It’s a jigsaw puzzle this recovery lark.  The starting piece has to be the food.  Whichever school of thought you subscribe to in terms of how eating disorders develop, I think it makes sense that food needs to be the starting point for recovery.  The brain needs to be well nourished to enable the deep… Read more: WHOA THERE, STEADY ON

I’m not entirely comfortable with the concept of an ‘ED voice’ and it’s not a term that I use readily (ED = eating disorder). I do not hear voices inside my head.  I’m not psychotic or schizophrenic, nor do I have a shoulder imp whispering negative words into my ear. I’ve frequently heard it said… Read more: SHUT THE FUCK UP

Maybe not stark naked.  I mean, if you have the body confidence to do so, then kudos to you and I’m jealous! No, I mean without the mask. One of my key observations worth noting this week has been linked to my upcoming return to work.  In many ways, I am excited, and I spoke… Read more: GO FORTH NAKED

I love my job.  Not many people can say that and so I feel lucky that I genuinely enjoy what I do.  I was devastated at the thought of having to take time off for treatment after being diagnosed with anorexia. Since returning from a career break, in 2015, I had not had a single… Read more: “JUST GET READY FI WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK”

I have been following a ‘prescribed’ meal plan since commencing treatment for anorexia 18 weeks ago.  I was more than a little resistant initially for various reasons: I didn’t need a meal plan because I wasn’t anorexic of course, I know how to eat I just wasn’t doing so, I know what constitutes a balanced… Read more: PIZZA

Last week I went to London for a couple of nights with my husband.  The main reason for the trip was to see Raye at the O2, but we thought we might as well go a day early and make more of it.  We had a last minute change of plan in terms of where… Read more: THOUGHTS FROM A WEEKEND AWAY

I painted a plate a couple of weeks ago. I had a lovely time doing so with some of my fellow patients from my treatment programme. It had been a ‘mindful’ social get together where we painted a pottery item of our choice whilst chatting and incorporating our ‘prescribed’ morning snack and drink.  I chose… Read more: NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HOW YOU DEAL WITH A SMASHED PLATE

I have understood for some time that my behaviours around food and exercise have served as coping strategies during times of challenge, providing me with a sense of control and achievement.  I spoke about this in my previous post ‘WHY?’ and about how through treatment, I have come to better understand how these behaviours, alongside… Read more: THE GREAT DECLINE OF 2025

How do you think your dog feels when you tell him to sit?  My dog let’s out little whimpers, looking up with eyes wide, body tense and twitching at any sense of movement from me.  I’m guessing he feels pretty uncomfortable.  But he sits with the discomfort, knowing that something good will result. We put… Read more: SIT

Recovery is a gradual and subtle process.  You don’t wake up one morning and feel better.  In the early days you can’t imagine ever feeling any different and even several weeks in, you perhaps even feel worse at times; you’re eating what feel like enormous amounts of food whilst your brain is screaming at you… Read more: GLIMMERS

Honestly sits top of my key values.  I knew this already having explored values during previous psychological therapy.  I have further reflected on my key values recently as part of thinking about identity and how my values form part of who I am.   There was no question then that I would be completely open with… Read more: CAN I BE TOTALLY HONEST?

In order to truly recover from anorexia and be able to enjoy a life of complete food freedom without any form of restriction or compensatory behaviours I must embrace a version of me that I have never known. This realisation occurred only a few weeks ago after a discussion with one of the clinicians on… Read more: I LOVE ME, I LOVE ME NOT, I LOVE ME, I LOVE ME NOT…

I’m not a teenage girl who doesn’t eat. I am a 44-year-old mother of two, diagnosed with anorexia in October last year.  And I did eat a lot.  Not enough however to fuel the rigorous amounts of exercise I put myself through at ridiculous hours of the morning. Yet this was admired by others who… Read more: BUT SHE EATS LOADS…

DISCLAIMER:  two people can experience exactly the same scenario and their recollections differ.  What follows are my memories and my interpretations of life events and experiences and if they are not one hundred percent accurate, it matters not in the context of how they have shaped who I have become.  No blame is to be… Read more: WHY?

It makes sense that many of the thoughts, emotions and physical symptoms associated with anorexia are the result of the body going into ‘starvation mode’.  In primitive times when food was scarce, it would be beneficial for a caveman’s thoughts to be preoccupied with food to motivate him to hunt.  Numbing his emotions would maintain… Read more: JUST CALL ME WILMA FLINTSTONE

Hand on heart, chocolate digestives are up there with the greatest of my discoveries from the last three months. Only the dark ones mind you, the gingerbread ones at Christmas didn’t quite hit the same spot. I have also learned that I did have anorexia, and that I have been battling it to varying degrees… Read more: ACTUALLY I REALLY FUCKING LOVE CHOCOLATE DIGESTIVES