Love Lives - Journalist Bryony Gordon: ‘If men went through menopause, we’d never hear the end of it’

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

Love Lives is back, and we’re kicking off the brand new season with journalist and author Bryony Gordon.We talk to Bryony about her new book, Mad Woman, the hotly anticipated follow-up to her bestseller, Mad Girl. The book explores everything from perimenopause and the ongoing battle to prioritise women’s health, to addiction, binge eating, and mental health.We also discuss Bryony's struggles with drugs and alcohol, cross-addicting to food, and some of the myths around OCD.Catch Love Lives on Independent TV and YouTube, as well as all major social and podcast platforms.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton.

Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. I feel like if men went through the menopause, that's the only thing we'd ever be able to talk about. You know? It's so true. It's so true. There'd be like conferences all the time. There'd be like a show presented by Jeremy Clarkson

where they like tried out different, I don't know, HRT or, you you know techniques to like make life easier for them. Hello and welcome to Love Lives, a podcast from The Independent where I, Olivia Petter, speak to different guests every fortnight about the loves of their lives. Today I am very excited to be joined by one of my favourite writers, the best-selling author, award-winning journalist, fellow podcaster and I'm fairly reason one of the people who is part of the reason why I'm doing what I am doing here today. It's Bryony Gordon. Oh that's the nicest thing ever. I have more, I have more. So having started in journalism as an intern at the Daily Express,

Bryony has since achieved that rare feat of becoming a very famous journalist and penning several books, including The Wrong Knickers, Mad Girl and now Mad Woman. So welcome to Love Lives, Bryony. Thank you for having me, Olivia. You're a very famous newspaper journalist as well. No, don't be silly. No, but I really do mean that because I remember reading The Wrong Knickers when it came out I don't know when when what year that was like 800 years ago it came out do you know what it came out in 10 years ago 2014 yeah so I read that when I was at

university and I think that was genuinely one of the things that made me feel like I want to go into journalism which maybe is quite antithetical actually given what the book is about. I hope your experience was less kind of like chaotic than mine. As I said that I realised I was like maybe but anyway that's besides the point it introduced me to your work. Well I'm glad you enjoyed it. So the first question I want to ask you because I know that this is how you used to start all of your episodes of the Mad World podcast, which you did for a while, is how are you really today? I am. OK, how am I really? So I'm good. I'm very aware that I'm in sort of book promo cycle. So it's a bit like being on drugs. You know this, this you know like you're sort of running off and you're running off like coffee not drugs anymore for me in my case but that um and it's it's like

I can I have to be quite careful that I don't sort of spiral and like lose sight of what's important if that makes sense yeah um so I'm good right now because the book seems to be doing well. But, and also just, you know, I guess because it's nice, you write about this stuff, you know, it's like where you're kind of pouring your heart out onto the page and it's, you know, you're writing about quite dark stuff. And then it's good to know that it chimes with other people, I guess. And that's like this to me as well is like the best

bit is like meeting meeting the people that read the you know read books because they're like they're my tribe or i'm part of their tribe i feel like each of the books like even the wrong knickers is me me sort of saying if you've been through this don't worry I have two and it's okay and why don't we all hang around this little book together because it's better than being alone in our homes thinking we're freaks that's kind of what each book I've written I think you know has done so The Wrong Knickers was like that chaotic period of my 20s where I was single and, you know, and, but yeah, just like clueless. Is it okay to swear? Yes.

You know, and not very well really for a lot of it. But, and I wrote it when my daughter, like I literally wrote it on maternity leave. And I thought, oh, I'm through that now. My life is saved. Oh, wow. I want to come back to that because that's definitely one of the things I want to ask you about. But start us off by telling us about Mad Woman because it follows on from your 2016 book, Mad Girl, which was about OCD and your mental health. And so tell us the difference and the progression that has brought you from Mad Girl to Mad Woman? So Mad Girl really for me

it kind of changed my life and my career certainly so it sent writing about this stuff so I've had OCD since I was a little girl and you know really crippling and my you know my you know we talk about everyone kind of goes oh I'm a bit ocd you should see my sock drawer and i was like it's a waste of the sock drawer my husband jokes i wish you had the good type of ocd because there is no good type of ocd but you know i my ocd has always involved very dark intrusive thoughts so i always describe OCD as like your brain refusing to acknowledge what your eyes can see so like that your hands are clean or the oven is off or the hair straighteners are off or the bump in the road you've gone over is a speed bump and not a child and it's the same

