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00:00 I feel like if men went through the menopause,
00:02 that's the only thing we'd ever be able to talk about.
00:05 It's so true. It's so true. There'd be conferences all the time.
00:09 There'd be a show presented by Jeremy Clarkson where they tried out different,
00:14 I don't know, HRT or techniques to make life easier for them.
00:24 Hello and welcome to Love Lives, a podcast from The Independent where I, Olivia Petter,
00:30 speak to different guests every fortnight about the loves of their lives.
00:33 Today I am very excited to be joined by one of my favourite writers,
00:38 the best-selling author, award-winning journalist, fellow podcaster, and in fairly reason,
00:43 one of the people who is part of the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing here today.
00:47 It's Briony Gordon!
00:48 Oh, that's the nicest thing ever.
00:51 I have more. I have more.
00:52 So having started in journalism as an intern at the Daily Express,
00:56 Briony has since achieved that rare feat of becoming a very famous journalist
01:00 and penning several books, including The Wrong Knickers, Mad Girl, and now Mad Woman.
01:04 So welcome to Love Lives, Briony.
01:06 Thank you for having me, Olivia. You're a very famous newspaper journalist as well.
01:10 No, don't be silly. No, but I really do mean that because I remember reading The
01:14 Wrong Knickers when it came out... I don't know when, what year did that book come out?
01:18 800 years ago. It came out, do you know what? It came out in
01:22 the 10 years ago. 2014.
01:25 Yeah, so I read that when I was at university and I think that was genuinely one of the things that
01:29 made me feel like I want to go into journalism, which maybe is quite hypothetical actually.
01:34 It's quite dull.
01:34 Given what the book is about.
01:36 I hope your experience was less chaotic than mine.
01:41 As I said that, I realised, I was like, maybe.
01:43 But anyway, that's besides the point. It introduced me to your work.
01:47 Well, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
01:49 So the first question I want to ask you, because I know that this is how you used to start all of
01:53 your episodes of the Mad World podcast, which you did for a while, is how are you really today?
01:58 I am... Okay, how am I really? So I'm good. I'm very aware that I'm in sort of book promo cycle.
02:09 So it's a bit like being on drugs. You know this, you know, like you're sort of running off,
02:14 you're running off like coffee, not drugs anymore for me in my case.
02:18 But that, and it's like I can, I have to be quite careful that I don't sort of spiral and like lose
02:26 sight of what's important, if that makes sense. So I'm good right now because the book seems to
02:33 be doing well. But, and also just, you know, I guess because it's nice, you write about this
02:39 stuff, you know, it's like where you're kind of pouring your heart out onto the page and it's,
02:44 you know, you're writing about quite dark stuff. And then it's good to know that it chimes with
02:51 other people, I guess. And that's like this to me as well, is like the best bit is like meeting,
02:57 meeting the people that read the, you know, read the books because they're like,
03:02 they're my tribe or I'm part of their tribe. I feel like each of the books, like even the
03:07 Wrong Knickers is me sort of saying, if you've been through this, don't worry, I have too. And
03:14 it's okay. And why don't we all hang around this little book together? Because it's better than
03:19 being alone in our homes thinking we're freaks. That's kind of what each book I've written, I
03:23 think, you know, has done. So the Wrong Knickers was like that chaotic period of my twenties
03:30 where I was single and, you know, and, but yeah, just like, clueless, okay to swear.
03:38 Yes.
03:38 You know, and, and not very well, really, for a lot of it. But, and I wrote, I wrote it when my
03:46 daughter, like I literally wrote it on maternity leave. And I thought, oh, I'm through that now,
03:50 my life is saved. Oh, wow.
03:52 I want to come back to that, because that's definitely one of the things I want to ask
03:57 you about. But start us off by telling us about Madwoman, because it follows on from
04:01 your 2016 book, Mad Girl, which was about OCD and your mental health. And so tell us the difference
04:09 and the progression that has brought you from Mad Girl to Mad Woman.
04:13 So Mad Girl, really, for me, it kind of changed my life and my career, certainly. So it's writing
04:21 about this stuff. So I've had OCD since I was a little girl and, you know, really crippling. And
04:30 my, you know, my, you know, we talk about everyone kind of goes, "Oh, I'm a bit OCD,
04:36 you should see my sock drawer." And I was like, "Oh, it's a waste of the sock drawer."
04:39 My husband jokes, "I wish you had the good type of OCD." Because there is no good type of OCD. But
04:45 you know, my OCD has always involved very dark, intrusive thoughts. So I always describe OCD as
04:53 like your brain refusing to acknowledge what your eyes can see. So like that your hands are clean,
04:58 or the oven is off, or the hair straighteners are off, or the bump in the road you've gone over is
05:03 a speed bump and not a child. And it's the same with thoughts. So we all have thousands of thoughts
05:09 every day. And, you know, we are not all of our thoughts. And we've all had that thought, you
05:14 know, what if someone hands you their baby at a party? Like, what if I just throw the baby on the
05:18 floor? Or you're like on the tube? And you're like, what if I just pushed? What if I just jumped
05:21 in front of the tube? But most people we go, "Oh, no, that's obviously I'm not going to do that."
