January 23, 2024
Valentine’s Day can be a challenging day for people with eating disorders. It is often a day fuelled by comparisons – it is so easy to […]
January 10, 2024
When I look back on all my favourite people in my life, I love them for the way they make me feel. For their smile, their grace, their energy, their spark. I remember feeling loved and cared for by my primary school teacher. A gymnastics coach in high school had a way of making me believe I could tackle difficult skills. My university lecturer marked in a way that highlighted the strengths in my writing and had me wanting to work even harder. When I think of a particular work colleague, I can’t help but smile – he has a way of lighting up every room he walks into.
July 27, 2021
In recovery, you don’t need to ‘find’ anything. You are not lacking any tool or essential quality you need in order to recover. Every thought, every action, is taking you one step closer to your eating disorder or one step closer to recovery. Every thought and every action is a creation of the next moment in your life.
July 13, 2021
When did you first put your mask on?
More importantly, are you ready to take it off?
June 29, 2021
When I think back to that time I can remember the rush of adrenaline through my veins. When I pause though, and pay attention to what else I was feeling fragments come back to me. The lethargy in between the adrenaline. The isolation. Foggy thoughts. Dizziness. The drill sergeant in my brain, always commanding. The immediate terror I would feel on waking - having to plan out my day.
June 15, 2021
I was tired. No, exhausted. When I say I had nothing left it is no exaggeration. The thought of the next hour of life felt insurmountable yet here I was being asked to do all the things that terrified me. Eat food. Keep it. Sit on my butt and not exercise. I didn’t have the energy to fight the anxiety if I did the recovery thing, yet if I continued in my eating disorder I wouldn’t be getting additional energy anytime soon.
June 1, 2021
Having lived in both hemispheres I have been exposed to all versions of ‘recovered’ in the eating disorder world.
In medical terms there is criteria for a broken bone and criteria for a healed bone. There is criteria for being diagnosed with cancer and criteria for remission.
When it comes to eating disorders, there is no standard criteria that is agreed upon in order to define recovery.
May 25, 2021
As you step into recovery, your body may change...and your beliefs, behaviours, biases and values will go through a software update as well, because these are the things that got you into an eating disorder in the first place.
May 18, 2021
Having an eating disorder is more than a full-time job, it becomes a lifestyle and a way of being. I don’t need to tell you that going to a party is analogous to being put in a washing machine. A cacophony of thoughts, all competing for your attention order you to eat this and not that. Another sector will run the bargaining campaign, if you don’t eat this you may eat that. A third part of the chorus will conduct a running commentary on how you look and who is watching you, all while keeping a black book of ‘social blunders’ it can use to beat you up later.
May 11, 2021
Never going back means exactly what it sounds like. The distinction, however, is that never going back is a choice. As someone that is recovered, I do not fear falling into eating disordered behaviours or thought patterns. I do not fear that I will be blindsided or tempted or swayed. The thing about knowing is you cannot unknow it.
May 4, 2021
This is the part I like to call ‘no-man’s land’. It is where the eating disorder (the tiger) is no longer working for you, but recovery (the absence of the tiger) isn’t yet delivering on its promises. No-man’s land doesn’t have a timeframe or a compass. No-man’s land has a plentiful supply of fog, obscuring your vision of what is ahead and giving you no sense of the ‘right’ direction.
April 27, 2021
You can choose to do ‘a little bit of your eating disorder’ if you want to but there is no such thing as a little bit of an eating disorder because the truth is, an eating disorder is like a termite. It chews away at your insides until one day your house (life) falls down around you. So no, 80% doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for birthing a baby, for driving to work, for going to the toilet or handing in an essay. The fact your ED is trying to get you to do 80% is a big red warning sign it is gearing up for an attack on your recovery.’
April 20, 2021
Diet culture is everywhere. I often have clients say to me ‘I feel like I am the only person that eat 3 meals and 3 snacks a day’ or ‘I’m like the only person in my friendship group that eats carbs.’ Sometimes, that might 100% be true. Diet culture has become the ‘norm’ in today’s society. It is hard to find someone that has never been on a diet, never wanted to lose weight, never felt the weight of comparison, judgment or pressure to be something other than they were.
April 13, 2021
Our experience of life is often contributed to luck. The typical view is that our experience is a result of what happens to us. That life is random, that some people are just “born lucky.” But the truth is we contribute to everything we experience in life. While we can’t necessarily control what happens to us, we can control how we respond.
