Glennon’s Diagnosis & What’s Next
January 3, 2023
Glennon Doyle:
What are you doing?
Abby Wambach:
I just feel like my eyes look tired. Just trying to get them to wake up.
Glennon Doyle:
Abby. How about that?
Abby Wambach:
Geez.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Good?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, that really woke me up. Thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
You’re welcome.
Abby Wambach:
Very appreciative of you.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, hello pod squad.
Abby Wambach:
Welcome back…
Glennon Doyle:
To We Can Do Hard Things. And welcome to 2023.
Amanda Doyle:
We did it.
Glennon Doyle:
We are going to start this year with a doozy, as we doozy. And accidentally, this is becoming a tradition for us at We Can Do Hard Things, where we start the year by making a devastating announcement about my mental health. Okay? So what we’re going to do today is, I am going to tell you pod squad, what is going on in my life. A recent diagnosis that I got that has changed my life in many ways. And I have been alluding to it in some episodes from last year, but I didn’t feel ready to talk about it. And then over time, it became impossible for me not to talk to you about it, because it’s everything that’s going on in my mind and my heart and my life right now. So every interview that we do, I’m seeing it through that lens, and I’m talking about it in terms of the work that I’m doing. And it’s becoming impossible for me not to talk about it to you. What’s interesting is that I’ve only talked to four people about this, and you, pod squad.
Amanda Doyle:
You haven’t really talked to me about it that much. So I’m nervous and excited. I’m scited right now to hear from you, because I don’t really know that much.
Abby Wambach:
Also, do we want to give a little trigger warning?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. This isn’t a trigger, this is a grenade. Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
So this is a content blanket, a content-weighted blanket.
Glennon Doyle:
If you have mental health stuff, if you have eating disorder stuff and if listening to someone talk about it very openly and honestly, and in the moment, and in a raw way, and an unpolished way, if that hurts you, stop listening. We will be here when you get back if it helps you, stay. Okay?
Amanda Doyle:
You’ve come to the right place.
Glennon Doyle:
Also, I need you to know that I have requested that my therapist, who is a renowned expert in all of these things, is going to listen to this episode and take out anything that she feels is inappropriate for me to say, or for this community. So there is some protections here, going in. Stay tuned. Immediately following this, will be the notes that my therapist had for me after listening. So our friend, Lizzie Gilbert, always says that you write about, or work on, what’s causing a revolution in your heart. And this is what has been causing a revolution in my heart. And I don’t know how to do this. I’m not a person who compartmentalizes. At all. So I don’t know how to do this work where I’m bringing my whole self to it, and not share this. And maybe if I waited a year I would have a better perspective, but I also just think in a year I’ll just have a different perspective, and not necessarily better. And I like the idea of talking about things more when we’re in the messy middle of it.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. I love that. This world is too full of before and afters. It’s enough of going through it, you’re like, “Oh, I have drawn my conclusions, and my life lessons. And I will impart them onto you.” As opposed to, “Here I am in this big one.”
Glennon Doyle:
And if I waited till I was an “After,” I don’t know what that is. Do you know what I mean? Who’s an “After?” I’m alive. I’m in the middle of it. I’m here. So last year, at this time, I shared with the pod squad that I had had a relapse of my bulimia, and that I was feeling a little bit lost about it. And not ready to make any big moves about it. Just on the landing, I called it. Go back and listen to that one if you haven’t listened to it. That I wasn’t ready to make any moves, but that I was at least standing still on the landing, and not descending any further down the staircase. But I was not ready to ascend, to take any steps, because I was too freaking tired of dealing with this particular mental illness my entire life. So I stayed on the landing for 10 months. I just did nothing and just stayed hyper aware of the fact that I was going to have to start doing some work. I was open to doing some work, just not that day.
Abby Wambach:
Do you feel like the 10 months was long or short?
Glennon Doyle:
Now it feels like a blur, like short.
Abby Wambach:
Got it.
Glennon Doyle:
And then Abby and I were at this weekend with some dear friends, and one of our dear friends was talking about her child, who was anorexic. And she was talking about the program that her child was in. And she said an offhand comment, “Well, obviously she does things like; they have to eat three meals a day without any talking about it. There’s no decision-making, they have to eat three meals a day.” And they said it like it was an obvious thing to me, since I had been in the eating disorder world for so long.
And I stared at my friend, “That’s the wildest thing. Are you serious? That’s amazing. That is something I should do.” I spend most of my day trying to decide whether I deserve to eat breakfast or lunch, because of whatever happened yesterday, or because of what…? So I spend a lot of my problem-solving every day in my mind, thinking about whether I should eat or not. And I thought, “What an amazing idea. Just to decide you are going to eat.” That would take away 80% of my mind, anyway.