05:26 You know, and we just miss it and we go on with our day. But with OCD, you become so distressed
05:31 by the thoughts, you think that you are, you ruminate on them to check you're not the thoughts.
05:35 So basically, decades of my life was spent like checking that I wasn't a serial killing pedophile.
05:41 You can see why people don't talk about that type of OCD, right? So that was, so I wrote about that.
05:47 And I remember when I pitched the book, and when I like did the breakdown. And I remember someone in
05:53 publishing industry saying, "You can't write about that." And I was like, "No, but that,
05:58 if I can't write that, I can't write this book." And I'm glad I stood my ground on that,
06:01 because it was like this visceral shame. And that sent me, it resonated with a lot of people
06:09 and sent me into this world of mental health campaigning. I set up Mental Health Mates,
06:14 which is a place for people to go for walks and talks together without fear of judgment.
06:20 And I ran the London Marathon, I ran it one year in my underwear to show that exercise is for
06:27 everyone. My whole life sort of changed because of it. But I've also learned a lot about myself.
06:32 And in a way, I was quite naive when I wrote Mad Girl. I definitely thought that mental
06:37 health issues were like, "Oh, it's a chemical imbalance, just take a pill." And there is an
06:41 element of that. But I really realized during the pandemic, when I became very depressed,
06:47 it was really weird because I was like, it was the first time in my life I'd been depressed.
06:51 And I looked around and I'm like, "Everyone else is depressed too. And that's totally appropriate."
06:56 And I started to realize since Mad Girl, that a lot of mental illness and mental health issues,
07:02 they're really appropriate. They're like sophisticated ways of your brain telling
07:06 you that something is not right in your life. And a lot happened to me. I got sober after Mad Girl.
07:14 But then in pandemic, I developed binge eating disorder and the OCD came back really badly.
07:22 And I discovered that I was in early menopause. And there was so much I wanted to write about.
07:27 But really what I wanted to say to people was, I really realized I was like, "Oh my God,
07:32 I've never been mad. I've never been mad." Actually, the subtitle of the book is How
07:38 to Survive a World That Wants You to Think You're the Problem. And I realized I'm not a problem.
07:44 I want to say to women, "You're not the problem, you're the solution, babes."
07:48 And I think we're so gaslit as women, especially into believing that we are the problem. And
07:54 the more I learned about the link between hormones and mental health, also just living in a society
08:00 that is not set up for us in any way still. I'm like, "Of course, so many of us have mental health
08:06 issues." So, yeah, so that's what Mad Woman really is about. It's me saying, "You're not mad.
08:15 You're not a problem. You are the solution." - Yeah. And I also love the way that you have
08:19 differentiated between the meaning of mad in Mad Girl and Mad Woman. Because in Mad Woman,
08:24 you said, "Mad Girl was sort of about mental health and Mad Woman is kind of more about mad
08:30 in the sense of rage." - And, yeah.
08:31 - And female rage, which again is something that we are told to suppress and to withhold.
08:37 - Yeah. Yeah. And even in the, like bringing this book out, I've had to stop myself from
08:42 doing that thing of apologising. Like, "Oh, I'm sorry for promoting my book." And I'm like, "Why?
08:48 Why am I sorry? This is something I've worked on." And I definitely, yeah, the need as well,
08:54 because for me, I realised what OCD is and was, was this kind of very, very extreme way of my
09:04 brain making sure that I was good, that I was a good girl. Because if I could follow these rules
09:10 and check these things, then I wouldn't be bad. And we know as women that being, you know, as a
09:15 girl, being a bad girl is like, you know, like even Rihanna taking that on didn't change things
09:22 that much. And, you know, for me, it was this obsession with being good. Like, I need to be
09:27 good. And that ran through Mad Girl as well. Like, it was like my way of going, "I'm not any of
09:32 these things. I am a good person." And Mad Woman is a bit of me reclaiming it going, "Actually,
09:37 sometimes I am bad. Sometimes I am **** and that is okay, because I'm a human being. And I'm,
09:44 and I don't like the way we hold still women to different standards than we do men." So yeah,
09:50 absolutely. That is the kind of the, the, the rage. I don't, it's not, it's, but it's been so
09:58 revelatory to me that realising that it's okay to be bad, you know.
10:03 Yeah. And one of the things you quote in the book, which is something I always return to,
10:06 because I just find it so ridiculous and hilarious, is the word hysteria comes from the Greek word
10:13 for womb. And you talk about that, it's like, and your friend says, "Well, that, that makes sense."
10:18 But also it's that thing of like, hysterical my arse. Like, like, I always think, you know,
10:24 it's so interesting with all the chat about menopause now, you know, and you can see there's
10:28 starting to be a backlash about all the, you know, about the chat and from women as well.
10:35 Um, sorry, I'm just, from women who, um, older women who've gone through it and go, "Well,
10:40 it was fine for me. You're making a bit of a fuss about nothing." And I'm like,
10:44 I'm like, "Okay, lucky you if you sailed through it and there were no problems, brilliant. But like,
10:49 can you accept that that's not the case for all women?" And I was like, I sort of, I feel like
10:56 if men went through the menopause, that's the only thing we'd ever be able to talk about.
