Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - People Pleaser by Bryony Gordon with Bryony Gordon

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

This week's book guest is People Pleaser by Bryony Gordon.Sara and Cariad are joined by the wonderful journalist, author, broadcaster and podcaster Bryony Gordon.In this episode they discuss therapy, family, quavers, bodies, football and running in your pants.Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclubProduced, recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Assistant Producer is Amy Townsend-Lowcock for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Pasco. And I'm Carriead Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we created the Weirdo's Book Club.

A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. Each week we're joined by amazing comedian guests and writer guests to discuss some wonderfully and crucially weird books, writing, reading and just generally being a weirdo. You don't even need to have read the books to join in. It will be a really interesting, wide-ranging conversation and maybe you'll want to read the book afterwards. We will share all the upcoming books we're going to be discussing on our Instagram, Sarah and Carriads, Weirdo's Book Club. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is People Pleaser by Brianie Gordon. What's it about? A 44-year-old woman who has always pleased other people takes a blue gummy and starts pleasing herself. What qualifies it for the Weirdo's Book Club? Well, the blue gummies in the shape of Erling Harland.

That's a footballer. In this episode, we discuss therapy, family, quavers, bodies, football, and running. in your pants. And joining us this week is Brianne Gordon herself. Brianie is a best-selling author, a critically acclaimed journalist and a force of nature on social media. Trigger warning, we do discuss disordered eating and weight loss in this episode. Welcome. Welcome.

Brianie Gordon. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. I love being on a weirdos book club. It's, I've been waiting for you to ask me. I'm so glad that you're here. You've written so many books. I know.

I feel like we've got like a book icon with us. Yes. Like, I'm going to just take that. Yeah. I just take that compliment. Yes. You have to. Bear in mind a lot of the topics in your novel.

You're going to have to accept some compliments. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You got to accept that. That's the new way of doing everything. Instead of like turning them, I always do, I used to do that thing of where, you know,

you say to someone, I read your dress. And then you're like, oh, it's shit. 10 pounds. Oh, 10 pounds from prime mark. Even if you got it from like net a port to me. And it's like taking the. compliment and like setting it on fire, burning it and turning it into an insult. Why do we do that as women? Yeah. There's a really good Amy Schumer sketch. Do you remember that one?

When she first did her sketch show, there haven't been a female sketch show for a long time, and it's just four women meeting at Crossroads, like, oh yeah, insulting each other more and more, like, oh my God, it's from a bin. I picked it off a dead man. I scraped it out of the blood off and I'm just wearing it now and they're all trying to out to each other. It was the first time I was like, oh, it's so nice to see. Yes, that's what we're doing. But you're just, thank you. you for coming with your amazing book. This is your first fiction. Yes. After writing a lot of, very, very successful nonfiction. Yes. Yeah, yeah. What made you want to... Well, I think I wanted, I want, well, so all of my nonfiction was about, like, terrible things that I'd been through,

and I'd experienced and I'd got through. Yeah. So alcoholism, um, OCD, depression, those eating disorders. And there was, they were all sort of hopeful, I, I suppose. And I, I think as I've, as I've, As I've gone on in life, I've realised that at the heart of all of those issues is people pleasing. And so I really wanted to write about people pleasing, but I could not write a kind of non-fiction kick-haust guy just like, how I beat people pleasing and you can too. Because I was like, that would be absolute bullshit. Also, I can imagine there's something sort of, if then someone starts obeying the instructions in the book, that isn't overcoming the need to people please, it's becoming a good girl in a

different way. Exactly. Yeah. Just following the book. You then go, okay, the rules, this book has told me this. Yeah.

So now I don't do this. It's still not unauthentic. What do I want? Exactly. And hearing that voice. And also, I found, so when you write,

when you write nonfiction, people always say, oh, is it really therapeutic? Is it really therapeutic? I know. To write about your deep disson. I know. Into alcoholism and cocaine addiction.

It's horrible. It's really painful and embarrassing and shameful. Yeah, it was shit. But the joyous bit is when you get to meet other people like you, and they go, that really helps. And you kind of, it's a way of meeting your people, you'll try, right? But whereas fiction, so the kind of premise for this book is a woman who is a chronic, a pathological people pleaser, as our queen, Taylor Swift would say. And she has this sort of career disappointment. goes on a night out with a Jen Z colleague who gives her a gummy,

and she wakes up the next morning, and she can't people please anymore. So the switch has been turned off, but something sort of reconfigured in a chemical makeup in her brain. Yeah. And that was quite therapeutic to kind of like imagine what would I say if all of the filters had been removed? And I couldn't, and I just had to say the truth. It's like, liar, liar, but we're they harassed mum instead of a lawyer.

And that's it. And there's all these environments we get to see her. in. We get to see her socialising with people from work. We get to see her at work in meetings on public transport with a stranger coming over. Her children, her own parents, her sibling and her husband. So they're all these different

relationships where you're imagining what would I really say if I could get away with it. And so there must have been a lot of fun. It was, yeah. But it was also like some people like, you know, not that one should ever go and read like good read reviews or anything. But there people going like, I just don't believe that I, this woman, you know, she doesn't need to be that nasty. And I'm like, no, that's the point she does.