with thoughts so we all have thousands of thoughts every day and um you know we are not all of our thoughts and we've all had that thought you know what if someone hands you their baby at a party like what if i just threw the baby on the floor or you're like on the tube and you're like what if i just push what if i just jumped in front of the tube but most people we go oh no that's obviously i'm not gonna do that you know and we dismiss it and we get on with our day but with ocd you become so distressed by the thoughts you think that you are you ruminate on them to check you're not the thoughts. So basically, decades of my life was spent like checking that

I wasn't a serial killing paedophile. You can see why people don't talk about that type of OCD, right? So that was, so I wrote about that. And I remember when I pitched the book and when I like did the breakdown. And I remember someone in publishing industry saying you can't write about that that that that and I was like no but that but that if I can't write that I can't write this book yeah and I'm glad I stood my ground on that because it was like this visceral like shame you know but and that you know that sent me you know it resonated with a lot of people and sent me into this world of mental health campaigning i set up mental health mates uh which is you know a place for people to go for walks and talks together without fear of judgment and i ran you know london marathon i ran it one year in my underwear to show that exercise is for everyone you know like my whole life sort of changed because of it and but i've also learned

a lot about myself and in a way I was quite naive when I wrote Mad Girl like I definitely thought that mental health issues were like oh there's a chemical imbalance just take a pill you know and there is an element of that but I really realized during the pandemic when I became very depressed it was really weird because I was like it was the first time in my life I'd been depressed and I looked around and I'm like, everyone else is depressed too. And that's totally appropriate. And I started to realize since Mad Girl that a lot of mental illness and mental health issues are really appropriate. They're like sophisticated ways of your brain telling you that something is not right in

your life. And a lot happened to me. I got sober after Mad Girl. I, you know, but then in pandemic, I developed kind of binge eating disorder and the OCD came back really badly. And I discovered that I was in early menopause and there was so much I wanted to write about. But really what I wanted to say to people was, you know, I really realized I was like, oh my God, I've never been mad. I've never been mad. Actually, you know, the subtitle of the book is How to Survive a World that thinks, that kind of wants you to think you're the problem. And I realised I'm not a

problem. Like I want to say to women, you're not the problem, you're the solution, babes. And I think we're so gaslit as women, especially into believing that we are the problem and the more I learned about the link between hormones and mental health also just living in a society that is not set up for us in any way still I'm like of course so many of us have mental health issues so yeah so that's what mad woman really is about it's it's a sort of it's me saying you're not mad you're you're you're not a problem you are the solution yeah and i also love the way that you have differentiated between the meaning of mad in mad girl and mad woman because in mad woman you you said you know mad girl was sort of about mental health and mad woman is kind of more about mad in the sense of rage

and specifically female rage which again is something that you know we are told to suppress and to withhold yeah yeah and even like even in the like bringing this book out I've had to stop myself from doing that thing of like apologizing like oh I'm sorry for promoting my book and I'm like why why am I sorry this is something I've worked on and you know i i definitely yeah the the need as well because for me i realized what ocd is and was was this kind of very very um extreme way of my brain making sure that i was good i was a good girl because if i could follow these rules and check these things then i wouldn't be bad and we know as women that being, you know, as a girl, being a bad girl is like, you know, like even Rihanna taking that on didn't

change things that much. And, you know, for me, it was this obsession with being good. Like I need to be good. And that ran through Mad Girl as well. Like it was like my way of going, I'm not any of these things. I am a good person. And Mad Woman's a bit of me reclaiming it, going, actually, sometimes I am bad. Sometimes I am and that is okay because I'm a human being and I don't like the way we hold still women to different standards than we do men. So yeah, absolutely. that is the kind of the the rage um I I don't it's not it's it but it's been so revelatory to me that realizing that it's okay to be bad you know yeah and one of the things you quote in the book which is something I always return to because I just find it so ridiculous and hilarious is the word hysteria comes from the Greek word for womb yeah and you talk about that it's like