11:02 You know?
11:02 It's so true. It's so true. There'd be like conferences all the time.
11:06 There'd be like a show presented by Jeremy Clarkson where they like, tried out different,
11:10 I don't know, HRT or, you know, techniques to like, make life easier for them. Like, I just,
11:16 I feel, I feel so acutely, this is still such a huge issue. And we like to think,
11:22 "Oh, it's the year 2024, you know, we've gone forward." And I'm like, I mean, not enough.
11:27 No, definitely not enough. I mean, one of the things that you mentioned just then was the binge
11:31 eating and how that developed in lockdown. And in one of the chapters, I'm going to quote,
11:35 because you write it so brilliantly, you write, "In the dark, I eat, I eat, and I eat, and I eat
11:40 until there are threads of chorizo stuck in my teeth. And my throat is dry from all the salt
11:45 in the jerky and I feel suitably sedated. Then I put the wrappers in a plastic bag and hide them
11:50 down the back of the sofa. I am fine." Obviously, lockdown was an incredibly difficult time for
11:55 everyone, as we both mentioned. But at that time, what I found interesting about that was you were
12:00 also writing about mental illness for another book, weren't you? You were writing about,
12:04 you're writing "No Such Thing As Normal" and interviewing lots of medical experts. So talk
12:10 to me about what it's like to write about issues like that, while behind the scenes,
12:14 you're going through something that you haven't quite registered yet. Because it sounds, it also,
12:19 it feels like it's something you touched on in "Glorious Rock Bottom" as well.
12:22 Yeah.
12:22 Which is your book about sobriety.
12:24 Yeah, I didn't, it was really, it's really interesting. And that, again,
12:27 that's why I've written this book because we have these notions, don't we? We love narratives,
12:32 neat narratives, like beginnings, middles, ends. And that notion that I faced my demons,
12:40 I charmed over adversity and then I went off into the sunset and lived happily ever after. And that,
12:44 in my experience, is not what happens. I didn't even, like you say, without even registering that
12:54 there was a problem. Like I, for a while, didn't realize there was a problem because I'd had
12:58 bulimia in my 20s. And I hadn't purged, you know, since then. So I didn't, I was like,
13:06 I don't have a problem because I'm not purging. I'm binging at the moment. But it was like,
13:12 there was still that sense because of kind of diet culture, that that was more of a moral failure,
13:17 that it was an eating disorder. And it was when I was interviewing people for this book,
13:22 I was interviewing this eating disorder expert and she suddenly started talking about binge eating
13:26 disorder. And I was like, "Oh my God, this is what is going on." And it was kind of a relief,
13:31 but also like another thing. But then, you know, I'm not the first alcoholic to go into recovery
13:37 and cross addict to food. Like this is the thing we talk about. There's a saying in like recovery
13:42 communities, which is you deal with whatever's going to kill you first, you know? And for me,
13:46 that absolutely was alcohol and cocaine. So when the pandemic came around, I was like two and a
13:51 half years sober and I was so relieved about that. But it was a weird time. I'm sure we'll be
13:57 untangling the effects of lockdowns on mental health for like decades to come. And, you know,
14:05 it was a kind of a coping mechanism. I couldn't sleep and I would just go and eat vast quantities,
14:12 almost like in blackout. It was like drinking, you know, except it wasn't. And so, but I also
14:19 realized, you know, when I really started to think about it and do the work, you know, do the work to
14:24 kind of get going to recovery from that, I realized that food like was probably my first,
14:33 the first thing I ever kind of used to change the way I feel, you know? And we talk like food is
14:39 incredibly powerful. I mean, it's a weapon of war. We see that now, you know? So, but it's also,
14:45 it's the first way as children we ever learn we have power over our parents, right? So like we go,
14:51 I'm not going to eat this broccoli, throw it on the floor. And it's like, oh, for the first time
14:56 in my life, I can change, you know? And so it's incredibly kind of visceral and powerful. And,
15:05 you know, and so I realized it was like, wow, this is as much a drug as cocaine or alcohol,
15:12 you know? And, and it's, you know, it's all complicated. I kind of put my head above the
15:17 parapet about it back in 20, when I realized what was going on. And I sort of got a lot of messages
15:27 from women saying, I have this too. And I'm really ashamed because I put on so much weight.
15:34 And there to me was like, it's, if you think of it as a weight issue, you're never going to get
15:39 better. So we're kind of stuck in this, a lot of us stuck in this sort of perpetual cycle of
15:46 restricting and binging. So a lot of anorexics in recovery from anorexia develop binge eating
15:53 disorder. And that's just simple biology. If you've been starving yourself, your brain is
15:57 telling you to eat, you know, it's like a, it's a survival thing. So, you know, that diet culture
16:03 where we live, we live in is it kind of encouraged, it almost kind of feeds this, pardon the pun,
16:07 feeds this behavior. And so the more I, and when I was writing this book, the more I thought about
16:11 it and the more I looked into diet culture and how, you know, common it is and how it still is,
16:19 you know, it just masks itself in different ways now. So now it's like blood sugar spikes.
