Published · June 5, 2024, 2:40 p.m.
Without being a girl anymore,
Cristina Pedroche has appeared on television sets as a bubbly and pizpireta presence touched by
certain Peter Pan complex. We don’t know if the Vallecana has been allowed to mature on television; if she has been condemned to play the same eternal role of “funny” that she says she wants to recover. If so, this book, Thanks to Fear, punctures that bubble and uncovers the Pedroche that she is today: a 35-year-old woman, who has recently become Laia’s mother. And that she goes to confess to Pablo Motos, in El Hormiguero.
In the first page of ‘Thanks to Fear’, Cristina Pedroche confesses that the book has helped her overcome her postpartum period, which she defines as “psychologically bad.” She also admits to fearing “not being able to do everything,” although she has nothing to do with the doubt that so many ordinary working mothers may have. It is obviously not an anxiety that has to do with economic resources, but with ”
not living up to my own expectations». Mothers who are satisfied with surviving each day: this book is not for you.
Cristina Pedroche builds a confessional story around fear similar to the one Vicky Martín Berrocal wrote about being overweight. Both aim to help readers who find themselves in the same problem through their experiences. Berrocal had it easy to be a best-seller because there is no woman who does not suffer from her kilos. Pedroche’s hook is more complex, because the question of fear is certainly vague.
Fear of what? Well, a little bit of everything.
«I have always been afraid of being normal»
“Thanks to fear” starts off strong, with a frankly surprising admission from Cristina Pedroche, a woman who has always displayed the ‘normality’ of her Vallecano origin. «I recognize that it is something of
my way of being that is not very gratifying, because I also strive for another impossible: having everything under control, even though I know that there are things that cannot be controlled. Imagine if the impossibility of controlling certain situations is added to my self-demand, as is happening to me now. The result can lead to anxiety.
«That year [las Campanadas de 2022] “My attitude was shit.”
Cristina Pedroche tells openly how bad she had it on the last night of 2022, when she already
It was leaked that she was pregnant and he realized that people were going to be more aware of his belly, “of his morbidity,” than of the fashion show he had prepared. «I like to imagine that on the last night of the year I bring out the energy of a Beyoncé in front of her audience. But that day I was not even a shadow of that inspiration,” she confesses.
«What a shame to be Pedroche’s daughter»
It is a moment of maximum tension, although throughout the book we will find
truly dramatic scenes, unexpected in a woman as seemingly jovial as Cristina Pedroche. The presenter remembers Laia’s second night of life and the shock of the first contact with breastfeeding.
Cristina Pedroche with her book /
instagram
“And, in the midst of the crisis, I began to hear voices from outside,” Pedroche writes. «There were two women at the door of the room saying horrible things about me, about my birth, about my daughter… Making me and Dabiz angry because they couldn’t stand us, they didn’t like us. They made me feel very small, very vulnerable, when
they started criticizing the girl».
«Fear of bad people and their toxicity»
The fear that comments from toxic people will harm Laia is real. So much so that Cristina Pedroche finds it difficult to leave the house. «I, for me,
I would remain locked up with her until she was twenty.. You imagine? It is clear that I am exaggerating and that it would not be a realistic or effective way to live. What makes me think something so extreme? Now Laia is not aware, but when she finds out, when she goes to school and they tell her something about me… It is difficult for me to think how we can manage it at home. Obviously, we have resources as parents and sensible people that we are. But it’s imagining it and all the evils come to me. The fear button turns on, again.
«I am the worst mother in the world. “They are going to take it away from me”
Out of pure exhaustion, Cristina Pedroche and Laia slip between the bed and the crib. An accident that has happened to many mothers and fathers and that usually has no consequences: the resistance of babies is proverbial. The presenter narrates that she cannot overcome the situation: she punishes herself with it. «Dabiz made me see that I could need help, do therapy, consult my anguish with a psychologist. At that moment of crisis I was unable to verbalize anything and, emotionally, I did not feel well either. In fact,
I was very sunk the rest of the day. Knocked out Regretting everything and beating myself up. He still do it ».
«Anything hurts me in an extreme way»
Cristina Pedroche admits an absolutely polarized emotional life. If physically she shows the balance and power of an elite athlete, emotionally
lives totally unbalanced, torn by her need to control and her fears. “I believe that this deep and exaggerated love is accompanied by great pain and exacerbated fears,” she writes.
Cristina Pedroche with her book /
instagram
«I have always closed myself off a lot»
“Until now I did not see it as something negative, because with the meditation techniques that I have been learning, with that desire to know myself and see my interior, I found a way to solve my problems or concerns,” Pedroche admits. “But before I didn’t feel crazy or alone like I have in recent months,” she concludes. The terrible story of psychological suffering in ‘Thanks to Fear’, Cristina Pedroche’s first book, leads the presenter to rethink
everything she was before motherhood. A process that, from what he says, is far from over.
“I am Mrs. Penas”
With an irony that appears very little in her first book, Cristina Pedroche
she baptizes herself as Mrs. Penas. It seems incredible, given the centrality that her sense of humor has in her television character and how much she likes to see herself as a clown. «There are things that suddenly make me sad and I cry. “I can’t stop,” she admits. «And they are things that, in theory, make most people laugh, but not me anymore. ‘Oh, what a shame,’ is the expression I say the most throughout the day.
“I’m obsessed with my daughter”
Cristina Pedroche lives by and for her daughter, she makes that clear. She even goes so far as to state that, although Dabiz Muñoz is 50/50 in paternity,
she feels hopelessly alone. She was alone with motherhood, she was hyper-dedicated. «I can be talking about anything, my mind always goes to Laia. I’m thinking about my daughter all the time,” she says. «I don’t feel like talking about other things and there are people I don’t hang out with. I don’t want to end up being the mother who only talks about her daughter, that you stay with her and everything is “the girl.” But, of course, if it’s the only thing I do and the only thing I have on my mind, what am I going to talk about?
“It bothers them that an aunt from Vallecas has triumphed”
In an outburst almost of rage, Cristina Pedroche writes that people are bothered that “I continue to be professionally successful and on top of that I do whatever I want, that I wear whatever dresses I want and go on and on.” As the lines pass, the anger turns into the bitterness typical of a woman who receives a lot of hate on social networks and outside of them. Cristina Pedroche wonders why she is one of the most hated Spaniards. «I am a ‘rare bird’, because
I am neither the usual presenter nor the usual ‘influencer’. Mine is a mix that is sometimes not understood. “I think I raise so much hatred because many don’t know where to categorize me exactly,” she muses.
