Keke Palmer, Jonathan Van Ness, and Wentworth Miller: three celebs (who all happen to identify as members of the LGBTQIA+ community) who’ve offered their stories about living in survival mode. Each has dealt with traumatic childhoods; each has discovered later in life that the defense mechanisms and/or behaviors that kicked in back then no longer work so well.
Keke Palmer: “How I Set Myself Free”
In Palmer’s TED Talk, recorded last month, she “unpacked how growing up in poverty shaped her relationship with ambition and why hyper-functioning eventually became both her greatest strength and biggest limitation” (Flavio Gomez, Los Angeles Times).
Palmer, who at the age of 11 had a breakout acting role in Akeelah and the Bee, says “adaptive intelligence” propelled her into becoming her family’s economic provider. As Gomez states, “In environments where financial security feels fragile, overworking can feel less like a choice and more like survival.”
Performing became something she did not only on stage but off, which eventually proved overly demanding. How she realized this? Through the lens of advising her young son it was okay to rest, words she actually needed to hear herself.
Her bestselling 2024 memoir Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative, by the way, contains some of the seeds of insight that culminated in “setting herself free.”
For those wondering about her identity, she has eschewed labels while also uadmitting ongoing confusion about where she fits, preferring the concept of sexual/gender fluidity. Her most recent update, though, is that she may be asexual.
Jonathan Van Ness: Over the Top
Probably best known for their role on TV’s Queer Eye, non-binary Van Ness has experienced childhood sexual abuse, addiction, depression, HIV, and more. “Survival mode” is a term they often use to describe getting through various aspects of a challenging life.
A quote from their 2019 memoir Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love: “You know those plants that are always trying to find the light? Maybe they were planted in a location that didn’t necessarily facilitate growth, but inexplicably they make a circuitous route to not only survive but bloom into a beautiful plant. That was me—my whole life.”
Van Ness also hosts a podcast, “Getting Better with Jonathan Van Ness,” in which guests often address survival issues.
Wentworth Miller: Survival Mode
In 2013 actor Miller gave a groundbreaking speech at the Human Rights Campaign‘s Seattle dinner.
For much of his life, Miller said, he’d had difficulty with the concept of “community”: “I wasn’t born in this country. I didn’t grow up in any one particular religion. I have a mixed race background, and I’m gay.” The latter detail in particular was news to the public.
“When you’re in survival mode, your focus is on getting through the day in one piece, and when you’re in that mode at 5, at 10, at 15, there isn’t a lot of space for words like ‘community,’ for words like ‘us’ and ‘we.’ There’s only space for ‘I’ and ‘me.’”
His process led down a depressing and lonely path. Once he discovered the benefit of community, though, he was eager to share his story and message, hoping to help others.
