In the beginning of most relationships, you feel all sorts of passion.  Sexual, physical, heart-wrenching passion.  But that's not love.  That was my first indicator that something was up with Glennon when she said she left her husband because she was "in love" with a woman she only met once in real life.  You can exchange emails until you are blue in the face (fingers?), but that doesn't mean squat when you don't actually know someone in real life.  I know this because I've been married to my husband for seventeen years and we met online and knowing someone online is so much easier than knowing them in person.  Love is not just "knowing" someone.  It's dealing with their shit.  It's seeing their ugly sides and still wanting to be with them.  It's smelling their 100th fart of the day and still feeling like you want to near them (even though they may fart on you next time).  It's cleaning up after them.  It's seeing them cry and wanting to comfort them.  It's reaching for them when you've had a nightmare or hugging them when you need comfort.  It's being so angry at them that you want to scream and then calming down and realizing you could have handled that better and still wanting to love them.  Love is choosing, every single day, to not only love them, but also be a better you to be the person that they deserve.  Love is not passion.  Passion is passion.  Passion is lust.  Passion is a fleeting feeling, whereas love is everlasting (well, as everlasting as you choose it to be).  

Feeling an overabundance of what you think is "love" is an indicator that there is something off here.  It very well could be a sign of severe codependence or just the opposite: a part of the idealize/devalue/discard/hoover cycle.  Because the more "passion" you feel for someone, the more that passion can turn into anger and hate the moment you are angry with them.  So, all her talk about her overabundance of feelings for her wife is such a red flag that it verges on triggering me.  

I once had a friend named Deanne and her husband sadly passed away several years ago, leaving her with 4-5 children (I can't actually remember how many).  And she had this friend, this guy named Eric, who would follow her around like a lost puppy and constantly talk about much he loved her.  He made it quite uncomfortable for everyone.  He had been in love with her since high school and now that she was a widow, he had a shot with her again.  So he did everything for her.  She needed help, so she let him, even though she did not feel the same way about him in the least.  He drove her kids around, took them to where they needed to go.  He was like a doting father and husband, minus the relationship with mom.  He did everything she asked of him, no matter what.  I think he would have hidden bodies for her she had asked him to.  No, I know he would have.  That was how much he loved her.  He loved her with blind and wild abandon.  

Glennon is a huge proponent of living with wild abandon (well, as she puts it, living "untamed").  And it seems like from the way she writes she's either a) trying to convince herself or others she loves this woman that much or b) she writes this way to be "inspirational", or c) she has the same blind abandon as my old friend Deanne's little puppy boy Eric.  OR, she loves this woman on paper, where everyone can see, but behind closed doors, she could be a totally different person, as narcissists tend to do.  I am not saying Glennon is a narcissist.  But I am saying she either comes off as one, or she comes off as a severely codependent woman.  There are red flags all over this book.  Then add in the fact that she fabricates conversations with her children (or more likely, "expands" on them) in her book, makes me think that that maybe there is something going on here.  To me, the only actual "untamed" thing about this book is her version of the truth.  And it irks me that everyone who's read her books thinks she so great and thinks her books are so great.  They just aren't.  And reading something someone writes isn't the same as knowing the person in person, so how does anyone know she's great?  She could be what I said, or worse.  Or she could be wonderful.  I have no idea, but I don't pretend to know, either.  All I am saying is that even if her book is totally legit (though those conversations sure aren't), the way she writes is BAD advice for those of us who are attracted to toxicity.  She's teaching people to make HUGE life choices based on fleeting and unhealthy powerful feelings.  She's urging people to no use their brains, but their programming to make these choices.  And she's acting as though those things are the smartest things on earth to do.  Sigh.  

As children of narcissists, please do your due diligence in life and learn to recognize red flags before reading something like this and thinking it's wonderful or a good thing to model your own life after.  That's all I am saying.  This book makes me uncomfortable for so many reasons.  And for anyone who understands red flags. it should for you, too.