accompanying his autobiography. (Illustration for "Friends, Lovers, and Big Trouble")These four words are more magical than you might imagine, considering the disadvantages I faced; for me, they have an anomalous and The dazzling texture looks like rocks brought back from a distant planet. No one can be quite sure. If you died, people would be shocked, but no one would be surprised. It's a very strange world to live in. The first thing that these four words
made me feel - I am still alive - was a deep sense of gratitude. If you've ever had an experience as close to heaven as I did, you didn't actually have the choice or opportunity to choose to be grateful: it literally sat on your living room table, like a big book for your coffee table - and you almost You won't notice it, but it's there. Yet lurking within that gratitude, buried deep in the hint of anise and faint licorice of Diet Coke, filling my lungs with every puff of every cigarette, was a lingering pain.
I can't help but ask myself a difficult question: Why? Why am I still alive? I have an inkling of an answer, but it's not yet formed. It's not far from helping others, I know that but don't know exactly how to answer it. Undoubtedly the greatest good thing I can do is if a fellow alcoholic comes to me and asks if I can help them stop drinking, I will say yes and then actually follow up and take action. I can help desperate people gain sobriety. I think the answer to the question "Why am I still alive?" lies somewhere in this. After all, I’ve found that it’s the only thing that truly satisfies me. It is undeniable that God is present in this matter.
But, you know, when I feel like I'm not good enough, I can't answer the question "why" in the affirmative. You can't give up something you don't have. And most of the time, I was stuck with these nagging thoughts: I wasn’t good enough, I didn’t matter, I was too attention-hungry. These thoughts make me uncomfortable. I need love, but I don't believe in love.
Stills from the filming of the first season of "Friends".
If I put aside my career and the character of Chandler and show you who I really am, you might notice me, but worse, you might notice me and leave me. And I can't accept it. I can't bear that ending. Can't bear it anymore. That will turn me into a speck of dust and annihilate me.
So, I'll leave you alone.
"Unaccompanied minor"
I am fifty-two years old. Insomnia is no longer such a cute thing.
Every house I have lived in has a beautiful view outside the window. That's the most important factor for me.
When I was five years old, I was put on a plane from Montreal, Canada, where my mother and I lived, to Los Angeles, California, to visit my dad. I was what was called an "unaccompanied minor" at the time. It was a common practice back then to send children on airplanes alone—people would let kids fly alone at that age. That wasn't right, but people did it anyway. For maybe a millisecond, I thought this was going to be an exciting adventure, but then I realized that I was too young to fly alone, and it was so scary (and ridiculous). You should send someone to take me! I'm only five years old. Is everyone crazy?
Childhood Matthew Perry.(Image for "Friends, Lovers, and Big Trouble")
Which choice cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars in therapy? Can I get my money back please?
When you fly alone as an unaccompanied minor, you can indeed get various benefits. For example, you will have a small sign with the words "Unaccompanied Minor" hanging around your neck, and you can also enjoy early boarding rights, children's rights, etc. Dedicated lounges, countless snacks, personal escorts to board the plane... this probably should have been a great experience (later, after I became famous, I enjoyed all these and more special treatments at many airports, But each time it reminded me of my first time on a plane and I hated the treatment). The flight attendants were supposed to be looking after me, but they were busy serving champagne in economy class (which they did in the 1970s when anything could happen). The two-drink limit was also lifted shortly before I flew solo, so the flight felt like six hours in Sodom and Gomorrah. There was a stink of alcohol everywhere and the guy sitting next to me must have had ten Old Fashioneds. I can't imagine why any adult would want to drink glass after glass of the same wine...ugh, I was so naive.
When I'm brave enough, I press the little service button, but that's not often. The flight attendant, wearing hot 1970s style boots and shorts, came over and ruffled my hair before going about her business.
I'm fucking scared. I tried to read my Highlights magazine, but every time the plane bumped in the sky I knew I was going to die. No one told me this was normal, no one could give me a comforting look. My feet couldn't even reach the floor. I was too scared to lower my seat back and take a nap, so I just stayed awake, waiting for the next bump, worrying over and over what it would be like to fall from 35,000 feet. Feel.
