Should I Delete That? - Bryony Gordon on being a Mad Woman

Episode Date: April 14, 2024

This week on the podcast, Em and Alex are joined by Bryony Gordon! Bryony was a guest on the podcast way back in its early days and she is back to tell the girls all about her new book, Mad Woman. Detailing her experience of various mental health illnesses, Bryony shares how she navigates a world that doesn't encourage self acceptance.You can purchase Bryony's book Mad Woman hereYou can follow Bryony on Instagram @bryonygordonPurchase tickets here for our first ever ✨LIVE TOUR!!✨Follow us on Instagram @shouldideletethatEmail us at [e-mail] by Daisy GrantMusic by Alex Andrew Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm not mad. My responses in my brain have been incredibly appropriate to living in this world that doesn't really want me to accept me for myself. Hello and welcome back to To Delete That, I'm Alex Light. I'm M Clarkson and I am so excited. we've got a repeat guest today. We do. Brianie Gordon has come back to talk to us again after publishing her book, Mad Woman. Mad Woman follows on from Mad Girl, which she wrote 10 years ago detailing her mental health struggles. And in this, she talks about her OCD, her progress

with her OCD and also her more recent struggle with binge eating. She is opening up a conversation that is so desperately needed right now. And we were so grateful to her for coming to talk to us today so without further ado please enjoy the interview hello brianie welcome back oh thanks for having me a two a two timer i'm like thrilled is that do you have lots of two timers we do not many no we do not many do not often do repeat guests but i mean the two timer club the two timer club my day yeah it's pretty prestigious forget about day it's made my back i'm glad yes thank you and you're here because you have just published a new book which we're We are really excited to talk to you about.

I made no secret of it last time we spoke to you. I love your books. I've read them all. I have a quite new baby. So give me like a few minutes to get this one finished by I started it. That's, that's, that's, I've got a quite new baby who's going to be 11 in two weeks. And I'm still using that as an excuse. Thank you.

That helped. So your new book, Mad Woman, can you tell us about it, please? Yeah. I mean, so it's a follow-up to this book I wrote nearly 10 years ago called Mad Girl, which was all about my experiences of mental illness and specifically about OCD. So I wrote about, so we all hear all the time, you know, people say I'm a little bit OCD and people always would say to me, oh, you should see my sock drawer. And I'm like, why is it always the sock drawer?

Like I don't have a sock drawer. My husband sort of jokes. I wish I had, he wishes I have the good type of OCD, but there is no good type of OCD. But I wrote this book about the reality of OCD for me, which is that this kind of subset of it known as Puro, which is very common, but people don't talk about it because it involves sorts of intrusive thoughts. And so my brain from childhood told me that maybe I was a serial killing paedophiles. who'd like blanch it out in horror. So you can see why like people don't go, I'm a bit OCD.

Sometimes my brain tells me that I might hurt something. I'm not, by the way, I'm not. I just want to be clear that I am not a serial killing Bid Row. Thank you so much for that clarification. But I would say that. Can I just think, like the fact that I can make jokes about this is like really revolutionary for me. And the thing about OCD is it's so common.

it's really common as well in mothers postpartum so we know that most mental illnesses if you're going to experience mental illness in your life something like 60 to 70% of people it will you will have experienced it by the age of 14

the rest of that the 40 30% or whatever that won't are people that experience say PTSD because of things that they've experienced or or mum's postpart And OCD is a really common, common thing that horrifies new mums because they're like, I'm supposed to love this baby and instead I'm terrified that I might do something terrible to it, you know.

And so writing about it was really important. Mad Woman is a kind of follow up to that of all the things I've learnt in the preceding 10 years since kind of talking so openly about my mental health, I guess. that's not answered your question at all. I've enjoyed it. So I've just gone off on one on a different thing. But so Mad Woman, I wanted to write about, I wrote about OCD, I got sober, I launched this podcast, and like my first guest was Prince Harry, and I ran marathons in my pants. And, you know, on the face of it, it looked really like, wow, she's got her shit together.

And then the kind of pandemic, and I felt that. I felt that. And then the pandemic happened and I started to unravel in sort of slowly in different ways. For me, I realized I wasn't, I wasn't drinking, obviously, but my addiction had sort of reared up its head in a way to like my first ever addiction, which was food. Right. And I sort of, I developed, I didn't sort of, I developed binge eating disorder and I was really ashamed of that because. I thought I'd sort of done a lot of work on myself and my body image. But anyway, and then also all this sort of stuff has happened in the last four years.

