Currently Cringing

For years, I thought my hip pain, migraines, joint pain, periods, mattress problems and increasingly bizarre symptoms were completely unrelated.

Then my vagina caught on fire.

Not metaphorically.

This summer, I went from traveling through Italy to barely being able to walk. My legs were throbbing, my feet felt like bricks, my vulva was burning, and somehow everything looked completely normal. I saw doctors and specialists, had MRIs and bloodwork, tried acupuncture, went down terrifying medical rabbit holes—and eventually found myself learning words I had somehow made it to 42 without ever hearing: vulvodynia, pelvic floor dysfunction and pudendal nerve pain.

And somehow this story involves five mattresses, perimenopause, Mounjaro, a $20 kettlebell, a horsehair bed, a broken Swiss Air business-class seat, my asshole, TikTok, and a seven-month-pregnant physical therapist who saw me at 9 p.m. on a Sunday.

Because apparently my hip, vagina, migraines, period and entire left side had been in a group chat for years—and nobody thought to add me.

This is the full story of the strangest medical mystery I’ve ever experienced, what finally helped me, and why women need to talk about the embarrassing symptoms we’re quietly Googling at 2 a.m.

Because we’ll discuss Botox, Ozempic, periods, bowel movements, sex and childhood trauma—but apparently the vulva is where we draw the line?

Topics include: vulvodynia, pelvic floor dysfunction, pelvic pain, pudendal nerve pain, pelvic floor physical therapy, perimenopause, chronic pain, migraines, Mounjaro and women’s health.

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What happens when the life you pictured for yourself doesn’t happen the way you thought it would, or doesn’t happen at all?

This week on Currently Cringing, we’re talking about the quiet grief nobody really prepares you for: grieving an imagined future. The wedding, the baby, the house, the career, the friendship, the version of yourself you were certain you’d become, and the invisible timelines that somehow became deadlines.

We get into ambiguous loss, milestone birthdays, fertility and aging, social media comparison, family and cultural expectations, the 2 a.m. spiral after someone else’s engagement announcement, and why you can be genuinely happy with your life while still grieving the life you didn’t get.

And because apparently I cannot experience an emotion without eventually turning it into a business analysis, we’re also looking at the ROI of letting go. What does continuing to emotionally fund an expired plan cost you in time, money, attention and energy? And what becomes possible when you finally stop negotiating with a reality that has already sent its final terms?

Sometimes letting go isn’t giving up. Sometimes it’s admitting: I wanted this. It mattered to me. And it didn’t happen the way I thought it would.

Nobody sends flowers for a future that didn’t happen. Maybe we should.

Currently Cringing with Anisha Ramakrishna is a comedy podcast about relationships, marriage, aging, culture, money, ambition, friendship, family, and all the deeply unserious things we somehow take very seriously.

Episode topics: grief, ambiguous loss, life transitions, letting go, unmet expectations, milestone birthdays, aging, relationships, fertility, career changes, social media comparison, Indian family expectations, finding purpose, starting over, and accepting when life doesn’t go according to plan.

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Listeners heard something disturbing in the background of my podcast. Then one listener in France messaged me with an even stranger detail: she thinks the mysterious voice is speaking French.

There is only one problem. I record this podcast alone. In my house.

So naturally, my husband and I opened the doors, lit the sage and Palo Santo, respectfully asked whoever—or whatever—is apparently guest-hosting the podcast to leave, and absolutely did NOT schedule a séance. I am trying to have fewer supernatural interactions, not expand the spiritual calendar.

Then we need to discuss why August Virgos and September Virgos may basically be different species, the astrology of decans, and why Virgo season has personally declared war on me.

Also: Apple has unveiled its first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo, starting around $2,000—and apparently reaching roughly $3,000 at the highest storage tier. Who is paying used-car money for a phone whose party trick is closing?

Plus, the increasingly terrifying AI safety conversation: researchers leaving major AI companies, warnings about artificial intelligence and human extinction, what actually happened when OpenAI models breached testing boundaries and accessed Hugging Face systems, and why women in their 30s, 40s and 50s should understand AI even if they hate it.

And because this episode desperately needs lighter subject matter: the Minnesota State Fair, Pronto Pups, butter sculptures, fried food on GLP-1s, why I may have missed my state-fair window forever, and the hypocrisy of millennial wellness.

Because apparently I won’t eat a Dorito with Red 40, but I will inhale Fabuloso, drink Coke Zero, wash my hands seventeen times and call it health.

We’re talking ghosts, astrology, the Apple iPhone Duo, AI safety, OpenAI, Hugging Face, state fairs, GLP-1 life, millennial wellness and surviving a genuinely difficult season with a little humor.

Send this episode to the friend who would sage the house with you—but absolutely refuse to attend the séance.