Yeah. In some cases she does because there is so much that I don't know about, I mean, I'm guessing you have had similar experiences to me. But there is so much that we have to, it's not just bite your tongue. It's like not even allow it to get to that area of your mouth where it's like you have to swallow it down. Yeah. You know? And it's, it's actually some of the things that I put up with in my 20s. And it wasn't like I just put up with them.

I kind of like almost colluded with them at work, you know, like sexist, chauvinist, chauvinist comments, groping, all of that. And it was like laughing it off. You know, like, oh, ha, ha. And actually, when you remove all of the kind of filters, it's like, yeah, I am going to get nasty actually. But the point is, is she's not just communicating, as you're sort of expressing, it's years of repressed anger. So it is coming out in a torrent at the beginning. The man on the tube, it isn't the first time it's ever happened to her. As you say, this is something that's

happened to her since she was probably a teenage girl, like most women in public spaces. So he's getting it for all of them. Yeah, yeah. And that's like, cheer up, love, it might never happen. Yeah. It has. Yeah. So often we're opinionated, you know, as opposed to just having opinions. Spirited, that's what I used to get. Yeah. A bit of a live wire.

Yeah. You dare to have an opinion about something. Or in my case, as a woman who has written about, you know, addiction, about depression, about depression, about mental illness, an oversharing. Mm-hmm. And it's like, why is that oversharing? And I think it's a really interesting thing to sort of actually, too, interrogate and you know the I have to question always sometimes I'm like oh that person was a bit

blunt don't like that and actually it's like well why don't you like that like I hate any conflict I hate conflict like I've just come from somewhere where I had to sit next to this this like this real example of conflict where some people were being really rude to each other and there were tears and I was just sitting there like, my soul is leaving my fucking body. Like, I can't bear it, even to be close to it, even if it's got absolutely fuck all to do with me, it makes, I just want the ground to swallow me up, you know. And because that is how I've been programmed. Good girl. Yeah. Yeah. Make people smile. You know, we learn it as babies, don't we? I think you're right. Especially it's so instilled in us as young girls. Like, in school, you know, of how to behave,

what's acceptable behavior and what is not acceptable behavior. And the standard is not applied, you know, from school. Like, boys can be loud and opinionated. And, yeah, if you are unopinuated. I remember at school being slammed down for being opinionated. So Cheryl and I, we didn't like that the boys played football. So the football pitch was only over boys at lunchtime. As we complained to the school and they said, we can't sort of do anything.

But if you want to play football, you can. So we took another ball into school and played on the same pitch as the boys getting in their way. Yeah, but what the school didn't say ever was, that's too opinionated. They were like, yeah, fair enough. It's very sexist. And Caroline Serato Perez has written about that, hasn't she? Because it is, again, this awful thing of taking up space that in most playgrounds, a boys sport and boys take up 90% of the playground.

And girls are sort of sitting along. Girls play around the edge. And you're like, we're learning from very young. Try and each other's shoes. And you talk about that so well in the book of like the taking up of space, like learning to literally shrink your stuff. in the case of eating disorders which you deal with in this book as well, of like physically trying to be not here.

It's smaller. Yeah. It's so sad, isn't it? It's really sad. I'm really sad about the appendicitis right at the beginning because that happened to my little sister. So I've got a sister who's seven years younger than me. And she complained of her tummy ache and said it was bad and was sent back to bed and

not believed. And it's just, I think it's such an awful thing. That actually did happen to me. Oh, my God. And it's so dangerous. Yeah. And it was like, but I realized, I remember my mum, and get my mum being like, if you're faking this today, get a day off school, you're in real trouble.

But like she was looking back, she was so stressed out. She had a full-time job. She had three kids. She had, do you know what I mean? I don't, where the fuck was my dad? Yeah, yeah. Like, what was he? I know.

So parents were together. They were together then, yeah. And I held, and that was the other thing I wanted to kind of interrogate a bit in this book is that it's like the, there was this period a couple of years ago where all of my friends were like, my mother was a narcissist. Yeah. I was like, well, all of our moms can't have been narcissist. It was just mine.

But this thing that is, and I remember being really angry towards my mom, like when I started having therapy after I got sober, I was like, it was just all this rage. And my therapist was like, what about your dad? And I was like, oh, no, he's always so fun. You know, Disney Dad. And I was like, I don't really have that many memories, but the ones I do are really positive.

him and he was like, hmm, interesting. What about that? Where are those memories, bro? Exactly. And so I really also wanted to kind of, yeah, like my mum just, God, she couldn't catch a fucking brain. You deal with that really well in the book. Like, so Olivia is our main character and her mum Tina.

There's a big plot line with those two that like, yeah, Olivia is so furious with her mother. And I really enjoy. Well, she's been so neglected by her mother. I know. But I did feel a bit on. the mum's side as a parent, I was like, oh, come on, catch you a break. Well, RSVP card.