So I also have gone through quite an early menopause. And the OCD came back really badly. And I learned a lot about the effect of hormones on my mental health. And I basically wanted to write all about it. I wanted to write about it. So the mad woman in the title is like, yeah, you're damn right. I'm mad. I'm fucking furious that women have to put up.

up with this shit and it's kind of we're ignored and we're dismissed and the sort of subtitle is how to survive in a world that wants you to think you're the problem and that's very much been my sort of experience over the last few years is realizing actually I'm not mad my responses in my brain have been incredibly appropriate to living in this world that doesn't really want me to accept me for myself, if that makes as I am. You know, I have never felt confident enough or thin enough or strong enough or, you know, I've never kind of fit that sort of version of a woman that I suppose was always up on billboards, you know, on the cover of magazines throughout childhood. And I realized that of course I've had eating disorders. Of course I've had OCD. Of course I've

had depression, of course, all of these things, because I live in a society, I live in a patriarchal society that doesn't want me to just accept myself as I am. So that's what Mad Woman's about. Yeah. Very light. So much I want to talk to you about. And yeah, and so, and so I wrote that book. And, and now I'm sitting here talking to you about it. Oh, there's so much, I don't know where to start. There's so much. I mean, the intrusive thoughts. I think we spoke about this is another episode. Postpartum intrusive thoughts are intense, aren't they? Yeah. Really intense. How are you finding hard? Yeah. I mean, I've always had intrusive thoughts and postpartum has been, yeah, it's been crazy to the point where I've had to like really

really have a word with myself and calm myself down. At one point I was like obsessed with this marble coffee table that we've got in the living room. I just became obsessed with thinking this thing was going to happen to my son like some and I was like we need to move them up we need to move the coffee table to my husband and he was like we're not we need to get through this year we're not moving he's fine you know we can and it's fine I'm past that now the coffee table's there and stuff anyway I don't know why I'm making this about me no this is interesting and this is why I talk about this stuff because it makes me feel like less of like you know in a way my books are like they've been a kind of a thing of like out of desperation me going I have these

thoughts. I have these feelings. I've heard other people do too, but obviously none of us go around with like badgers ongoing. I have intrusive thoughts that tell me I might be a serial killing pedophile. And I'm like, so if you have these thoughts, do you want to congregate around this book and we can talk about them and we can feel like we're not freaks, you know, that we're not mad or we are mad and that's okay, but we're not bad. You know, so it's really important that you say that and that will help a lot of people listening. Yeah. And you wrote an article recently. didn't you about it? Yeah.

That I read that made me feel so much better. And it's great now because there's like stuff on TikTok, like videos on TikTok of like, you know, intrusive thoughts I had after becoming a mom. But also, we all have intrusive thoughts. Like this is the thing. We all have. Do we?

Yes. Everyone has intrusive thoughts. So OCD is sort of about the attention you pay to those thoughts. So I think that's sort of estimated that we all have something like 60,000 thoughts a day. Some days I have way more than that. Sometimes I have way less. that. No, wonder I'm exhausted.

Depends our thoughts. It depends on the... But so we are not all of our thoughts, right? You counted those. I don't know how they measured this, right? Jesus. But the whole thing is, is that... So we all have that thought,

you know, like, you're on the tube or, and you're like, what if I was to just push someone in front of the tray? I had that thought this morning. I didn't think I was going to push them. I thought, what if they pushed them? Oh, yeah. Like, thankfully, because I don't trust myself.

But someone, I thought, I saw another man. I thought he's going to push her. And then he didn't. but it was so horrific. Or like you go to a party and someone hands you their baby and you're like, what if I just threw the baby on the floor? But most people go, obviously I'm not going to do that and they just dismiss it and they get on with their day.

