The Netmums Podcast - S1 Ep17: Bryony Gordon on juggling your own mental health needs with being a mum

Episode Date: January 12, 2021

Listen as Annie and Wendy discuss parenting with Bryony, author of new book, No Such Thing as Normal. Listen as she shares how she parents daughter Edie, and what it's like being friends with the 'very normal' Harry, Meghan and Archie. Could there be anyone nicer than Bryony? We don't think so.

You're listening to Sweat, Snot and Tears, brought to you by Netmums. I'm Annie O'Leary. And I'm Wendy Gollage. And together we talk about all of this week's sweaty, snotty and tearful parenting moments. With guests who are far more interesting than we are. Good morning, Sweat, Snot and Tears crew. How are we this morning? We have had no sweat, no snot and no tears, which is a world record in our house.

Wendy, what's happening in yours? We've also had no sleep. Oh, times who is the culprit this time the smallest she woke up at one o'clock with a sore throat which then turned into wanting cowpoll which then turned into wanting something else and so I've not had any sleep and I've had about 42 cups of coffee this morning. So good luck, Briony. I apologise. Well, I mean, I want, she sounds like me. I wake up wanting cow pole and then I want something stronger. By about 9am. So yeah, when does you set the cat out of the bag?

Our guest this week is the fabulous, amazing, we love her, Briony Gordon.iny gordon welcome briny oh thank you for having me oh anytime we've wanted you for ages um now i didn't know that you didn't ask me um have you had any sweat snot or tears in your household this morning yet um it's not a bit of snot a bit of snot um My daughter's got a bit of a cold. That's like, wow, wow. Everyone's like, God, that's fantastic. That's fascinating, Bryony. And I was supposed to go out and sweat

because I like to do a little run, but I woke up. Oh, someone's at the door. Should I shut up? No, go on. Can you take that out? Whose phone is that? It's Bryony's door.

Is it Bryony's door? It's not my door, no. Oh. Oh, God, that's my phone. Hold on, sorry. I'm just going to go and stop that. What is going on? Hello?

Hi there. Where's she gone? Just a sore throat. Uh-oh. It's a school. Oh, no. It's she gone? Just a sore throat. Uh-oh, it's a school. Oh, no. That's happened before. Yes, this is the second time. We've had a school phoning with a potential COVID case.

I'm absolutely gripped. Can we keep all of this in? Oh, no, I really want to know what's happened now. Uh-oh. Are the bubble beans sent home? Is she being told off for sending her child to school with a sore throat? I think that might be it, yeah. Or it's the doctor.

But she didn't have a temperature, so surely you're allowed to send in with an ailment as long as it's not the temperature, right? You can send them in with their arm hanging off. Yeah. Maybe she's just going to go. Go to school and not tell us. Anything can happen.

It is gripping. It is. Do you think maybe it's the doctor calling her? Right, I'm back. It was the school. Go on. It's the doctor calling her? Right, I'm back. It was the school. Go on. It's the classic. So my little girl has a sore throat, as we know,

because she woke up in the night. Yeah. It was the school phoning me to tell me that there's a new policy that you're not allowed to give them cowpoll before they go to school because it could mask a temperature. And so if they have anything that requires cowpoll, you shouldn't be sending them in. So what are you supposed to do, go and get her? I'm supposed to go and get her, but I've basically just said it's the nativity today. And the reason she's in is because she was weeping

so hard at the thought of not being in the nativity, having practiced for five weeks. And it's just a sore throat and she's fine and did they believe you i don't know i the school secretary is something of a i think they're all um relatively terrifying creatures school secretary so i think they train them at the same place where they train medical secretaries who are also basically vicious beasts sorry if there are any medical secretaries listening i just want to come in and say why did you tell them that she had the sore throat and she'd taken the cowpoll? Because we sent some cowpoll in so they could give her another shot

just before the nativity to keep her going. That was your error. That was your error. Foolish woman. Just tell her to woman up and get on with it. Get her big girl pants on and soldier through. I'd like to say for the podcast record and to apologise to my husband

who told me this would be the case. And I poo-pooed him and here I am. He was right and I was wrong. So will they leave you alone now? I hope so. I apologise for all the phone ringing. That's all right if it rings again though. God, this could run and run. Right, come on, let's get it back on track. Bryony, I want to to know do you always exercise in the morning yeah i tried not always but but like every other morning but this morning