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First, we need to discuss the mysterious noises showing up in the podcast because apparently Currently Cringing now has an unpaid paranormal co-host. I wish I were kidding.

Then we’re getting into something far scarier: why we keep going back to people who already showed us exactly who they are.

If somebody pulls away, let them. If they become weird, cold, inconsistent, confused, “need space,” or suddenly need to focus on healing/their career/their dog — stop providing disaster relief to a situation you did not create.

Because sometimes closure isn’t maturity. Sometimes it’s emotional customer service for someone who barely qualified for the perk.

We’re talking about why rejection makes us beg for explanations, why loneliness can make terrible people look appealing again, why peace feels strangely boring after chaos, and why the hardest part of having boundaries isn’t leaving — it’s staying gone when your calendar is empty.

And this doesn’t just apply to dating.

It’s the toxic friend you cut off and suddenly reconsider six months later because everyone else is busy. The “convenience friend” you don’t actually like but who lives eight minutes away. The person who’s hilarious at dinner but leaves you emotionally hungover for three days. The relationships we keep because history, proximity and loneliness convince us they’re more valuable than they actually are.

Some people are appetizers. Stop promoting them to entrées.

In this episode:

• Why behavior is often the closure you’re looking for

• Why “I miss you” does not mean “I’ve changed”

• The difference between returning and repairing

• Why loneliness has absolutely terrible taste in people

• The quiet period that happens after you finally cut toxic people off

• Why familiar dysfunction can feel safer than unfamiliar peace

• Dating confusion, mixed signals and screenshot forensic analysis

• Adult friendships, convenience friends and social scarcity

• Why history does not equal quality

• How to stop reopening doors you closed for a reason

• And why a smaller table with fewer psychopaths might actually be the goal

Leave people where they left you.

Not everyone who once had access to you deserves access forever.

Sometimes growing up is simply realizing that four people who genuinely love you are worth more than twelve people you constantly have to recover from.

Welcome to the smaller table.

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This week on Currently Cringing, one tiny test strand becomes the hero of the entire episode when I discover that Japanese hair straightening could have quite literally made me bald. Two months after a salon owner refused to straighten my entire head, my hairstylist finds the test piece underneath my hair completely broken off. Rejection is protection, ladies — and sometimes it is the only thing standing between you and a Labor Day wig.

Then we need to discuss my latest personality: gardening. Martha Stewart and Ina Garten have successfully convinced me that I should be wandering through my garden with a wicker basket, casually picking basil for dinner. Unfortunately, I live in Miami, where gardening is less Barefoot Contessa and more Jurassic Park. There are frogs in the soil, lizards behind the hose, iguanas falling out of trees, aphids attacking the mint, and apparently 400 different creatures already living in every plant I purchase. Gardening is supposed to regulate your nervous system. Mine has entered fight-or-flight.

We’re also celebrating the end of August, because August is January with humidity. Summer is spiritually over, everyone is exhausted, the rosé has lost its will to live, and I am officially ready for September, fall weather, early sunsets and the glorious “-ber” months.

What I am NOT ready for is corporate fall. Why am I walking into Home Depot in August and finding myself underneath the crotch of a 12-foot Halloween skeleton? Why is pumpkin spice already here? Why are velvet pumpkins appearing while I’m still buying mosquito repellent? Fall is wonderful. Fall cosplay in 98-degree weather is not.

And finally, my cleaning lady’s psychic friend has returned — which would be harmless except she has now correctly predicted enough things in my life that I unfortunately have to listen to her. Her latest forecast involves money, the evil eye and a bath filled with white rose petals. Obviously, I’m doing it. This is the same woman who previously predicted my marriage and an unexpected move, so at this point we will be monitoring the situation.

Also: an update on the Etsy witch I paid earlier this year. Results remain deeply disappointing.

On this episode: Japanese hair straightening damage, hair breakage, salon horror stories, Miami gardening, Florida wildlife, Martha Stewart gardening, Ina Garten, growing your own food, summer depression, September, fall 2026, Halloween decorations, Home Depot’s 12-foot skeleton, pumpkin spice season, astrology, psychics, tarot, evil eye rituals, white rose baths, manifestation, Etsy witches, and why rejection really might be protection.

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The Lindsay Clancy trial has officially consumed my life. After five weeks of spiritually attending Massachusetts Superior Court from my laptop, closing arguments are over, the jury is deliberating, and apparently I’m supposed to just… go about my day?

Absolutely not.

This week on Currently Cringing, we’re talking about the Lindsay Clancy trial, Kevin Reddington’s closing argument, the bizarre reality of watching a murder trial unfold live, alternate jurors, the impossible responsibility of a jury, and why trial lawyers are essentially doing Broadway with prison sentences.

