Meet Angela Harger Thompson
Although Angela has always been a storyteller, her giftings came alive after her transformative experience of being on a sailboat in the middle of the Pacific during the outbreak of COVID. She had an incredible story to tell, both through her documentary Quarantine at Sea and her memoir Worst Tits Ever. She created the Storytell Initiative Course to help others take their stories from an idea in their mind into a tangible artistic medium to share with an audience. She is passionate about helping others find their story, speak their truth, and connect to their audience in order to impact the world.
Based in Southern California with her husband Dustin, she enjoys acting, improv at the Groundlings School, rollerblading, hiking, and weekend adventures along the coast.
Your memoir has one of the most unforgettable titles we’ve seen. What inspired you to reclaim Worst Tits Ever instead of hiding from it?
When I first got that insult in an email from my ex, it was a gut punch to the stomach. But when I had time and space to heal, the absurdity of it amused me. Who says that to someone? It was a powerful act of reclaiming my power when after several weeks of writing my story it hit me– that’s the title of my book. I found it so funny and also empowering to take something meant to tear me down and put it in all caps on the front of my book. It’s even funnier because my cover features a picture of me in a bikini and my tits look great, if I do say so myself.
You turned one of the most painful moments of your life into a public act of empowerment. Was there a specific moment when you decided someone else’s words would no longer define you?
I was at an all time low after the incessant emails and texts bombarded me on a daily basis, insulting me and threatening me. Some days I would wake up to 50 of them, telling me how unattractive, overweight, untalented, and worthless I was. It was causing panic attacks as I received emails about password breaches, shared folder invitations full of albums of pictures of me with nasty commentary. I remember sharing with my best friend at the time the details of the ordeal. She told me “You know everything he’s saying is the opposite of truth. Take everything and flip it on its head.” That felt really strange at first, to say I was the best filmmaker, that I was incredibly worthy, that I had the best tits ever.
But it was a powerful way to take back my power and begin to heal. When everything escalated the way it did, I knew there was so much more to the story than what I had captured in my documentary Quarantine at Sea. I wanted to capture all of it, to help others and share the truth of what really happened out there on the ocean and once landing in Hawaii. With every chapter I wrote, a new part of my heart was healed.
Society constantly tells women how they should look and who they should be. How has your relationship with your body evolved through this experience?
I’ve learned how to love my body independently of anyone else’s opinion of it. Even though my ex was just saying cruel things to try to hurt me, his words still pinged around in my head and made me doubt my appearance. When I was able to divorce my opinion of my body from his, I was able to appreciate it. My body has carried me through significant traumas, enabled me to accomplish incredible things, and even carried life. I celebrate it, and now no one can take that away from me.
You wear vulnerability and humor side by side throughout your story. Why do you think laughter can be such a powerful tool for healing?
As the Bible says, a cheerful heart is the best medicine! Life and the difficulties we go through can be so heavy at times. It’s really important to honor that heaviness and that sacred space of grief, but sometimes laughter is just what is needed to lighten it. When I had more distance from what I went through, the more absurd and hilarious certain things were.
Being told I was the Q from the QAnon cult? Being told I had no influence in the world, but also my views on Covid had killed many people? Being told I had the Worst Tits Ever? I had to laugh. In the process of writing my book, I wanted to make it as accurate, yet entertaining as possible. Stories that can have you laughing on one page and crying on the next are the best kind of stories. Because that’s just real life!
What was it like becoming the subject and sharing your own story through the process of shooting your documentary?
I started out not knowing anything about what documentary filmmaking entailed. I even googled “how to make a documentary.” But I’m a kinesthetic learner, so I learn by doing. I wasn’t sure what it would even be about, until this thing called Coronavirus broke out across the world. Suddenly we were 5 people from 4 countries and a dog stranded at sea, with no answers as to how to get home.
We were getting conflicting information every day as the rules and restrictions constantly fluctuated. And that’s when the story became interesting. Who else was in the middle of the Pacific on a sailboat when COVID broke out, filming a documentary. I made the film twice, once when I shot all the footage, and then a second time when I sat down at the editing bay. I pieced together 16 hours of footage into an interesting 86 minute film about our own unique journey.