i woke up and i'm like i don't know about you but i think it's because i'm i'm now probably possibly entering perimenopausal stage oh i think we're all there Brian no we're not I refuse to believe it I'm never going to be no no uh I but I woke up and I was like at that stage of my period where if I move it's like like how do I put this delicately for people that might be listening to this just say it like my my period's so heavy so heavy that I basically have to just stay lying down on my beds that's my excuse anyway for not being able to go out for a run it's no it's it's completely coincidental that it happens to be blowing a gale and it's windy and rainy but um yeah I think this is quite interesting because I've been charting this over the last few months

in my cycle there are times when I exercise loads and then times in my cycle I just can't make myself do you think there is a link between hormones and being arsed basically yeah I think there's a link I love this thing where like as teenage girls we learn this thing of like oh she's just hormonal like there's no just about hormones hormones are the most powerful chemicals known to humankind do you know what I mean yes and they do affect us massively and I'm really I've really got in tune with all of that so tell me what the morning routine is like in the Gordon household is it frantic or are you one of those awfully organised people for whom mornings just float by in serene,

I can't think of the word, just serenity? I'm a morning person and I didn't used to be. Can I just caveat that with so people don't go, oh God, we don't want to listen to this. So wait, did you make yourself become a morning person or did it just happen upon you? It happened, well, it happened when I got sober so I wasn't a morning person because I was uh an active alcoholic that has like I don't know if anyone out there listening but like when you are permanently hungover mornings are not your friend but I got sober uh three and a half years ago and

it's it's amazing you get tired at the end of the day who knew right you get tired at the end of the day and when you don't have alcohol like the sort of pep you up when you don't pep you up with that sugar you just you naturally kind of wind down and want to go to bed. So I'm usually in bed by about nine reading, again, fascinating anecdotes I'm giving you here. But so it means I wake up really early. And I liked, I kind of have this thing, I tell you what it is, guys, as someone who has experienced mental illness, and all of that stuff, I find that if I don't, I always remember hearing this once when I was in a really bad place. And it was the Archbishop of Canterbury on Desert Island Discs, right? Here we go. Justin Welby.

And he was talking about, he had this terrible tragedy where his daughter was killed in a car crash, I think. And he was talking about how faith had got him through. And he had this saying that he, and I remember hearing him say it, and he said, attack the day, don't let it attack you. And that really summed up for me. And obviously, even though I haven't experienced that awful tragedy, it was felt very helpful, actually, as a thing to say to anyone who's experienced mental illness and I or mental health issues and I find if I don't take control of my day as soon as my eyes open it'll take control of me and pretty quickly I can be you know lying in my own sweat and self loathing so I've learned very much that I have to get up and get on. And even when I don't want to, and let me make this very clear.

I mostly don't want to. It's not like I spring out of bed like a Disney princess with birds flying around my shoulders. Morning! But I know that I will feel better for it, even if I don't feel like it. And so I kind of guess I've had to program myself into that and I did read something recently about how like the first how you spend the first 10 minutes of your day totally like sets the tone sets the tone for the rest of the day so I am I've learned through a lot of um fuck ups can I say that I don't know and failures and not that I have to be a morning

person it makes a change Bernie that someone's swearing other than me to be honest go for your life make me sound better but also I I only have one child and I think that that makes a massive difference how old is she now she's seven and and is she a morning child yeah she is i mean aren't all children morning no because i've got one i've got one lark and one owl the six-year-old bounds out of bed at like five if she's allowed whereas the nine-year-old cries at eight and says i can't get up i can't i. I'm not ready. Well, it's interesting. So yeah, mine are a mixture. She's a definite lark. And my husband is not a morning person.

Like he may even still be in bed. Like he's better. Especially since he's in the house. Like everyone's, you know, because he has to work from home. And I've noticed he's got as this pandemic has has dragged on his wake-up time has got like later and later later and later and I'm like you are gonna have a shock to your system when you have to go back into an office I don't know if you had this but like having to return to an office after maternity leave yeah that's what I feel this this year it's been like a maternity leave but you've had to work through it yes that's exactly what it's been like it's a very good

analogy yes yeah maternity leave with homeschool it's like I don't know it's like all of the shit bits of maternity leave and none of the good bits yeah none of the coffee mornings and yeah none of the coffee mornings and also like all of the the worst bits like losing your confidence because you're not having those interactions with people you know you're so right i'm quite interested by this how's lockdown been for you because obviously the the kind of the mental health charity would you call it a charity it's not officially a charity but it's a not-for-profit okay but that's all about connecting people when they're not feeling great to have a chat and move basically so how does lockdown affect you when

that's what makes you feel good I have a real um in fact I've written an entire book about this because I'm really fascinated this is called no such thing as normal oh yeah I was going to ask you about that later yeah it's all the things I've learned about being mentally well from being mentally ill, basically. And the idea came to me at the beginning of lockdown because I was so fascinated. But when I was a child, I had really, I had an obsessive compulsive disorder to the point

