Tag: mental health

Flaws in our public health system* are creating havoc in the lives of people with eating disorders (EDs). I am a mentor for Shelley**, who is in her 40s, and lives in a country town in Australia. Shelley has diagnoses of severe depression and severe and enduring anorexia nervosa (SEAN)....

In October 2014, at age 31, I achieved the award that marked the pinnacle of my fitness competition career: the coveted Bikini Athlete Pro Card. Standing onstage in a Hertfordshire theatre, smiling for the winner’s photographs, I appeared the epitome of health and fitness. But, in reality, I was suffering...

I am a survivor of childhood physical and emotional abuse, childhood emotional neglect, and anorexia/purging type (severe). I am also a beloved child of God that strayed off the path I believe He set before me. I am 56-years-old and wore the cloak of anorexia from the age of 14...

I became a champion mistake-maker when healing from my eating disorder (ED). This trial and error period occurred during a complete, internal makeover. I was exploring a new frontier, a whole new set of challenges that would lead me to me. Forty-four years as ED’s prisoner had left me devoid...

“I HAD an eating disorder.” This sentence has left my mouth frequently over the past two decades. I was 19-years-old when diagnosed with an eating disorder (ED). At the time, I had no idea that cutting out refined sugar and carbohydrates as a method to get in shape would spiral...

I have pondered this question repeatedly for the past few months. Sometimes it has kept me awake at night, because what if ‘it’ happens while I am not paying attention? What if the weight creeps in unannounced and I can’t do anything to stop it?  I panic. “I can’t let...

I was bulimic for 46 years. My eating disorder (ED) first came to court me in 1966 when I was an out-of-state transfer student 1000 miles from my mom and dad for the very first time. My high school boyfriend had just broken up with me. I was unsure about...

‘I swapped one form of control for another, exercise became my way to suppress emotions, to sculpt my body, it prevented me from reaching full recovery.’ If you scroll through social media, or read recovery stories about anorexia online, you might see a storyline like this: ‘I chose to recover,...

You could call it a case of accidental fate! That’s the best way I can describe how I stumbled across the name ‘June Alexander’ in an online search in 2018. I was having just another average day, my mind filled with an endless influx of eating disorder (ED) thoughts: “What...