Testimonials
Life Stories Diary Feedback
I have been meaning to congratulate you on your new format of Life Stories Diary. It is excellent and welcoming. I hope it encourages many people to write and share their journeys. By doing so, they may help others negotiate the changes and chances of this fleeting world. What you are achieving is very impressive.
I have been meaning to congratulate you on your new format of Life Stories Diary. It is excellent and welcoming. I hope it encourages many people to write and share their journeys. By doing so, they may help others negotiate the changes and chances of this fleeting world. What you are achieving is very impressive.
Mentor Services Feedback
One year ago, my memoir, The Longest Match, was released. It has been an incredible journey so far and I just wanted to express my gratitude to YOU! With your support and expertise I was able to put my life story into words and see my memoir become a published book. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
June’s writing and editing expertise, along with her own experience with an eating disorder, made her the perfect mentor to accompany me on the exciting journey of crafting my memoir and making it a reality. From the other side of the world, she was with me every step of the way, providing encouragement and support.
I want to let you know how appreciative I am of your guidance as my writing coach and mentor. This was a very personal journey for me -delving into vulnerable, painful places from my past. You created, through your compassion and understanding, a safe platform for me to express myself, which allowed me to find deeper healing… something I had not anticipated would be an outcome of this writing journey. It has been such a pleasure working with you. I am now proud of “my story” and your encouragement, validation and support have become a part of “this girl’s” journey.
Working with June has been by far the easiest part of writing my book. June is professional, compassionate and always willing to help. She has a passion for her work that is infectious and she takes the stress out of the process. When you don’t know where to turn, June’s mentoring offers peace of mind and the end result is perfect.
I love the gentle introduction to using writing as therapy and a safe way to navigate through deeper work.
Enjoyed everything, the great insight into the very many benefits of life writing. Even enjoyed the terrifying experience of writing (and reading!) my own work. June is a perceptive and encouraging teacher.
Thank you for suggestions on how to organise my computer files in the most efficient way to assist the interacting process while you are writing my story.
Talking over things with you has awakened long forgotten memories that I can write about.
I find your ideas and presentation very stimulating. Now I want like to learn to write myself into my life! To undo the trauma and joy of my life.
I feel encouraged to just write for myself and not worry about what others might think, and not to worry about what I might do with what I have written. Thanks for encouraging me to find my voice.
I have lived a very public and social life yet, until writing my book, had never shared my best kept secret – a battle with a mental illness. The outcome of my book release has been truly extraordinary.
Writing my story and sharing it with the world has been exhilarating. I never knew the joy and satisfaction I would feel from writing my memoir.
For two years I worked on my book every chance I could. Many times I wanted to give up because I did know if my writing was good enough to tell a powerful story. Then June became my mentor. My advice to anyone who has ever desired to write your story … DO IT. Do not doubt it. You never know how many people you will touch through your story
One year ago, my memoir, The Longest Match, was released. It has been an incredible journey so far and I just wanted to express my gratitude to YOU! With your support and expertise I was able to put my life story into words and see my memoir become a published book. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
June’s writing and editing expertise, along with her own experience with an eating disorder, made her the perfect mentor to accompany me on the exciting journey of crafting my memoir and making it a reality. From the other side of the world, she was with me every step of the way, providing encouragement and support.
I want to let you know how appreciative I am of your guidance as my writing coach and mentor. This was a very personal journey for me -delving into vulnerable, painful places from my past. You created, through your compassion and understanding, a safe platform for me to express myself, which allowed me to find deeper healing… something I had not anticipated would be an outcome of this writing journey. It has been such a pleasure working with you. I am now proud of “my story” and your encouragement, validation and support have become a part of “this girl’s” journey.
Working with June has been by far the easiest part of writing my book. June is professional, compassionate and always willing to help. She has a passion for her work that is infectious and she takes the stress out of the process. When you don’t know where to turn, June’s mentoring offers peace of mind and the end result is perfect.