that I couldn't leave the house for long periods of time. And I was scared that I had got an illness that I was going to pass on to my family and I had to sleep with my toothbrush under my pillow and I washed my hands you know so obsessively until they bled and what was really interesting to me was that when this happened I wasn't in the least bit concerned obviously I was concerned but I didn't have that, my anxiety levels weren't there. Which is good. Yeah, but also what I learned was, what I realized was that all of the people I knew who had experienced some sort of mental health crisis

were actually taking it in their stride, you know? This notion that the whole, the world was shutting down like bit by bit in sort of slow motion. You could see it coming towards you, right? Yeah. And so the people that I knew who had experienced mental health crisis,

like my friends who had been in, my friends from sobriety or, you know, people that had experienced very terrible depressions or breaks from, you know, they were okay. And then the people that I always knew, the people I'd known who had always appeared to breeze through life, who hadn't experienced any of that,

they were the ones who really struggled and became very anxious and panicky. And the weirdest thing was that they started coming to us. Say help, help. To give me advice. And I thought this was so fascinating. And it was like this kind of curious inversion of norms, right? But also, so I realised that all of the things that I had thought were flaws and failures and that made me a bit of a freak I realized were actually more like

superpowers right and that really came to the forefront of my mind when I was at the beginning of lockdown and that's how I came up with the idea for the book because I was like actually it's only through mental illness that I have learned so much about mental wellness, you know, and how to keep myself not sane, but you know, somewhere close to it. And so I really wanted to explore that. How can the things that we always perceive about ourselves as being negatives, how are they actually positives you know and so in that respect going into lockdown I felt kind of fine you know I wasn't panicked I sort of had this I had I'm very much I think people that have had mental health issues we very much have like prepper

mentalities I've always but no but like I've been preparing for the end of the world like my whole life like the world was always about to end in my head you know and and I'm not talking about like a zombie apocalypse or whatever but just like I always lived in this intense fear that I was the worst person in the world that you know I was gonna be say if you're having a crisis you really want someone with really bad anxiety on your team because they'll have thought through every scenario and made a plan for it already anyway and so they'll just be ready to kick in with it but this is the thing so like i i had thought you know my world was going to end because i was you know i had an abusive boyfriend or my world was going to end because i was in a terrible

depression and i couldn't imagine when it was going to clear my world was going to end because i was in active alcoholism and addiction, you know, all of those reasons. So when the world as we knew it actually started to end and we all had to like lock down for the greater good of humanity. I was like, this is a walk in the park, you know, like a general lockdown is easy compared to the lockdowns that, of course, we, you know, people that I've experienced in my head by myself right yes but then yes because at least we're all connected through this right you're not suffering on your own yeah but I and there's a big but here because I think that the other thing that as this pandemic has gone on and I think it is really just it's's clear it's really, really bad for mental health, right? So, you know, the loneliness and isolation, but the thing I've always said is that all mental

illnesses, what they all have in common is that they thrive in isolation. So they isolate you, right? So they tell you you're a freak. They tell you that you're alone. They tell you that no one, no one understands what you're going through and they're like it's like if you imagine like a the culture of silence like an abuser right that's how they get their claws in right but actually the truth is that not only is there someone out there who understands what you're going through there's someone out there right now who is going through what you're going through okay and once you can blow a hole in that and you can go out and meet other people and connect, you're not cured, obviously, but you are on the road to recovery.

And what I have learned as an alcoholic in recovery, as someone who's had obsessive compulsive disorder since they were sort of 10 or 11, is that what I realized was I came into lockdown and I had this kind of like bank of well-being right that was really it was full it was topped up it was like I had a little savings account as well I was like yeah because I've done so I've done so much work on myself I've been to rehab I've done therapy I go to a I go so 12 step meetings three times a week do you know what I mean I'm yeah I'm pretty like but as as lockdown has gone on that bank has been very badly depleted right because I can't go to 12-step meetings anymore my therapy is all online and you know

and I'm not interacting with people and so now I'm like slightly in debt I've realized that you know it's so insidious like depression and anxiety and all sorts of other you know it really creeps up on you and it has a voice that is indistinguishable from your own so you think it's you and so the bits of lockdown that I really welcomed like the bits where I was like oh actually I'm really glad that my diary's emptied and I don't have to go into town on the tube and and have inane meetings and you know I don't have to stand up on the stage and do all those things that have always terrified me I realize that actually isn't me that's the unwell bit of me like who I call retreat retreat isolate isolate yeah you call what I call him

Jareth the Goblin King um oh I love it I love that it a name. I love that it's a man as well. Well it's like, I don't know if you've seen Labyrinth, so Jareth and King is the David Bowie character who as a child I always felt he's evil but ever so slightly enticing and that sort of summed up my OCD. And so Jareth, like and I first named him in my second book Mad Girl which is all about my OCD and Jareth, he's become a sort of recurring character because he's not just my OCD, but he's also now like my alcoholism. But Jareth at the beginning of lockdown was like, get in, boys. This is brilliant. And he has this voice that's really similar to mine.