I didn’t fall, at least not literally. Eventually, the plane began its descent into the beautiful California night. I could see the lights flickering and the streets spreading out in every direction like a giant sparkling magic carpet with wide shadows (I knew now, they were hills), and I pressed my little face against the cabin window. , the city pulsates towards me. I remember so vividly that I thought those lights and all that beauty meant I was about to have a parent.
In 2002, Matthew Perry was nominated for the Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series, and he took his mother with him. (Picture for "Friends, Lovers, and Big Trouble")
Not having my parents with me on that flight was one of the many reasons why I have been trapped in a sense of abandonment my whole life... If I'm good enough, then They wouldn't leave me alone with no company, would they? Shouldn't everything work according to this logic? Other children are accompanied by their parents. But I only have a small brand and a magazine.
Why did that little guy fly alone? It's really terrible, maybe someone should fly to Canada to pick him up? I've often wondered about this question, but never dared to ask it.
I don't like tit for tat. I have many questions to ask. But they didn't say it out loud.
For a long time I found myself constantly getting into trouble and trying to find someone to blame, anything and anyone.
I spent a lot of my life in hospitals. Being in the hospital can make the best of us start practicing self-compassion, and I worked hard at self-compassion. Every time I lay in bed, I would find myself retracing my life, turning over each moment as if it were a puzzling discovery from an archaeological dig, trying to find some explanation for my life. Why do we spend so much time stuck in uneasy and painful emotions. I’ve always understood where the real pain comes from.
My answer is a pill
I was born on August 19, 1969, a Tuesday, to former Odd Fellows John Bennett Perry and former Miss Canadian University Snow Queen Susan Marie Longford Son of virtue. There was a huge storm the night I was born (of course); everyone played Monopoly while waiting for me to show up (of course). The day I came to this planet was about a month after man landed on the moon and the day after Woodstock—so, between the perfection of the universe and all the mess of Yasgur Farm 5 Somewhere, I had a life, interrupting someone's chance to get to the Hollywood Esplanade 6 hotel.
Matthew Perry in his mother's arms. (Picture for "Friends, Lovers, and Big Trouble")
I came into this world crying and couldn't stop crying. Cried for weeks. I was a colicky kid—I had stomach issues from the beginning. My parents were driven crazy by my unstoppable crying. Is this kid crazy? Worried, they took me to the doctor. That was 1969, a prehistoric time compared to now. That said, I don't know how advanced a civilization would have to be to think that giving phenobarbital to a baby who has just breathed God's gift of air for a month can - at best - count as... A pediatric treatment option worth considering. In the 1960s, however, it was not uncommon for parents of children with colic to quietly prescribe a dose of barbiturates. Some older doctors were convinced of the power of this therapy - which, I mean, "prescribes barbiturates to a newborn baby who cries incessantly."
I want to express my opinion clearly on this issue. I don't blame my parents for this. The child keeps crying day and night. Something is obviously wrong. The doctor prescribes a medicine. He is not the only one who thinks this is a good treatment plan. So you give the medicine to the child. The child Stopped crying. It was a different era after all.
There I was, on my anxious mother's knee, crying into her twenty-one-year-old shoulders, while some dinosaur in a white coat sat behind his large oak desk, barely looking up. For a moment, he clicked his tongue a few times with bad breath, complained about "these parents these days," and then wrote down a prescription for an addictive, major barbiturate.
I was noisy and needed attention all the time, and the answer was a pill. (Well, that sounds about the same as when I was in my damn twenties.)
I was told that I took it in the second month of my life, between thirty and sixty days Phenobarbital. That's an important time in a baby's development, especially when it comes to sleep. (Fifty years later, I still have trouble sleeping.) Once the phenobarbital begins to take effect, I fall asleep. Apparently, I cried and cried, and then the medicine came, and then I passed out, which made my father burst out laughing. He's not heartless, drugged babies are really funny. In some of the photos of me as a baby, you can see me on a high, nodding like an addict even though I was only seven weeks old. I guess that was oddly appropriate for a child born the day after Woodstock.
Matthew Perry and his father participate in the ice hockey invitational tournament. (Picture for "Friends, Lovers, and Big Trouble")
I crave attention; I am not the kid with the cute smile that everyone expects. I'm going to take this medicine and shut my mouth.