16:25 - Yeah, there's those, those, um, - Yeah, yeah. Or it's, you know, eat,
16:30 I saw a video, a reel the other day, video sound like 800 years old. I saw a reel the other day
16:35 of this woman, like, I don't count calories. I eat for my gut, right? And then she did this video of
16:42 all the things she ate in a day. And I was like, you don't need to count calories because there
16:45 are no calories in this, you know? And so gut health, while some people are very responsible
16:50 and there is, you know, obviously a very fascinating link between our gut microbiomes
16:55 and our mental health and the rest of it, but it has been taken and co-opted and all of that stuff.
17:00 So diet culture is so insidious and, um, - Yeah. And it perpetuates this obsessive
17:05 thinking because you're trapped, like whatever it is, like if you're tracking your gut health,
17:08 you're tracking your glucose, you're constantly thinking about food and what you're eating. And
17:13 like, I feel like, you know, a couple of years ago it was the clean eating kind of phase. And I got
17:18 so sucked into that. I remember spending hours watching YouTube videos about people talking
17:22 about all the healthy things they were making. They would do these, what I eat in a day videos,
17:26 which, you know, ostensibly look really harmless and just joyful and cheerful, but actually it's
17:31 the same thing. It's like, it encourages that way of thinking where you're kind of constantly
17:35 monitoring what you're eating and how it's affecting your body. And I really like the way
17:40 you talk about weight in the book, because one of the things you say, and you kind of frame it as,
17:45 as like a feminist issue, because you say that, you know, women are kind of encouraged to take
17:49 up as little space as possible. - Yeah. - And, you know, so as not to threaten the patriarchy
17:55 and like, that's why the kind of conventional beauty ideals is like a small, frail woman,
18:01 fragile woman. And it's the same with age as well. And it reminds me of something that Naomi
18:06 Wolf wrote about in the Beauty Myth, where she kind of talks about how, you know, we fetishize
18:10 youth in women because an older woman is probably more autonomous, has more financial independence
18:16 and more kind of, more power and more confidence. And it's the same sort of thing, isn't it?
18:22 - Yeah, it is. The kind of, the weight thing is, yeah, it's like take up as little space as
18:26 possible. And I think it's been really co-opted, you know, like I see it now. I really believe
18:34 that I used to just, I wouldn't eat anything, right. And then I was on cocaine. I was basically
18:39 living off cocaine and quavers, right, until I, until my sort of late thirties. And then,
18:45 obviously when I started eating normally, I put on weight and the kind of visceral reaction of,
18:51 uh, certainly people, you know, below the line or whatever to that was, was, was really like,
18:57 you're a drain on NHS resources. And I was like, and I still get it. And I'm like, and, you know,
19:03 but it was like, I was much healthier. And I, I had to be really careful when the binge eating
19:09 disorder thing and I was in treatment was to not get attached to that shame about weight,
19:14 because it isn't a weight issue. It's a soul issue. Right. And, and I, you know, I definitely
19:22 think that there's always been like a size 18 woman in me desperate to get out like the whole
19:26 way through my kind of teens and twenties. And she got out in her late, in the late, you know,
19:31 my late thirties. Uh, and I still kind of battle that, uh, misconception that, you know, because
19:38 I'm bigger, I'm more unhealthy when I, you know, because I don't, yeah, it's, it's, it's so
19:45 complicated and I, you know, I, it just makes me feel so sad. So sad that so many women waste so
19:53 much of their precious, precious fucking energy, obsessing about the way they look because it's,
19:59 it's like doing the patriarchy's work for them. Yeah, it literally is. And as you mentioned,
20:05 so when lockdown happened, you were two and a half years into sobriety. Yes. That must have
20:11 been incredibly difficult during lockdown to, cause I mean, obviously in lockdown, if you look
20:16 at the stats, that was when a lot of people kind of veered into alcoholism because they were just
20:21 at home drinking and you write about in the book how you had a kind of momentary relapse that wasn't
20:27 really a relapse, but, but talk to us about that. Cause I'm interested in the thinking behind that
20:32 and the way that that framed in your mind and kind of, it wasn't, it wasn't a relapse in the way you
20:36 thought it was a relapse. No. So I, yeah. So like I, yeah, 2022, January, 2022, I became convinced
20:44 I'd relapsed because I'd taken some night nurse when I had COVID and, um, and I was, cause it has
20:50 like a smidgen of alcohol in it and I was that I was obsessed and I couldn't, I, it became, it was,
20:56 I mean, it became like, I was too scared to pick up a glass of water in case I accidentally, um,
21:02 had some gin or something like that. It was, it was really obsessive. And I, I, uh, I went to see
21:09 my therapist and he was like, you have relapsed, but not an, not an alcohol, you've relapsed on
21:13 OCD. And I was like, what? And this was OCD. What OCD does is it also attaches to anything kind of
21:21 precious in your life. Cause it's all about like, you're going to lose that, you know? So sobriety
21:26 was that precious thing. And I look back on it now and it's kind of almost funny, you know?
21:31 But, um, I, it really, yeah, it was really frightening.