Not that I sound like David Bowie when I sing or anything like that. And I think that that's me. I think, yeah, I'm happy with this. This is me. I don't want to see anyone. State-sanctioned isolation, get in. But actually, I realized over lockdown, sort of unpacked his bags, got comfortable in the forefront of my brain.

And as a result, I've had a few issues. I was very bulimic in my 20s, as opposed to a little bit like you either are or you aren't. And though that didn't come back up, the binging certainly did. And I just started treatment actually for binge eating disorder. And because I could see that I was like losing myself in food. I was numbing myself in the food in the same way that lots of people were numbing themselves with alcohol. Do you know what I mean? Because it was like a, I hate to say this, it sounds so dramatic, but it was a bit, it was like a traumatic event, right? Yeah, of course. So, you know, like, I think it's not been fantastic for my

mental health, but that's to be expected. And what I do know is that it's another, it's just another run on the ladder that is my mental health and my journey. I hate, I just can't, I hate that I just said the word journey, but you know, it is what it is. And this is the great thing about having experienced mental illness and having done, having been privileged enough to be able to do the work for it is that I can deal with what life throws at me. Do you know what I mean? So life decides it's going to, you know, I'm going to have this experience like everyone else where we're all locked down

and then my bad coping mechanism for it, where devoid of my good coping mechanisms, I decide to numb myself, but I'll work it out and I'm getting some help for it. And so that's okay, you know. I'm in a really privileged position because I can afford to do that, you know, but, and I have the knowledge and the, you know,

I've got the, through my work, not because I'm like, you know, brainier than anyone, just through what I do to know where to go. But like, I'm aware that there are loads of people out there that don't have that privilege. Like they can't afford to just get, you know, they don't know where to go for help. And then they can't afford to have to go, they can't afford to pay for the help. The help isn't necessarily always available. It is available on the use the platform I have to kind of like campaign for people that don't you know everything I've learned to try and change things so really I think the thing that I've worked out in lockdown which is kind of at the center of this book is is trying

to kind of help people how to access what is there and how best to get in there and or even how to make the things happen for free like you know mental health mates you don't have to pay for it do you no no it's free so I've I really saw during lockdown that need people had for help and for connection and and I and I saw as well you know the I could see the kind of the effects that, you know, on an anecdotal level, that this was not going to have a great effect on people's mental health. And I, so I guess with this book, I sat down and I spent like quite a lot of my lockdown, I spent on the phone or on Zoom to people working in the NHS, in the mental health sector, but also paramedics social workers interviewing them to find out the advice they

would give to people like the best way to get help in the system and what there is because I I realized you know the focus on the NHS and what was there it made me realize that it's in our physical it's in our DNA written into our DNA what to do when we are physically unwell, or when our child has a fever, you know, for a few days, we know, we know what to do. But we don't, it's not written into our DNA, what to do if we find ourselves in mental health crisis, or someone we love is. And so I suppose I've spent lockdown trying to unpick that, and put it into this book, so that people can, so it's not just the things I've learned, but it's also what is there, because we hear so much about mental health provision being really bad.

That in itself isn't very helpful if you're in crisis. No, because you feel like you've lost the battle before you've even begun. Yeah, exactly. So I was like, yeah, but there is stuff there and how do we access it?

And the more that we access it, the more that the people in the NHS can go up higher and say, look at all these people that need this. You need to give us more money. So I'm sort of, yeah, making the case that every time someone asks for help, they're being like an activist in a way. They're being like a mental health advocate because they help every single person out there, you know, who might need help in the next 10 years or whatever. I've really gone off topic there. No, you haven't. Wouldn't it be amazing if this was taught in schools wouldn't it be amazing if you left school knowing how to advocate for yourself and for others when it comes

to mental health and how to get help when you need it also wouldn't it be amazing if we just taught kids like this is the other thing I talk about like if we just taught kids how to feel their feelings it's a very simple thing I don't know about you but when I grew up if I cried the instinct instinctive reaction from my wonderful parents who I love dearly but it was don't cry yeah absolutely come on you're okay it's all gonna be fine yes yes yeah and and actually you know I have to remind myself and say to my daughter when we're at home i have to say to her actually do cry you know cry get it all out let's get this out let's talk about it whatever and yeah we sort of teach kids how to live happily ever after but life isn't like that no sadly they're