Abby Wambach:
I think what’s interesting about that conversation you had, was that you didn’t know that.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. What was amazing about that, is exactly that, Abby. It was that we went into a bedroom after that and I was like, “How is it possible that that sounds revolutionary to me?” I’ve been in the eating disorder world for how long? And this idea that she said to me offhand, like I would know it. I pretended to know what she meant. I was like, “Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.”
Abby Wambach:
Of course.
Glennon Doyle:
Of course.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like mental health 101. This is not advanced work.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. It was eating disorder 101, and it sounded to me like an incredible revolutionary idea. And so that dissonance was confusing to me, because I thought, “If people know that stuff, maybe there’s a lot of other stuff that would help me, that I don’t know.”
Amanda Doyle:
Can I ask you a question? Was the revolutionary part about it that one would eat three meals? Or was it that there was a rubric, a structure, that you could adopt that would eliminate a lot of the mental anguish and gymnastics in your head already?
Glennon Doyle:
It was that. It was the second. It was the latter.
Abby Wambach:
I never know if it’s former or latter, it’s the worst.
Amanda Doyle:
The trick about that latter, it sounds like later. It’s the latter one you said.
Glennon Doyle:
My gosh, that’s so good.
Abby Wambach:
Thank you, baby Jesus.
Glennon Doyle:
Wow. Well, now if they don’t get anything else from this pod, they’ll get that. So what sounded shocking to me about it, and such a relief that I wanted to cry, was like, “Wait. It’s like someone decided you’ve lost your privileges of deciding whether or not you should eat. It’s above your pay grade. So we have a system for you.” And then I got-
Amanda Doyle:
Your structure liberates.
Glennon Doyle:
Your structure liberates. I thought, “Oh my God, what if there’s other things.” Still did nothing. Okay, I’m just looking at the stairs. I tell Abby, on our way home from that weekend, I should call that friend and find out who these people are that are working with her daughter. But of course, I did nothing. So then Abby one day reached out to them and said, “Please give me the information for the people.”
Abby Wambach:
Because you weren’t, you couldn’t stop talking about it. You were still just so amazed. And I could tell there was a little hesitancy, and I did it unbeknownst to you. And then I asked you, I said, “Would it be okay if I contact this woman?” She had already contacted me back. And you were like, “Yeah, of course.” And I was like, “Awesome.”
Glennon Doyle:
And then I didn’t write her back. Right?
Abby Wambach:
You didn’t.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. Yeah. So finally, somehow-
Abby Wambach:
I put you on an email, somehow. I connected you.
Amanda Doyle:
Somehow I got into contact.
Abby Wambach:
I connected you with the doctor that she gave, and then you took it from there.
Glennon Doyle:
And interestingly enough, in the days before I was to have that first meeting with this doctor, my bulimia came back hard. Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
Ooh. Was it already scheduled?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. It was scheduled, and I was like, “What is going on? Why am I doing this again?”
Abby Wambach:
Remember what you told me?
Glennon Doyle:
What did I tell you?
Abby Wambach:
You came into the bedroom, because every single time you’ve confessed, or whatever, told me about your relapses, you come in and you’re so soft and sad, and you’re like, “I did something bad.” That’s what you always say. “I did something bad.”
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, that’s interesting.
Abby Wambach:
And I knew what you meant, and I said, “What happened?” And you said, “I relapsed again.” And I knew that this meeting was two days away. And I just said, “Come here. This feels so natural to me, that you would want to get your last bits in before you actually start going to do the real work.” And we held each other, and you were so sad.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, it was. I didn’t understand what was happening. And then the doctor, that I talked to first, told me that that is the case. That very often right before somebody goes into the treatment that they actually believe is going to take, because they’re considering telling the truth and doing the real work, it’s like the last gasps of; it’s your protective self is like, “They’re going to take this thing away.”
Amanda Doyle:
Right. It’s getting high on the way to rehab. Like that?
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. Right. So here’s what happens. I meet with this doctor, she’s totally amazing. Someday I’ll tell all of you all who these people are. I’m just not ready for all of that yet. But I meet with her, and then this two week or longer; it was so long, this intake process happens. Basically I’m just surrendering myself. It feels like the people who commit a crime and turn themselves in, that’s how I felt. Like I told the whole thing from the time I was 10 to now, all the best that I could, with where I’d been all that time. And then for the first time they started doing all of these tests. Doctor tests. Tests on my body, and my period. Just medical tests. And so it was this very-
Amanda Doyle:
Blood tests? Bone density? All the things?