Many people have experienced emotional manipulation or shame in relationships but never speak about it. What do you hope readers take away from your journey?
I didn’t have a handbook or any experience with the type of relationship I discovered I was in, so it took me longer to recognize and understand the warning signs than it needed to. I hope my memoir can help others in this same type of relationship to recognize it faster than I did, and then to also have the courage and strength to walk away. I was completely financially dependent on him, the world was shut down, and we had the shared experience of keeping each other alive on the ocean; we were deeply connected.
It took a lot of courage to walk away into the unknown, but I knew that the known was hurting me. Through sharing my story, I hope others can also find their own courage and strength to walk away and know that they can start over, and that it will be beautiful and better than they could ever imagine once they do.
Many urged you not to publish the memoir with its bold title. What did choosing to move forward anyway teach you about trusting your own voice?
I knew the title had to be Worst Tits Ever. That was an important act of reclaiming my voice and my power. I considered calling it Worst Ta-Tas ever for a bit, so it would be less offensive. But that title didn’t ring true to my experience and it didn’t allow my readers the same gut punch reaction I had when I first read those words in that email.
An important thing to me in my healing process of speaking my truth was to not be censored in doing so. That’s what my readers can expect when they read my book- raw honesty and no holding back. I very vulnerably share my own mistakes and weaknesses, as well as what I learned by growing through them. There’s no sugar coating in this book, just as its title implies!
Reinvention is a recurring theme in your work and your life. What advice would you give someone standing at the edge of a major personal or creative comeback?
Don’t wait for anyone to come along and hand you an opportunity, create your own opportunities. For the better part of my life I waited for life to happen to me. This process of losing everything through COVID and having to rebuild from scratch empowered me to stop waiting for a permission slip. I distributed the documentary, I published the memoir, and then I went on to create the Storytell Initiative Course to enable others to discover and share their own unique stories.
Don’t give up, and don’t wait around. Get busy creating the beautiful life you envision for yourself, because you are more than capable and you will never regret that investment into yourself.
If you could go back and speak to the version of yourself reading those late-night emails during the pandemic, what would you tell her?
I would say that this is all a set-up to launch you into incredible things. It might feel like defeat, but it is just the beginning. There is a lot of fear and anxiety when you’re in a bad situation and can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. But choose to trust that it’s going to be okay, because it really will be. Even when you can’t see how. And all that’s required is that you don’t give up. Put one foot in front of the other and the path forward will reveal itself. (And one day the whole world will know about Worst Tits Ever, but you’ll be happy about it!)
PaSH celebrates people who challenge stereotypes and rewrite their narratives. What does living unapologetically mean to you today?
I know that I’m always going to have people who disapprove of me. I have people that have read my book and judge me for the choices I made, how long I stayed, what I compromised. But their opinions of me do not invalidate my experience or define me. Getting to the place of living where you truly don’t care what others think or do anything for their approval is a powerful place to be, because then you’re not putting limitations on yourself.
If I wanted to protect myself, I wouldn’t have vulnerably exposed myself in my book. But by doing so, I will reach so many others who need to hear my story and find hope for theirs. I focus on the people that my story is for, and not the ones that won’t relate. Nothing comes from trying to please others except diminishing your light. So I follow my intuition and make the brave choices, and find incredible reward and fulfillment in doing so both for myself and others.
How did your ex-boyfriend’s behavior impact your mental health? What did you do to shift your perspective internally?
I suffered from anxiety and depression as a result. I had to focus on the truth in order to heal. And the most powerful way I had of doing that was to write my story and talk about what really happened. We heal when we share our stories, and we all have a beautiful story. Some of the endings are wrapped up in neat bows, others are still gaping wounds that need time to heal.
But everything is an important part of our story, and shapes us in how we show up for ourselves and for others. So focusing on the truth and sharing it through story shifted my perspective from the loss and grief to finding the meaning and redemption that came out of it.
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