Tag: eating disorder recovery

advocacy Listen to us: women with lived experience of severe and enduring anorexia nervosa

Listen to us: women with lived experience of severe and enduring anorexia nervosa

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Improved outcomes for adults with eating disorders are possible! Karen, Tanya and Anne could be forgiven for feeling down-hearted after struggling for decades with Severe and Enduring Anorexia Nervosa (SEAN). However, they live in HOPE. This article is a collaboration by three Australian women in their fifties. Between them, they...

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advocacy Eating disorders are no match for memoirist Betsy Brenner

Eating disorders are no match for memoirist Betsy Brenner

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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...

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eating disorders Why an eating disorder should not be the main character of a life’s story

Why an eating disorder should not be the main character of a life’s story

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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...

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Eating Disorders ‘I’m so glad I found you!’ How story-sharing helps recovery from eating disorders

‘I’m so glad I found you!’ How story-sharing helps recovery from eating disorders

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....

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eating disorders Poetry writing as a self-help tool when recovering from an eating disorder

Poetry writing as a self-help tool when recovering from an eating disorder

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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...

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Eating Disorders Confronting fears on the path to freedom from an eating disorder

Confronting fears on the path to freedom from an eating disorder

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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....

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Books The power of story-telling and why your story counts

The power of story-telling and why your story counts

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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....

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Eating Disorders An eating disorder relapse in mid-life is an opportunity for self-growth

An eating disorder relapse in mid-life is an opportunity for self-growth

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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...

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Dear Diary Using the narrative to resist and break the chains of Anorexia Nervosa

Using the narrative to resist and break the chains of Anorexia Nervosa

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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....

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Eating Disorders Using two-way written narrative to unlock the anorexia prison

Using two-way written narrative to unlock the anorexia prison

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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...

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