April 7, 2021
We tend to look at others' bodies with longing. We view them as perfect or at least better than our own. This is because we are looking at their body as a whole without a bias towards negativity and in general the whole is mainly positive. We see other people’s bodies are wonderful because they are wonderful, all bodies are, including ours. When our vision is clouded by the negativity bias, we are unable to see our own beauty. But just because you can't see something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
March 30, 2021
The high of being recovered is a thousand times higher than any high I ever had in my eating disorder. Sometimes storms don’t come to destroy our life. They come to clear a path. My path asked me to make peace with being alone, feel my feelings and lean into true freedom.
March 23, 2021
Being recovered is like being the star of the movie. No longer do I constantly watch my body in reflections and mental replays. No longer do I criticize my earth suit. Today I experience my body - by riding a scooter, swimming in the lake, playing volleyball with friends. Today I love my earth suit because to do anything else is to buy into the system of oppression that held me captive in the first place.
March 16, 2021
Recovery is a not a full-time job, it’s a 24/7 job. It often starts before you open your eyes in the morning and sometimes it even invades your dreams. It can be like walking up a scree slope, 3 steps forwards and 2 steps back will yield you but an inch of progress. Sometimes you slide far down the scree before you can get purchase and re-set. Recovery can be exhausting. Demanding. Overwhelming.
March 9, 2021
When you start to move into recovery, two things can be true. There can be a part of you – the real soul self you – that wants to do something like choose a certain food or exercise...and, your ED can get a kick out of it too.
March 2, 2021
Eating disorders have PhDs in arguments. They are lighting fast with comebacks, sense any hesitation, and will go right for the jugular, every time. They are also masters at starting arguments, with a seemingly innocent statement...
February 23, 2021
Living with 'shoulds', telling ourselves that we 'should' be doing something - doing more, doing it differently - puts a lot of unnecessary pressure on ourselves .
February 13, 2021
Eating disorders are geniuses at filtering out the positives and focusing on the negatives. Are you seeing obstacles rather than opportunity?
January 31, 2021
A blue chair will always be a blue chair, that doesn’t change. But body image? For me, that shifted and changed on a daily basis.
January 12, 2021
It is very common to take things personally when they’re not connected to you at all. However, we can learn to challenge this behaviour.
January 5, 2021
As hard as it is to believe, other people don't actually know our every thought. Notice the thoughts coming up, and challenge the belief that there are other possibilities.
December 30, 2020
Our thoughts and emotions create our realities - whether that is the same as what others see is another story! Eating disorders can lead us to believe all sorts, and it is really difficult to separate truth from fiction, but absolutely possible to overcome.
December 22, 2020
How does your eating disorder twist your thoughts? Do you find that you brush over your achievements, that you discount the positives?
December 15, 2020
It's really easy to view one slip up or one less than perfect achievement, as a complete failure. Overgeneralising is a common trait in people suffering from an eating disorder but it is possible to challenge it.
December 8, 2020
When unwell with an eating disorder, our cognition can become clouded and distorted, leading us to experience situations differently. Being aware of this and reflecting on the times where this has happened can help us to challenge these thought patterns and provides insight on where we can make changes.
December 1, 2020
We finish our interview this week with Kristie, where she shares how the cultural focus on thinness affected her.
November 24, 2020
How does our environment change and shape the way we feel about our bodies, and our behaviours? We can't always control our environment, but being aware of the messages and how they affect us can help us in our recovery journey.
November 17, 2020
A turning point in recovery can be the act of writing a goodbye letter to your ED. Kristie shares hers with us today.
November 10, 2020
Part 2 of an assignment from 8 Keys to Recovery From An Eating Disorder Workbook: An interview with someone who is recovered.
November 3, 2020
Finding the motivation, having the patience, and retaining hope are three crucial elements to fully recovering from an eating disorder.
September 23, 2020
This story illustrates the situation you face every day in recovery - a choice between the known and the unknown.
February 20, 2020
Movement that comes from joy and therefore creates it, allows us to be in our bodies – able to breathe fully. Movement doesn’t have to be the cause of pain or the result of fear.
December 24, 2019
For people in recovery, the Holiday's can be a time full of triggers, anxiety and even darkness. But the darkness can also help us find our light.
November 25, 2019
If recovery is tough today, remember that every action, no matter how small towards recovery, gets you closer to your goal of Recovered.