Someone with this type of OCD will be so distressed by the thoughts that they will ruminate on them again and again to check they're not the thoughts. So like the more attention you give to them, the more power they have over you. So it's a really hard sort of Catch-22 situation. I now go, that's an interesting. thought that's an intrusive thought and that gives me the kind of like break moment to kind of go okay

this is oCD you know but it's it's sort of cunning um it it will shape shift and it'll come at me in different ways you know it'll tell me I'm a bad person because of something else something at work or you know and I have to be kind of constantly on guard for it but yeah it's a really common thing and I actually think that it's a really appropriate thing so the the mad one and I sort of had this idea that actually, what if the mad among us are actually the most sane? And that kind of came to me during the pandemic when I realized I was in a clinical depression

and I looked around and for the first time I felt like everyone else was too, you know? And because usually you just think, you're the worst person, it's just you, all of that. And I sort of thought, well, that's appropriate, isn't it? because we're in lockdowns and we're not being able to connect with people. Actually, it's kind of, it's appropriate to be depressed. And I suddenly thought, what if lots of mental illnesses were actually a really appropriate response of our brains to try and keep us safe or try to alert us to something going on in the world?

And when you look at, when you look at OCD in those terms shortly after, you know, in motherhood, if you think about it, you're suddenly in the, you know, have, you know, have, you're. suddenly responsible for this other human you know and so your brain is going into kind of it employs whatever it can to keep that human safe you know so these are like extreme um sort of brain mechanisms in a way for you to do your job so actually it's kind of it makes a kind of twisted uh amount of sense it does when you put it like that actually it does it makes a whole lot of sense, which makes it feel a lot better and less scary. Yeah, it's like, well, of course you want your, and it's just an extreme version. It's like your brain's just gone that little bit too far. But it's not, but even it hasn't gone that far. Like even let's not judge it. Let's not

give it that judgment. Do you what I mean? It's just, it's working in a primitive way because you're tired, you're full of hormones, you've just gone through a major life change. It's doing what, your brain is doing what it's beautifully evolved to do. which is protect, keep things safe. And so your brain's going, okay, I need to keep baby safe. Marble coffee table. Need to keep baby safe. Bleach.

What if I was to, I need to get rid of, you know, it's all of that. Knives, all of those things, you know. It's like it's kind of you're hypervigilant. And that to me is what OCD is. It's kind of constantly scanning the environment to check that I'm safe and to check that I'm okay. And crucially to check that I'm a good person. I'm a good girl.

Right. Is that the crux of your OCD? I think it is. I think like at first when I wrote about OCD, it was about like saying to people, look, I'm not bad. I'm not bad. Because that's what OCD, I think, it tells me I'm like the worst person in the world. And actually, I think the other sort of element of madwoman is wanting to go, well, actually sometimes I am bad and that's okay. Right. How do you cope with the valid, with the external. commentary on because you put yourself out there in such a way and you're so vulnerable to talk about these things in the way that you do and at the telegraph and like in your books and

everything and you know like you've done even the promo for the books it puts you out in front of a new audience how do you then cope with people who misunderstand you or take issue with what you say or whatever you know the internet's like just full of assholes like how do you cope with that I don't I find that people don't tend to misunderstand you know actually my experience is the reason I talk about this stuff and the reason I write about it is because when you do that, it sort of untangles that sort of all of those misunderstandings and that and the miss, you know, misinformation about this stuff. And I, so I tend not to focus on the people that don't get it and the people that don't have any interest in getting it and the people that see people like me as a kind of way to make themselves feel better. You get what I mean? But it's amazing that you can have that perspective when you're, so much of your, like, anxiety, I guess, is about, like, being your perception, sorry, people, you know, you want to be perceived as not bad or as good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You're amazing then for being able to take criticism or trolling or whatever you want to call it. But I also think that, like, so there's this other, you know, negative bias, it makes us focus on the trolls, right? But in reality, 98%, 99% of people wish you well or actually, here's the revelatory thing. they're not fucking thinking about me I know I'm like what

what could he possibly be thinking out how rude I realize I focus a lot I can you know obviously when you get someone emailing you and telling you that you're fat and useless and all of that stuff you can't go and then it's like

I sit and I think oh my god like just for a moment shall we try and work out how tragic your life would have to be to be like I'm going to sit down email Brian and email this person and tell them what I think about the way they look and it's like oh no I feel like I feel really sorry for that person because I would never in my I'd never in my you know like it just wouldn't do that so I kind of tend to I tend to switch it around I've got much better at doing that thing of like oh what someone else thinks about me

says more about I mean you're very good at this end what someone else thinks about me says more about them that it does about me. Like, what other people think of me is none of my business. But it's amazing that you have that, like, awareness and this real conviction in that. But I've had to fight for that. Like, that doesn't, I didn't just wake up one morning and go, oh, what other people think of me is none of my business. Yeah.