Glennon Doyle:
Blood test, bone density, all the things.
Abby Wambach:
Which you did all on your own. You didn’t require my help in setting up any of this stuff. I was really impressed by that.
Glennon Doyle:
I mean they really held my hand a lot, but yes.
Abby Wambach:
I know, but you walked yourself through that. I just feel really impressed.
Glennon Doyle:
Thanks, babe. So we have our first big meeting that is like, “This is our findings.” You have to sit down with the doctor and she tells you your findings-
Abby Wambach:
Diagnosis.
Glennon Doyle:
Right? Your diagnosis and your plan. So I sit down, and please understand pod squad, that I have come to these people and said, “I am a bulimic, and I’ve been recovered for this long. And now I’m having relapses and I just need to understand what the hell, and how to get these relapses of my bulimia under control, so I can be less scared and freer, and not in danger.” And the doctor sits down and she says, “Okay, this might be jarring. So our diagnosis of you, based on your history and all of your medical tests, is that you are anorexic.”
Glennon Doyle:
There are a couple forms of anorexia, and one is anorexia with purging. But she says, “You are anorexic.” And I mean, there is no way that I could explain to you the level of bafflement, shock, denial, confusion. The shift of my identity as bulimic, bulimic, bulimic; an anorexic. Anorexia is a totally different thing. Okay. It’s like a different religion. It’s a different identity. It’s a different threat. It’s a different way of thinking. So confusing. And it shook me very deeply, and I did not believe it. I was like, “That’s just wrong.” I didn’t say that, of course, but I was just like, “Uh huh, okay. I guess we’ll just get through this somehow, and then I’ll find my way out of this ridiculous situation that I’m in.” Then at the end I said, “I feel like this is an amazing overreaction. I do not think that I’m anorexic.”
Glennon Doyle:
“I know anorexic people. I see what anorexia looks like. I don’t feel like I look anorexic. I don’t feel like I…” And the doctor said that is a very anorexic reaction to have. And I was like, “I feel stuck right now, in this conversation. Because I feel like what you’re saying to me is that if I say, ‘Okay, I believe you,’ then I have anorexia. And if I say to you, ‘I do not believe you,’ then I have anorexia. So I don’t know what to do right now.” And basically what she said was, “I am an expert on this. We’ve done all the tests. If I were a doctor and I went to a person and said, ‘You have a cancerous mole on your back.’ The reaction likely wouldn’t be, ‘No, I don’t have a cancerous mole on my back. You have a cancerous mole.’That is not a normal reaction to a doctor’s diagnosis.”
Glennon Doyle:
And then she told a really interesting little tidbit, that was like, “Me telling you that you’re anorexic, and you saying, ‘I don’t think I’m anorexic, because I know a person who’s anorexic, who’s five times skinnier than I am,’ or whatever, is very similar to calling a firefighter and a firefighter coming to your house, and getting out the hoses, because flames are coming out of your house. And you, looking down at the sidewalk and saying, ‘I’ve heard that when houses are on fire, the sidewalk’s bubble. And my sidewalk’s not bubbling. So could you go home now?’ While the firefighters saying, ‘But there’s flames coming out of your window.'”
Glennon Doyle:
So I finished that meeting. I told Abby that night, or maybe it was the next night; we were in the kitchen, and it had been a quiet couple days, and Abby was cooking something, and the Indigo Girls’ song, Power of Two came on. We were standing by the refrigerator and you just hugged me and grabbed me. And there there’s that line in there that’s like, “I’m stronger than the monsters beneath your bed, stronger than the tricks played on your heart. Look at them together and we’ll take them apart.” And in that moment; that’s one of our songs, Power of Two. And I, in that moment, was like, “Yeah, it’s okay. Abby’s here, she’s got me. It’s going to be okay.” And then you pulled away from me and you said, “I can’t do this for you.”
Amanda Doyle:
Ooh. Wow. That was really brave, Abby. Holy shit.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you remember this? She pulls away from me and says, “I can’t do this for you.” And it wasn’t accusatory. It wasn’t like, “You have to do this.” It wasn’t like that. It was like she-
Amanda Doyle:
It wasn’t like, “This is too much for me.” It was like, “I’d do it if I could. And I can’t do this for you. You have to do it.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. It was like her having this realization in the moment. First of all, she knew what I was thinking in that moment. She knew I was thinking, “She’s stronger than the monsters beneath my bed. She’s got this.” And I think when you are a person who is a little, I don’t know how to describe the word, is a little wobbly, you find people who are not as wobbly, and then you somehow feel like you are us. Like, “I am not just me, I am us. And you’re not wobbly. So I’m okay.” And it was Abby’s way of saying, “Oh my God, I can’t. This is up to you. And this is scary news for both of us, that this is up to you. I can fix every remote. I can go through the house and follow you around and make sure everything’s working, but I can’t do this.”
