Tag: eating disorder recovery

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...

Isn‘t a story something with a beginning, a main part and a hopefully happy ending? I am not sure I can structure those past years of my life in such a way. Especially with the focus on my eating disorder. Thinking of its starting point, there are only assumptions to draw...

Email from Nancy (USA): I have been listening to your interview on the End Eating Disorders podcast and had to write. What a beautiful and inspirational message you share! There is so much in your story to which I can relate. I have kept saying, Yes! Yes! every few minutes....

If you really want to know me, read my poems, because this is my soul. _ Anne Poetry is an art form that helps many people to express how they feel. It may involve jotting down a poem now and then when feeling inspired, keeping a daily journal specifically for expressing...

Sarah’s fears are so intense that she rarely leaves her bedroom. Can you relate to this? My experience is that suppressing fears never helps. We need to look them in the eye (in the mirror), deal with them, and keep going. This is how we empower ourselves and grow stronger....

Feeling misunderstood is one of the most difficult and emotionally painful aspects when experiencing an eating disorder. My parents and sister, after decades of witnessing behaviours driven by my illness, gave up trying to understand me. Do I blame them? No. I accept that they did not understand my illness....

In my mid-50s, I am still working on an important task, figuring out who I am without my eating disorder…I am excited, and ready! I have learned directly that recovery from an eating disorder is not all sunshine and rainbows. Ideally, in recovery one learns to use healthy coping skills...

H: How do I put on weight? DE: How do you put on your PERSON? H: As I am putting on weight, I am putting on my person. DE: Maybe you put on your person and the weight follows… June Alexander Narrative therapy works by separating people from their problems....

DE: What is Anorexia calling out to you at the moment, Helen? What is it saying to you as you struggle towards the Anti-Anorexic side? What is it calling out to you? HW: Punish yourself! Starve yourself! Writing was both a survival tool and a recovery tool during my incarceration...

“I don’t want to live like this anymore.”  This sentence has surfaced during almost every phase of my eating disorder journey. When sitting on the floor in my bedroom, holding my head in my hands in desperation, with the carpet burning against my skin, feeling the fear that comes with...