I can absolutely get fucked. And it's a fictional character. It's a fictional character. It's a fictional character. I hate being invited to anything anyway, so don't invite me. Yeah, I'm with you on that one, Tara. Any kind of like, even the admin of having to tell you whether I'm going to go or not, I'm already like, how dare you?

I've got enough on my plate. And then, so if someone had said, after you've WhatsApped them, they've given you a time frame number one, which is ridiculous. Yeah, I think it triggered. me a lot actually. Yeah, because it's very triggered, very triggered. It's a fictional book, but I'm sort of like, okay. But it's, you know, it's based on stuff that is, I can't bear it. It's like, I didn't ask to be invited to your effing party. Now you're telling me that you're, basically, you're disappointed in me because I didn't reply to you by your, by, by this time.

Like, I don't want you to throw this party. I can't deal with, like, RSVP in a post. Yeah, so the character has what, Olivia has WhatsApp back to say, yes, we're going to be here. Her mother. Her mother says you have to do it via the RSVP card that she's paid the postage on. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I didn't be like, oh, that was a funny bit, wasn't it? In my own book.

But you captured a family really well. I wanted to ask you like, how do your family feel about this book? Have you had any, like, obviously it's fiction, but people do get so, as we know, touching about knowing the author. Like, is that me? Is that supposed to be me? Well, I think because I've written like so much. Because I wrote a book where, you know, about the time I woke up in a field and like a guy who wasn't my husband was like basically on top of me

and I was allowing it because he was giving me cocaine. I think because of that, I think they're a bit like, they were like, the names are changed. She's finally fan fiction. So I feel like, but it is interesting. People are much more like, oh, is that about so, and so. So I guess it feels like you're hiding something, whereas when you're non-fictioning, it's so clear this is my fucking life. So people are like, oh, okay. She's really telling me in my life. Whereas this is like, oh, can I guess what's happening? Yeah, in a way, like people have been like, oh, in a way, this is probably your most truthful.

I'm like, well, no, no, actually it's like, did you read the bit about me in the field? Like, no, no, it's very truthful. That was really truthful. But I think that I feel like, yeah, it's so interesting because I, it was my, that's my first novel. I, I feel. I, I feel. like I set it. The camera and characters are a journalist and it's in newspapers, which is obviously where, you know, most of my career has been spent.

And people are like, oh, so is it all based on, on assholes that you've had bad experiences with? And I was like, it's kind of loosely based on that. But really the reason I set it in that world was because I was lacking in any confidence to set it in a world I didn't know

intimately, if that makes sense. But it's not like, like, I'm like, no, these things didn't happen to me, you know. And so it's, yeah, people are like, oh, is that about so and so? And I'm like, no. It's just, like, I've just spent ages making shit up. It's really hard because you respect that.

In terms of journalism, this sort of divide in the paper in the book where women are given more frivolous lifestyle, lifestyle stories. and judging other women's appearances and writing about fashion trends or princesses and wellness, the facials. And the whole area is called the Cotswold. Yeah, that's because that, no, that was what my experience was like in the 40s. Yeah. And so the men did serious things. They worked in Baghdad.

That's what they called the news. When I read that, that they had the audacity and arrogance to call their job Baghdad in a time where we have lived through several wars and around. I was like, that is the most offensive. Like, how, you're in fucking London in Fleet? Oh, and you think you are... Yeah. I just, I found that really gawling. That was triggering for me.

I was like, the arrogance of that name is... Yeah. Also, when most of them never left their desk. Exactly. They never went, like, further than the pub. Yeah, you're not a fucking foreign war correspondent. Like, what are you, like, this... But there is also what I always found really intriguing.

And actually, it's less, it's not as, doesn't really happen anymore. Actually, I think in journalism now there is a respect for women writing. There's certainly more respect for writing what used to be called kind of like confessional pieces. Like now realizing actually this is a valid and really important part of... And it's a skill to do that. But it is. So, but yeah, but back then it was like, this is just fluff. Fluff.

Fluff is the word that was always used. And it reminds me of everyone, it was called chicklet. It's the same time when there was chicklet and a separate section in the paper for the fluff. And it was just like, these are just separate categories to keep ladies entertained. But the real stuff happens over here rather than like these issues are just affecting women. That's literally the end difference. Yeah, but the bit that they didn't sort of quite translate out loud is, I'm not interested. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm a man who isn't interested. I'll just use the word fluff. Yeah, I'm not interested and I think, and I will be listening. Or is I could say that about the World Cup. Yeah. The World Cup to me is fluff. Yeah. I don't care, but I hope everyone's really happy.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, but you get like full, like, 16-page supplements. Yeah. You know, it's like, it's everywhere. Again, and then they have the fucking audacity to tell us that they're bored of reading about the menopause. I'm like, are you fucking shitting me? Are you kidding me?

After how many years of having to... Like, you know, what? Like, if men got the menopause, there'd be, like, shows hosted by, like, Jeremy Clarkson. Oh, my God. Drew Doree. There's a really good, Michelle Wolf's standing. up.

Oh, yeah. She does this really good stand about if men had the menopause. She was like, yeah, yeah, there'd be more of it. But also she was like, we would all be putting them in sheds. Like, no, Gary, you don't come out till you finished your men. Like, please, like, he's having his menoport. Oh, like, it's a very funny stand-up routine. But yeah, I completely agree with you.