Glennon Doyle:
If I could explain to you how chilled to the bone I was by that moment, I did not speak for the rest of the night. I went to bed very early. I laid there like, “Fuck.” I’ve never felt so alone in my own body. So I am the sick one, apparently. Everyone’s telling me. And I’m also the one that has to fix the sickness. Like, how?”
Abby Wambach:
And for a pretty co-dependent couple, that was a really hard thing to experience through, because I think I realized that maybe my proximity to you was enabling some of this, in some way. Not that it’s my fault or anything, but I just think that it was really important to say that out loud for you. And for me.
Amanda Doyle:
I think it was incredibly courageous. You’re the one who got her connected to the doctor. It was almost like that was necessary. Necessary, but not sufficient for her to get well. But she wouldn’t have been able to get well unless she, or started, unless she really took it on as hers. It’s like getting sober. When you make it about you and someone else, it’s never ever going to work.
Abby Wambach:
And I pride myself. I mean that one of my greatest identities is being your partner and being able to care for you. And in my mind, I think some ways, better than you would care for yourself.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, yeah.
Abby Wambach:
And so it’s like this was a hard thing for me to say, because I had to let go of this part of my identity, and how I get my worthiness, and how I feel and express love.
Glennon Doyle:
For you to say, “I can’t do it,” was hard.
Abby Wambach:
I just knew in that moment what you were thinking, and I knew I had to say it. It to be out loud, because you needed to take complete ownership over this process.
Glennon Doyle:
It was a big shift in thinking, to me. Because I was like, and I don’t know if anybody in the pod squad can relate to this, but I was like, “I did it. I’m doing the best I can, with what I have. And I have surrounded my children with the people that they need. And I have created these units of health and strength and that’s good enough.” And then I realized, “Oh. I, inside here, if I don’t figure this out, I could die. And then what good is all of this unit that I’ve created for my kids and my…” It was just a very interesting night.
Abby Wambach:
You built a really beautiful life to leave early from.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. Yeah. So then, the next morning I picked up the book that this doctor had written, and I started reading about anorexia. And the grief that I had the night before, or the terror, I guess, that I had the night before, just intensified tenfold, because I started reading this book about what an anorexic’s life looks like. And I don’t know how to explain the feeling of reading things that you thought were part of your personality, and who you were, and reading that they’re actually just a collection of symptoms of an fucking disease. So I don’t know how to explain all this to you, but it was explaining how a hungry brain walks in the world and sees the world, and experiences stress, and experiences anxiety, and all the things that people who are anorexic do, like create intense, ridiculous, overwhelming boundaries. Becoming over prepared for everything, including every moment of life, living with high anxiety, trying to be unimpeachable in every way. Just being extremely, extremely disciplined. It’s like, partly, anorexia becomes a religion of control.
Abby Wambach:
As you were reading that morning, I’ll never forget it, you just kept going, “Holy shit.” You couldn’t believe it. It was like you were reading a biography of yourself.
Glennon Doyle:
I know.
Abby Wambach:
And somebody saying, “This is actually not a biography. This is just an eating disorder brain.”
Glennon Doyle:
And it was so weird because it was like… Well, first of all, it is stunning to be a person whose life and work is about self-examination, is about discovering the nuance and minutiae of who we are, and talking about it every day, and then not know this information about yourself. It’s humiliating on a level.
Abby Wambach:
It’s pretty impressive also, that you could ignore this part of yourself.
Glennon Doyle:
I know. It is interesting when you think about, I’m reading this book about anorexia and it’s all spanking new information to me, and it’s blowing my mind, as if it’s the first time I’ve ever heard of any disorder. And the first meeting I had with the doctor after this, when I was open to this idea, she looked at me, and I was in my office; I have 4,000 books behind me, because all I do is read books, and she said, “Have you read all those books?” And I said, “Yeah, I have read all these books.” She goes, “Do you think it’s interesting that you do not know the first thing about anorexia? All of those hundreds and thousands of books, and you haven’t read one book. You have avoided information about this disease, like you knew you needed to.”