Like, when someone first said that to me, someone said that to me in like my first year of sobriety, right? So that was like, we're coming up for seven years ago, right? And they said, yeah, what other people think of you is none of your business? And I was like, no, what do you mean? It's my only business. Like the people pleaser in me is like, I want everyone to just be happy. I don't want them to be upset by, I really don't want them to be upset by me or hurt by me or to think badly of me in any way.

And it's still the greatest struggle on a day-to-day basis to go, okay, people aren't, sometimes people will be pissed off with you, Brittany. people will be annoyed with you and that's okay because that's their those are there I mean I'm not going out hurting people I'm making you know I'm a you know we're talking about something earlier but like I'm a grown woman who's entitled to make decisions and you know how other people respond to those decisions is it's kind of it's there it's up to them yeah I don't know if that makes any sense but it's hard but it is hard but it is really hard and like I don't I don't want anyone to think that it's something I, it's not just, it's not just something I've fought hard for over time. It's something I fight hard for every day. Right. You know, and it's not,

it's not an easy fight. It's like, it's like today, my whole day, and look, it's not, it's like quarter past 12, right? And already, I would say, a good three hours of today. And I've only been up since 6.30. So we're talking about like 50% of my time today. has been spent panicking that I've upset someone, that I'm in trouble, that someone's going to come and like some mad conspiracy theorist. Like, I don't know what's going to happen. You know, and I have to go, no, briny, it's okay. Yeah.

Yeah. I just, I've, I'm always struck by the, the fact that you are able to keep communicating this and, and do so in the face of, it's like in the face of your biggest fear. it's like if it's if the the anxiety is being perceived badly the fact that you're allowing yourself to be perceived by so many people it's just really brave it's just really cool it's brave but it's it's kind of what I have to do because I don't know what what what what's the other option but you're right that's you that's your only option really it's all of our only option yeah we

just kind of it's like yeah but do you think as well I think that everyone thinks they're the worst person in the world. Most people, their default setting is... Do you think men all think that? No, maybe they don't. No, I don't think... I think if we got Alex in here now and said, do you think you're the worst?

He'd be like, absolutely not. I think I'm great. No, but I mean, like, I think the bottom line is we all exist in a state of sort of like guilt and self-loving. Yeah. Maybe we don't. I think we've been conditioned to. I mean, I do.

I remember when I first started therapy, which was for my eating disorder, but obviously you end up looking at everything. And I genuinely, believe that I was evil. That's the word that I used because that's what I thought I thought I was evil. Like that was my Yeah. Sorry, I just took it quite deep, didn't I?

No, I was so, no. I think we've taken it. Yeah. I don't think you need to worry about taking it deep and dark. But like that's so weird because, I mean, no one ever told me I was evil. I don't know where that You know. So there's, okay, so parry, there's a, okay, there's a theory as to why we turn on ourselves, right? Which is, and again, it's all an evolutionary response to survival, right? So when we are tiny, tiny baby, so back before we

even remember or have memory, right? Yeah. Say you're a bait, and you'll know this, having babies, okay, is that the baby is lying there, crying in the cot, right? And for whatever reason, you're on the phone, you're on the loo, whatever. You can't come to the baby because, it's not because you're being a terrible human, it's, you know, or you're in a bit of the house where you can't hear them, or I don't know, whatever.

The baby for survival has to know that you're not. going to come because otherwise it would just die. It would be like, I'm going to die. I'm going to die because the person's not coming to feed me. This is not what Alex used to hear right now. So then there's a kind of survival thing. It's like they go, the babies go, this is, I think it was Gabel Marte, who I read

this, they say, oh, it's okay, they are coming. It's not, it's my fault. You know, it's not there to blame. Like, they're not to blame. The baby's not responsibility. The baby, even with that, right, well, I'm never putting it on, though, doubt, again. But this is why it's like a primitive thing to keep us alive because otherwise the moment a baby was like, it would be terrified every time. Like a baby just knows, I'm going to cry and it's okay if the baby does, if the, you know, it's like a weird kind of self-protective thing that we carry through and it's, it serves us in childhood, doesn't serve us when we're 43.

Yeah, okay. That seems like a real design fault that they don't give you like a switch or something that you can just sort of recalibrate. I don't think, like, the baby just is like, oh, you know, it's got, there's a reason the mum can't come and it can't be that the mum's at full. It has to be that I'm a fault. But it's not their fault. This is awful. This is, I know. This is fucking awful.