Then there’s Patrick Clancy. Photos and videos of him riding a Citi Bike around Manhattan have been circulating online, along with rumors and speculation about his life after unimaginable tragedy. We’re talking about grief, optics, the public’s expectations of how a devastated parent is “supposed” to behave, and why this case has created such an emotional disconnect for so many people watching.

And because apparently the universe felt this week needed additional programming, there’s also a blood moon lunar eclipse happening. Perfect. Exactly what we needed. The jury is deliberating, the moon is entering her dark feminine era, Mercury retrograde nearly killed me, and I would simply like one regular Thursday.

Naturally, my coping mechanism was Cheesecake Factory.

What began as avocado egg rolls somehow became a $207 cart involving Oreo cheesecake, strawberry shortcake, sweet corn tamale cakes and an existential debate about whether Bang-Bang Chicken and Shrimp was now part of my Make-A-Wish Foundation. I had become the CFO of a meal I hadn’t even ordered yet.

We also get into the seemingly endless food recalls, why grocery shopping currently feels like Squid Game, TikTok food recommendations I no longer trust, Reddit being one of the last remaining corners of useful civilization, and the very specific terror of wasting your one day of nutritional terrorism on the wrong entrée.

Plus: my health is finally back on track after a year-long saga—which deserves an entire episode of its own.

Three children, Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy, lost their lives at the center of this devastating case. While I discuss the trial, media coverage, public reaction and my own opinions, allegations and online speculation discussed in this episode should not be treated as established fact unless they were presented as evidence in court.

Currently Cringing with Anisha Ramakrishna.

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Get the Degree Before the Ring: Trad Wives, Financial Dependence, and Why Marriage Is Not a Life Plan

This week on Currently Cringing, Anisha realizes her ultimate rich-person fantasy is not a yacht, a private jet, or a house in the English countryside — it is becoming a permanent career student with no professional objective whatsoever. Law school for fun. Art history for dinner parties. Torts in Tuscany. Maritime law on a yacht. University at the Four Seasons.

But the fantasy turns into a sharper conversation about education, women, marriage, money, independence, and the internet’s bizarre obsession with the “trad wife” lifestyle. Anisha talks about getting married at 38, building a life before becoming someone’s wife, why every woman should know how to support herself, and why “a husband” is not a financial plan.

From the genius PR of the term “trad wife” to the danger of helplessness rebranded as femininity, this episode is a hilarious, brutally honest, deeply practical reminder that education gives women options — and options are the sexiest thing a woman can own.

Forget the Birkin. Get marketable skills and liquidity.

Anisha’s ultimate rich-person fantasy is becoming a permanent career student — law school for fun, art history for dinner parties, and constitutional law from a cabana. But that fantasy leads into a brutally funny and honest rant about education, marriage, money, trad wives, and why every woman needs skills, options, and her own identity before handing anyone the operating system to her life.

Marriage can be beautiful. Homemaking can be beautiful. But helplessness rebranded as femininity? Absolutely not.

education for women, trad wife, financial independence, marriage advice, women and money, getting married later, career before marriage, modern femininity, homemaking, women’s independence, relationships, dating after 30, MBA, law school, career student, financial literacy, traditional marriage, stay at home wife, women’s empowerment, Currently Cringing, Anisha Ramakrishna

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The Lindsay Clancy trial is far more complicated than the headline. In this deep dive, we break down what Lindsay actually pleaded, the alleged confessions, postpartum psychosis and criminal responsibility, the forensic and digital evidence, Patrick Clancy’s testimony, her psychiatric treatment, the medical malpractice allegations, and the questions emerging as the trial unfolds.

This isn’t about internet conspiracy theories or declaring a verdict before the jury. It’s about separating evidence from assumption and asking how a mother who repeatedly sought psychiatric help ended up at the center of an unimaginable tragedy.

Plus: the fragmented mental-health care, multiple medication changes, McLean Hospital, reasonable doubt, what partners should know about postpartum psychiatric emergencies, and why the deaths of Cora, Dawson and Callan must remain at the center of this story.

This episode discusses child death, suicide, severe mental illness and postpartum psychosis. Lindsay Clancy has pleaded not guilty, and the trial remains ongoing. Commentary reflects opinion and analysis of publicly available proceedings and reporting.

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The month-long Italian birthday extravaganza is officially over—but apparently getting home required one final humiliation.

On this episode of Currently Cringing, we’re leaving Italy for one last day in Zurich, where I’m already on my period, my joints hurt, I don’t feel well, and my definition of sightseeing has become buying exceptional Swiss fruit and cheese and going home. We need to discuss why I barely eat at restaurants in America anymore, why a $150 dinner full of mediocre ingredients no longer excites me, and why at forty-one I would genuinely rather have my closest friends come to my house than spend three hours screaming over music while somebody brings me a $26 salad.