Amanda Doyle:
It’s so interesting though, because it’s when your only tool’s a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. I’m sure there is some deeper psychology to you knowing at some level, and avoiding it like hell. And if you thought, because you were diagnosed when you were 12, or whatever, with bulimia, you thought that the periods where you were “sick” were the periods where you were exhibiting that. And that the periods in between when you were exhibiting that, you were just yourself.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
So your only point of reference was, “That is the indicia, that I am sick when I am purging. And all the other times is just, I guess, who Glennon is.” And so you didn’t realize that the whole time you were sick, and the way of thinking in between those periods of purging, was also diseased thinking, and it was just punctuated by the bouts of purging. You just thought that was you.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. And more than that, I think what happened is, that I solved my bulimia with anorexia. Okay. So a bulimic, and I was bulimic, that’s a no-brainer, but it’s like becoming a dry drunk. If you’re comparing it to alcohol, it’s like you don’t ever figure… I was horrifically bulimic for a very long time and then I got pregnant and I was like, “Done. I am done with this shit.” I never, not once, went back and really figured out what the hell happened to me. I just wrote. I was overly sensitive, and this is just who I was. And I didn’t excavate, I didn’t look at things, I didn’t do the work. Had I done the work, perhaps I would’ve discovered more of this. But instead I just used control and discipline and willpower to crush my bulimia.
Amanda Doyle:
And that happens all the time. Think of the people who have been traumatized by an infidelity, and then they go on and have relationships with people who are emotionally unavailable, so they never have to risk having an intimacy and a breach again. Or make themselves invulnerable to connection. And they’re like, “Look, I have this relationship. I got over that.” But you’re like, “Did you? Because you’re creating a world in which you never actually have to go to that place again.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. That’s what I did.
Abby Wambach:
Bulimia is obvious, the purging, it’s just an obvious that’s the thing that makes it. Anorexia is a little bit more confusing to diagnose.
Amanda Doyle:
But in retrospect, the anorexia is obvious too. I feel a sense of responsibility of that too, because it’s clear, I’m not trying to self-centralize this, but we do so much interrogation of, “You were a little kid and you were going through all of this.” And, “How come we didn’t all bring it out in the open and deal with it together?” And it’s been very clear that your restrictive controlled eating for years has not been a source of ease or joy or peace for you.
Glennon Doyle:
And I look at pictures now, and part of the embarrassment of it is, looking at myself and feeling like maybe it was obvious to everyone else. I can’t even think about that. I look at pictures of me before the Untamed tour, and I’m like, “What the…? Oh my God.”
Glennon Doyle:
It looks so obvious, it’s embarrassing to me. And some of the other things, my heart rate is way too low, my period, my hair. I don’t know, all of the bones, all of these things. And also the couple people that I’ve told, what is makes my heart go blah, is that when they don’t look surprised. They’re not like, “Wow.” They’re like, “Huh.” It feels like bulimia is like being an animal, and then I fixed it by becoming a robot. And I feel like thinking about the embarrassment of it, thinking about, okay, this writer of Untamed was anorexic the whole time I wrote it, it’s so freaking weird. But I just keep thinking about how hard it is to be both the detective of your life, and the mystery of your life.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, that’s fair. Because a mystery’s job is being a mystery.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s the mystery’s job.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. And I am good at it. I’m like a great criminal. I’m a great mystery. I’m like, “No, there’s more turns. And it’s like the mystery of me just outpaces a little bit, the detective of me. Because I’m a really good detective too. I’m just not as good as the mystery.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. And you’re a really good writer. So you’re like how it works is, as long as the mystery stays just one step ahead of the detective, then the detective can be good. And so can the mix.
Abby Wambach:
I have a question. So you said there’s this embarrassment thing, and I wonder what’s underneath the embarrassment of it all? Because I know that your intellectual mind and your body and your emotions around it, they’re very heightened. But I do think embarrassment is giving a lot of “out there” power. So what would you say is underneath the embarrassment that you feel? Or that you’ve been feeling around? Because the patriarchy has its fucking talons in all of us. And so the fact that you do this excavation of yourself, and the fact that you want to be honest and work into the minutiae of yourself, you didn’t write Untamed, and at the end of it are like, “Well, now I’m untamed and I’m free.”