I love the gentle introduction to using writing as therapy and a safe way to navigate through deeper work.
Enjoyed everything, the great insight into the very many benefits of life writing. Even enjoyed the terrifying experience of writing (and reading!) my own work. June is a perceptive and encouraging teacher.
Thank you for suggestions on how to organise my computer files in the most efficient way to assist the interacting process while you are writing my story.
Talking over things with you has awakened long forgotten memories that I can write about.
I find your ideas and presentation very stimulating. Now I want like to learn to write myself into my life! To undo the trauma and joy of my life.
I feel encouraged to just write for myself and not worry about what others might think, and not to worry about what I might do with what I have written. Thanks for encouraging me to find my voice.
I have lived a very public and social life yet, until writing my book, had never shared my best kept secret – a battle with a mental illness. The outcome of my book release has been truly extraordinary.
Writing my story and sharing it with the world has been exhilarating. I never knew the joy and satisfaction I would feel from writing my memoir.
For two years I worked on my book every chance I could. Many times I wanted to give up because I did know if my writing was good enough to tell a powerful story. Then June became my mentor. My advice to anyone who has ever desired to write your story … DO IT. Do not doubt it. You never know how many people you will touch through your story
The Diary Healer
I cannot thank you enough for inviting me to contribute to The Diary Healer and share in the transformative work you are accomplishing through this platform. Writing out my story was an incredibly healing and liberating experience, and I am humbled to be a part of such a meaningful initiative. I’m grateful for your friendship and the impact you have made in my life.
Though eating disorders hide in shame, secrets and silence my experience has been that they’re actually quite noisy and chaotic. Journaling served first as a way to process through the eating disorder thought and emotions and then my own gender dysphoria once the eating disorder started to quiet down. I’m excited that June Alexander is creating a space for people to share their writings, arts, experiences and other healthy forms of self expression.
June combines her dual experience of someone with a lived experience of an eating disorder and trained in clear reflective expression to help people recover from an eating disorder.
As a diary-keeper and a member of the international eating disorder community I welcome this exploration of writing, especially for communicating with our own selves as a life skill as well as a therapeutic one. Writing is the slowing down and careful observation of our thinking: the content and the process. Through our diaries we become literate in our own consciousness and our unique selves. Thank you to June Alexander and The Diary Healer project!
June Alexander’s exquisite work fills an important gap in the eating disorder book shelf. I just wish she could have written her books earlier. I know that June’s words would have helped me a lot in my own recovery!
“The Diary Healer” is a long-overdue and very welcome addition to our knowledge base in the recovery field. I will never forget staring down at the huge brown box of old diaries in my parents’ attic – realizing there was a whole precious life-in-progress in that box – MY life. With “The Diary Healer”, June brings to light all of the power, the potential, the self-respect that keeping a diary has to offer each of us, whether we are recovering, recovered, a carer, a loved one, a professional, all of the above or none of the above. Someone needed to do it, and June stepped forward and said “I will do it. I will tackle the huge task of writing “The Diary Healer.”’ And she has done so – beautifully.
I cannot thank you enough for inviting me to contribute to The Diary Healer and share in the transformative work you are accomplishing through this platform. Writing out my story was an incredibly healing and liberating experience, and I am humbled to be a part of such a meaningful initiative. I’m grateful for your friendship and the impact you have made in my life.
Though eating disorders hide in shame, secrets and silence my experience has been that they’re actually quite noisy and chaotic. Journaling served first as a way to process through the eating disorder thought and emotions and then my own gender dysphoria once the eating disorder started to quiet down. I’m excited that June Alexander is creating a space for people to share their writings, arts, experiences and other healthy forms of self expression.
June combines her dual experience of someone with a lived experience of an eating disorder and trained in clear reflective expression to help people recover from an eating disorder.
As a diary-keeper and a member of the international eating disorder community I welcome this exploration of writing, especially for communicating with our own selves as a life skill as well as a therapeutic one. Writing is the slowing down and careful observation of our thinking: the content and the process. Through our diaries we become literate in our own consciousness and our unique selves. Thank you to June Alexander and The Diary Healer project!