all going to come up against some big struggle at or more at some point in their lives we've got to teach them how to deal with it yeah of course and and the best way to deal with it is to just deal with it and not to ignore it and i think yes when you grow up thinking that happy is the only goal is normal yeah and happy is like and that all other emotions are sometimes bad you know obviously happy is great like happy is you know it's a wonderful thing to be but the idea that you could be it all the time and that if you're not happy you're sometimes a failure is it's the thing that makes us actually it's it's it leads to so much unhappiness so so how do you teach your daughter this we like we're big believers in the feelings wheel in our house we have it pinned to

the fridge and we i make them get it down and say like how are you feeling right now how do you do it with your daughter well i just i think i don't so much do things like that because I'm really bad at crafts and I can't draw things and so she'd be like what is that is that a feelings what is it mom what is it um but I just taught I just I try to kind of I don't undermine the way she's feeling you know obviously I'm not like oh my little darling is crying everything must stop but it's sometimes really hard though because if they're crying over the fact that their Weetabix has milk on or their Cheerios are the wrong colour or whatever it might be sometimes it's hard as a parent not to be,

you can't always validate their feelings is what I guess I'm saying. But I think if you're in tune with your feelings, you're much more likely to be able to go, okay, babes, or whatever you call your child. Like you seem to be really frustrated here about your Cheerios, okay? I don't think it's about the Cheerios is it like what's going on

is there something else worrying you do you want to have a chat about it and maybe if you just eat the Cheerios you'll you'll feel a bit better and we can we can have a proper chat about it like obviously no it's bloody annoying when they decide that you know the world is ending because they can't find their Salvanian or whatever. But what I mean is, is it's, it's about kind of holding them in that moment because kids will have tantrums over things we think are stupid, but it's like being able to hold them in that moment and kind of work out and just to let them have it. And, but also let them know that, you know, you're there if they want to talk about anything else you know obviously you don't want to like let a child believe that they can just go out and have a

tantrum every time they get they don't get something they want that's a but it's you know I think if you're more a more sensitive to a child you know children it's the world is a scary place and remember when you were a child, like everything you felt, you're feeling it for like the first time and you don't have the context and you need to be a bit guided through it. I used to be, believe it or not, the most painfully shy little girl. And the thought of going to like birthday parties or whatever absolutely filled me with horror I would be anxious about it for like days before and you know perhaps get upset about it you know and it may seem silly to a parent but you have to remember that what it feels it feels so real when you're little yeah yeah um yeah having

a validating feeling is massively important isn't it because it's only then that you can move through it isn't it but also i think you can steer them through tantrums you know okay should we breathe should we try breathing and then if they don't you know if they still want to continue having a tantrum then you can my son was having a meltdown yesterday and i said right let's breathe should we do let's do 10 deep breaths we got to like three and he's like i'm fine now i'm okay let's just move on there you go see great but we had to introduce a code word oh yeah I love that you do this Wendy it's brilliant go on tell her so my oldest daughter there'd be she's nine now by any so she's getting into that stage where there are feelings that she that probably are hormonal that she just feels meh

and she can't tell us why and it means she'll be being mean to her sister and grumpy. And so basically now, if she's feeling like that, she comes and tells us that she feels flamingo. Word of her choosing. And all it means is that she knows she feels off kilter. She knows she's not quite right, but she doesn't yet know how to make that better. So please, could we not shout at her because she's not being grumpy because she's being grumpy she feels flamingo and then we usually

throw food at the situation first of all to see if it's calorie deficiency and you know that kind of thing but it's working really well actually that's a good idea I feel like my experience as a child like we can't stop children from feeling bad things and we can't stop children from experiencing mental illness like I a mental illness is that our brain misfiring in the same way that all our other organs might misfire over our lifetimes you know and usually they're misfiring to try and protect us in a kind of in a misjudged way. So I now realize that my OCD as a child was my way of trying to keep myself safe. But it obviously didn't work,

you know, but there's, there are sort of all sorts of primal reasons that our brains can respond in slightly skew if ways, which I kind of write about in the book. But I know that if when I was a child, I didn't't not only I felt like a freak because I felt these things but if I then also didn't feel like a freak because I I had no idea how to kind of talk about them to someone do you know me like I didn't I just I was completely alone in my head and because there was no vocabulary for mental health in the in the early 90s late 80s and there was no kind of you know there wasn't really any provision at all and you know my parents didn't know what to do and so I just was the difficult child you know and there are so many

difficult children you know whose lives grow up to be blighted because there wasn't the help or the understanding out there yeah the understanding to deal to deal with conditions which actually we know are incredibly treatable if you get them you know and and so what happens is difficult children are you know our prisons are populated with people who would have been deemed difficult children do you know what I mean? Like addiction, alcoholism, it's all of that stuff. And it becomes this sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. And actually, it's something that is quite normal, actually. Obviously, it's complicated. And it's not as easily quantifiable as a physical health issue.