and your friend says well that that makes sense yeah but also it's that thing of like hysterical my arse like like I always think you know it's so interesting with all the chat about menopause now you know and you can see there's starting to be a backlash uh about all the you you know, about the chat and from women as well. Sorry, I'm just, from women who, older women who've gone through it and go, well, it was fine for me. You're making a bit of a fuss about nothing. And I'm like, I'm like, okay, lucky you if you sailed through it and there were no problems. Brilliant. But like, can you accept that that's not the case for all women? can you accept that that's not the case for all women and i was like i sort of i feel like if men went through the menopause that's the only thing we'd ever be able to talk about you know it's so true it's so true there'd be like conferences all the time there'd be like a show presented

by jeremy clarkson where they like tried out different i don't't know, HRT or, you know, techniques to like make life easier for them. Like, I just, I feel, I feel so acutely, this is still such a huge issue. And we like to think, oh, it's the year 2024, you know, we've gone forward. And I'm like, I mean, not enough. No, definitely not enough. I mean, one of the things that you mentioned just then was the binge eating and how that developed in lockdown. And in of the chapters I'm going to quote because you write it so brilliantly you write in the dark I eat I eat and I eat and I eat until there are threads of chorizo stuck in my teeth and my throat is dry from all the salt in the jerky and I feel suitably sedated then I put the wrappers in a plastic bag and hide them down the back of the sofa I am fine

obviously lockdown was an incredibly difficult time for everyone as as we both mentioned but at that time what I found interesting about that was you were also writing about mental illness for another book when you were writing about um you're writing no such thing as normal yeah and interviewing lots of medical experts so talk to me about what it's like to write about issues like that while behind the scenes you're going through something that you haven't quite registered yet. Because it also feels like it's something you touched on in Glorious Rock Bottom as well. Yeah. Which was your book about sobriety.

Yeah, I didn't. It's really interesting. And again, that's why I've written this book, because we have these notions, don't we? We love narratives, neat narratives, like beginnings, middles, ends. And that notion that I faced my demons, I triumphed over adversity, and then I went off into the sunset and lived happily ever after. And that, in my experience, is not what happens. I didn't even, like you say, without even registering that there was a problem. For a while, I didn't realize there was a problem because I'd had bulimia in my 20s. But I hadn't purged since then.

So I was like, I don't have a problem because I'm not purging. I'm binging at the moment. But it was like there was still that sense because of kind of diet culture, that that was more of a moral failure, that it was an eating disorder. And it was when I was interviewing people for this book, I was interviewing this eating disorders expert, and she suddenly started talking about binge eating disorder. And I was like, oh my God, this is what is going on. And it was kind of a relief, but also like another thing. But then, you know, I'm not

the first alcoholic to go into recovery and cross-addict to food. Like this is, this is the thing we talk about. There's a saying in like recovery communities, which is you deal with whatever's going to kill you first, you know? And for me, that absolutely was alcohol and cocaine. So when the pandemic came around, I was like two and a half years sober and I was so relieved about that. But it was a weird time. I'm sure we'll be untangling the effects of lockdowns on mental health for like decades to come. And, you know, it was like a, it was a kind of a coping mechanism. I couldn't sleep and I would just go and eat vast quantities, almost like in blackout. It was like drinking, you know, except it wasn't. And so, but I also realised, you know, when I really started to think about it and do the work, you know, do the work to kind of recover, get, go into recovery from that. I realised that food, like, was probably my first, the first thing I ever kind of used to change the way I feel.

And food is incredibly powerful. I mean, it's a weapon of war. We see that now. But it's also, it's the first way as children we ever learn we have power over our parents, right? So we go, I'm not going to gonna eat this broccoli throw it on the floor and it's like oh for the first time in my life i can change you know and so it's incredibly kind of visceral and powerful and you know and so i realized it was like wow this is this is as much a drug as cocaine or alcohol you know and and And it's, you know, it's all complicated. I kind of put my head above the parapet about it back in 20, when I realised what was going on.