21:36 But I think it really illuminates how little people know about OCD. Like you said earlier,
21:40 like it is still so much the kind of sock drawer thing. And I hear people say it all the time,
21:45 like, I'm so OCD. And I'm like, well, we've had all these conversations.
21:48 I know. I know. So do I. And even talking about it makes me feel like, well, you know,
21:54 it was two years ago, but it was like, I can, I can feel the kind of OCD in my brain sort of wakes
22:01 up and goes, hmm, but maybe, you know, like it's, it's like such a, yeah, it was, I mean, I was,
22:08 it was, it was, you know, it was delusional thinking, actually. It was delusional. It
22:14 bared no reality to, it bared no resemblance to reality. And my therapist said that to me,
22:21 like this is, and, but it was, it was, I realised then that it was, that was when I realised
22:27 what I see, that OCD was a lot about having to be good. And it was about perfection.
22:32 I think it's so important to keep talking about it because I do think that there are so many people
22:36 that are probably suffering with that without realising. I do think that they're just losing
22:39 their mind and in a very kind of undefined way. But actually, like I said, no, you have this named
22:45 known condition that you can get treated for and get help from. So I think it's so important to keep
22:49 talking about it and the ways that it affects people. One of the things I really want to ask
22:53 you about, because it struck out to me towards the end of the book is progesterone. Yeah. Because
22:59 I think people, I've written about contraception a lot before. And I think when I got the coil
23:05 fitted a couple years ago, there was no mention, this will affect your mood. There was like,
23:09 it's such a tiny amount of hormones, like, don't worry about it, it won't do anything.
23:13 I swear to God, the coil made me very depressed, very cripplingly depressed. And it's only since
23:19 looking into it as a journalist. And I spoke to lots of healthcare experts. And someone told me,
23:23 well, some women are very sensitive to progesterone, and it can affect your mood.
23:27 And I just wanted to ask you about it. Because I think there's one point in the book where you're
23:32 terrified of thinking something has progesterone in it because of how it might affect you or?
23:36 Well, I couldn't. So basically, we, I realised that OCD episode, which was really bad. And a friend
23:46 said to me, have you thought about it might be hormonal, and you might be going through
23:49 perimenopause. And I was like, what? And I got my hormones done. And it turned out that like,
23:55 the rock has higher levels of estrogen than me. It's like really low. And I was absolutely
24:00 perimenopausal. And anyway, so I went on HRT, the estrogen and within two days, it was like,
24:07 it was the difference between day and night. I was like, I was so much better. And then you have
24:12 to take progesterone in the second half of the month, right, as part of HRT. And within two days,
24:21 I was suicidal and weeping. And it was it was so noticeable. And I sort of called the doctor and
24:26 she was like, okay, well, we'll try. We'll try and get it into you in a different way that was less
24:30 kind of so that you would insert it vaginally. And same thing happened. And we kept trying different
24:38 things. And she was like, you probably got progesterone intolerance. And we kind of added
24:42 it all up. And it was like, it was I remember when I was pregnant, it was, I was very, I was
24:47 under the care of the local psychiatric team. And I remember as soon as I gave birth, it was like it
24:52 lifted. And I remember my husband always saying that it was like dealing with two different people.
24:57 And it was so surprising because obviously we'd expected, oh, she's going to, maybe it's just
25:01 going to get even worse. How is that possible? And, and of course, now it's sort of tallies with
25:07 the progesterone, it leaves your body. It was sort of noticing, you know, and then they started
25:11 talking to me about PMDD. And I was like, yes, which is another thing I've just written about
25:15 as well. Yeah. What makes me so mad? Why don't we know about this stuff? I know. I know. And also
25:20 because like, for me, we don't know about this stuff. So like my only medicine for it was alcohol
25:25 and cocaine. You know, I was like, I couldn't, I couldn't cope with, you know, life because it was,
25:29 I always remember, there was always a point in my cycle where it was like,
25:34 I went from being a vaguely sane human being to just, you know, quite, quite a different one.
25:41 And because I was drinking and drugging, I didn't, you know, I didn't know I was, it was, you know,
25:45 it was so difficult to know what was what. And they said to me, so then they said to me, well,
25:49 listen, you have to, you have to have progesterone. And they were like, if the last option is the
25:54 coil, and if that doesn't work, you'll have to have a hysterectomy. And I was like, what?
26:00 And luckily, I think the coil did work for me. They said, weirdly, it does for a lot of
26:05 progesterone. I mean, I don't, but, but I do definitely still feel it from time to time.
26:10 And, you know, it's, again, yeah, it's like this thing that affects one in 20 women,
26:15 but no one thinks about doing anything about it. And like, we're only just having conversations
26:20 about endometriosis and all those other things that, you know, have plagued women since the
26:25 dawn of time. Oh, it just makes me so angry that this is what we have to deal with
26:29 like a long history of medical misogyny that just like, yeah, stops people from researching it,
26:34 funding it and just dismisses women as crazy. And you just think how many women are dealing with
26:39 suicidal ideation, like crippling depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, all of these things,
26:46 purely based on hormonal changes in their body that could so easily be fixed.