But it is treatable, and it is doable. And there are ways we can get through it. But the only way we know how to do this is if we all talk about it more. Do you know what I mean? And we shout about it and we let the government know that there needs to be more funding for it. I'll shut up now. I'm going. No, no, no. This is brilliant.

So is your daughter aware of your mental health struggles um in so much as she knows that mummy can't drink alcohol because she's allergic to it and she's like what happens if you drink it mummy and I'm like well I go a bit mad and run through the streets naked and she's like but she was like yeah please don't drink it mummy but she was like because i did run a marathon in my underwear i remember i was gonna ask you about that i was totally sober uh i had to confuse your seven-year-old right there she was like she was like is that why but you do that and now mama even though you don't drink i'm like okay we'll forget that analogy um but yeah so we talk about it and she knows that i have you you know, therapy and I take medicine.

But I don't have sit down conversations. No, but it's just part of daily life. Yeah, exactly. You know, I hope she knows that she can come and talk to me and if not me, someone else, because it doesn't have to be me. But in the same way that she would, you she has a headache or whatever or a or a sore throat or you know um that's my aim really I don't for a moment think that I can protect her from the um complicated nature of life but I do hope that when she comes up against it as she inevitably will I uh she'll feel that she's got somewhere she can go and be held through those experiences.

God, I sound like some right wanker, don't I? No, no. So what I was going to, if someone said to me, tell me about Brian in a nutshell, I would say that you're someone who's basically taken on the challenge of dispelling the myth of normality and just embracing what life really is. Is that what you'd say you're about? I think so. I think that we all go around trying to put ourselves in the box mark normal. And, of course, there are some people who hate to be described as normal

or whatever, you know, but they are by and large in the minority, right? Yeah. I always say, like, how many layers am I going to have to get dressed in this morning so I can put myself in the box mark normal you know um there are so many things that we think make us really weird you know that we think are freakish but actually when you speak them out loud you realize they're really common so you know an example being the binge eating and I put a post up on Instagram because I was going to ask you about this actually because

I think it's so common I think it's it is it's the most common eating disorder there is out there but because we think eating disorders are about restricting food not binging yeah and of course they're actually two sides of exactly the same coin those things but it's been normalized you know sex in the city or friends or whatever. If you were feeling sad, you watched the people in those shows sit and eat a whole tub of ice cream to make themselves feel better. It's become something almost that's been normalized as a coping mechanism. I feel like it's always been a coping mechanism. I don't think I think that food is the first thing as as humans that we learn we can have power with so our

parents try and feed us broccoli we chuck it on the floor yeah so it's very deep rooted within us you know um and it's often when you speak to people it's like you speak to alcoholics or addicts and recovery they will tell you that actually their first addiction was food you know they'd sneak off and hide something you know and eat these things in their bedrooms and as kids and um and certainly it was the same with me and I I think it's it's incredible and then you kind of throw in the the the societal expectations of how you should look and you've got a sort of recipe for disaster right but and actually I'm surprised that more of us don't have eating disorders really but um so I I think that I think that it's so I also think it's totally okay if you do want to comfort yourself with a tub of ice cream like I'm I think I'm I'm kind of on that

that I just said journey again you did I'm on that journey thinking in a minute but I'm trying to kind of learn that foods aren't good or bad and that actually that I that I don't want to punish myself with food I want to nourish myself with food because that that's the point of food right yeah and but also I think it's really important as as women especially that we realize that like our worth is not reflected in what the bathroom scales say you know so like i think this really came up to me because my husband went on this like massive health drive in lockdown and uh lost has lost a lot of weight and people go oh god he's harry just looks amazing with this kind of reverence and i'm like yeah he does but i'm like he's not a better person because he's lost two stone do you know what i mean or you know and i and i think that we i am as my you

know like i always think it's all of our souls are supposedly weigh 21 grams yeah that was some weird experiment that went in the 1900s someone some doctor put dying people on the table and then weighed them before and after they died and found that there was a difference of 21 grams and he claimed that that was the soul that was the soul leaving the body right so you know i suspect that might now not stand up to scientific rigor but what it does i think it's a useful thing to remind ourselves that all souls are equal right yeah regardless of what the rest of the body happens to weigh you know but we are so caught up in this kind of and people feel so much shame about the about the food stuff you know but we are so caught up in this kind of and people feel so much shame about the about the food stuff you know not looking the way they should be being too fat or too thin and it's