June Alexander’s exquisite work fills an important gap in the eating disorder book shelf. I just wish she could have written her books earlier. I know that June’s words would have helped me a lot in my own recovery!
“The Diary Healer” is a long-overdue and very welcome addition to our knowledge base in the recovery field. I will never forget staring down at the huge brown box of old diaries in my parents’ attic – realizing there was a whole precious life-in-progress in that box – MY life. With “The Diary Healer”, June brings to light all of the power, the potential, the self-respect that keeping a diary has to offer each of us, whether we are recovering, recovered, a carer, a loved one, a professional, all of the above or none of the above. Someone needed to do it, and June stepped forward and said “I will do it. I will tackle the huge task of writing “The Diary Healer.”’ And she has done so – beautifully.
A Girl Called Tim
Fighting an eating disorder and coping with a mental illness, requires preparations like a soldier preparing for battle. It requires doing away with ‘keeping up appearances’. Reporting on the launch of A Girl Called Tim in Bairnsdale in East Gippsland News Page 3 March 30.
Hi June, I have just finished listening to your podcasts of you reading your book A Girl Called Tim. I’d already read the book years ago but wanted to re-visit it.
Oh my gosh, I enjoyed it so very much! It made me smile and made me cry (a lot); it is a very powerful, beautiful and insightful account of your journey with an eating disorder (ED) and your beautiful self … I think you are incredibly resilient and I admire your resolve to keep exploring avenues for healing when things within and around you were so challenging and life felt so helpless and hopeless.
I am glad you have the love and constant of your beautiful children and grandchildren surrounding you. The power of family for healing is evident yet again
It is the handling of living with an ‘eating disorder’ from age 11, and the candid analysis of anorexia nervosa, bulimia and food obsession as a means of control, via her crafted diaries that makes this genuine autobiography a ‘must-read’.
I am blown away by A Girl Called Tim, I feel a sense of understanding…I don’t feel so alone – this 10-11 year “battle” I’m going through seems liked nobody could understand and now as I read your words I feel hope.
This book is hard to put down. Non-fiction, it spans half a lifetime of gruelling illness. June, a tomboy farm child becomes a teenage girl who is good at everything, popular and hard working, but sick with anorexia.
June never gave in to her illness, she fought it every day for 21 years of her life and she won. She lived. This is an inspiring story.
Of all the books I have perused pertaining to eating disorders, yours is the one I relate to best.
All of my adult life, I have been plagued by the debilitating practice of gorging and purging — incidents of excessive and compulsive overeating, followed by extreme purging, fasting and dieting.
I am cheering for June. Her book, which I finished last night, brought me through time and two continents. Through anorexia and bulimia as they went from unseen, to misunderstood, and then overcome. What is most amazing to me is June’s ability to re-frame the past with such compassion – when her illness showed her none and often the world around her was unable to show her anything but confusion.
I heard you on the ABC on Bush Telegraph and subsequently borrowed your book from my local library. I am not a reader but read it in two nights which should indicate to you how good it is. I am now in the process of going back over it again. I cried a lot during my reading of your story. I too have suffered from this illness during my life and although my story is different in some key respects there are some striking similarities.
I congratulate you on your honesty and forthright approach. I am 68 years young and my beautiful lady is 63, she has had anorexia all of her life and to this day is unable to find a health practitioner who even recognises that her anxiety and depressions are as a result of her anorexia. Thank you once again for your wonderful book, it gives me hope for my loved one and my future.
Your message of hope for total recovery – even for long-term sufferers – means more to me than I can tell you.
I have just finished your memoirs – I got so involved that I forgot the cup of tea sitting on my bedside table! Had to drink it cold!
Your book let me look from the outside and inside. I’m lucky that I found it and able to read it!