I love him and I love his work. But that did, that did scare me that because I was like, okay, so every time he makes, my son makes a noise, I'm like, don't hate your self. It's not you. It's not you. It's not you. I love you. Is that we can't, like, the other thing is like, hate to break it to you, right? We will fuck our kids up.

We just will. I know. And us fucking our kids up is how our kids get to go on their own magical fucking journeys. That's true. And I'm not like, I don't want, I don't actually think, how can I fuck my child up this morning so that she can go on her own magical journey? I'm going to give her gravel for breakfast. Of a discovery.

But, you know, every morning I try and be the best parent I am, but I will make mistakes. And, you know, the mistakes that my, you know, like, I've got to the stage now where I'm like, you know, I'm like, oh, thank God my parents, I don't know, didn't talk about mental health or whatever because, I mean, it was not there for it as part of the generation. But I've got to go on this medical journey. Yeah, okay, that helps a bit. Yeah, that is actually, that's a quite nice way of looking at it. Also, I really, like, my job as a parent is not, is like, is also we want to make our, we, we want our children just to be happy. Like, there's that phrase in there that you're only as happy as your least, happy child, whatever. And like, but the whole thing is, is I don't, like, but kids will become unhappy.

And this is at the core of all the conversations about mental health. That actually puts a lot of pressure on the kids, can I just say. Because now I've always said that to me. So it's like, well, I've got to be happy. Then all you else, you won't be happy. And actually, that's a bit fucked up because it's like, well, brilliant. So now I've got to, I've got to plaster a smile on it because otherwise you'll be sad. And then I'll feel guilty that you're sad.

Exactly. Oh my God. That's just gun-clogged all my shit. So like when, and like, if you think back to when you're a kid, it's like, don't cry. Don't be silly. No, you say to try. Do cry. Cry.

Let it all out. I say to my daughter. It's like we teach kids how to be happy. We teach them about happily ever after. But actually what we really need to be doing is teaching them how to be sad. Because that's where resilience comes in. Yeah.

You can't wrap. We can't wrap our children as much as we want to. Yeah, that's so true. Like if it was up to me, my child would be in a bubble of joy. Of joy. Like she's no loud phone until she's 45. Yeah.

You know, she's attached to me. Yeah. like I would have her with me right now sitting on my lap and she's going to be 11 in two weeks and that's exactly where she should be you're right and but like

that's not like she doesn't want to be there that's so true we need to teach them how to be sad that's so true because they are going to be sad at some points like that's shit man so we're going to be sad you know that thing you're only as happy as your

most unhappy child but like I feel like I'm almost I'm also like only as happy as my most unhappy sibling and most unhappy parent as well. Never ends. God, you're a real empath, aren't you? Or codependent. Possibly. We're all thinking it. Yeah, but more likely.

Yeah, I guess it never ends. It might do, though, if you do the work. Yeah, that's true. That's good point. Yeah. But can I ask, sorry, can I like pull us back from like fucking up our kids? I would really, you touched on it before about lockdown and about binge eating and I think this is like the I think of all your work this bringing this conversation will touch so many people because it's so prevalent and so

under talked about and I feel like societyly we've got a lot better awareness now around sort of eating disorders I guess in the context of like how we typically view Like, you know, if you think of an eating disorder, we imagine an anorexic person. And I think to open up the conversation in the way that you have has just been so amazing. But it would be really great if you could tell us about kind of like, I guess, discovering that that binge eating was what you were doing and seeking help and kind of working through that. Yeah, well, I mean, I didn't, I wasn't really aware, you know, like, I think most, there was like an element of. denial. I just thought, oh, this is just something I'm doing to, you know, I think also as an alcoholic in recovery, when the pandemic hit, I was like two and a half years sober. And for me,

the most important thing was don't pick up a drink. Don't pick up a drink. So I think I was like, I was like, there's a saying in recovery, which is you deal with whatever's going to kill you first, you know. And alcohol and cocaine were those things. And I suppose, I was so terrified by what was happening and I and I yeah I started to sort of eat in the middle of the night