Ironically, barbiturates and I have had a very strange relationship over the years. You may be surprised to know that since 2001, I have been sober most of the time. Except I've had sixty or seventy accidents over the years. If you want to stay awake when these accidents happen (which I do every time), then you are given medications to help you stay awake.You may ask, what kind of medicine is it? You guessed it: phenobarbital! Barbiturates help calm you down when you're trying to rid your body of whatever other crap that is; and, I've been taking them since I was thirty days old, so as an adult, I just Just pick up what you left behind. During my time in addiction treatment, I was in desperate need of emotional support and feeling very unwell—I’m sorry to say, I was the world’s worst patient.
Detox therapy is hell. When de-addicted, I could only lie in bed and watch the time go by, knowing in my heart that I was still far from getting better. During addiction treatment, I felt like I was dying. I feel like the treatment will never end. It felt like my insides were trying to crawl out of my body. I'm shaking, I'm sweating. I was like that baby who couldn't stop crying before the medicine was prescribed. I knew I was going to suffer in hell for seven days, but I still chose to be high for four hours. (I told you I was crazy at this stage, right?) Sometimes I had to be locked up for months just to break the cycle.
During addiction treatment, "good" is a distant memory or a word found on cards from Hallmark. I was like a little kid, begging for any medicine that could help relieve my symptoms—and this grown man, who looked so polished on the cover of People magazine, was begging for a cure. I would give up everything - every car, every house, all my money - just to make the symptoms go away. When the treatment is finally over, you are so grateful that you will never put yourself through that again. Until three weeks later, you find yourself in the exact same situation again.
is crazy. I'm mad.
Just like when I was a baby, I didn't want to spend too long dealing with the internal issues, because now that there's medication to fix them, well, that's easy. And that was my education.
A day that cannot be repeated
You know how during the coronavirus pandemic, some people feel like they are living the same day over and over again?
Below is the day I want to spend over and over again (this is my Groundhog Day of Groundhog Days). In fact, I hope every day for the rest of my life is a repeat of that day. but I can not. So the only way to get past that day is to tell it like a story and see if that helps.
Of course, it is impossible to make that day happen again.
It was the last day of 1995 in Taos, New Mexico. We played rugby in the snow all afternoon. Me, my girlfriend Julia Roberts, and a group of our friends. She was the biggest movie star in the world, and I was on the biggest TV series.
Stills from "Friends" Season 2 (1995). The
pursuit was initially conducted via fax. Somewhere in this world, there is a stack of faxes about two feet long - two feet of sweet words, full of verses and reveries, about two big stars falling in love with each other, connected in a beautiful and romantic way.
I was very proud at that time. I am the center of everything and nothing can hurt me. The incandescent flame of fame is mine - I keep passing my hand through the flame, but my hand remains intact; here is the center of the incombustible. I didn’t know it at this time, but fame could never fill the hole, but at the moment, it covered it up well for the time being, thank you very much.
The first season of "Friends" was a huge success, and I basically eased into the second season. I've been on Letterman's show and I'm getting ready to go on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. We were on the cover of People and Rolling Stone, which were two big things at the time. Now, film offers are coming. Of course they're coming towards me. I'm getting everything I want. There is also a million-dollar movie offer here, and there is a million-dollar movie offer there. I hadn’t met Julia Roberts yet, but it was destined. After
something happened that only happens to famous people. Marta Kaufman came to me and said maybe I should send flowers to Julia Roberts.
You mean the biggest star in the universe, Julia Roberts?
"Sure, okay, why?" I asked.
It turned out that they sent Julia an invitation to appear in the post-Super Bowl episode of Season 2, and Julia said that she would only be willing to participate if she appeared in my storyline. Let me say it again - she was only willing to participate if she was part of my storyline. (Did I get lucky this year or something?) But first, I had to show her my love.