And I sort of got a lot of messages from women saying, I have this too. And I'm really ashamed because I put on so much weight. And there to me was like, if you think of it as a weight issue, you're never going to get better. So we're kind of stuck in this, a lot of us are stuck in this sort of perpetual cycle of restricting and binging. So a lot of anorexics and recovery from anorexia develop binge eating disorder. That's just simple biology. If you've been starving yourself, your brain is telling you to eat. It's a survival thing. That diet culture where we live in, it almost feeds this behavior. When I was writing this book,

the more I thought about it and the more I looked into diet culture and how you know common it is and how it still is you know it just masks itself in different ways now so now it's like blood sugar spikes yeah there's those um yeah yeah or it's you know i saw a video a reel the other day video i sound like 800 years a video, a reel the other day, video, I sound like 800 years old. I saw a reel the other day of this woman, like, I don't count calories, I eat for my gut, right? And then she did this video of all the things she ate in a day. And I was like, you don't need to count calories, because there are no calories in this, you know, and so gut health, while some people are very responsible, and there is, you know, obviously a very fascinating link between our gut microbiomes and our mental health and the rest of it but it has been taken and co-opted and all of that stuff

so diet culture is so insidious and um yeah and it perpetuates this obsessive thinking because you're trapped like whatever it is like if you're tracking your gut health you're tracking your glucose yeah you're constantly thinking about food and what you're eating and like I feel like you know a couple years ago it was the clean eating kind of phase and I got so sucked into that I remember spending hours watching YouTube videos about people talking about all the healthy things they were making they would do these what I eat in a day videos yeah you know ostensibly look really harmless and just joyful and cheerful but actually it's the same thing it's like it encourages that way of thinking

where you're kind of constantly monitoring what you're eating and how it's affecting your body. And I really like the way you talk about weight in the book because one of the things you say, and you kind of frame it as like a feminist issue because you say that, you know, women are kind of encouraged to take up as little space as possible. Yeah. And, you know, so as not to threaten the patriarchy.

And, like, that's why the kind of conventional beauty ideals is like a small, frail woman, a fragile woman. And it's the same with age as well. And it reminds me of something that Naomi Wolf wrote about in The Beauty Myth, where she kind of talks about how, you know, we fetishise youth in women because an older woman is probably more autonomous,

has more financial independence and more kind of more power and more confidence. And it's the same sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah, it is. The kind of the weight thing is, yeah, it's like take up as little space as possible. And I think it's been really co-opted, you know, like I see it now. I really believe that I used to to just i wouldn't eat anything right and then i was on cocaine i was basically living off cocaine and quavers right until i until my sort of late 30s and um and then obviously when i started eating normally i put on weight and the kind of visceral reaction of uh certainly people you know below the line or whatever to that was was was really they're like you're a drain on nhs resources and i was like and i still get it and

i'm like and you know but it was like i was much healthier and i i had to be really careful when the binge eating disorder thing and i was in treatment was to not get attached to that shame about weight because it isn't a weight issue it's a soul issue right and and I you know I definitely think that there has always been like a size 18 woman in me desperate to get out like the whole way through my kind of teens and 20s and she got out in her late in the late 30s you know my late 30s. And I still kind of battle that misconception that because I'm bigger, I'm more unhealthy. You know, because I don't, yeah, it's so complicated. And I, you know, it just makes me feel so sad,

so sad that so many women waste so much of their precious fucking energy obsessing about the way they look. Because it's like doing the patriarchy's work for them. Yeah, it literally is. And as you mentioned, so when lockdown happened, you were two and a half years into sobriety. Yeah. That must have been incredibly difficult during lockdown. yes that must have been incredibly difficult during lockdown to because I mean obviously in lockdown if you look at these stats that was when a lot of people kind of veered into

alcoholism because they were just at home drinking and you write about in the book how you had a kind of momentary relapse that wasn't really a relapse but but talk to us about that because I'm interested in the thinking behind that and the way that that framed in your mind and kind of it wasn't it wasn't a relapse in the way you thought it was a relapse no so i yeah so like i yeah 2022 january 2022 i became convinced i'd relapsed because i'd taken some night nurse when i had covid and um and i was because it has like a smidgen of alcohol in it and i was that i was obsessed and i couldn't i it became it was i mean it has like a smidgen of alcohol in it. And I was that, I was obsessed and I couldn't, I, it became, it was, I mean, it became like, I was too scared to pick up a glass of water in case I accidentally, um, had some gin or

something like that. It was, it was really obsessive. And I, uh, I went to see my therapist and he was like, you have relapsed, but not an, not an alcohol. You've relapsed on OCD. And I was like, what have relapsed, but not on alcohol. You've relapsed on OCD. And I was like, what? And this was OCD.