Glennon Doyle:
Well, I think what I did is, what I wished for other people to do, which is that I wrote the truest, most beautiful self I could imagine. And that freedom, I can taste it. It’s right there. It’s why I’m willing to do this work, because I’m doing this for my 50-year-old self. That’s what I keep telling myself. I am doing all of this right now, because I love my 50-year-old self so much already. And I want her to be a little bit freer than I am right now. And I really hope that this is the last mystery. I mean, I told my mom-
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like, take this step and the path will appear. You’re like, “I’ll take this next step, but only under the assumption that it’s the last fucking step.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I feel done. I feel done with surprises. I feel like five years ago I thought I was a straight, bulimic, Pisces and now I’m a queer, anorexic Aries. And I just feel like I don’t want to, next year, to go to some therapist and find out I’m actually a Republican or something. I feel like-
Amanda Doyle:
Now that would be a plot twist.
Glennon Doyle:
That that’s when I’d come to the pod and say it’s over.
Abby Wambach:
Women in their fifties and sixties right now are giggling, because they know that there is still so much more to uncover.
Glennon Doyle:
I was just thinking, I’ll see.
Abby Wambach:
Let’s just think about today. Let’s think about today.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. What’s also under the humiliation of it, and I’m getting through that. I mean humiliation, it’s humble, it’s of being of the ground. Humus is the root of that. We’re all made of dirt. We’re fucking dirty, we’re messy, we’re dirty. Being humble is just admitting that you don’t know exactly from where you came, and where you’ll be going. And that’s where I am right now. I think that being a woman who has made herself public in talking about this kind of thing, and knowing what might, and will, come on the other side of it, because I’m so grateful for the pod squad right now. I feel like I’m going to speak for myself to you, because I want you to know. And then I’m not speaking to anybody else about it.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s a family meeting.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s a family meeting. And because of that, they will say what they’re going to say. And that’s just part of it. I haven’t worked it all out, but it’s just part of the fear, the embarrassment.
Amanda Doyle:
And also, I’ll say to the people who would say, “Oh, telling everyone to get free, and she was anorexic the whole time.” That is a person who doesn’t understand what Untamed is about, because it’s the same person who would say, “She wrote Love Warrior and then left her husband.” Of course, when you get to the path of the Love Warrior and you understand the next step is that you do it, because it’s the thing you need to do. And if you stayed because you were the Love Warrior, you actually wouldn’t have been a Love Warrior to begin with. And you go through the Untamed process and you’re peeling back, and you take that brave next step and the next step appears, and you either tell yourself, “Oh, I’m not going to take that because then that will give someone ammunition against me.” Then you’re just as caged as you were before. You have to allow yourself to take the next step, and the next step, and that is actually what untaming is.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s exactly right. And I also want to say this, because there is the element of, part of the embarrassment is… The refrain of Untamed is you’re not crazy, you’re a goddamn cheetah. So getting to this point in my life, and having yet another whack-a-mole manifestation of mental illness come into my life, because that’s what it feels. It’s like my whole life is like, it’s addiction, it’s bulimia, it’s depression, it’s anxiety, it’s anorexia, it just keeps popping up in different forms. One could start wondering if it’s like, I am crazy and I’m a goddamn cheetah. So there is that element. But I will also say this, I am thinking about all of this on a very wide level. I am thinking about the fact that I have always been an extreme version of what is happening to all of us. And there is a part of the; and I’ll talk about this on another episode, but I’ll talk about how this treatment is going for me.
Glennon Doyle:
What I will say is, how the treatment is going for me is a little bit like when I lost the dogma of Christianity, and I was so discombobulated that I didn’t know what to do. That is what this treatment of anorexia feels like to me. It feels like the discipline… I just kept thinking in my first couple months of treatment, analyzing the discipline with which I have led my life, the discipline in body, the discipline in beauty, the discipline in work, the discipline in parenting, the discipline. And I just kept thinking, if you are committed to discipline, that means that you are a disciple of something. What the fuck am I a disciple of?
Glennon Doyle:
And what I think that I am a disciple of, or what I think that anorexia could be looked at as a discipline of is, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy. Stay quiet, stay good, stay perfect, stay hustling, stay grinding. It’s like that quote from Naomi Wolfe that I’ve always loved so much, that a woman’s thinness is not about beauty, it’s about obedience. It’s about being a soldier, a warrior for control. And there is something underneath that, that all of us, I hope, I don’t want to make disciples of that.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t want to be that. I don’t want to live in fear of anyone in the world seeing proof of humanity on my body, seeing proof of joy, seeing proof of indulgence, seeing proof of deliciousness, seeing… It’s like-
Abby Wambach:
Rebellion against all of that.