It's just, it's ridiculous, the double standards. It's disparaging things you're not interested in, which is a very male-like thing. It's like Taylor Swift, when she became like the first, you know, know, when she was on the time cover or she, you know, like the ERIS tour was completely, you know, like the biggest tour ever. And people were like, I don't get her. And I'm like, well, maybe she's not, maybe you're not supposed to get her. Maybe there's a world where music is created for people other than you.

I know. Isn't it interesting when, yeah, the ego makes us fascinated in the things we're not interested in rather than going, there's so many other things that I am? Yeah. And like, oh, isn't it nice that's so. I mean, people do get so excited by this thing. People love it with TV programs as well. You know, when everyone's going on about succession

and they like to be like, actually, I didn't like Fleetbag. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like one of those things. I know, but that's not as interesting as you think it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you see it with books as well. Like right now, the book that everybody is reading is yesterday. Yeah, obviously.

Amazing book by a woman, Carrie Claire, but... We interviewed her, yeah. Did you? Yeah, yeah. She sat there two weeks ago. Yeah, yeah. But suddenly there's all of these kind of like pieces that are like, You know, oh, I wasn't that.

I'm like, I don't read it. Yeah, sure. Like, if you don't like it, that's fine. I think if you hit a zeitgeist at a point where it becomes like, oh, we're all going to discuss this thing at once, that kind of success is really. I find it really scary to watch from the outside. Because I mean, she's someone who's worked really, really, really hard at becoming a novelist. This is not her first book.

She's written lots. This is her first published book. It's had an incredible lead up. It's really back. She has a very, very successful podcast. But then you release a book into the world and it means everyone does want to have an opinion and lots of people who haven't read you or given you any time

or who are just already set up by your popularity to think. Yeah, they're using your popularity to feed back into their own ego and social media content. You've got to take it as a, it's the greatest compliment nowadays, isn't it? To be slated online by everyone. But how hard to write a second book?

Imagine sitting down to your desk now knowing. Yeah, you probably don't need to. The film's coming out. She's got the film to deal with them. I just feel like, you know, but she, yes, she did. She said, didn't she? She wrote like three books before. Yeah, yeah.

They just sat in her drawer before she got to yesterday. Yeah. Maybe she could just dig them up. Yeah. You still work in journalism. Like, you're still right for the newspapers. Do you feel like, did that influence when you were writing it? Or were you trying to capture a past journalism that maybe doesn't exist?

Or has it got better? I don't know. I don't have to. I'm quite lucky in that. don't have to, I don't go into an office anymore. I see it's very different. Yeah, yeah.

I just sit at home in my pants and like come up with, like, I'm like, oh, I want to, like most weeks I want to just rage about JLP one culture and weight loss culture. But yeah, so it's, it wasn't, I think I wrote it. I was, I was trying to, it was more that sort of being a woman in your,

like coming into midlife and realizing what you'd put up with in your 20s and you'd tolerate. and you're like, I'm actually quite fucking furious about this. And thinking that if you just put up with it and you kind of like sort of swallow it down for long enough, then surely at some point you're going to get rewarded. And knowing from friends in other industries, not necessarily in journalism, that that isn't or not the case at all. And that sort of wanting to capture that rage that so many of my friends were experiencing as they were going through.

perimenopause. Like at first I wanted this book, it was like, I wanted to be this like magic like Freaky Friday, you know, like she's got to go and undo some fucking spell, you know. And then I was like, oh, I don't need that because there's perimenopause. It's like, your Easterer drops off and you're just, you know, all of that like lovely kind of, oh, I just want to have babies and, you know, and do all of this. It's like, it drops off and you're like, what the fuck? How are any of us still alive? I know. Why did we put up? with this. And I think it's really different. I think if someone is disappointed at work or

overlooked for a promotion and they've been authentically themselves, that's one set of emotions. But if you have played a game, if you have, you know, the implicit and explicit instructions of how to be in inverted, commas, good. And, you know, you've made yourself a square peg for a round hole. Yeah, you've done everything that's asked of you. And then it doesn't get you what you want or what you were promised, that is a different kind of anger. And I think that's the choices we have in life. We might be disappointed.

We might not achieve our dreams, all of us. Or there might be things that are disappointments, but it's different if it feels like, okay, I didn't get what I wanted, but I did my best. Oh, my God, they lied to me, the world lied to me. Yeah. They just wanted me small. Yeah.

Because it made them more powerful. Yeah. And it's that realization, isn't it? I think a lot of women are coming in, to where, yeah, where it's like, oh, if I'm, if I'm obsessing about my weight, if I'm obsessing about looking a certain way, then I'm distracted. Let's talk about body stuff. Your work online is so incredible. And in terms of my Instagram feed, which is like, highly created. I'm very protective of myself because I don't want to see things that make me feel bad. And it's just so

amazing what you do in just inhabiting a body in an online space that might be the only body that anyone sees that is natural. I love, well, it's my favourite thing to do if you told me like 10 years ago, oh, one day you'll be mostly known for a running marathon, but be in your pants. I would be like, what? And I was talking about this with someone earlier, like my favourite moment of running a marathon or running any kind of long distance in my pants, like in a race, is not crossing the finish line, although like that's quite nice. But it's like seeing someone in the crowd who has come to like cheer on a friend or whatever and then go and not in like horror.