What OCD does is it also attaches to anything kind of precious in your life because it's all about like, you're going to lose that, you know? So sobriety was that precious thing. And I look back on it now and it's kind of almost funny, you know? But it really, yeah, it was was really frightening but I think it really illuminates how little people know about OCD like you said earlier like it is still so much the kind

of sock drawer thing and I hear people say it all the time like I'm so OCD and I'm like well we've had all these conversations I know I know so do I and even talking about it makes me feel like well you know it was two years ago but it was like I can I can feel the kind of OCD in my brain sort of wakes up and goes hmm but maybe you know like it's it's like such a yeah it was I mean I was it was it was you know it was delusional thinking actually it was delusional it bared no reality to bear no resemblance to reality and my therapist said that to me like this is and but it was it was i realized then that it was that was when i realized what i see the ocd was a lot about having to be good and it was about perfection i think it's so important to keep talking about it because i do think that it's so important to keep talking about it

because I do think that there are so many people that are probably suffering with that without realizing yeah I do think that they're just losing their mind and in a very kind of undefined way yeah but actually like I said no you have this named known condition that you can get treated for and get help from so I think it's so important to keep talking about it and the ways that it affects people one of the things I really want to ask you about because it um struck out to me towards the end of the book is progesterone yeah because I think people I've written about contraception a lot before and I think when I got the coil fitted a couple years ago there was no mention this will affect your mood there was like it's such a tiny amount of hormones like don't worry about it it won't do anything I swear to god the coil made me very depressed really very cripplingly depressed and it's only

since looking into it as a journalist and I spoke to lots of healthcare experts and someone told me well some women are very sensitive to progesterone and it can affect your mood and I just wanted to ask you about it because I think there's one point in the book where you're terrified of thinking something has progesterone in it because of how it might affect you or or well i couldn't so basically we were we i realized that ocd episode which was really bad and a friend said to me have you tried you thought about it might be hormonal and you might be going through perimenopause and i was like what and i took got my I got my hormones done and it turned out that like the rock has higher levels of oestrogen than me it's like really low

and I was absolutely perimenopausal and anyway so I went on HRT the oestrogen and within two days it was like it was the difference between day and night I was like I was I was so much better. And then you have to take progesterone in the second half of the month, right. As part of HRT. And within two days I was suicidal and weeping. And it was, it was so noticeable. And I sort of called the doctor and she was like, okay, well, we'll try, we'll try and get it into you in a different way that was less kind of so that you would insert it vaginally. uh same thing happened and we kept trying different things and she was like you probably got progesterone intolerance and we kind of added it all up and it was like it was i remember when i was pregnant it was i was

very i was under the care of the local psychiatric team and i remember as soon as i gave birth it was like it lifted and i remember my husband always saying that. It was like dealing with two different people. And it was so surprising because obviously we'd expected, oh, she's going to, baby, it's just going to get even worse. How is that possible? And, of course, now it sort of tallies with the progesterone that leaves your body.

It was sort of noticing, you know, and then they started talking to me about PMDD. And I was like, yes, which is another thing I've just written about as well yeah what makes me so mad why don't we know about i know i know it's also because like for me we don't didn't know about this stuff so like my only medicine for it was alcohol and coca you know i was like i couldn't i couldn't cope with you know life because it was i always remember there was always a point in my cycle where I was like, I went from being a vaguely sane human being to just, you know, quite a different one. And because I was drinking and drugging, I didn't, you know, I didn't know I was, it was, you know, it was so difficult to know what was what. And they said to me, so then they said to me, well, listen, you have to, you have to have progesterone.

And they were like, if the last option is the coil, and if that doesn't work you you'll have to have a hysterectomy and that was like what and luckily i think the coil did work for me they said weirdly it does for a lot of progesterone i mean i don't but um but i do definitely still feel it from time to time and you know it's again yeah it's like this thing that affects one in 20 women but no one thinks about doing anything about it like we're only just having conversations about endometriosis and all those other things that you know have plagued women since the dawn of time oh it just makes me so angry that this is what we have to deal with it's like a long history of medical misogyny that just like yeah stops people from researching it

funding it and just dismisses women as crazy and you just think how many women are dealing with suicidal ideation like crippling depression alcoholism drug addiction all of these things purely based on hormonal changes in their body that could so easily be fixed and i really think it made me um like physically unwell because i i up, and only because I had a female doctor, I was fainting from palpitations. And I was just dismissed as it being, it's just hormonal. It's just stress and anxiety. Try losing weight.

