Survival kit for Getting Better Bite by Bite – a book for sufferers of bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorders

Survival kit for Getting Better Bite by Bite – a book for sufferers of bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorders

Getting better from an eating disorder, and re-connecting with your true self, can involve a bite by bite struggle. With bulimia nervosa or binge eating disorder, you may find yourself eating too much one minute and too little the next. Without understanding why. The good news is that recovery is possible…. this is especially so when you can accept you have a problem. From this point you can take steps to equip yourself with knowledge and self-help skills. These valuable forms of self-empowerment can assist you in accomplishing your recovery journey.

Getting started is not easy. For instance, the challenge of breaking the captive cycle of an eating disorder can seem greater when you look ‘normal’ while, within, an eating disorder is making you a prisoner of self. It is no fun feeling caught in the nasty bully’s web. The longer it goes on, the harder it can seem to break free.

The secrets and isolation of the illness thoughts and behaviours can severely affect your health and your relationships. The effort of trying to appear and pretend as though nothing is wrong to those around you can exacerbate the illness effects and lead to all sorts of misunderstandings, losses of opportunity and sad outcomes.

Professors Ulrike Schmit and Janet Treasure understand how tortuous living with bulimia nervosa or a binge eating disorder can be. They have learnt, through research, and through talking with hundreds of sufferers, about the debilitating and enjoyment-robbing, and relationship-destroying, effects.

Ulrike Schmidt, June Alexander and Janet Treasure, at the Academy for Eating Disorders, ICED, NYC, 2014.

Importantly, they know the cause is due to illness, not personal weakness. Their research has helped them to understand why ‘getting better’ can be so difficult. It has led them to create ways to help sufferers re-build self-belief and regain freedom to be the person they want to be. The conclusion is that the best path to regaining freedom is the one where the sufferer packs a survival kit, occupies the driver’s seat in mapping their recovery path and is respected as an active member of their own treatment team.

I feel honoured to be a co-author of Getting Better Bite by Bite, the new book for sufferers of bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorders, by Ulrike Schmidt and Janet Treasure. It offers help and opportunities for self-enrichment at every stage and phase of the illness, in getting your life back on track.

An interview about what to pack for your recovery journey, and why, appears in the latest  Gürze/Salucore Eating Disorders Resource Catalogue. Click this link to learn more.