I mean it was always in the middle of the night it was never like during the day but I was eating really strange things like basically like raw chorizo cooking chorizo and you know and not just you know

just like I was kind of coming to it was almost like an alcoholic blackout you know towards the end it was like like it was like this is making me feel exactly as alcohol and drugs did towards the end of my drinking and drugging and it was really like a way yeah I would come around and there'd be like packets of hula hoops in the bed next to me rather than my husband you know and um but I was writing this book about um about sort of mental health and how to access mental health care and I was interviewing this eating disorders expert

and she started, she was talking about anorexia and bulimia and of course I have some experience of bulimia I, you know, I suffered from it in my 20s and she said can you also talk about binge eating disorder because that's actually we think probably the most common eating disorder out there and it's just not spoken about and I sort of went oh my God that's what I'm doing

I think because I wasn't purging I sort of thought, oh, that's okay, you know, you're not engaged in bulimia. But actually, I was still doing the binging part, you know. And it was, it was to, I need, I was like I was needing to numb out in some way, you know. Still that thing of like sitting with uncomfortable feelings. It's just like completely like fucking wild to me, you know. And I was like, oh, fuck, this is what's going on, you know. Oh, God, another thing I'm going to have to deal with.

But although, and actually when I thought about it, I thought, oh, actually, this was probably the first thing that I ever, like, food was the first thing I used to kind of change the way I feel back when I was a kid. I used to, like, eat Herta Frankfurters from the, I mean, I don't know what, you know, why it's meat. It was never like, could have been something more conventional, like sugar and sweets and, you know, all of that. But anyway. So, yeah, and I kind of see it as like it was almost a privilege to be able to get to the food stuff because. I had to clear the alcohol and the drugs out of the way, you know? And there was a, I was going to say, a bit of my brain. There was a lot of my brain that was like, oh, another thing that's wrong with you,

Briney. People are bored with hearing about your fucking mental health issues, you know, which I realised was like the voice of like depression and eating disorders and whatever in itself. But like, I realized actually it's not like, in a way, it is a privilege to be able to get to these things. because I had to get sober and then it was like late we talk about like peeling off layers of the onion you know and it was like oh here's another layer coming off here's another thing I have to address but I wanted to write about it because when I first spoke about it on Instagram I got so many messages from women saying I think I have this too and I'm so ashamed because I've put on weight it was always about the weight you know and I was like this is not a weight issue this is a soul issue and if you go into treatment for bingey to you disorder and your only aim is to lose weight, you're never going to get better. Because what we know as well is that, you know, diet culture, I mean, I don't need to tell

you guys this, diet culture keeps us in this sort of pattern of restricting, binging, restricting, binging, restricting binging. So even if you don't have an eating disorder, you know, we all of us would probably admit to some extent, you know, cheat day and treats and like all that whereas it's just like it's just food like and for me I know like as long as I'm using food

to nourish myself as opposed to punish myself in some way I'm okay do you know but like I was using it to punish myself you know

you know we were just talking about Oprah Winfrey coming out and talking about how she's judged for being overweight and then she's judged for losing weight you know

and for me so much of what I do is about going, regardless of my weight, which is none of your business, how much I wage, do you know what I mean? I'm still a human and I'm still as worthy as someone over there who's smaller than me, you know?

And but also, and someone over there who's bigger than me is as worthy as I am, you know? It's like, can we stop looking, can we stop kind of looking at people and judging them from a lens of their bodies because it's kind of like it actually makes the problem worse and if you really want people to be healthy and happy

which I don't think people do I think people want to have I think larger people provide a very good sort of if they didn't exist some other group of people would have to be maligned or whatever

you know people don't I get emails all the time from people going I'm doing this like running challenge and people are like this is going to be terrible for your joints I'm concerned about them I'm like you don't give a shit about my fucking joints like also there's no evidence whatsoever by the way that running has any impact on joints but that's so fucking fascinating that people do that yeah and I'm like no you don't care all you care about is having someone to make yourself feel better yeah no one said that to me about my joints I think that's really

telling it's just like oh my god you were obsessed with your my joints and the thing is and I do have to really like I've had this like tendinitis thing and my brain goes yeah you don't oh it's because you're not that and I'm like no it's because you've been running fucking 50 miles a week but it's really like you're doing two marathons and running between two cities like these people could not even run for the bus and they're sending you this message like really genuinely got this but this is the thing like it's that thing of like because we we need people to judge and women historically have already stepped always stepped in and gone hey yeah i'll be that yeah like we'll judge us come on yeah and i'll just go along with it and

