Category: Recovery Journey

This article on improving access to eating disorder (ED) care is informed by my lived experiences, independent research, and involvement in the underappreciated field of quality improvement (QI). I live in the United Kingdom (UK), so my experiences and QI are of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). However, this...

Korea’s Eating Disorder Awareness Week (EDAW) 2025 was a whirlwind. I lived like a ghost, confined to my room packed with boxed props. My resignation letter had been submitted to my full-time job. My focus was stretched thin across every detail of the daily sessions: ticketing, Instagram promotions, Google Meet...

A recent article published on this blog (Imagine a Global Board for Eating Disorders) proposed an international governing body that would bring together experts, voices from lived experience, advocates, and industry leaders to tackle the complexities of eating disorders. That vision is no longer an idea. It’s a reality. To...

Recovering from an eating disorder can be a lonely experience. Even if a supportive team of professionals and loved ones is rallying around, feelings of isolation persist. Visits with therapists, dietitians and doctors are vitally important, as is the encouragement and support of family and friends, but sometimes that doesn’t...

I am surrounded by 10 family members inside the National Library of Australia, Canberra. We are in a private reading room to visit my diary ‘family’, the early years of which are spread before us on a long table. Emotions bubble within—I feel exposed, unclothed, with my mind, heart, and...

I don’t remember at what age I discovered Impressionism, an art movement in the 19th Century. Van Gogh, Monet and Degas, among others, created works of art that differed significantly from the painting style of their time. I was drawn to Impressionism the moment I saw it and have loved...

I travelled by train instead of car on Christmas Day 2024. Instead of the usual two-and-a-half hour drive to the home of my children’s dad, George, in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, I took the country train. On Christmas Eve, in a burst of planning, my Melbourne-based daughter and her family collected...

As the sole host of Korea’s Eating Disorders Awareness Week (EDAW), I am researching the themes and issues to be covered in the seven sessions of our third event in February 2025. To fully understand and engage with these topics, I immerse myself deeply, processing them, formulating insightful questions to...

Family Based Treatment is the best, evidence-based approach for most children and adolescents to get their life back on track when they develop an eating disorder – particularly anorexia nervosa. But what about those of us whose eating disorders developed before Family Based Treatment (FBT) became an option? Or those...

Nobody likes being told, “You’re a loser.” The word “loser” immediately conjures up feelings of inadequacy, failure, and shame. The only place I can think of where “a loser” is considered noble and revered is in diet culture and the weight loss industry, where “loss” is even in the name....