No, but it's like, wow. Oh, yeah. Oh, look, that woman is smiling and running and she's got cellulite and her body wobbles around because that's what bodies do, you know. And I guess it's like, I find it really, A, you really do forget that you're in underwear quite quickly. And but B, yeah, it's just like, just letting women know that they can inhabit their body as opposed to loathe it. Yeah. And also just reminding that the world is wrong, not their bodies.

I think that, unfortunately, we do have to remind it of that every single day because the opposite is really, really strong. It's so difficult and it's really interesting. I posted up, I did the London Marathon a couple, like about six weeks ago. And someone had captured me at like mile 19 and it was like the wobble of the cellulite was like so intense. And I saw it and they didn't, they weren't saying anything nasty. They just like tagged me in it. Like way to go. It's just a picture.

Yeah. But I saw it and I went, oh my God, is that what I look like? And I was, I felt this like this. this just this instinctive shame which I get you know like because I'm a woman you know who was born in 1980 and who but I was like no that's why you do this briny so people can see that and see you enjoying your body and like wow my legs are not horrifying they're amazing I ran 26.2 miles with them right so I do this I do this real saying that and what's so interesting about it is that the majority of comments now are from other women saying to me,

that's not cellulite, that's lipidema. You can have an operation to get rid of it. It's progressive. It's painful. This is like, don't worry, Brianie, we can fix it. This is how clever algorithms are. They realised that certain words were stopping people.

Or we're all so saturated with cellulite. So they found a new word to tell us to spend our money on. Yeah. And that's lipidema. Libidema. I've never even heard this word. I get lots of these suggestions. What the fuck is Lipidema?

And I get lots of videos because adverts are so insidious now. So you think you're being informed medically of something with women saying, I thought it was just cellulite, but then it was this. And now if you just have these socks, this shaker, do these things to your diet. But literally what is Lipidema? It's the way of storing fat and it's connected to estrogen. And it basically is just, it's bobbly orange peel fat. Isn't that cellulite?

It can be. But it also can be all the way to your wrists and your ankle. It can be very. It can be very painful. Yeah, like a real actual thing. It can. But like that isn't what I can. No, that's what happening.

And, you know, but what was so interesting was that thing of like, cellulite was literally a term made up by marketing men at some point to sell us shit. Yeah. You know. And it's that reclaiming it and going, no, this is my body and this is what is supposed to look like. It is not supposed to look. And also, if you saw more bodies, if everyone was running in their pants, we wouldn't freak out about one leg.

But then you realise that's the only leg you've seen apart from your own. People don't even look at their own bodies. There's an amazing kids picture book by Tyler Fedder. I think it's called My Body, Your Body. And she's American and she's done this. So it's like all bodies are good bodies. Some, it's like hairy bodies, skinny bodies, fat bodies, big body. And the drawings are like real people.

And like every time I read it, my son really loves it. And honestly, your eyes are like, everyone looks weird because it's a drawing that looks real. So there's all different skin colors. there's people with one arm with two arm in wheelchairs who are bigger who have hair who are bald and you start realizing that like when you get the tube that's what you see you see like normal people but in again like in a fucking kids picture book you're so used to seeing big eyes and big hair and skinny and you're like I'm reading my children books which don't contain real humans and this book is like jarring because I'm seeing like people who look like what the world

looks like. And I think stuff like, I love Tyler Fethe, she's amazing illustrator and writer, but it's like just trying to put things out there that go, that's actually real and what the work you do of like, that's actually, this is actually normal. But because this glass that we look through is one vision and you forget what you see on the tube on the bus in the morning, which actually looks, everybody looks like this. But it's a lot of work for you because you're in a minority. God, that's what I think I'm so grateful to you for the work you're doing. I couldn't deal with members of the public writing to me. I don't, it genuinely, I don't know why.

I don't have, because I have a lot of issues. But not about my body. And I genuinely, I find it, I don't, it just is like water off a duck's back when I get. The thing that I find that really triggers me is when people, people pretend to be, they're like, they pretend to be concerned about your health. They're like, your joints won't take that. And I'm like, don't pretend that you give a shit about my joints. All you give a shit about is feeling smug and superior.

That is what people get out of the whole kind of like obesity debate. And obviously for some people, you know, there is obviously a problem with obesity for some people. I'm not denying that. But not everyone who is obese is unhealthy. Yeah, and that's the lie that we were taught quite early on, especially commercially, is that fat equals unhealthy always, and thin equals healthy always. Which is not the case.

When I was like a size A, I existed on quavers and cocaine. Yeah. Oh, God. I talk about it. Your breath must have been. I did not. I was like. Wavors and cocaine.

