Dear Diary Blog
Share your story on The Diary Healer
The Diary Healer offers a safe and supportive environment in which to share your story. Sharing your story can help you to develop a sense of belonging and connectedness with self and others. Stories that provide a message of hope in coping with life challenges are especially welcome. Share your story today.
Aging and Eating Disorders – recovery is worthwhile at every age
For 55 of my 67 years, I have struggled with an eating disorder, namely anorexia nervosa. I wasn’t formally diagnosed until age 65, about which I can only say, “Better late than never.” Because I didn’t shrink my body enough..
Sometimes a metaphor can aid recovery
There’s nothing easy about recovery. Challenges come up every day. Skills develop over time. Insights are often slow and murky. As a therapist who specialized in the treatment of individuals diagnosed with eating disorders, I learned that people find their..
An inside story about eating disorders in South Korea
I was a fixture at all students’ writing contests and didn’t expect to be congratulated with just mundane prizes, but from second grade in high school, I was unable to write. I could write only self-pitying, crappy things, bleak, fragmented..
Researchers call on people with eating disorder experience for answers
A team of Australian researchers believe that listening to stories from people who have eating disorder experience is the best way forward in finding new ways to treat the illness. The Western Sydney University research team, led by Dr Janet..
Why an eating disorder should not be the main character of a life’s story
Isn‘t a story something with a beginning, a main part and a hopefully happy ending? I am not sure I can structure those past years of my life in such a way. Especially with the focus on my eating disorder. Thinking..
Redirecting eating disorder experience into advocacy helps to maintain recovery
For years I said, ‘I won’t know who I am, without my eating disorder.’ I was fearful of recovery because the eating disorder dominated my identity. If you feel this same way, I’ve good news. I recovered from anorexia nervosa..
Rebuilding relationships is part of eating disorder recovery
There is no wrong time to begin recovery from an eating disorder but embarking on that journey during a global pandemic was not ideal. My appointments with a physician’s assistant had to occur in person, but therapist and dietician sessions..
Why eating disorder recovery requires a village of care
A client recently reflected that her confidence in her ability to recover has come from the trust she places in her treating team. And that before we collaboratively created a supportive, multidisciplinary treating team for her, she wasn’t sure she..
An eating disorder fuels a toxic relationship with self
As human beings and social creatures, relationships are an integral part of a healthy, happy life. For most of us, our first relationships are with our parents and siblings and gradually that circle expands to include friends, classmates, teachers, and..
Understanding the healing power and teaching potential of daily diary-writing
Six months after developing anorexia nervosa, at age 11, I received a diary as a Christmas gift. The diary and I became inseparable. Nobody told me to write or gave guidance in what to write. I just did. More than..