Posts Tagged “Guest Bloggers”

By Hope Chookazian, MSW, LCSWA

Trigger Warnings: Suicide, Suicidal ideation, and Suicidal thoughts.

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988
• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741
• LGBTQ support call The Trevor Project: 866-488-7386
• The Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860

Content note: This article discusses suicide, suicidal thoughts, and stigma surrounding suicide. If this content brings up difficult feelings, you don’t have to navigate them alone. Consider reaching out to someone you trust or one of the supports listed above. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 911.

Suicide. A word that society has learned to whisper, to avoid, or treat almost as a contagion. Yet silence does not make it disappear. If anything, it can deepen the isolation someone experiencing suicidal ideation may be feeling. Having open conversations about suicide or suicidal ideation is important as

The idea that suicide itself is something that should not be discussed or that simply talking about it risks spreading it, can become a form of stigma. Avoidance can reinforce the negative beliefs and social disapproval that already surrounds those experiencing suicidal thoughts.

Stigma is defined as “the negative social attitude attached to a characteristic of an individual that may be regarded as a mental, physical, or social deficiency,” according to the American Psychological Association. Despite the prevalent societal stigma, suicide remains a major concern worldwide.

More than 720,000 people die by suicide worldwide each year. In 2021, it was the third leading cause of death among people ages 15-29. In the United States, suicide remains the second leading cause of death for youth and young adults aged 15-34, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

**Content warning: This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences in recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms. Please use your discretion when reading and speak with your support system as needed.

Alleigh Colleran is a Seattle-based writer and mother of one, currently pregnant with her second. This essay draws from her lived experience with eating disorder recovery, pregnancy, postpartum, and motherhood.

For most of my life, food has felt loaded. It has never been just food. Even when I tried to convince myself otherwise, there was always something more attached to it: control, shame, discipline, temptation, comfort, punishment. I spent nearly two decades moving in and out of the grips of bulimia and anorexia. Some years, the eating disorder whispered. Other years, it took over completely. But whether it was loud or quiet, it was always there, shaping the way I moved through the world.

When I was deeply consumed by it, my inner life narrowed into negotiation. What had I eaten? What had I earned? What would I allow myself next? What did I need to undo? Hunger felt suspicious. Fullness felt dangerous. And pleasure, simple, unguarded enjoyment, felt perhaps most scary of all.

For years, I thought that when I was ready to let it go, I simply would. I thought I was choosing it. I thought the control still belonged to me.

**Content warning: This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences in recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms. Please use your discretion when reading and speak with your support system as needed.

Kimmy Schuelke (she/her) is a teacher, speaker, and author of the children’s book The Tangle. A survivor of both a long-term eating disorder and colon cancer, Kimmy integrates somatic work and yoga into the classroom to help students regulate their nervous systems for better learning. She is a passionate advocate for ED recovery and systemic change, somatic work, and trauma-informed education, proving that our bodies are the vessels for our stories, not the sum of our worth.

Learn more about Kimmy on her website, or follow her at @teachingkimmy on Instagram and YouTube.

For a long time, I lived in a body I didn’t even recognize. I remember my first session with my therapist. I was sitting there, and I looked down at my own hand resting on my lap. She asked me how an emotion felt in my body. I couldn’t answer her because I couldn’t connect with any part of my body. She told me to start with my hand. I had to stop and really think about the fact that it was mine. I was so disconnected from myself that I couldn’t even process that my hand was a part of me. That was the reality of my life for almost four decades. I was just a passenger in a body I didn’t trust.

**Content warning: This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences in recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms. Please use your discretion when reading and speak with your support system as needed.

Recovery Conversations is a question-and-answer series that features voices and stories of eating disorder recovery. In this edition, former Emily Program client Alyssa reflects on her recovery journey and what recovery has made possible for her.

Alyssa is a cat mom who loves singing, baking, and freelance design. She spends her free time watching her favorite TV show, Law & Order: SVU.

**Content warning: This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences in recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms. Please use your discretion when reading and speak with your support system as needed.

By Jessica Corriher

I am just a human figuring things out in real time. I’m on a healing journey that includes growth, hard truths, and, at times, a little wit. I share my story honestly because healing is messy, laughter is at times necessary, and pretending we’re “fine” is overrated. None of us is meant to do it alone.

When you’re in the middle of a struggle that takes up way too much real estate in your head and life, hope can start to feel like a nice idea—for other people. I know this because for the longest time, I couldn’t picture my future self.

I remember sitting in a high school classroom, faced with an assignment to write a letter to our future selves. Where do you imagine you’ll be in five years? Ten? Everyone around me started scribbling like they had insider information. I just stared at my paper, pen hovering, coming up blank. While visiting my parents over the holidays, I found that letter, which led me here today, sharing my story with you.

**Content warning: This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences in recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms. Please use your discretion when reading and speak with your support system as needed.

Katherine Stancoff (they/she) is a 20-year-old mental health advocate and former client of The Emily Program. You can follow her on TikTok and Instagram at @thereispurposeinthispain and @katherinestancoff, and see more of her literary work at www.thereispurposeinthispain.com.

Comparison was my constant nemesis as a child. I’d compare my home life, friendships, personality, interests, skills, and talents to everyone around me. Quickly, I’d fallen into the deep waters of never feeling adequate. I’d try to excel the way others seemed to, but I always believed I’d fallen short somehow. I soon internalized the notion that I am defective.

This utter despair made me feel like a failure, and my mind began to tear itself apart, skinning itself dry in desperate search of a solution. Consequently, this exploration of “fixing” myself led to self-isolation, then a vow of silence, until it spiraled into disordered behaviors.

From this deterioration, I fell into a distorted “love” with my eating disorder. It convinced me that once I reached my goal weight, I would achieve “perfection,” setting me apart from my peers. I did as it told me, wholeheartedly believing that losing weight to an idealized number would “perfect” me, would satisfy the void my depression and OCD had created.

**Content warning: This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences in recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms. Please use your discretion when reading and speak with your support system as needed.

Nichole is a wife and mother of a beautiful daughter. A former Special Education teacher, she decided to stay home and raise her daughter 18 years ago, which she loved doing. She enjoys playing and teaching piano, creative writing, and cooking. She also loves being outdoors in the sunshine with her dog. Nichole is working to complete and publish a memoir about her life with an eating disorder, in hopes of helping others find the freedom that she continues to fight for. She currently resides in Montana, but someday hopes to live near the ocean, where she feels most at peace.

Recovery Conversations is a question-and-answer series that features voices and stories of eating disorder recovery. In this post, Nichole reflects on 30 years of recovery, the strength she has found in vulnerability, and why she believes it is never too late to heal.

**Content warning: This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences in recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms. Please use your discretion when reading and speak with your support system as needed.

Pam Sanderson Lyon lives in Durham, North Carolina, in a home full of animals, people, colored pencils, and half-filled journals.

I don’t know about you, but I have never needed encouragement to think more or live in my head.

“Dig in.”
“Analyze your every thought.”
“Stew on it.”

All unnecessary statements.

I never forget them. They come easy.