Category: Mentor

As my 75th birthday approaches at the end of December 2025, I find myself standing at a gentle crossroads. It’s time to loosen my grip on one chapter of life so I can step more freely into the next. Eating disorders have been woven through my life since I was...

When I reached 55, after 44 years under the iron grip of anorexia nervosa, something inside me shifted. For the first time, I felt emphatically that I had crossed the threshold to a “51 per cent healthy self.” That moment wasn’t a magic cure—it was the hard-won payoff of decades...

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...

A silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020-2021, was the gift of time to embark on the incredible journey of writing my memoir The Longest Match: Rallying to Defeat an Eating Disorder in Midlife. A project of this magnitude always seemed daunting but as soon as I began pouring through...

When I turned 80, I felt that my life was almost over. Deciding I needed some social connection and a new challenge, I joined June’s local community writing group. A year later, I have published my first book. Rather than stay at home and feel sorry for myself, I went...

So, you want to write your memoir? A memoir is a story about part of your life. What part do you most want to write about? Why? My memoir, A Girl Called Tim, is about my life with an eating disorder from age 11 to age 55. As I entered...

Where do I start? I had a very, very weird childhood. Some people have the religious trauma, some have the undiagnosed neurodiversity factors, some have the abusive father factor, some have the poverty angle – I’ve had all that and then some. But I know I need to start dredging through all this....

We have progressed a long way in mental health recognition since the 1940s. My message is that our mental health is something to embrace and speak openly about, rather than hide in shame. The Spot Cafe in Portland, a coastal town in Victoria, Australia, was bustling with people, mainly locals....

The Diary Healer has transitioned to this new site with a new aim and a new name. Building on The Diary Healer’s accomplishments, lifestoriesdiary.com is here to encourage story-sharing and help you write your story. Are you one of the many people who say, ‘I will write my story one...

As I ‘came out’ and began to share my story publicly through my memoir, A Girl Called Tim (2011), an amazing thing happened. Shame, stigma, and secrets that had been the bane of my life for decades, were quelled. Rather than remain quiet, my diaries ‘came out’ too. For instance,...