And I was like, oh, try doing some exercise. I'm like, I exercise all the time. And it was only, yeah, a woman took me seriously, referred me for an ECG. And while I was having the ECG, they were like, you're in atrial fibrillation. We need to send you to hospital. And it was these two female paramedics who were like, of course, you've never been taken seriously. You're a woman. And I felt so blessed to have those two women there because it made me, and you know And it was so interesting. So I got diagnosed with an arrhythmia and I was like, what's caused this? Am I to blame? The guy was

like, no, you're not. It's like an electrical thing in the chambers of your chest. But I swear to God, it was like a massive kick up the bum. It was like my body saying, are you going to like, you need to pay, you need to stop dismissing yourself. Like you're so depressed and you're so low and this has been so hard. Like just take some time, girl, baby girl. I was going to say baby girl, like, you know, and look after yourself.

And I swear to God, like I barely get it. I barely get it anymore. all the phones I've ever had. Now with Gemini built in, it's basically my personal AI assistant. Since I'm truly terrible at keeping up with emails, I use Gemini to give me summaries of my inbox, which is a lifesaver. And if I'm feeling stuck creatively, I just ask Gemini for help and bam, instant inspiration. You can learn more about Google Pixel 9 at store.google.com. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton.

Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca in terms of what is coming up next for you what can fans kind of expect of your work i know you laugh at that but you do have lots of fans. Well, I don't know, really. There may be a new podcast in the works. That's exciting. And I am doing this crazy running challenge. Great.

I'm running the Brighton Marathon. And I'm going to run from Brighton to London over two weeks. And when I get to London, am I going to put my feet up, Olivia? No. I'm going to do the London marathon. And this is to raise money for mental health mates. So that's two marathons in two weeks? Yeah.

Wow. And to show that exercise is for everyone. That's amazing. And, I mean, that brings us very neatly onto your first love that you've chosen for us, which is running, which you wrote a brilliant book about in 2018. And it's called Eat, Drink, Run. And there was one section at the beginning that really helped me.

And basically, I think it was a few months before I read that book that I had gone through an abortion because of sexual assault. And it was horrific. And I've written about it before talked about it before but I read that book and there was something in the beginning that you said that I'm going to read you said you urge readers to keep an open mind and said think not about what

you aren't but what you are remember that one day things could happen to you that you wouldn't be able to believe right now the most astonishing amazing things trust me when I say all you have to do is hold on and it's such simple advice like just say just hold on but honestly those are words that I still return to all the time when something feels really difficult and really painful and I just I just want to ask well I want to say thank you first of all thank you but I also want to ask you about how running came into your life and how it was so transformative to you because it is like it's so beneficial it's like flushing the toilet in your brain yeah well I think also you've got me a bit emotional now I'm so sorry that happened to you um uh I yeah I always thought exercise was like a punishment it was like a form of punishment

and it was about making me smaller and i hated it because i wasn't very good at it like good at it like i wasn't fast i wasn't you know uh strong i wasn't anything i was always the last to be picked in pe and then i remember uh being really unwell with ocd and um everyone was like exercise helps and i was like oh what do experts know? Like I tried to find the exact combination of alcohol and drugs that would make my mental health better. And it only made it worse. And so I was like, I'm going to try running. And I remember going out one day and I don't know how I even got myself out of the house. I was that like, I remember like putting on, like I didn't have trainers, like running trainers. So I put on like Converse and then I had like a pair of my husband's tracksuit bums and a Star Wars t-shirt.

Like I just did like a normal bra. And then I remember leaving the house and being like, I'm going to need water or I'm going to die. And going back in and all I could find was one of my daughter's like sippy cups. I mean, God knows what I look like and it doesn't really matter but I did feel better and um you know and that just kind of carried on and then I don't know and then I signed up to do the London Marathon in 2017 when the official charity of the London Marathon was Heads Together which is the mental health thing that uh the now Prince and Princess of Wales and Prince Harry had created. They got me involved. It really was the most insane year of my life, to be honest. I trained for the marathon. I definitely thought, I'm going to do this because

