A little bit about me
(this could include things like your gender, age, type of eating disorder, role, - whatever you feel comfortable sharing)
Hello, at age 9.5 I was afraid, lonely and adrift. One of my abiding memories as a kid is of a smoked filled kitchen in my house, where my mother would invite friends but children were not welcome. That not welcomed feeling was very present to me. I remember an image of me standing in what was then called a den, where two children from a neighbour’s house seem to be loved and wanted. They were both slim and I felt fat. It was lent and I decided there & then to limit sweets cakes and biscuits that was my start & from there my Anorexia Nervosa flourished.
At age 13 I was hospitalised. The treatment was pretty barbaric. The aim was calorie intake and weight gain. There was little if any real psychotherapy offered. My teens were pretty miserable.
My weight fluctuated and I relapsed twice over 3 decades
How I started to get help
(this could include steps you took, who supported you etc)
Standing in a bar in NYC I remember a friend, a Doctor diagnosing me in a rather direct & brutal manner. I knew deep down I needed to do something. That encounter saw me go to the first psychotherapist, a woman whom I genuinely clicked with and she seemed to “get me” I won’t say my recovery was speedy or without challenge but getting help in the guise of psychotherapy was most definitely important for me. Yoga, Journaling and my friends helped too. My Sister was