Then we arrive at the Zurich airport, where the Swiss business-class lounge has an entire individually packaged ice-cream bar—Magnums, cones, sandwiches, popsicles—plus à la carte breakfast, beer, outdoor seating and views of the planes taking off. Naturally, despite already feeling terrible and knowing sugar can trigger a migraine, I decide that if my body has already betrayed me, I might as well have a bite of ice cream.

Foreshadowing.

We board our flight home and immediately the man in front of us discovers his business-class seat won’t recline. He is furious. He wants answers. He wants compensation. He wants Switzerland held accountable. The crew eventually manages to manually fix his seat, he settles down, and I quietly think, Thank God that’s not us.

Never think that thought.

Because shortly after takeoff, I get a migraine.

I take my triptan like the reformed pharmaceutical enthusiast I now am, wait for the seatbelt sign to disappear and prepare for the one thing I specifically paid thousands of dollars to do: lie completely flat and become unconscious over the Atlantic.

Except my business-class seat reclines halfway…

…and stops.

The buttons don’t work. The seat won’t move. My head is exploding, my joints are aching, I’m actively menstruating, and fifteen minutes later the handsome, muscular captain of the flight crew has removed his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and is literally underneath my seat like a mechanic changing the transmission on a Honda Civic.

Oh my God, that poor woman.

Followed immediately by:

Thank God it isn’t me.

And just when we thought the trip was finally over, we got home and Italy apparently received permission to lose its mind. Mount Etna started erupting, the summer heat arrived, travel disruptions followed, and people were dealing with the exact peak-season chaos I had spent the entire trip warning you about.

Which brings us to the final lesson of this month in Italy:

GO IN EARLY JUNE.

This episode is the grand finale to our Italian adventure: Zurich, Swiss food, airport lounge ice cream, migraines, periods, marriage, broken business-class seats, airline economics, travel chaos, Mount Etna, European heat waves and why sometimes the greatest luxury of an international vacation is getting back to your own bed.

Italy was magical.

The flight home rearranged my spine.

And somehow, I’d do the whole thing again.

Topics: Italy travel, Switzerland travel, Zurich Airport, Swiss Air business class, SWISS business class review, broken lie-flat seat, luxury travel disasters, airline complaints, business class travel, Italy in June, best time to visit Italy, Sicily travel, Mount Etna, European summer heat, migraine while traveling, couples travel, luxury travel reviews, funny travel stories, Italian summer, and the final chapter of the Currently Cringing Italy series.

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Portofino Is Smaller Than Costco & I’m Retiring From Beach Clubs

And just like that, we’ve reached the final stop of our month in Italy: Liguria, Santa Margherita Ligure, Portofino and the Italian Riviera—where the pesto is perfect, the water is crystal clear, and apparently a luxury vacation can still involve fighting a seagull for your smoked salmon.

Anisha gives her completely unfiltered guide to Portofino, Santa Margherita Ligure, Paraggi and Cinque Terre, including why Portofino is spectacular but approximately the size of a Costco dairy section; why she chose the Imperiale Palace Hotel over the newly renovated Belmond Splendido; and why no hotel room on Earth is objectively worth $4,000 a night—so if she’s making an emotionally irrational financial decision, she refuses to repack her suitcase halfway through it.

Then: the obsessive luxury-hotel research nobody tells you to do, the exact-room-photo email every traveler should send before booking, why hotel websites are “not technically lying, but spiritually lying,” the demographic Anisha considers her unofficial luxury-hotel rating system, and the organized-crime syndicate of enormous Italian seagulls conducting precision salmon heists at breakfast.

She also gives her real Cinque Terre travel advice: the two villages she’d prioritize, why you don’t need to collect all five like Pokémon, when to hike, when absolutely not to hike, and why peak-summer Cinque Terre can feel less like an Italian fantasy and more like a group heatstroke.

And finally, after Bagni Fiore in Paraggi, Anisha formally announces her retirement from beach clubs worldwide. The babies were innocent. The parents brought what appeared to be the entire baby registry. The beach club was nearly empty. Somehow, a €300 pair of loungers still came with a front-row view of strollers, floaties and someone else’s diaper bag.

After Jondal and Blue Marlin in Ibiza, the South of France, Taormina and now Portofino, she has reached a conclusion: luxury is not proximity. Luxury is space, privacy, peace—and not having someone else’s inflatable giraffe blocking your view of the Mediterranean.

Plus: Langosteria Paraggi, why the food almost redeemed the entire experience, her husband’s ongoing transformation into a sea turtle, and the Italian Riviera hotel she predicts the internet is about to discover and make impossible to book.

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