ByteBlog

Regular WTF listeners have probably noticed how fixated Maron can be about guests' younger years, and a large part of that obsession stems from his own strange childhood. Maron isn't the only one in his family to acknowledge the impact it's had, and his brother, Craig, told The Washington Post that being happy doesn't come naturally to a Maron.

Maron's father, Barry, was described as a brilliant surgeon who also suffered from severe narcissistic tendencies and bipolar disorder, tendencies that show up when Maron recounts his graduation day from Boston University. It was the same day his father announced he didn't want to live, then promptly ran off. (He came back not long after.) Maron told NPR that he was so desperate for his father's attention that he became a hypochondriac, just to be at the center of things for even a little bit.

He's discussed his mother, too, calling her "a functioning anorexic" who took offense when he once wrote she weighed 119 pounds instead of her true 116. He was an adult when she sat him down to tell him, "Look, Marc, I got to be honest with you: I don't know if I could love you if you were fat," but that still had to sting. He said she's also told him that when he was younger, she didn't know if she'd be able to love him at all. That's a pretty big piece of the puzzle surrounding his own issues.

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