At Wandi Nerida, over half of our staff have their own lived experience of an eating disorder, either personally or as carers.
Our Recovery Navigators, who have their own lived experience of an eating disorder, are specifically dedicated to supporting participants through every stage of our recovery treatment program – from portioning and eating meals, to answering any recovery questions, and sitting alongside you during therapeutic activities.
In this blog, Wandi Nerida’s Recovery Navigator and Provisional Psychologist, Katelin Pope, draws from her own lived experience and clinical expertise, and shares advice around eating disorder recovery.
Key 1: Motivation, Patience and Hope
Reflecting on your reasons for recovery, what motivates you, and what your recovered life might look like can be a helpful strategy to anchor to. When challenges arise in recovery, it can be uncomfortable and sometimes feel almost impossible, but keeping connected to your reasons why helps to maintain long term determination and inspiration.
Recovery is not linear and it takes time but know that there is always hope. There are others currently working on their own recoveries, and so many people with lived experience who can provide support, hope, and encouragement. Recovery is achievable and there is always hope.
Key 2: Your Healthy Self Will Heal Your Eating Disorder Self
We use the concept of the ‘Healthy Self’ during recovery as a way to connect to the part of us that is ready to recover. We often suggest thinking of how you would respond to a friend or loved one experiencing eating disorder challenges and how you would support them – that is our healthy self voice.
We often give others more kindness, compassion, and encouragement than we would give ourselves, and our eating disorders try to keep our healthy self voice quiet. You can speak back to your eating disorder with your healthy self voice, and counteracting eating disorder thoughts with your healthy self is a great way to start quietening the eating disorder voice.
Key 3: It’s Not About the Food
It seems counterintuitive, but even though the relationship with food has taken over and normalising eating is essential for recovery, food itself is not the problem.
Eating disorders have underlying reasons for developing, such as poor self-esteem, a need for distraction from challenges or difficulties, a way to fill emotional or lifestyle emptiness, a drive for perfection, a need for control, an inability to express difficult emotions, or a lack of coping skills, among others. Healing the relationship with food is a core part of recovery, but working through the underlying function of the eating disorder is an important factor too.
Often when loved ones try to provide support by saying “just eat”, they are not considering the underlying psychological mechanism of the eating disorder.
Key 4: Feel Your Feelings, Challenge Your Thoughts
Emotions are our bodies’ response to thoughts. When we can learn to accept and tolerate feelings, even when they’re uncomfortable, we learn that they will eventually pass without needing to use our eating disorders to cope.
Some strategies that can help, in addition to support from a therapist, include reaching out to loved ones for connection, journalling, engaging with nature, relaxation and mindfulness skills, and self-compassion.
Often when we feel distress we look for short term relief, however this leads to long term challenges. When we can keep our long-term healthy self goals in mind and use them to help us through short term distress, we can begin to quieten the eating disorder and build our healthy self.
Key 5: It IS About the Food
Deprivation of foods and nutrients leads to physical and psychological problems that can actually trigger eating disorder behaviours and keep us trapped in a loop. When starved on nutrition, the brains’ function is impacted.
Adequate nutrition provides our brains with the power to do the cognitive work required for daily functioning and for working through recovery.
Key 6: Changing Your Behaviours
Recovery takes time. Changing our behaviours and thoughts also take time. During recovery we aim to find ways to cope with underlying issues in a helpful and solution-oriented way and explore feelings that lead to eating disorder urges.
At times we may struggle to identify what is the eating disorder talking, and often we suggest considering the intention behind urges and behaviours – will this help me achieve my recovery-oriented goals, or will it step me further away from them? Self-kindness and compassion are essential for this, and part of self-compassion involves acceptance.
Key 7: Reach Out to People Rather Than Your Eating Disorder
Use relationships to put the eating disorder out of a job. Seeking helpful connection, support, and care from others is important when processing challenging emotions and learning to step away from the eating disorder as the primary way to cope.
Reach out to others whenever you can – there is so much power in connection and sharing and it allows us to work through emotions in a more helpful way. You can also lean into yourself for support through journalling, dialoguing, and mindfulness.
Key 8: Finding Meaning and Purpose
In recovery we are often reminded of all of the other wonderful things that we can be without the eating disorder in focus.
Reconnecting to who we are and building an identity without the eating disorder can feel overwhelming, but its also really exciting. Finding reasons to keep going every day and having meaning in life in ways that help us achieve our goals requires openness, curiosity, and exploration, but it is a very rewarding process.
Get Support
Interested in learning more about Wandi Nerida, Australia’s premier residential eating disorder treatment facility? Organise a chat with our advisor here.
If you’re struggling with an eating disorder or body image concern, please know that support is available, and talking helps. Contact the Butterfly National Helpline for confidential and free support, by calling 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673) or visiting www.butterfly.org.au to chat online or email, 7 days a week, 8am-midnight (AEDT/AEST).