Knowing the hideous nature of anorexia, I can only be amazed at your strength in surviving and recovering in times when not much was known about the disease and we didn’t have people like yourself to educate and inspire us. I truly appreciate your kindness.
June provides us with not only a personal journey of discovery, learning and recovery. She also provides the societal and professional history and evolution from ignorance and misunderstanding of eating disorders.
She creates the picture so clearly that I felt I was there with her, agonizing as she stumbled and wanting to help her up, cheering as she made steps in progress to recovery.
June, A Girl Called Tim arrived this morning, I started reading after lunch, and six hours later put it down, the last page turned. I KNOW your story, your courage and determination will be an inspiration and motivation to many people as they seek their own recovery.
Thank you for an extraordinary read of your book A Girl Called Tim. I bought the book and read it in two days. It is the only book ever I have read so fast and delved into every detail that you were describing. … I felt really sad for you that your mother used to call you Tim, and Toby when she was cross. I could not understand why she just didn’t call you June. To me right from the start it sounds like you were living like a boy. And it sounded like you were being that son for approval because that’s how you were identified.
… While family is not to blame for having an eating disorder, I believe family can contribute in some cases to the disorder and I think your family did contribute to it. You sound like a beautiful woman who was just not pointed in the right direction from the start and I commend your strength to keep healing. I cried when I read your letter in the book to your children.
Fighting an eating disorder and coping with a mental illness, requires preparations like a soldier preparing for battle. It requires doing away with ‘keeping up appearances’. Reporting on the launch of A Girl Called Tim in Bairnsdale in East Gippsland News Page 3 March 30.
Hi June, I have just finished listening to your podcasts of you reading your book A Girl Called Tim. I’d already read the book years ago but wanted to re-visit it.
Oh my gosh, I enjoyed it so very much! It made me smile and made me cry (a lot); it is a very powerful, beautiful and insightful account of your journey with an eating disorder (ED) and your beautiful self … I think you are incredibly resilient and I admire your resolve to keep exploring avenues for healing when things within and around you were so challenging and life felt so helpless and hopeless.
I am glad you have the love and constant of your beautiful children and grandchildren surrounding you. The power of family for healing is evident yet again
It is the handling of living with an ‘eating disorder’ from age 11, and the candid analysis of anorexia nervosa, bulimia and food obsession as a means of control, via her crafted diaries that makes this genuine autobiography a ‘must-read’.
I am blown away by A Girl Called Tim, I feel a sense of understanding…I don’t feel so alone – this 10-11 year “battle” I’m going through seems liked nobody could understand and now as I read your words I feel hope.
This book is hard to put down. Non-fiction, it spans half a lifetime of gruelling illness. June, a tomboy farm child becomes a teenage girl who is good at everything, popular and hard working, but sick with anorexia.
June never gave in to her illness, she fought it every day for 21 years of her life and she won. She lived. This is an inspiring story.
Of all the books I have perused pertaining to eating disorders, yours is the one I relate to best.
All of my adult life, I have been plagued by the debilitating practice of gorging and purging — incidents of excessive and compulsive overeating, followed by extreme purging, fasting and dieting.
I am cheering for June. Her book, which I finished last night, brought me through time and two continents. Through anorexia and bulimia as they went from unseen, to misunderstood, and then overcome. What is most amazing to me is June’s ability to re-frame the past with such compassion – when her illness showed her none and often the world around her was unable to show her anything but confusion.
I heard you on the ABC on Bush Telegraph and subsequently borrowed your book from my local library. I am not a reader but read it in two nights which should indicate to you how good it is. I am now in the process of going back over it again. I cried a lot during my reading of your story. I too have suffered from this illness during my life and although my story is different in some key respects there are some striking similarities.
I congratulate you on your honesty and forthright approach. I am 68 years young and my beautiful lady is 63, she has had anorexia all of her life and to this day is unable to find a health practitioner who even recognises that her anxiety and depressions are as a result of her anorexia. Thank you once again for your wonderful book, it gives me hope for my loved one and my future.