this might stop me drinking. I did stop drinking for like the duration of actually running the marathon but it like it made me realize I was like shit um I've got a problem here and yeah so I did the marathon and then I pretty soon after washed up in rehab um but running is always was it very soon after the marathon yeah so the marathon was April 2017 and I ended up in rehab in August um and because I think it showed me a different way of living as well and it showed me exercise as like a tool of nourishment and not punishment so I like the thing I love about running is it doesn't matter how many times you have to go back to the beginning. Each time, there's always that like sense of, oh my God, I can do, if I follow this plan, you know, and if

you have mental health issues and it's like structure is really important, right? So if I follow this plan to the letter, I will start to see that I'm able to do something I couldn't do the week before. And that's just so amazing for your self-esteem, you know? And I think the moment that you take out all of that, like about it, about it being, about being the fastest or the thinnest or the fittest or whatever, it becomes really joyful. Like I run for the gains, not the losses, you know, I'm quite slow. Uh, and people always say to me, Oh, what's your marathon time? And I'm like, what's your marathon time? And they're like, Oh, time and they're like oh i haven't done one i was like exactly fuck off then you know it's such a weird question i know but people like it's almost like they want me to prove that you've actually

done it and um i love it you know i on saturday i ran 17 miles which was like hard but i'm like i love that i did that and do you listen to music while you run or podcast I listen to a bit of everything yeah yeah um uh and yeah because it's a long time yeah what do you feel you need to yeah I've only ever done a half marathon once and I remember podcasts because music I just got bored of the same things over and over again like because when I listen to music when I run I don't feel the same but I dance in my head yeah I go into fantasy I go into fantasy so I imagine this is like this is embarrassing but I don't care um I imagine that I'm on Strictly and I'm in like musicals week I've got to musicals week and like this is actually Lin-Manuel Miranda's a guest judge

and I'm dancing to Hamilton or In the Heights and And I like literally, I'm high as a kite. And like I get faster. I could do that for hours. Hours, I tell you. There is something about show tunes. I listen to a lot of Wicked soundtrack. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, no, I totally.

Defying Gravity is like when you'll get like in the last 5K, but like a 29K run. I'm like, we need to bring out the show tunes now. So good. Because there's nothing else for it. Like I am totally. And sometimes I sing along. Yeah. run i'm like we need to bring out the show tunes now because there's nothing else for it like i am totally and sometimes i sing along yeah and and i run uh running with my friend who's also trained like training me for this challenge and i'm like i hold i put the headphones on now vicky and she

just carries on and she films me and i'm just like booming out like Dear Evan Hansen or you know and then I kind of like it's between show tunes and Taylor Swift she's like you look absolutely deranged Briony and I'm like that's how I wouldn't have it any other way that's how you want it um your second love is reading yes when did you first discover that you loved reading was there one book that made you think a I love reading or b this is the book that makes me think i want to be a writer i think i my first the first book was going to sound like a really weird one wasn't quite late on so i was probably about 15 but it was lord of the flies i always remember stephen king said that that book was like the first book that had arms and they reached out and

grabbed him and I loved it I remember sitting there and just being I love a bit of kind of like end of the world stuff so I love a bit of Stephen King as well but reading for me is like it's just it's like making sense of the world but also escaping from it you know and definitely since I got sober my evenings are spent now just reading and reading and reading and reading and reading and reading and reading and I just love it it's it's just a different you know it's a it's a I mean it's probably a bit of an addiction um but much healthier one yeah and so do you favor kind of like crime thriller no type? No, I'm not. No, I'm very, I'm a bit, like if you looked at my list, you'd probably think, she all right.

So I love a bit of like, I love a bit of sci-fi. Not like kind of space, but kind of apocalyptic. I just read this book called Inascension and it's just just so beautiful like really right sizing you know like you you it kind of you know it makes you see the vastness of the world and how lucky we are to be alive and all that i i love you know i love that but I love a bit of, you know, I've just read Kylie Reid's new novel. I love a lot of modern, contemporary stuff, but I also am like bang into a bit of Woo Woo. Oh, I love Woo Woo. I love a bit of Woo Woo, like a bit of Louise Hay, completely bonkers.