26:50 And I really think it made me like physically unwell because I, I ended up and only because
26:55 I had a female doctor, I was like fainting from palpitations and I was just dismissed as it being,
27:00 it's just hormonal. It's just, it's just stress and anxiety. Try losing weight.
27:06 And I was like, oh, try doing some exercise. I'm like, I exercise all the time. And it was only,
27:13 yeah, a woman took me seriously, referred me for an ECG. And while I was having the ECG,
27:18 they were like, you're in atrial fibrillation. We need to send you to hospital. And it was these
27:24 two female paramedics who were like, of course you've never been taken seriously. You're a woman.
27:28 And I felt so blessed to have those two women there because it, it, it made me,
27:33 and you know, it's so interesting. So I got diagnosed with an arrhythmia and I was like,
27:36 what's caused this? Am I, am I to blame? The guy was like, no, you're not. You know, this is like,
27:42 it's like an electrical thing in your, in your, in your, you know, the chambers of your chest.
27:47 And, um, but I swear to God, it was like a massive kick up the bum. It was like my body saying,
27:54 are you going to like, you need to pay, you need to stop dismissing yourself.
27:58 Like you're so depressed and you're so low. And this has been so hard. Like just take some time,
28:05 girl, baby girl, I was gonna say baby girl, like, you know, and look after yourself.
28:09 And I swear to God, like I barely get it. I barely get it anymore.
28:13 In terms of what is coming up next for you, what can fans kind of expect of your work?
28:26 I know you laugh at that, but you do have lots of fans.
28:31 Well, I don't know, really. Um, I, I, there may be a new podcast in the works.
28:38 And I am doing this crazy running challenge. Great. I'm running the Brighton Marathon.
28:46 And I'm going to run from Brighton to London over two weeks. And then when I get to London,
28:52 am I going to put my feet up, Olivia? No, I'm going to do the London Marathon.
28:56 And this is to raise money for mental health mates.
28:59 So that's two marathons in two weeks.
29:01 Yeah. And to show the exercises for everyone.
29:04 That's amazing. And I mean, that brings us very neatly onto onto your first
29:08 love that you've chosen for us, which is running,
29:11 which you wrote a brilliant book about in 2018. It's called Eat, Drink, Run.
29:16 And there was one section at the beginning that really helped me. And basically,
29:22 I think it was a few months before that, but before I read that book that I had gone through
29:26 an abortion because of sexual assault. And it was horrific. And I've written about it before,
29:31 talked about it before. But I read that book. And there was something in the beginning that
29:36 you said that I'm going to read. You said you urge readers to keep an open mind and said,
29:42 think not about what you aren't, but what you are. Remember that one day things could happen
29:46 to you that you wouldn't be able to believe right now. The most astonishing, amazing things.
29:50 Trust me when I say all you have to do is hold on. And it's such simple advice. Like just say,
29:56 just hold on. But honestly, those are words that I still return to all the time when something
30:01 feels really difficult and really painful. And I just I just want to ask, I want to say thank you,
30:06 first of all. Thank you. But I also want to ask you about how running came into your life and
30:10 how it was so transformative to you, because it is like it's so beneficial. It's like flushing
30:14 the toilet in your brain. Yeah. Well, I think also, you've got me a bit emotional now. I'm
30:18 so sorry that happened to you. I always thought exercise was like a punishment. It was like a
30:26 form of punishment. And it was about making me smaller. And I hated it because I wasn't very
30:32 good at it. Like good at it. Like I wasn't fast. I wasn't strong. I wasn't anything. I was always
30:38 the last to be picked in PE. And then I remember being really unwell with OCD and everyone was
30:48 like exercise helps. And I was like, oh, what do experts know? Like I tried to find the exact
30:54 combination of alcohol and drugs that would make my mental health better. And I only made it worse.
30:59 And so I was like, I'm going to try running. And I remember going out one day and I don't know how
31:05 I even got myself out of the house. I was that like I remember like putting on like I didn't
31:10 have training, like running trainers. So I put on like Converse and then I had like a pair of my
31:17 husband's tracksuit bums and a Star Wars t-shirt. Like I just like a normal bra. And then I remember
31:22 leaving the house and being like, I'm going to need water or I'm going to die. And going back
31:26 in and all I could find was one of my daughter's like sippy cups. I mean, God knows what I look
31:31 like and it doesn't really matter. But I did feel better. And you know, and that just kind of
31:37 carried on. And then I don't know. And then I signed up to do the London Marathon in 2017
31:44 when the official charity of the London Marathon was Heads Together, which is the mental health
31:48 thing that the now Prince and Princess of Wales and Prince Harry had created. And they kind of
31:54 got me involved. I, you know, like, really was like the most insane year of my life, to be honest,
32:01 because then I, so I trained for the marathon. I definitely thought I'm going to do this because
32:06 this might stop me drinking. And I did stop drinking for like the duration of actually
32:11 running the marathon. But it made me realise I was like, shit, I've got a problem here. And
32:18 yeah, so I did the marathon. And then I pretty soon after washed up in rehab.
32:24 But running is always...
32:26 Was it very soon after the marathon?
32:27 Yeah. So the marathon was April 2017. And I ended up in rehab in August.
32:33 And because I think it showed me a different way of living as well.