Exactly. It's such a health in itself and other people's health. and all of the questions someone should be asking before telling someone a stranger, anything. Yeah, yeah. But people use it now. And I've noticed recently with the kind of advent of GLP-1s and lots of people who don't need GLP-1s using them, they're like, you know, we know that there's a lot of kind of manipulation of data going on, you know, going on online to get hold of this kind of stuff.

Well, because they're businesses, they don't, the companies don't care, they want to sell as much as possible. They would like everyone to take them. Yeah. They'd like children to be on them. They just want to make lots of money. And there are people for whom it is life-changing. And I would like to see, but, you know, there's something like 2 million people taking them. And the percentage of, the tiny percent of those are prescribed on the NHS, right?

So it is life-changing for some people. But for some people, this is life-changing because it is literally allowed them to embrace wholeheartedly this disordered eating culture. Yeah. it's an appetite suppressant, which means it's, I mean, eating disorder is too harsh to just go, it gives you, but it means that you're under-eating and it's very easy. But also, you then get to say, well, it's for my health. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's for my health because I was pre-diabetic.

I had some blood, so, you do, do, or, you know, or you say, I was a bit overweight and I didn't like it. I didn't like it. But it becomes, that becomes a noble choice, an honourable choice, not, oh, I just don't like it. Because it's medicine. But also it's like, why didn't. Yeah, why didn't.

Why didn't you like it? Yeah. Why is it uncomfortable for women to sometimes be a size 14, a size 16, a size 12? Like what, what is it about being a bit larger that is so uncomfortable? Because it's actually, if you, once you, it isn't, you know, like obviously being morbidly, morbidly obese. We know that's not great. But I weigh like 14 and a half, 15 stone. I'm obese, right?

But I run marathons. Now, what people will come back and says, yeah, well, one day your joints are going to be there. And I'm like, how do you know? You don't know that. You don't know about my joint health, my muscle health, my body comes in it. And I hate having to sort of like even go into it. But, you know, it is maddening. So I just, and I didn't think the first time I ran the London Marathon in my underwear, I was back in 2018, right?

And I thought it would just be like a one-off thing. And then we did this thing called Celebrate You, which was like a thousand women of all different body shapes and experiences, like women were stomas. But, you know, it was like it was everything. It wasn't just about weight. It was about changing all those misconceptions. But I certainly, I didn't think that I would still be doing it, like almost 10 years later. And people are like calling out for it even more. We still need you to do it.

That's the thing. We still need that presence, isn't it? And more than ever. And the first time, it was really interesting, like last year when I did the MASSAD. marathon. It was the first time I actually felt self-conscious. And it was so interesting. And it was because I had lost like a tiny amount of weight, right? And I, it was, you know, because of, genuinely because of like a health thing, but also stress, a really dear friend of mine had just died. And it would just have been horrible experience, obviously. And so like, it was like, often people lose weight for,

like, because of bad things, right? So I've been diagnosed with an arrhythmia. So I'd like made some small changes so I died. I lost a bit of weight. But as someone who is like I'm larger and I'm happy with it,

people were suddenly I was getting messages. And I was and it wasn't even that like I was still like, still policing your body. Yeah, still policing your body though.

It wasn't like I'd kind of shrunk and they're like, oh, are you on a Zenbek? Even if I was, it's not of your fucking business. Like I don't ever want to talk. But I was like, oh, I was so funny.

I was sent to my husband. I was like, do I look really thin Harry? And he was like, no, darling, you don't need to. But unfortunately, people think they own, I mean, women in the public eye. And they're watching each other's bodies all the time. Yeah, and the pressure that we put on larger women as well. Like the whole, I can just hear it now.

People want, they really want to just like get the stick the knife into the body positivity movement. You know, the glee with which is like, is the body positivity movement, like, or was it all a lie? Yeah. It's like, you know, oh, look, that person's lost weight. They obviously weren't happy. And it's like, God, why do we expect fat women to be happy all the fucking time? And you know, the same as skinny women.

Like, just because you're a skinny person doesn't mean you're happy all the fucking time. Like, that's not what equals happiness, as we know. It's how you feel about yourself inside. And this idea that there's an ideal weight and ideal, no wrinkles, hair colour, anything that's going to make you feel happy is bullshit. But we all know that and yet we all still feel that pressure to to meet these expectations. We all still feed into it.

I think it has to change. I feel like we're reaching critical mass with the amount of content. And the sort of like just the, it's just also disingenuous, you know. Like, I sometimes I watch my social media feed and it's like people talking about authenticity while being like really with like, you know, loads of Botox. And I mean, it's not, this isn't to like, you know, like I'm not, but it's like, oh, this is weird.

This is like, this doesn't, none of this actually matches up. No. So one of the really interesting things about Olivia is that when she starts to be more honest and frank and forthright, she does all. also stopped denying herself food. Yes. So she is, you know, she ate. When we meet her, she doesn't have an eating disorder any more than any other 44-year-old

woman. She just doesn't allow herself cheese and cream and carbohydrate. So she's got this, she's always been watching it. Always. Yes. And, you know, which I guess is all sort of feeds into good and bad foods and treats and, oh, I've been bad and all that kind of stuff. And all of a sudden, she can order a pizza with her teenage son.

