If you’re struggling, you need to know this.

I remember counting the days between binges,
If I can only get one more day,
It’d be a record,
I’d do it this time.

3 days was my usual PB.
 
I remember wasting money that I didn’t have on food that I didn’t want,
The compulsion that led me to the corner shop on my way home from the office,
The out of body experience of eating more calories in half an hour than I had all day,
The lack of ability to think of anything else.
 
And that was the crux of it for me,
A lack of ability to think of anything else,
The physical suppression of my feelings with food, 
The genuine short-term high,
Followed by longer-term low,
The complete dissociation from my life.
 
My life which,
By the way,
Was pretty great.
 
In the times that I struggled flitting between binge eating and binge eating disorder,
I also got 2 degrees,
A PhD,
Multiple first place trophies in bodybuilding,
Travelled,
Had outwardly successful relationships,
Was unbelievably positive.
 
I didn’t look a certain way,
My body changed just like it does now,
I didn’t appear as someone struggling with their mental health,
Because of course,
What does one struggling with their mental health look like?
 
I ate around friends,
I partied,
I achieved career success,
I binged on and off for 15 years,
And realistically,
Hid it from almost everyone I knew. 
 
I want to remind you,
As you read this email and struggle with your own relationship with food,
That I see you,
You’re not alone,
Not broken nor unable to change.
 
You’re not a failure,
Healing your relationship with food is one of the hardest fights you’ll have,
But I know you wake up daily with every effort to make a change,
And because of that,
You will make a change,
You’re already doing so.
 
I want to remind you,
That despite being out of dysfunctional eating for many years now, 
If I’m wholeheartedly honest,
I still experience sporadic phases of emotional eating, 
Episodes where I think to myself,
Should I change my body?

But on the whole,
Life on the other side can be free from the preoccupation and shame that you feel now.
 
I was speaking to someone recently,
An academic who I admire more than most,
About the relationship between intuitive eating and body image,
And how research highlights that improving our body image has the potential to result in a healthier relationship with food,
A more intuitive approach,
Because we come at our nutrition from a place of self-respect and care. 
 
But it’s very hard to nourish and honour your body when you struggle to like them,
Let alone love them,
And these messages of just ‘care for her’ can feel juxtaposed to how you feel inside.
 
Instead I ask you today to simply act like you do,
Even if it feels uncomfortable,
Unsafe,
Wrong.
Act like you love her,
For what she allows and the home she gives your soul.
 
I ask you to keep fighting the internal voices that stop you eating regularly,
The narrative in your head that your changing body is somehow a reflection of your successes and failures.
 
I ask you to lean into the discomfort of the hard thing,
Because you can move through it,
You will move through it,
And those fears you have around what that will look and feel like on the other side,
They’ll continue to dissipate as you find the joy of the overcoming.

Right now healing can feel dysregulating,
Whilst your dysfunctional habits feel like home,
They're the tools your nervous system has used for so long,
So despite objectively being frustrating and hard and something you want to rid yourself of,
They also create feelings of comfort and safety.
 
I ask you to make space for the grief for the loss of your dysfunctional eating,
As you continue to heal it,
Notice the sadness that arises for the friend you are losing,
You’re not broken to fear their loss either,
Grieve them.

Make space for the feelings of anxiety that may arise,
And create a toolbox of strategies to soothe that as it does,
Instead of the confusion and shame and guilt for feeling uncomfortable with the loss of something you know you want rid of.
 
I also ask of you one more thing,
To know this,
That those around you are prouder of you than you will ever,
Ever know.

And if they don’t know your challenges?
Then I am prouder of you than you’ll ever know,
For reading these emails,
And forever challenging yourself to change.