32:39 And it showed me exercise as like a tool of nourishment and not punishment. So I,
32:46 like, the thing I love about running is it doesn't matter how many times you have to go back to the
32:50 beginning. Each time there's always that like, sense of, oh my God, I can do... If I follow this
32:56 plan, you know, and if you have mental health issues, you know, it's like structure is really
33:00 important, right? So if I follow this plan to the letter, I will start to see that I'm able to do
33:07 something I couldn't do the week before. And that's just so amazing for your self-esteem,
33:12 you know? And I think the moment you take out all of that, like, about it being about being
33:18 the fastest or the thinnest or the fittest or whatever, it becomes really joyful. Like I run
33:23 for the gains, not the losses. You know, I'm quite slow. And people always say to me, oh,
33:29 what's your marathon time? And I'm like, what's your marathon time? And they're like, oh, I
33:32 haven't done one. I was like, exactly, fuck off then, you know?
33:34 It's such a weird question.
33:35 I know, but people like, it's almost like they want you to prove that you've actually done it.
33:39 And I love it. You know, on Saturday I ran 17 miles, which was like hard, but I'm like,
33:47 I love that I did that.
33:49 Do you listen to music while you run or podcasts?
33:51 I listen to a bit of everything. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, because it's a long time.
33:58 Yeah.
33:58 On your feet, you need to...
34:00 Yeah. I've only ever done a half marathon once. And I remember podcasts because music,
34:05 I just got bored of the same things over and over again. Like, because when I listen to music,
34:09 when I run, I don't feel the same, but I dance in my head.
34:11 Yeah, I go into fantasy. I go into fantasy. So I imagine this is like, this is embarrassing,
34:15 but I don't care. I imagine that I'm on Strictly and I'm in like Musicals Week. I've got to
34:22 Musicals Week and like, this is actually Lin-Manuel Miranda's a guest judge and I'm dancing to
34:27 Hamilton or In the Heights. And I like, literally I'm high as a kite and like, I get faster.
34:33 I could do that for hours. Hours, I tell you.
34:36 There is something about show tunes. I listen to a lot of Wicked soundtracks.
34:40 Yeah. Oh yeah. No, I totally... Defying Gravity is like when you'll get like in the last 5k,
34:45 like a 29k run. I'm like, we need to bring out the show tunes now.
34:49 So good.
34:49 Because there's nothing else for it. Like I am totally... And sometimes I sing along.
34:54 Yeah.
34:54 And I run, I'm running with my friend who's also trained, like training me for this challenge.
35:00 And I'm like, I've got to put the headphones on now, Vicky. And she just carries on and she
35:06 films me and I'm just like booming out like Dear Evan Hansen or, you know, and then I kind of like,
35:13 it's between show tunes and Taylor Swift. She's like, you look absolutely deranged,
35:19 Bryony. And I'm like, that's how I wouldn't have it any other way.
35:21 That's how you want it.
35:23 Your second love is reading.
35:25 Yes.
35:25 When did you first discover that you loved reading? Was there one book that made you think,
35:30 A, I love reading or B, this is the book that makes me think I want to be a writer?
35:34 I think my first, the first book, this is going to sound like a really weird one,
35:39 was quite late on. So I was probably about 15, but it was Lord of the Flies.
35:44 I always remember Stephen King said that that book was like the first book that had arms and
35:51 they reached out and grabbed him and I loved it. I remember sitting there and just being,
35:55 I love a bit of kind of like end of the world stuff. So I love a bit of Stephen King as well.
36:00 But reading for me is like, it's just, it's like making sense of the world,
36:05 but also escaping from it, you know? And definitely since I got sober, my evenings
36:12 are spent now just reading and reading and reading and reading and reading and reading and reading.
36:16 And I just love it. It's just a different, you know, it's a, I mean, it's probably a bit of an
36:23 addiction, but much healthier one. Yeah. And do you favour kind of like
36:28 crime thriller type? No, I'm not, I'm not a, no, I'm very, I, I, I'm a bit like,
36:35 if you looked at my like list, you probably think, she all right. So I, I love a bit of like,
36:41 I love a bit of sci-fi, not, not, not like kind of space, but kind of apocalyptic. I just read
36:51 this book called Innocention and it's just, just so beautiful, like really right-sizing, you know,
36:57 like you, you, it kind of, you know, it makes you see the vastness of the world and how lucky we are
37:04 to be alive and all that. I, I love, you know, I love that, but I love a bit of, you know,
37:09 you know, I've just read Kylie Reed's new novel. I, you know, I love like a lot of modern, you
37:17 know, contemporary stuff, but I also am like bang into like a bit of woo-woo.
37:23 Oh, I love woo-woo. I love a bit of woo-woo, like a bit of Louise Hay,
37:27 completely bonkers. And, but also, you know, things like, you know, a bit of Brené Brown,
37:34 a bit of like, oh, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With The Wolves.
37:40 Oh, I haven't read that.