Your message of hope for total recovery – even for long-term sufferers – means more to me than I can tell you.
I have just finished your memoirs – I got so involved that I forgot the cup of tea sitting on my bedside table! Had to drink it cold!
Your book let me look from the outside and inside. I’m lucky that I found it and able to read it!
Knowing the hideous nature of anorexia, I can only be amazed at your strength in surviving and recovering in times when not much was known about the disease and we didn’t have people like yourself to educate and inspire us. I truly appreciate your kindness.
June provides us with not only a personal journey of discovery, learning and recovery. She also provides the societal and professional history and evolution from ignorance and misunderstanding of eating disorders.
She creates the picture so clearly that I felt I was there with her, agonizing as she stumbled and wanting to help her up, cheering as she made steps in progress to recovery.
June, A Girl Called Tim arrived this morning, I started reading after lunch, and six hours later put it down, the last page turned. I KNOW your story, your courage and determination will be an inspiration and motivation to many people as they seek their own recovery.
Thank you for an extraordinary read of your book A Girl Called Tim. I bought the book and read it in two days. It is the only book ever I have read so fast and delved into every detail that you were describing. … I felt really sad for you that your mother used to call you Tim, and Toby when she was cross. I could not understand why she just didn’t call you June. To me right from the start it sounds like you were living like a boy. And it sounded like you were being that son for approval because that’s how you were identified.
… While family is not to blame for having an eating disorder, I believe family can contribute in some cases to the disorder and I think your family did contribute to it. You sound like a beautiful woman who was just not pointed in the right direction from the start and I commend your strength to keep healing. I cried when I read your letter in the book to your children.
Writing Workshop Feedback
The chatter today has been about how good your workshop was and how we can make use of the diary and the skills… so you have left us all with good memories and lots of tools to support our work people who use the service…I have discovered that one of our patient participants has taken to diary writing like a duck to water and is using it daily to support her recovery…
I am so happy you were able to facilitate our workshop! It was a very informative and engaging event. I know we each left the workshop with wonderful confidence in the process and excited to start keeping a journal. What a gift you have shared with us.
The chatter today has been about how good your workshop was and how we can make use of the diary and the skills.
I am so happy you were able to facilitate our workshop! It was a very informative and engaging event. I know we each left the workshop with wonderful confidence in the process and excited to start keeping a journal. What a gift you have shared with us.
English is my second language and yet I totally understood June’s messages and I am taking home a lot of information to share with others.
The workshop sessions re-invigorated my interest in writing and writing tasks; I like the creative alternatives to “old faithful” activities.
I really enjoyed the chance to write something. I had no idea I would write about my football scarf until I started, and it has triggered a whole lot of things I want to say. Thanks June, your workshop was great.
I have learnt a lot and enjoyed the company. I would like to attend further workshops so that I can expand my life story.
Friendly, relaxed, conducive to further work. I am interested in further workshops as I want to learn more.
The chatter today has been about how good your workshop was and how we can make use of the diary and the skills… so you have left us all with good memories and lots of tools to support our work people who use the service…I have discovered that one of our patient participants has taken to diary writing like a duck to water and is using it daily to support her recovery…
I am so happy you were able to facilitate our workshop! It was a very informative and engaging event. I know we each left the workshop with wonderful confidence in the process and excited to start keeping a journal. What a gift you have shared with us.
The chatter today has been about how good your workshop was and how we can make use of the diary and the skills.
I am so happy you were able to facilitate our workshop! It was a very informative and engaging event. I know we each left the workshop with wonderful confidence in the process and excited to start keeping a journal. What a gift you have shared with us.
English is my second language and yet I totally understood June’s messages and I am taking home a lot of information to share with others.
The workshop sessions re-invigorated my interest in writing and writing tasks; I like the creative alternatives to “old faithful” activities.
I really enjoyed the chance to write something. I had no idea I would write about my football scarf until I started, and it has triggered a whole lot of things I want to say. Thanks June, your workshop was great.
