Bryony Gordon: 30 things I’ve only learned in my thirties

Aged 37 and on a career high, Bryony Gordon found herself in rehab. Now she’s written a book to tell teenage girls everything she wishes she’d known earlier

most people come of age in their teens. Me? I came of age at 37, when, with a child, a husband, a mortgage, a best-selling book about my experiences with mental health, and an award-winning interview with Prince Harry about his mental health, I found myself in rehab.

I’d thought I had it all, but suddenly I realised I knew next to nothing.

A lifetime of using alcohol to deal with the chronic OCD I had suffered since childhood had left me stuck, emotionally at least, at the age I had started drinking: 14. And as I set about working on myself, I knew I did not want this for my own daughter. I wanted her to grow up in a society that taught her the lessons I was only now learning in my late thirties.

So I set about writing a book for her, and for all teenage girls – though really, it was for the teenage girl in me, and in all of us. Here are some of the life lessons I wish I had known a bit earlier.

1. The most powerful thing you can be when you grow up is you. Almost all the bad decisions you make in life will stem from not wanting to be you.

2. Everyone thinks the grass is greener on the other side. Actually, the grass is greener where you water it.

3. You are just as valid and important a human being as anyone else. In fact, you have something the Kim Ks and Gigis want – the ability to go out with your friends and not be stalked by weirdos and paparazzi. Yes, they envy you.

4. Instead of aspiring to be like someone else, try being inspired by them. It’s a small but crucial difference.

5. Do not hide your light – or try to turn it into something like a floodlight, when it’s more of a bedside lamp. Both are necessary.

6. Boring, I have learned after a lifetime of chaos, is not such a bad thing. In fact, if you want to live a rich, fulfilled life, boredom is sometimes exactly what you need.

Boring is where the inspiration strikes.

7. Don’t trash-talk yourself. I used to do this almost as a pre-emptive strike – nobody else could trash-talk me as much as I did. But nobody else was interested in trash-talking me at all. Everyone else was too caught up in their own lives to do that – probably, ironically, busy trash-talking themselves.

8. Take compliments. Don’t turn them into insults by telling someone that the dress they just admired on you cost 50p from Primark and shows off your bingo wings. Just say thank you and move on.

9. Play the gratefuls: every day, find three things that you are grateful for. It could just be that you got a seat on the Tube. But believe me, it works.

10. Putting off stuff means it just takes up more of your time: take it from someone who has spent more time worrying about this piece than actually writing it.

11. Don’t dismiss the way you are feeling because it is caused by hormones. I’m so sick of this! Hormones are the most powerful chemicals known to humankind, and the idea that I should ignore them because they happen to be female hormones is BULLSHIT.

12. Remember that if men had periods, there would probably be a show presented by Jeremy Clarkson in which he and his friends tried out period technology. Do not keep quiet about the menstrual cycle. It’s basically the thing that gives all of us life.

13. Listen to your body. Try not to silence it with booze and drugs as I did. It has things to tell you – important things.

14. Don’t feel you have to remove every hair on your body that isn’t located on your head. Yes, I Veet off my moustache when it reaches Mario levels of lavishness, but as I like to say: love me, love my bush.

15. Stop giving advice – at least some of the time. We often think we need to offer people advice when they just want to talk. Don’t feel you need to provide solutions.

16. Valuing life skills is valuing yourself. You can skydive and still have a savings account: being sensible does not make you dull.

17. Remember you are a human with wants and needs, and not just there to meet someone else’s wants and needs. Nobody else’s pleasure is worth sacrificing yours for.

18. It’s OK to masturbate. In fact, it’s amazing. (And everybody does, whether or not they admit it.)

19. Your body is incredible. Your body is to live for, not to die for. You are not obliged to find something about it that you dislike, or to keep quiet if – gasp! – there is something about it you do like.

20. Unfollow anyone on social media whose feed makes you feel ‘less than’.

21. Why are you using filters? You are brilliant just as you are and we all have spots, wrinkles and shadows. You are just setting yourself up so that every photo of yourself will make you wince, as opposed to just one in every 20.

22. There are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ foods. It is just cake. The world is not going to end if you eat it, and it isn’t going to kill you.

23. Think of all the things you could be doing instead of hating on yourself.

24. Remember, exercise is for everyone. It is not owned by an exclusive club made up of Olympic athletes and Instagram influencers.

25. Exercise for the gains, not the losses: the clarity it gives you instead of the inches you might remove from your waist and thighs. Exercise for mental health, and see the physical health benefits as a bonus.

26. Try not to use ‘you look like you’ve lost weight’ as a compliment. It feeds the idea that our worth lies in our appearance – also, people tend to lose weight during times of heartbreak or illness. What’s to celebrate?

27. Don’t wait until you are older to see how beautiful you are now.

28. If someone doesn’t like the way you look or tells you that you need to lose weight, then lose the weight of them.

29. A relationship is only ever part of you, not all of you.

30. You are Miss Right. And anyone who tells you otherwise is just plain wrong. ‘You Got This’ by Bryony Gordon (£9.99, Wren & Rook) is out now. See Bryony Gordon at Stella Live 10-11 May, telegraph.co.uk/events/event/stella-live