Glennon Doyle:
But when we are addicted to this idea of thinness, it’s like refusal to prove ourselves human, as women. I was walking on the beach that; I’ve been doing a lot of walking, and I was thinking about-
Abby Wambach:
Not like over walking? Not like obsessive walking?
Glennon Doyle:
No, just quiet walking. No, I’m not allowed to do that. And I just kept having this thought of, I’m going to have to replace my religion of control and discipline. And it made me think of Liz and how she used to tell me; well, I used to have such a problem with the 12 Steps, because of the patriarchal ideas there. And she would say, “You just have to decide. You have to create your higher power. You have to create one that you can get behind following.” And so on a deep level right now, that’s what I feel like I’m doing. I’m doing treatment, but I’m also wanting a new God that is not control, that is not, “I’m not good enough,” that is not self-restraint, that is not self denial.
Amanda Doyle:
I think what’s so interesting about that, of everything you’ve just said with the disciples of white patriarchy and all of that, I think you’re disciple of control. And you came to that because you were so desperate, because of your love for your kid, to control your bulimia. And you controlled the hell out of everything. And you have so much love for your family, for this community, for everything, that you thought that if you just applied what you knew about control, in every aspect of your life, you could keep yourself safe from bulimia, from everything. You’d keep your people safe. And that could be what you could do, to know how to get there. And when women are controlling themselves, when people are controlling themselves, what they are not doing, is reaching their natural intelligence. Sonya Renee Taylor tells this beautiful story about Marianne Williamson. She retells it from our framework of radical self-love.
Amanda Doyle:
And Marianne Williamson talks about an acorn falling from a tree, and that no one trains the acorn to grow into a tree. No one controls it and teaches it how to be a tree. It just has the natural intelligence. And we trust that that is true. But we do the opposite with ourselves. We control the shit out of ourselves. And when we control the shit out of ourselves, we cut off at the roots, our natural intelligence. And when we cut off the roots, our natural intelligence, what grows in place of that is white supremacy. Because what is going to take that down is us unleashing our natural intelligence, our full power of full liberation. Because when we do that, there will be no structure of white supremacy being upheld. And so what I might suggest you become a disciple of, is your own natural intelligence, your own appetite, your own joy. Going towards that. Like you’ve always said, what feels warm, because that is the thing that you have controlled out of yourself.
Glennon Doyle:
First of all, thank you for everything you just said, because it’s so freaking beautiful and exactly right on. And I think we’re saying the same thing about the last part. When I think of creating the higher power, the reason why Liz is saying create it yourself, is so it’s an expression of your natural self. It’s not like I’m making up this God that I think will then be flying in the sky. That’s not it. The higher power is everything that you can think of, in terms of beauty and goodness and freedom. And then that higher power is inside of you. And so when you’re looking for wisdom and joy and your best natural expression, you are looking at your truest, most beautiful, best natural expression, as your own higher power.
Abby Wambach:
I also think that it was probably really confusing for you for so long because you were getting positively affirmed with your control and your success.
Glennon Doyle:
Nothing but rewarded.
Abby Wambach:
And the kids are well adjusted and good. And all of the things were making it really hard. It was just like all this evidence was stacking in the control’s favor.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, the world loves a sick woman. The world loves a sick woman.
Amanda Doyle:
The only negative symptom of a woman who fully controls herself, is that she feels crazy. And that negative system helps the outside system. And so you have to say, not withstanding all evidence to the contrary, that is affirming the shit out of my controlling of myself, “I don’t want to feel crazy.” Because you’re not crazy, you’re a goddamn genius. The craziness inside of you is whatever your particular thing is. With you, it was controlling the shit out of yourself, which was making you feel crazy because it wasn’t you, it was hunger brain.
Glennon Doyle:
Because following directions, if you’re following directions well, of our culture, you will be sick and feel crazy. But I will keep insisting that it’s just following directions. It’s just being A+ student of what the world tells us women should be. I think we’ll stop there and I want to continue this conversation for the pod squad because I do want to tell them what it has looked like for me and I want to assure them of the work that I’m doing and I just want them to know right now, it’s too much to get into right now, but I do want you to know that I’m doing all of the work.
Glennon Doyle:
And I do know, one of the things that when I was sitting on that couch reading that book that I read, was that anorexia is the second most deadly mental health disease in the world. Second only to opioid addiction. So we understand, and I am working towards being a much freer 50-year-old. And at the risk of sounding grandiose, I am wanting to do this work for me, but also for all of us. I so value, and am constantly amazed by this community and just the fact that we all get together here together. And I know that listening to my voice means something to you. And I want to help us all not be disciples of pain.
