"How can we know if “clean” eating is harming our mental health? Only in being honest with ourselves. Are we losing sleep tracking macros? Are we paralyzed with fear for a dinner plan weeks or days away?" There's no shame in reaching out for help. Published 28 April 2023.
"I know now that there is no point in pretending like everything is “fine” in recovery... My support system was relieved I was getting healthy and growing back into the lively me they knew and loved. During this time, I had to sit with the irrational fears my eating disorder threw my way, trying to make me insecure and pull me back in. It criticized my new body and outfits. It told me I wasn’t doing good work." Published 29 November 2022.
I wrote this angry-at-the-world ending before it got published: "By focusing only on the physical we are missing the bigger point. There’s more to digest here. Socioeconomic divides make healthy food choices, access to doctors, and mental healthcare, an impossibility for many. Even for those who can afford it, they may face racial and social stigmas. Welcome to America, where the new Dream is to be “healthy” (malnourished and thin), in the land of the Free, the Fat, and the Mentally Unwell. Britain eating disorder warriors, do you have any tips for your not-so-star-spangled American friend?" Published 11 Nov 2022.
Promo for AKEDA's new IFT (intensive family care) program alongside UCSD. I may not be a parent... but... I know what it's like to make my parent fear for their child's life. The most rewarding responses to my essays have come from parents. Thank you all for supporting your wonderful kid. Keep going. Published 11 August 2022.
"I now accept that my mental illness is just that, an underfunded medical mystery. It’s not my fault, and certainly not a measure of my self-worth or strength... No longer am I bitterly willing to suffer for the sake of stubborn struggling. I am open to receiving help." Published 4 Aug 2022.
"There are various ways... depending on your relationship. My family members were direct... I would still be their sister/daughter at the end of it. I’m grateful to them now for seeing how trapped I was in my eating disorder. But when I was sick...I wanted to protect my eating disorder because I couldn’t rationally comprehend survival without it." Published 13 June 2022.
My eating disorder made me a person of many faces and created a secret life. Eating “normally” in front of friends, being “easy-going,” never talking about my anxiety, having impassioned hobbies, and more. But there was the other face, the one that hid, lied, measured, worried, obsessed, calculated, feared. This essay exposes that secret me. Published 6 May 2022.
Body changes and unspoken struggles of restrictive eating disorder recovery, published 28 March 2022.
During weight gain and waves of what felt like never-ending extreme hunger, teaching myself about these changes was instrumental to avoiding relapse during weight restoration.