As she starts to not give a fuck, she starts to be able to eat what she wants. But also she starts to actually ask her husband for what she wants in bed. She's like, you will go down on me. Yes. You will spend time doing this, do you know what I mean? And he's happy to. He loves that. He's so happy to.

He just didn't know she wanted it. It's all that self-consciousness, you know, like I definitely came of age thinking that, you know, I would derive my pleasure from how much pleasure I could give other people, whether that was in the bed or how I looked or, you know. And it's like, fuck that. And it's so difficult to unprogram and unpick all of this stuff. And I get that. And I'm not, you know, I'm not perfect with it at all myself,

which is why I needed to kind of imagine a world where, you know, what if? What if you did just live in all your full fat glory? Since you've written it, do you feel like it's given you another shift of ways you were people pleasing the way you didn't realize? Like, have you come across more? I was just about to ask the same question. And if you sort of now see yourself doing certain things or maybe stop and go, oh, no, I'm doing that. I'll do this. Because sometimes when you write something, you become more aware of it in yourself.

Yeah. Oh, shit. I definitely had like, the week before it came out, I definitely, it was like the universe was like, we're going to test you with this. And I had some like difficult things happen. And it was, and I felt very much like, oh, my. my God, I'm going to have to have difficult conversations and not, like, shirk them. And I definitely, since this book has come out, it has been like a wild rollercoaster in, like, well, like, not everyone's going to like it and not everyone is going to buy it, truly? And what does that mean for you as a person, Briney?

Like, what if, you know, it's like, oh, God, I, I'm not explaining myself very well, but that. sort of, it's definitely made me really aware of all the ways I try to validate myself as a good girl in different ways. You switch for other things. You might not be like being polite to men anymore, but it's like sales figures. Yeah. So I don't care so much about a number, I don't care at all about a number on the scales, right? But, but as someone said to me, but does it matter because I become really aware of like the number of Instagram followers I have? Like, I'm And that's how it's made me really aware of how I use metrics in now as a way to like, oh, but I'm still being a good girl.

So I may eat what I want and I may be able to tell a bloke to fuck off. But when it comes to like the pleasing overlords, you know, do you like me? The slippery algorithm. Oh, I get sucked into it so easily. I think it's really hard not to. I mean, we all want to be loved, cared for, safe. And they're quite huge things. And at times it might feel blurry and there aren't definites unless you pick a lane and go, okay, I am successful if I.

I am liked if I have this amount of followers. If I sell this money, then it must be good. I did do a good job. It's very, I mean, without going down a really, you know, lifestyle change and becoming more Buddhist and doing lots and lots of work, I think the human brain will trip over and find another way. Which is why these platforms are so successful. Yeah. I remember my therapist saying that to me once of like,

I have terrible anxiety and I basically realized I was seeing her to like get rid of it. Yeah. And she was like, you do realize that 0% doesn't, 0% anxiety doesn't exist. And I was like, why am I paying this money? That's what we're here for. And then she was like, it's what, that's what you're coping with. So the idea of being a people pleaser, it's like, you can never rid yourself of it.

society won't let you, but it's okay to have that well of like, oh, shit, oh, I checked, like, how many likes and I checked who saw the story and I know that that person did and they're a good writer and they didn't say anything. It's, like, oh, this one always makes me feel so much better when they're saying, oh, I sent them a proof and they liked it, but they obviously didn't even care, but I'm about to feel about the proof. Okay, well, I guess they hate me because I'm a terrible present. But it's then what you do and go, okay, I've had that feeling, I'm trying to validate myself. of I'm allowed that, but I can see that feeling that it's bullshit. I'm going to let it go.

But you can't stop your body wanting to be safe and protected in love. But also it's allowing yourself, it's also allowing yourself the grace of sometimes like making mistakes and not being perfect and not always being good. Yeah. Like I've really had to as someone, you know, as having had a, obsessive compulsive disorder since I was like very young and I think a lot of that is about it's about being perceived as good it's like I need to be good I need to stay within the lines I need to you know I can't have bad thoughts I can't all of that kind of stuff and part of my recovery from that has been

going actually sometimes I'm not good sometimes I am bad sometimes I do have bad thoughts and I do bad things. And while one must try and hold themselves accountable for those, I don't have to hold them myself so accountable that I'm literally climbing up onto the cross and being like, crucify me, you know? Yeah, I forgot someone's name at a party. Exactly. Oh, my God.

Three weeks of like, you're so just a shit person. I just like, that whole like accountability culture is terrible for me because all I do is hold myself accountable. Sometimes I need to let myself off the, you know, hook and just be like, there is a middle ground between a narcissist. Yeah, yeah. And people bleed. A martyr, someone who is absorbing too much pain and being too hard on themselves.

But that's why the algorithm is dangerous. I have this. You're watching all this stuff and there's lots of Americans telling you about how toxic family dynamics work. And then sometimes I'm like, but I'm the kind of person who take this in too deeply will then decide like, I need, like, oh, I need to apologize this. and I think you have to, again, like, know yourself, is it? Like, oh, I'm the kind of person who can't watch this. Because there's people out there who need to hear this and they do need to be accountable. And I'm the kind of person who will take this on as this is my law now.