also misleading I remember many means ago I was going through a really traumatic time and when I'm upset I don't eat like I just can't like my body just won't let me and so I'd lost loads of weight and I remember at one point two people in the office I was working in were like oh my god you're looking amazing well done like and I remember thinking I feel like I'm about to die I'm having the most upsetting traumatic time of my life and yet you think I look amazing this is insane but that's often what happens isn't it yeah absolutely I think that I'm sort of as I as I get older my thing is is that I people do what they want to do do you know what I mean I don't I won't judge

or anything like that but I just want to live a life where I have enough positive coping mechanisms in my life that I don't feel the need to kind of regularly lose myself in something be it food or drugs or alcohol or whatever you know and occasionally it's okay like the world ain't gonna but I don't know it's difficult because I'm still exploring it so much in fact as soon as I get off this podcast I have a session with my CBT ED specialist yeah and but I I wanted to put it out there because I wanted to know that there were other people out there like me who did it I guess and lo and behold there are a lot and I and it makes me feel like okay I can do this this is just this is a normal brain human response to sort of quite an ordinary human response to extraordinary human events i

think do you know what i mean and so and once i do that i feel like it has a little less power over me it's like okay we can get through this we can do this this is just like this is the 2020 you know chapter of the book well when you finish your cbt you'll have to come back on and tell us all how to do it that's the next thing oh no i don't want to become like I don't think I don't think you'd want CBT from me it'd be awful but um you know it's it's interesting and I don't have any shame in talking about it in fact I have the more I talk about these things the less shame I feel about them if that makes sense absolutely great because shame is at the root of a lot of evil yeah yeah That's what they said to me when I went into rehab, into treatment. And you have to sort of sit around and talk about the worst things that happened to you when you were drinking and using.

And I was like, I don't want to, you know. I don't want to go there, thanks. I remember a counsellor saying, Bryony, shame dies when you expose it to the light. And it's so true. I remember going, okay, I can do this. But it's sort of my mantra for life. Now, I'm known for doing this, but I'm going to lower the tone ever so slightly. Go on. I want to talk about Prince Harry, Briony.

Oh, yes, can we, Briony? We're ever so jealous. What do you want to talk about him? The fact that you scored him for your pod, that's pretty huge. Oh, right. Oh, yes, I did. I did. Hold on, where were you going?

Yeah, where were you going with that? No, I just, I was kind of joking. I'm like, yes, what do you want to discuss? His move to America? Yes, I did get him for my podcast and I have, I love him. I do. I have such a soft spot for him.

To me, he'll always be that little boy. I just get on with him well. He's got that, I don't know, I feel, I remember when I first met him properly, because I was doing this work with Heads Together and I ran the marathon for them the first time. And Heads Together was their mental health campaign. And there was just, you know, when you just meet that person you're like oh yeah he gets it

and I don't know why he gets there but and every time I met him we just had a laugh and I was like I'm just gonna ask him if he'll do my podcast so did you just ask and he said yes and it would that was it basically yeah it's a very good lesson in if you don't ask you don't get right well that's what I told myself I was like what's the worst that's going to happen he's going to say no of course he's going to say no and were you surprised by how candid he was or did you kind of have this inkling that he got it so you knew he would be I suspected that I was I don't know I I know I was surprised I didn't I thought I was gonna get a sort of generic chat about the importance of talking about mental health and then when I got there he was like oh can we just do it the two of

us like not have any other people in because I'm gonna tell you I just want to be comfortable and then I was like okay he's he's gonna say something but I but I also wasn't surprised that he said what he said given everything he's been through you know, indeed. But I love him and I love her and they're lovely. And I have, you know, I mean, I don't know them that well, but I know them. I know you're making it sound

like you hang out all the time, jetting across to California. Well, you know them more than us, by any chance. No, I have hung out with them. Like, you know, I've been to their house. I've not, you know.

Check it out, Bryony. You're so in the know. But seriously, because it makes me laugh when I see all the stuff in the newspaper about them. Because I'm like, they just, it doesn't translate for me. Because I'm like, I've been there and they've been like, oh, me Archie.

And I've like bounced him up and down on my knee and nearly dropped him. You know, they're just normal. It's like this. They're just people, yeah. They are. And I think if you put any family under a microscope, you'd come up with similarly fantastic takes on what's going on.