37:41 It's just the most magnificent book. And it's all about us women, like losing touch with,
37:49 you know, we've been sort of, we've lost, we've lost touch with our kind of, our feminine,
37:54 you know, instincts. And she talks about how, you know, we remember that women, you know,
38:01 apparently women used to be banished when they had their periods to like, you know,
38:06 and they would have to go and, you know, be alone because they were like dirty. And she said,
38:10 I can just imagine every woman would like, if we did that now, would walk,
38:14 turn, you know, leave the house going, and then get around the corner and go, yes!
38:19 But it's such a good book. So I love a bit of woo as well.
38:23 Yeah, I love that. Have you read Untamed?
38:26 Yes, of course I have. I mean, yeah, I kind of like every month I reread You Can Heal Your Life
38:34 by Louise Hay, which is a lot of, it's a bit mad. And yeah, so I'm sort of, yeah, I'm reading,
38:43 I'm reading at the moment, a really lovely book called The List of Suspicious Things
38:49 by Jenny Godwin, which is set in the sort of late 70s during while the Yorkshire Ripper was on. And
38:58 it's sort of loosely based on her childhood, this kind of childhood that was overshadowed by the
39:04 knowledge of this man who was out, but they didn't know, you know, they didn't know who it was,
39:08 was killing women. And it's about two girls of 12 who decide to, they decide they're going to find
39:15 out who the Yorkshire Ripper is. It's so good.
39:19 That sounds brilliant. Okay, I'm going to add that to my list. And your final love for us is
39:23 skincare, which is definitely a love that I share.
39:25 Yeah. Okay. So this is like a bit, given I've gone on, you know, like, just be happy being you
39:31 and all that stuff. But okay, so for me, this is like a real, like a sobriety thing, because
39:37 I used to collapse into bed with like all my makeup on, never wash my face. You know, it was
39:43 like not knowing where I was or, you know, and so for me, there's something sort of, there's a
39:49 lovely ritual to like, it's about, it's more like, I don't think it makes me look any different. And
39:56 I don't really care how it makes me look. But it's a kind of more an action of like putting this,
40:00 you know, doing, going through it and getting into bed and I feel safe.
40:04 Talk me through the routine. So is it a night time thing? Do you put like a little headband on?
40:08 What's the different kind of stages?
40:10 I cleanse, a double cleanse with a, you know, a flannel. And then, oh my God, I've got an LED mask.
40:18 I have one of those. They're so fun.
40:20 They're so good.
40:21 You look nuts wearing them.
40:21 You look nuts in them, but I don't care. But it's fun and really relaxing.
40:24 Yeah. Yeah.
40:26 So I'll put that on for like 20 minutes, read. And then, oh, I'll put on like a, you know,
40:32 a plumping serum. And then it's, you know, some retinol. There's nothing like, it's nothing
40:36 too complex. I'm not, you know, I'm not, I get, I do get, like, I have a Space NK at the bottom of
40:44 my road and they do know me in there. They're like, "Hi, Briony!" They bring out all the things.
40:49 Oh my God. I think I know the Space NK.
40:52 I love, I love Space NK. Like, I, you know, I literally spend hours in Space NK. I love it.
41:00 It's so, also, it's just so, like, I find it really inclusive. It's like a space,
41:05 like they're all just really nice in there. And they've got, you know, and it's just,
41:08 it's kind of like, it's brilliant.
41:11 It makes sense though, because I think, like you said, like, if you spend so many years
41:16 not taking care of yourself in any sense, but particularly not taking care of your skin,
41:20 I suppose, when you're in the grips of addiction, it can be such a soothing,
41:25 I hate saying self-care because I think that phrase has been so co-opted by TikTok and social
41:30 media, but it is a really kind of reassuring thing to do to kind of just look after your skin.
41:35 Yeah.
41:36 And just have that ritual every day.
41:37 It's more like, I don't, I don't offer my makeup. I am wearing lots of makeup right now
41:41 because I've done some television this morning, and obviously because I was coming on your podcast.
41:45 But I, I, for me, it's not about vanity. It's about protecting myself. So like in the morning,
41:52 actually, that's a more important skincare routine. Again, wash my face and put on a,
41:56 but it's the, you know, it's putting on SPF because it's like, I don't know, like forming
42:02 a barrier, a protective barrier and saying, you know, you, you're worthy of taking care.
42:08 You know, it's, you know, it's worth taking care of you and looking after you and,
42:12 you know, protecting our skin from the sun because, you know, I don't want to get skin cancer.
42:16 And, you know, it's, it's, I don't know, there's something sort of like, it's about,
42:20 it's a kind of little way in which I say, I'm going to look after myself today instead of trying
42:25 to sabotage myself, which is kind of my instinct when I wake up in the morning is how can I,
42:32 you know, it's like, how can I get out of everything I have to do today? Like, because
42:38 I'm awful and I want to hide under this duvet. And so it's a little way of sort of counteracting that.
42:44 I love that. That's such a lovely note to end on. Thank you so much,
42:47 Bryony. Thank you for having me. I've loved this.
42:49 Thank you so much for joining us. That's it for today. Thank you so much for joining us.
42:54 If you've enjoyed this episode of Love Lives, you can listen to all episodes on all major
42:58 podcast platforms, and you can also watch us on independent TV and all social media platforms.
43:04 I will see you next time. Bye.
43:06 [Music]