be like okay i make myself smaller so they don't judge me yeah but they at least judge me in a nice way yeah because they're concerned about me fuck that we take it's constructive criticism but like i i just yeah so you know for me it's like i want to be visible but on my terms and i don't want you you know, I just think the energy we put into obsessing about some figure on a set of bathroom scales is like imagine, I mean, I'm not the first person to say this

and I won't be the last, hopefully, but like imagine what we could do if we didn't have that, you know. How do you cope with, how do you, like, what's the recovery, I don't even know, process? When you don't focus on your weight, when obviously it comes you're trying to recover within a culture

that does prioritise it like you say how do you focus on recovery from something that is just intrinsically linked to weight do you know what I mean because you do see changes in your own body and like how do you manage to separate that because I think that's the thing with binge eating that people that makes it so difficult to recover from is not just the stigma

but there's just the idea of recovering without being affected by the way, it just seems really complicated. How do you navigate that? I mean, I again, it's a bit like the other, it's something you have to work at every day. And I think like that being, acknowledging that

and like, wouldn't it be lovely if we could all sort of, you know, we want very much, don't we like neat beginnings, middle, and ends, you know what? And we want people to kind of walk off into the sunset and live happily ever after. But that isn't how life works. So for me, Yeah, every day is a kind of like battle to reprogram decades, decades of kind of indoctrination.

That my worth is linked to the way I look. Like every day I have to go, well, is it? Yeah, yeah. Why isn't your worth attached to, I don't know, what, you know, like, I don't know, like, just to the fact you're a human being. and you deserve all human beings are equal. If you tried to explain it to an alien,

they'd think that the bigger people would have the most respect because they took up the... They used to. They used to. Yeah, like Henry the 8th. Fatness would be a sign of wealth and health and thinness was poverty

and the side of the other way around, isn't it? And it's not. What fascinating? Like, try to explain that to anyone. It's stupid. I know, I know. It is, yeah, it is, fascinating and I'm sure

one day well you know like just as we look back on like the naughties which I think was like yesterday and it's like no it wasn't babes and some of the stuff that I look at like the magazine coverage of people and I go oh my god did I live through that you know and it's like yeah but I didn't think it was weird at the time and there will be

there will be some sort of way in which we're talking now and in 20 years time our children will be hosting a podcast where they pour over these clips and go, can you believe that how problematic our parents' generation were? Oh, Christ. Imagine Tommy and Arlo.

Yeah, that's exactly that. In this studio being like, our mum's. And they'll be so brave for like sort of breaking them. Yeah, and my daughter, Edie, who'll be like 10 years ahead of them, will be like, guys, I live through it. My mum tried to have me on a lap in that studio. Oh man. So how did you, with your binge eating, what's then you recognize that that's what it was, that it was binge eating? Did you, what did you do?

Well, I got treatment. So I'm, okay. I sort of realized I had to go and work at, it was like, oh, another thing. So I'm lucky because I went to rehab. I have like quite a lot of resources around me, you know, people. So I still see my counselor from rehab. once a month seven years after that's so nice that's great and so like i knew who to kind of it you know i i sort of i attack it like a sort of like i would a physical illness yeah because it is in a way um for me you know i i love support groups for me like and i mean like 12 steps support groups by that you know like i'm i love living in a world like a mini micro world where people talk about this stuff and I'm really lucky to be in recovery where people do and that you know

I am not the last person who got sober and then like immediately cross-addicted to food do you know what I mean? So I had already made kind of network around me where it was like perfectly like oh yeah let's talk about like that's fine you it's food for me it was sex for me it was gam you know like there's any number of things

that's so useful that you had the community but also food is like different like from alcohol I don't have to drink alcohol to live it may have felt like that at the time but I do have to eat food and so you know like the recovery is you know I suppose in if I was to pick up a drink tonight

that would you know that would be a relapse or whatever if I find myself in a binge of food it's a bit like okay you know it's not there's not a sort of yeah because what if you were just really hungry hungry or it was like I know I know it's different but it's harder to distinguish but I think also I think it's it is that like instinctively getting in touch with your body and and like when I want to just binge it's like what's going on babes do you know what and that is what I found I have found this whole time is the hardest thing about recovery from any kind of eating disorder that I've had and I've run the gamut I've cycled through them all is that you can't just abstain like that you can with alcohol and like at times when I've just been on my knees with it just desperate thinking I just wish it was you know and this isn't right to say

