Tag: mental illness

When the news broke, I couldn’t ignore it. The deceased young woman was reportedly at the Korean hospital for treatment of a weight loss drug addiction. News portals showed CCTV (closed circuit TV) footage of the woman, where she was forcibly restrained on a bed by hospital staff whose large...

At noon on April 22, the small car stopped in front of the nursing school building, a structure of standardised windows and no excess. “We’re here,” said Professor Jeong, turning from the driver’s seat. The four passengers unfolded their crouched bodies and got out of the car. The Jeonbuk National...

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....

Is anxiety related to the later onset of anorexia? Is anxiety related to the maintenance of anorexia? A reader shares her experience ahead of a FEAST webinar that will explore this issue. I feel it in my bones. I feel it deep, deep inside me, like every cell is made...

What would you say if you learned a chronic illness was spreading silently through the population, affecting some of the country’s best and brightest people? Hospital beds are scarce, waiting lists are growing longer, and people are getting sicker. Some people are dying while they wait. Would you consider this...

Fairy tales, like poetry, are an art form that can enable the expression of repressed feelings. A revelation in sourcing diary excerpts for The Diary Healer was the popularity of poetry as a form of narrative expression in the recovery process. Fairy tales, through the creative use of metaphors, also...

“Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.”  Sigmund Freud A series of events inspired me to write A Dangerous Daughter. Firstly, in 2015, I was invited to take part in an international study on eating disorders, the Anorexia Nervosa Genetics Initiative. The results of the study were ground-breaking: scientists...

Do you wish to look like the girl in the magazine? I will let you in on a secret… the girl in the magazine doesn’t even look like that.  I know: I have been that girl.  Representations of the ‘perfect’ female body are pervasive throughout modern society, consolidated and perpetuated...

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)....

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...