Well, if the newspapers wanted to write about any of us all day, every day, imagine the stuff they'd dredge up or conclusions they'd come to. Do you know what I mean? Like no one can withstand that amount of scrutiny. No one. No, no, I don't. But I also think that, you know, that podcast really was a moment. It was a game changer. Like someone that huge revealing something that significant is is a big deal and I'm forever grateful that he uh he chose to do that with me and I think the fact that he chose to do it with like um you know someone who's not perfect and who's very flawed and very honest about those flaws was also a real kind of like that, I think.

Coup, yeah. Well, no, but I think it tells you what you need, you know, it tells you the... The measure of the man. Yeah, like it just, it was all very organic. Oh God, it's worse than journey. Riley, what are you turning into? So tell us something about him

that we would be surprised by or that we we don't know it sounds I think I think they've had it so tough I find it especially in light of the recent news that Megan had a miscarriage we all feel for her and yet they're still just dragged through the press and I get that some of it is part of the job but it's not all part of the job so what what do we not know you know what should we all be thinking I don't I genuinely don't I mean I don't know them that well so um I but I guess what I what you don't know what I just said is how normal they are um yeah um and I think there's a generosity and being and sharing those things like the miscarriage because it really does help people oh a huge selfless act like she got so much more scrutiny

for having said it but think of all the people she helped by saying yeah i get this you're not alone um and i yeah so i have huge i have huge respect for that and Me too. And I just think they're great. So we also think you're great, Bryony. Oh, I think you're great. Oh, this is so lovely. How do you want to be remembered? Oh, God, I'm only 40. No, I know.

Let's pretend you're dead. Do you know something I don't? No, but I just think it's a really interesting, it's a good, interesting question to ask someone kind of in their midlife, because it helps us understand why you're doing the things you're doing or where it is you think you're going. Oh, I don't know.

I mean, I don't know. I don't- So you're not a life plan kind of person? Absolutely not. No, if I've learned anything, it's don't have a life plan. If you want make a plan and and then tear it up what's just the universe howls with laughter at you a bit like birth plans really isn't it yeah you think you're in control uh just go with the flow trust you know enjoy enjoy like you know fucking hell life's too short isn't it you know and you never

know and and so i just like i i try not to think actually beyond what i've got to do today because um because i'm because otherwise i get very overwhelmed and start crying there's a tears bit well speaking of which one of our last questions we always ask is briny what's for tea oh my god that's a good question i should know because i'm doing this binge eating thing uh i'll probably have some like chicken rice and vegetables gosh you sound like a supermodel or a celebrities always say that don't they they're just a little piece of steamed fish no it won't be little it won't be little i really mean and it'll be like chicken thighs. There'll be like three or four of them with the skin on and lots of rice. So it won't be little.

No, but I like it. It's like a really nice, bulky, comforting, delicious and nutritious. I think I want that for my tea now. Right, Wendy, I'm going to let you ask the last question because it's a bit embarrassing, but we ask it of everyone and we love it. I'm just going to take a back seat now buckle up Bryony buckle up dear listener I want you to know that she invented this question not me by the way so Bryony you have to imagine as weird as it sounds that you are tucking Annie and I into bed and you have to sing us your lullaby, please. Oh my God.

That's the usual reaction to this question. What do you normally sing when your daughter needs a bit of comfort? I sing cuddles with Edie, cuddles with Edie. There's no better way to spend a day. I love that. Did you make that up yourself?

Yeah, and she goes, cuddles with mommy, cuddles with mommy. There's no better way to start the day. Oh, that's so nice. That's what I do. I don't, I don't, I mean, I'm listening. As you can tell, I'm not a, I'm not a natural singer. You're better than me. I think you did a marvellous job.

So we ask this of every podcast. We've had some very well-known singers refuse. We've had hymns. We've had sort of tucking in rituals instead of lullabies. We've had everything, haven't we, Wend? We have. See BB's features heavily. But you're one of the only self-penned songs.

So we could well see a future career in music, I feel, with Friday Gordon. Puddles with Annie. Puddles with Wendy. There's no better way to spend the day. I am going to put that as my ringtone on my phone. I have to go to therapy now, guys. Yes, go and be therapized and we feel i feel therapized by you i totally feel therapized as well thank you for chatting to me thanks for letting me whitter away well no just keep being brilliant please because the world needs you i need you i need you too thank you i really enjoyed

this it's been lovely and i wish i wish that we could have done it you know with a couple should we do a day-long podcast next time let's let's do it let's just 24 hours i suspect already nobody would listen to us three for a day but would we care no we wouldn't we would just enjoy ourselves all right have a great day bye