and I don't mean that now but I wish it was alcohol so I could just get rid of it completely because it is it's so hard to redefine a relationship and I don't know why making this all about me but this episode but like your podcast it's your podcast yeah but food has always been the most can we just for a second quickly that is really important because as women we always feel we need to say that when we're coming in with a perfectly valid point I don't want to make this all about me does that make sense

yeah I don't know if I'm making sense like fuck that you're making perfect sense and you're not making it about you you just have your conversation but yeah the food has always been the most probably the most significant and fractious relationship that I've had that has ever existed in my life

and to redefine that as something healthy is It's so hard and something that I think I'll do for the rest of my life. And I think that's important as well. Like you're saying, we like, we like beginnings, middle and ends. We like everything to be like, you know, packaged up nice and neatly with a bow and it's all done and all finish. And it's just not the case, is it? Like, I think I will, in different forms that I will struggle with binge eating probably my whole life, at least managing it.

And also, it's just going, okay, but like, I just, what do I have to do? I have to do today. and I love that yeah and that's that's the 12 step mentality isn't it yeah yeah

that's not this is not wisdom that I made up one step at a time yeah I love that yeah yeah one day at time

one hour at a time if possible one minute at a time yeah yeah you know like I don't have to think about the rest of my life because who knows

like I don't you know who knows who knows what's going to happen this afternoon you know I hope nothing interesting that would be nice

that would be nice sweet fuck all could happen for the rest of the day I would be delighted but again I'm not in control you know

like so deep breaths and like we're all doing our best we really are even the people we don't like they're doing their best

that is the most freeing thing in my life knowing that when someone's a twat I'm like oh sad for you because that's your best

yeah and like who knows what's going on in their life yeah yeah it's That's really important to remember that

and annoying sometimes too. I read something the other day it's like when people are twats you have to think like someone's got to do it someone's got to be the twat yeah

but I was kind of like do they though does someone have to be the twat I mean but like they might argue that you're the twat but possibly what a twatty thing to do possibly

like I'm not saying you all like when I go into like you know there's like my point of view there's you know there's someone I remember someone saying to me There's three versions of the truth. There's your version, there's my version,

and then there's the truth. Yeah. That's exactly it. It's so true, isn't it? Yeah. Thank you for talking to us. Oh, thanks. I could stay here in the day.

I know, and I was going to go into something else, and then I was like, you would literally be here all day. But I do, I do know what I have to do this afternoon, which is some work. Yes. Okay. People can buy your book. Yes.

They can if they want. They could get it out of the library as well. Yeah. That's nice. That was nice. As an author, you're like, but they could also... But in an ideal world. You could get out of life you guys, but...

Yes, it's available in all places that you might buy your books from. And we will put a link in the show notes. Thank you so much. And a link to your Instagram so people can follow you. I love following you. I love following both of you. And you'll be... Yeah, I mean, running...

They can cheer you on at London Marathon as well. You've got Brighton Marathon. You've run from Brighton to London, and then you've got London Marathon. Yeah. Your joint's going to be all right. I'll give a joint on. update a long way. It's such a long way, Brianie. You're mad. No, that is a fucking

I know. I think I just wrote a book called Mad Woman. Like, well, like, what? Why? You don't go to show that because why not? Exactly. Why not? I'm I'm a size 18 to 20 and I can do this. Yeah, you fucking can. Do you enjoy it?

Does anyone really enjoy? I enjoy finishing. I enjoy the end of a run. Like, yes, I did that. Yeah. I didn't know how you do it, Brian. It's weird, isn't it. like honestly i just i've got to the point now i'm like why am i fucking doing this again again as well like one time you fool me once shame on you fool me twice i know i know i know i know i full you feckin ten million times there's no hope well listen if my joints hold up

afterwards then um maybe i'll i'll move to something else if you're worried about briny you know you can send her an email she takes them really well address in the show notes Well, look, good luck with all you, both of you, good luck with the marathons. I will be cheering you both on from the comfort of my sofa. Fair fucks. It's my popcorn. Can you go and watch us? I will definitely come.

I'll definitely come. I like watching. Could you bring the popcorn with you? Yes. Yes. And the sofa. And throw it in the mall. Oh, that would be nice.

Bryant, thank you so much. Thank you. You. You're the best. Second time. Thank you. Bye. Should I delete that is part of the ACAS creator net.

work.