Louise Hay, completely bonkers. And, but also, you know, things like, you know, a bit of Brené Brown, a bit of like, oh, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With The Wolves. Oh, I haven't read that. It's just the most magnificent book. And it's all about us women, like, losing touch with, you know, we've been sort of, we've lost touch with our kind of,

our feminine, you know, instincts. And she talks about how, you know, we remember that women, you know, apparently women used to be banished when they had their periods to like, you know, and they would have to go and, you know, be like, they were like dirty. And she said, I can just imagine every woman would like, if we did that now, would walk, turn, you know be like they were like dirty and she said i can just imagine every woman would like if we did that now would walk turn you know leave the house going and then get around the corner go yes but it's such a good book so i love a bit of woo as well yeah i love that have you read um untamed yes of course i have i mean yeah i i'm i kind of like every month I reread You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay, which is a lot of, it's a bit mad. And yeah, so I'm sort of, yeah, I'm reading, I'm reading at the moment a really lovely book called The List of Suspicious Things by Jenny Godwin, of Suspicious Things by Jenny Godwin,

which is set in the sort of late 70s during when the Yorkshire Ripper was on. And it's sort of loosely based on her childhood, this kind of childhood that was overshadowed by the knowledge of this man who was out that they didn't know. They didn't know who it was, was killing women. And it's about two girls of 12 who decide to just they decide they're going to find out who the who the yorkshire ripper is

it's so good i'm going to add that to my list and your final love for us is skincare which is definitely a love that i share yeah okay so this is like a bit uh given i've gone on you know like just be happy being you and all that stuff and but okay so for me this is like a bit, given I've gone on, you know, like just be happy being you and all that stuff. But, okay, so for me, this is like a real, like a sobriety thing. Because I used to collapse into bed with like all my makeup on, never wash my face. You know, it was like not knowing where I was or, you know. And so for me, there's something sort of, there's a lovely ritual to like, it's about, it's more like, I don't think it makes me look any different

and I don't really care how it makes me look, but it's a kind of more an action of like putting this, you know, doing, going through it and getting into bed and I feel safe. Talk me through the routine. So is it a nighttime thing? Do you put like a little headband on? What's like the different kind of stages?

I cleanse, a double cleanse with like, you know like a little headband on what's like the different kind of stages I cleanse a double cleanse with a like you know a flannel and then um oh my god I've got an led mask I have one of those they're so fun they're so good you look nuts you look nuts but I don't care but I just find them really relaxing yeah yeah so I'll put that on for like 20 minutes read and then uh oh I'll put on like a you know a plumping serum and then it's you know some retinol there's nothing like it's nothing too complex i'm not you know i'm not i i i get i do get uh like i have a space nk at the bottom of my road and they do know me in there they're like hi briny they bring out all the things oh my god i think i've i know the space and gay i love i love like i i i you know i i literally spend hours in space nk i love it it's so also it's just so like i find it really inclusive it's like a like they're all just

really nice in there and they've got you know and it's just it's kind of like it's it's brilliant it makes sense though because I think like you said like if you spend so many years not taking care of yourself in any sense but particularly not taking care of of your skin I suppose when when you're in the grips of addiction it can be such a soothing I hate saying self-care because I think that phrase has been so co-opted by TikTok and social media, but it is a really kind of reassuring thing to do to kind of just look after your skin. Yeah. And I think it's more like I don't, I don't often wear makeup. I am wearing lots of makeup right now because I've done some television.

And also because I was coming on your podcast. But I, I, for me, it's not about vanity. It's about protecting myself. So like in the morning, actually, that's a more important skincare routine. Again, wash my face and put on a, but it's, you know, it's putting on SPF because it's like, I don't know, like forming a protective barrier and saying, you know, you're worthy of taking care. You know, it's worth taking care of you and looking after you and, you know, protecting our skin from the sun because, you know, I don't want to get skin cancer. And, you know, it's, it's, I don't know, there's something sort of like, it's about, it's a,

it's a kind of little way in which I say, I'm going to look after myself today instead of trying to sabotage myself, which is kind of my instinct when I wake up in the morning is which is kind of my instinct when I wake up in the morning is how can I you know it's like how can I get out of everything I have to do today like because I'm awful and I want to hide under this duvet and so it's a little way of sort of counteracting that I love that that's such a lovely note to end on thank you so much Bryony thank you for having me I've loved this it's so nice joining us that's it for today thank you so much for joiningony. Thank you for having me. I've loved this. Thank you so much for joining us. That's it for today. Thank you so much for joining us. If you've enjoyed this episode of Love Lives,

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