I have learnt a lot and enjoyed the company. I would like to attend further workshops so that I can expand my life story.
Friendly, relaxed, conducive to further work. I am interested in further workshops as I want to learn more.
Morningside Chats
The meditation and chat was just what I needed to reset in my recovery today. Thank you both for grounding me.
I keep a diary and love seeing my journey, I’m definitely going to try Sondra’s tips on retraining and noticing healthy vs ED voice.
So inspirational! Absolutely loved June’s ‘often we can write when we cannot speak’.
June was so introspective, honest and supportive. Really like the idea of preserving my thoughts for reflection.
I love the idea of starting to journal! Sondra and June made my week. Such a therapeutic chat, thanks!
The Diary Healer was instrumental in my recovery. The chat was wonderful, thank you both!
Thank you June for your honesty and sharing your story, loved your advice.
The meditation and chat was just what I needed to reset in my recovery today. Thank you both for grounding me.
I keep a diary and love seeing my journey, I’m definitely going to try Sondra’s tips on retraining and noticing healthy vs ED voice.
So inspirational! Absolutely loved June’s ‘often we can write when we cannot speak’.
June was so introspective, honest and supportive. Really like the idea of preserving my thoughts for reflection.
I love the idea of starting to journal! Sondra and June made my week. Such a therapeutic chat, thanks!
The Diary Healer was instrumental in my recovery. The chat was wonderful, thank you both!
Thank you June for your honesty and sharing your story, loved your advice.
Down Memory Lane at YarramA two-day Down Memory Lane workshop at Yarram, Gippsland, Victoria, produced a social history book rich in stories now preserved for families and the district in generations to come. Here participants, aged 65 to 88, share their experience:
I enjoyed the whole lot. The infection enthuisasm that June has passed on its great and I reallly appreciate her support during the writing of my story. This short workshop has made me want to write more about my life.
June’s knowledge is exceptional and she has a clear way of conveying information. I have learned much in ‘how to get started’ and the workshop has given me much to work on. I’ll continue writing as a lot of the discussion between the participants has awakened long forgotten memories.
Interaction with June the instructor and participants – sharing the memories has been great. The feedback from June was extremely helpful and will help me with further writing of my memoirs.
I never thought I would be able to write, as much as I wanted to. Now I want to add more to my life’s story.
I enjoyed being part of a group, learning more about others’ lives and taking another path myself. The workshop has been enjoyable, fun and has given me pointers to writing the ‘whole’ story SOON!
Give me a spanner to a pen any day, but I’ve got there (in writing my story) and enjoyed the experience.
I have enjoyed the comradeship which has developed between our group, and the variety of stories that has been written.
A two-day Down Memory Lane workshop at Yarram, Gippsland, Victoria, produced a social history book rich in stories now preserved for families and the district in generations to come. Here participants, aged 65 to 88, share their experience:
I enjoyed the whole lot. The infection enthuisasm that June has passed on its great and I reallly appreciate her support during the writing of my story. This short workshop has made me want to write more about my life.
June’s knowledge is exceptional and she has a clear way of conveying information. I have learned much in ‘how to get started’ and the workshop has given me much to work on. I’ll continue writing as a lot of the discussion between the participants has awakened long forgotten memories.
Interaction with June the instructor and participants – sharing the memories has been great. The feedback from June was extremely helpful and will help me with further writing of my memoirs.
I never thought I would be able to write, as much as I wanted to. Now I want to add more to my life’s story.
I enjoyed being part of a group, learning more about others’ lives and taking another path myself. The workshop has been enjoyable, fun and has given me pointers to writing the ‘whole’ story SOON!
Give me a spanner to a pen any day, but I’ve got there (in writing my story) and enjoyed the experience.
I have enjoyed the comradeship which has developed between our group, and the variety of stories that has been written.
Dear Diary
Articles
The diary, a book in which a daily record of events and personal experiences can be kept, offers a window into life in the past.
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