Abby Wambach:
I’ve been sitting here and for whatever reason, I never do this, but I was just listening to you and thinking, and I’ve been right here with you watching you go through this. And I’m just so grateful to whatever kind of god you are creating right now. And the learning and the difficulty that I have seen you go through during this process, for me, feels miraculous. And you’ve taken a huge leap of faith in yourself, and I think I’ll speak for the pod squad here, we want you to stick around for a long, long fucking time. And I was just saying little thank you prayers to whatever God is, because I think that so many factors had to be perfectly laid in this path for you. And for you to actually hear or acknowledge that these little whispers life was giving you, takes an extraordinary amount of courage. And you are rewiring your brain, and you are redeveloping a sense of yourself.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, I remember Alex said, because I was like 46, seriously? 46, we’re going to start this over, I’m 46. And she goes, “Yeah, but this is probably the first time you’ve ever been stable enough in your life to do this kind of work. When were you going to do it? In the middle of your last marriage? When were you going to do it? When you were building this thing? When were you going to do it? When you were dripping with children? This is the first time where you’ve had someone so stable next to you that you were able to fall apart.” So it’s important not to judge the timing of our lives, because it’s maybe exactly right on time.
Amanda Doyle:
And I just want to say back to you, what you’ve always said about there’s no such thing as one way liberation. And I have just noticed about myself in the past couple months, that watching you be so brave with this, has changed me too. And it’s been an exhale of not only about you and saving your life, but what I’m allowed to do with my life and my hunger. And I just think that what you’re doing is so personally powerful, and I think that me, as a pod squadder, that what you’re doing is revolutionary. Because I think we can all take a deep breath and be like, “Oh, we’re not doing that. We’re doing a new thing.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Let’s do a new thing. I love you both. I love you pod squad. Thanks for being here with me today. Thanks for listening. Let us do a new thing. See you next time.
Glennon Doyle:
Hi everybody. I am back with a new segment that we’re calling, “This is what Glennon’s therapist said to tell everybody after listening to all the things she just said about eating disorders.” So I am asking my amazing therapist to listen carefully for anything that could be triggering or wrong in what I’m saying, because I’m fully committed to making this a helpful, safe conversation to have, and not anything that could be hurtful. So my therapist listened to the episode that you just listened to, and here were her notes. First of all, she noticed that when I told you all about the diagnosis, I said that my doctor said, “You are anorexic.”
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. My therapist said that she highly doubted that that’s how my doctor would’ve said it to me, that that is likely what I heard. But what the doctor would’ve said was that I have anorexia. That I am a human being who has anorexia. Who is suffering from anorexia. But she doesn’t like to put a disease name after, “I am.” Which is so interesting that I did that because my entire book is about never putting anything after, “I am.” So she actually said the words to me, “What we tell ourselves is important.” So instead of saying, “I am anorexic,” what I would say is, “I have anorexia, and maybe one day I will not have it.” Okay. Another thing she noticed is that I said I was bulimic and now, well, maybe I was never bulimic, and now I’m anorexic.
Glennon Doyle:
And she said these things morph. Okay. It’s just like this could be just gender or sexuality and things aren’t on a binary, things aren’t this or that. That often these things just morph and change in our lives. She also says she does not call anorexia a disease, she calls it a disorder, that we can be reordered from. She also noticed, which I thought was interesting, a little bit of me ‘disavowing my sensitivity’ is what she called it. Like I was saying, “Well, I thought I was just sensitive, but actually it was all these things in my family and in the world.” And she said, maybe it’s an, ‘and both.’ That I actually am an extremely sensitive human being and, that that should not be discounted, and that it’s actually a very strong, beautiful thing to be. So there’s an ‘and both’ there, not an ‘either, or.’ And then the last thing she noticed, which I love, is that she noticed when I talked about learning that being anorexic is a lot about control and discipline, and wanting to be, “What am I going to replace that with now?”
Glennon Doyle:
“What am I going to replace it with?” And what my therapist is often talking to me about, is my tendency to be extreme about things. So I am either this or that. And when I’m trying to undo something, I tend to do the opposite of that thing, and go the opposite way in extremes. And that what is going to replace that discipline and control is balance. Not that I’m looking for the absolute opposite of that thing, to run towards it. Like on, I don’t know, day four with her, where I told her I was going to cut all my hair off and get rid of all of my clothes. And she said, “Maybe we slow down and look for balance, because in lots of ways, rebellion is just as much of a cage as obedience. And what we’re looking for is this elusive balance.” Maybe one day. Thank you pod squad.