Posts Tagged “Guest Bloggers”

This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences on their own path to recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, or symptom use. Please use your own discretion. And speak with your therapist when needed.

By Mitchell S. Moyer, a man in recovery from anorexia.

When you have an eating disorder, the thoughts that swim in your head are dark and relentless. You ask yourself: Will I ever be the same? Will I ever stop thinking about food? How did I get here, and how do I beat this monster? You rise in the morning. But as the day progresses, your energy wanes and those thoughts continue to weigh you down. You feel adrift in frustration, confusion, and self-doubt.

This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences on their own path to recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, or symptom use. Please use your own discretion. And speak with your therapist when needed.

by Katie Monsewicz, an avid writer and practicing journalist who has been through The Emily Program’s residential treatment program. She wants to help others who have struggled with eating disorders – and those who are still struggling – through her writing and as an advocate for eating disorder recovery.

I’m an adult now. (Insert image of me shouting from the top of a cliff like in “The Lion King” movie.) Wow. That was tough to get out.

I just turned 21 last month, marking nine years of the harrowing illness that has taken over much of my life, much of my memory, many of my relationships. An eating disorder is like moss on a rock. Some people think it’s beautiful (which is pretty strange) and most see it as a nuisance, an invasion. But it takes you over and you can’t shake it without any help from an outside force.

This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences on their own path to recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, or symptom use. Please use your own discretion. And speak with your therapist when needed.

Lisa Whalen, a former Emily Program client, has a Ph.D. in postsecondary and adult education, and an M.A. in creative and critical writing. She teaches writing and literature at North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. Her essays have been featured in An Introvert in an Extrovert World, WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society, and MotherShould? Whalen is working on publishing her memoir, Taking the Reins. In the meantime, she is a regular contributor to The Feisty Writer and maintains a website.

On April 6, 2018, I stood in a college auditorium and scanned rows filled by my faculty colleagues, students, family, and friends—the people I most admire and want to respect me. Then I said something I never thought I’d utter aloud: “For more than a decade, I battled an eating disorder and depression.” That sentence began my faculty lecture series presentation, where I discussed a memoir I’d written about recovering from the eating disorder with the help of an Emily Program therapist and 12 special horses.

This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences on their own path to recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, or symptom use. Please use your own discretion. And speak with your therapist when needed.

by Sara Stein, a former Emily Program client. Sara is a therapist and musician from Cleveland, OH.

How It Began

The word “diet” had infiltrated my being at a pre-teen age. For whatever reason, THIS was my Achilles heel in life – this was the thing that was going to reel me in again and again and unfurl all sorts of chaos, havoc, and heartache.

To keep it short and simple, I spent years and decades trying to manage and control my food intake and construct my body to look and be a certain way. There was always this gnawing, annoying thing in the back of my head telling me I wasn’t enough, that I ate the wrong thing, that something bad was going to happen, and that I needed to work harder and do better.

This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences on their own path to recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, or symptom use. Please use your own discretion. And speak with your therapist when needed.

 by Melinda Parrish, plus-size model and body positivity advocate in recovery from Binge Eating Disorder. She lives in Washington, D.C. Follow her at https://www.instagram.com/melparrishplus/.

To some degree, it’s fair to say that the military “trained” me for Binge Eating Disorder.

To be clear, I’m a huge supporter of the military and am incredibly honored to have served. I have a deep reverence for the military and everyone serving. But the reality is that 34% of women in the military suffer from eating disorders, much more than the percentage of women in the general population.

This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences on their own path to recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors or symptom use. Please use your own discretion. And speak with your therapist when needed.

Well, that time of year is upon us. The ol’ guess-I’ll-try-to-squeeze-my-body-into-an-unforgiving-spandex-tube time of year! Some people call it “summer.” I suspect those people don’t have body image issues.

This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences on their own path to recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors or symptom use. Please use your own discretion. And speak with your therapist when needed.

By Megan Haskins. Megan has completed intensive programming at The Emily Program and is a wife and mommy to triplets.

I’m kind of upset by this truth. “MY EVER-CHANGING BODY.” In fact, it actually makes me quite mad.

This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences on their own path to recovery or body image acceptance. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, or symptom use. Please use your own discretion. And speak with your therapist when needed.

by Melinda Folse. Melinda is the author of Riding Through Thick and Thin, as well as best-selling The Smart Woman’s Guide to Midlife Horses, along with articles and essays that explore the many metaphors to be found between working with horses and universal women’s issues, from body image to aging to confidence, authenticity, and connection. Visit her at www.melindafolse.com, and connect with her via email, Facebook, Twitter.

Chances are, there has been a time (or for some of us, it’s a constant) in which you questioned your size, shape, body type, or physical attributes. Which is to say, most of us, at one time or another, think we’re either too fat, too skinny too tall, too short, too muscular, too…or whatever else you can think of. Even the list of what plagues us about our body image is enough to wear us out.