I have been thinking hard for a long time, what should I write on the card? I wanted it to sound professional and star-to-star. (Okay, star vs. super star.) But I also wanted there to be some emotion worthy of what she said earlier. I'm still proud of my decision. I gave her three dozen red roses, and the card read:
The only thing more exciting than you attending the show is that I finally have an excuse to send you flowers.
is not bad, right? I dread going to bed at night, but I can still charm when I need to. But my work is far from done. Her response was that if I could explain quantum physics to her, then she would agree to star. Wow. First, I was communicating with the woman "whose lipstick was born for"; then, I had to study hard.
The next day I sent her a paper on wave-particle duality, the uncertainty principle, and quantum entanglement, only some parts of which were metaphors. Years later, Alexa Jung, one of Friends' staff writers, told The Hollywood Reporter: "[Julia] became interested in [Matthew] from a distance because he was so charming. They sent faxes all the time. Flirting. She asked him questions like: 'Why should I date you?' Everyone in the writers room helped him figure out why. He could have handled it just fine on his own without us, but we had no doubt We are all members of Matthew’s team, and we all want to help him come true.”
In the end, all our efforts paid off. Not only did Julia agree to be in the series, she gave me a gift, which was bagels, lots and lots of bagels. Of course, why not? She's the killer Julia Roberts.
Thus began a three-month courtship that began with daily faxes. This was a time before the internet and cell phones – all our communication was done via fax. Lots and lots of faxes, hundreds of them. At first, the faxes teetered on the edge of romance, me sending her verses, asking her to nominate members for the Los Angeles Kings' Triple Crown, and so on. It's not like we weren't both busy - I was filming the most popular series on the planet and she was in France filming Woody Allen's Everybody Says I Love You. (She was busy, of course.) But three or four times a day I would sit by the fax machine, watching the paper slowly reveal her next letter.
Stills from "Everyone Says I Love You" (1996).
I was so excited that some nights I found myself flirting with an attractive woman at a party, only to end the conversation so I could rush home to see if any new faxes had come in. Nine times out of ten you will see one. Those words are so beautiful - the way she strings her sentences together, the way she sees the world, the way she expresses her unique thoughts, it's all so fascinating. I would often read those faxes three or four times, sometimes five times, looking at the paper and laughing like an idiot. It's like she was put on this planet to make the world smile, and now especially to make me smile. I grinned like a fifteen-year-old boy on a first date.
At this time, we haven't even spoken, let alone met.
Then one morning, things changed. Julia's fax suddenly took a romantic turn. I called a friend and said, "I'm afraid I'm going to be in big trouble. You must come here immediately. Tell me if I'm wrong."
After my friend came over, I showed him the fax and he said: "Yes, you're right. You must be in big trouble."
" Then what should I reply? "
" Well, how do you feel? "
"Oh, come on," I said, "tell me what to say.
And just like that, Big Nose Lover and I wrote and sent a fax that turned romantic. Then we stood there, next to the fax machine, you looking at me and I looking at you. The two men just stared. Looking at a machine.
About ten minutes later, the cacophony of the fax machine—thumping, whirring, hissing, messages from outer space—filled my apartment.
“Call me. "Underneath that sentence was her phone number.
I picked up the phone and called Julia Roberts. I was nervous as hell, like I was on Letterman for the first time. But we had a great conversation. It was easy - I made her laugh, and gosh, how she laughed...she was obviously very smart and had an incredible intellect. I could already tell that she was easily the best storyteller I have ever met. Her story was so exciting, in fact, that I even asked her at one point if she had written it in advance.
Five and a half hours later, as we were getting ready to hang up, I realized that I no longer Nervous. From then on, we couldn't stop - talking for five hours today, four hours tomorrow. We were falling; I'm not sure where we were falling, but we were falling.
Clearly, falling Love network.
Stills from the tenth season of Friends (2003).
At the end of April 1996, I went on Jay Leno's "The Tonight Show" and admitted that I was single. Dating Julia Roberts was too difficult for me. I was convinced that she was going to break up with me - and why not? I wasn't good enough, I could never be good enough, I was broken, out of shape, and unlovable. So I took the initiative with the beautiful and talented Julia Roberts broke up so she wouldn't have to deal with the pain of losing her. She might feel like she was giving in to a guy who made a TV show and now he was breaking up with her. I can't Describe the confusion on her face.
original author/[plus] Matthew Perry
excerpt/Luo Dong
introduction part proofreading/Liu Baoqing