But you know that the like toxic narcissist content is not actually showing up in the feeds of toxic narcissists. No, of course not. It's like, they're watching weaving. They're watching. Yeah, they're like. They don't believe they're toxic narcissists. They're looking, yeah, like, I don't know what they're looking at. but that is not in their feet.

Bunnies and like people cleaning their house probably over and over again. The next novel? Yeah. I did actually start it like two weeks ago. Amazing. Yeah. It's really hard writing a novel, isn't it? It's hard, but look, you've done it.

This exists. Well, I know, but like, I'm a bit like, I'm, the things I don't do, and there's nothing exciting enough going on in my private life touchword for, like, non-fiction. So it just has to be novels because it's like, Yeah, do you want to read a series memoir about taking the bins out? You know, I, yeah, so I, I've started one and it's kind of, I want to create, I kind of wanted to create a trilogy, totally different characters, but a trilogy, what I'm going to loosely call the Stepping Into Your Majesty series about women who have been like

typecast as something who like rip off the, the, rip off the mask and live. And so the next one is, it's loosely around this phrase I used to hear quite a lot when I was a kid. And I get told it all the time when I run marathons, which is that I'm an attention seeker. And that thing is like,

from people in the sidelines. Yeah, they're like, you're just doing this. You're attention seeking. You fucking do it then. You're like, I was like, false and what's wrong with attention as a currency. Okay, but so this is the thing.

So it's the performer. And I'm so, exactly. So what are you watching if it's not, attention seekers. It's just what we're in the bin. Panel shows don't exist without else. But as it, it's like, oh, she's just an attempt. Like, no, what I'm trying to do is draw attention to a normal woman's bodies,

which I think is quite a, but it's that thing of like, again, it's like taking up space. And always that phrase that I used to hear a lot as a child is like, can you not make everything about you? Wow. So there's something going on with that. Yes, yeah. But maybe someone's like, actually, I am going to make everything around. Yeah, yeah, why not? And you're going to.

And actually, I deserved attention. I don't know if you've read Alan Davis' first book about his childhood, but it's called Just Ignore Him, because that's what he was told all the time in his family. And exactly the same thing, a sentence that's used for a child, but, you know, just behaving, just existing, but in a way that's seen as disruptive. And so they would always tell his siblings, just ignore him. If he's being funny or silly. Yeah.

And then obviously there was other horrible stuff coming out. There was really dark stuff. Yeah, that he would then try and say. And it was like, well, the language of the family is ignore him. Right. Yeah, he's being in his attention. Yeah. But I think I'm bringing it up to say that's how I think it's so dangerous to think of attention as a negative.

Yeah. People deserve attention. I always remember when I, a couple of years ago, I was doing, I was talking about mental health. And it was like Cheltenham Literature Festival. And there was this audience. And at the end, the audience questions come and this woman stands up and she says, my 16-year-old daughter says she's got depression, but I think she's just attention seeking. And I was like, well, why don't you give her some fucking attention then?

Yeah, she's seeking it. But it really went because I was like, because that was all, what do you? You know, I always knew as a, you know, difficult, a difficult. Oversensitive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But imagine if someone stood up and said, oh, my daughter says she's depressed, but I think she's love seeking. Like, that's what it tends to, is you're asking for love and care. But no one would be like, oh, well, she's after love.

Don't give it to her. Which is kind of a Victorian attitude. A 16-year-old doesn't have any choice, really, in terms of where their family or support comes from. It's only their close relatives and maybe a couple of good friends. maybe a good teacher. Like it's such a sport. It's not like a 38-year-old who might have difficulties and they can go and seek other support.

As a parent, how could you stand up and say, I don't believe? When I said maybe give us an attention to them, the best thing was that the entire audience clapped. Claps. And then they're like, oh wow, okay, right. I'm in the wrong here. And I'm sorry, because I also think those kind of messages, especially it feels like the amount of them

that you've had coming from slightly different directions. That's a lot to unpick. in adulthood. Yeah. It's a lot. Yeah, I'm always, yeah, to tell I'm seeking attention. But that's fine.

I am. But attention, like we say, attention is good, you know. You've got to be seeking it from the right people. Yes, that is the key. That is the key. Brandy, thank you so much.

We can talk to you for another hour. Like, it's such a brilliant book. I loved meeting, Olivia. It's really funny. It's really funny. And it's, I think it's exploring female anger is really important as well. It's a valve towards health. And, you know, expressing.

sing it and then making healthy choices being happier. Thank you for listening to the Weirdo's Book Club. People Pleaser is out now. And sign up to our Patreon for your chance to win a signed copy. My book, Where Did She Go? Kids Picture Book About Grief is available to buy it in paperback now. And I've got some live shows coming up at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. If you want to go on the website and look for those.

And we've got a live show coming up at Edinburgh as well. We'll be doing a Weirdo's Book Club live on the 17th of August. And you can find out all about the upcoming books we're going to be discussing this series on our Instagram at Sarah and Carriaz Weirdo's Book Club. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you.