to help readers understand that there are many paths to healing, each as unique as the traveler herself. The message reinforced here is that there is no room for competition or perfection in recovery—no glory in being the fastest, the best, the thinnest or the most popular. Recovery is a process and the right process is the one that works best for you.
I have been involved in the field of eating disorders for almost thirty years, specifically in the area of body-image treatment and training. I met Johanna when she was nineteen years old and a volunteer working at the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals (IAEDP) Conference. Just as Johanna has changed and grown since that time, so has the field of eating disorders itself. We now know more than we ever did before about the complexity of eating disorders: their connection to other psychiatric disorders, the gender-biased risk factors, the role of the brain, genetics and one’s temperament as variables, the connection between body shame and the culture, and the importance and effectiveness of complementary treatment modalities such as art therapy, dance/movement therapy, spirituality and yoga. Research has given us more information and more tools. We need to always keep the belief alive that recovery is possible, that no recovery is “perfect” and no one should ever give up. It may be useful to know that the word recover comes from the Latin and means “to bring back to normal position or condition.” Therefore, the person we discover during recovery is not someone new, but someone we have once been, a person whole and integrated. Recovery needs to be viewed as a continuous process that allows for the development of a greater sense of oneself, not a definite end of symptoms.
Years ago I came across the following passage in the book On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. I share it here because I associate it so closely with the struggle involved in freeing oneself from the grasp of the eating disorder:
It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we’re alive—to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a façade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.
Like a vampire who takes the very lifeblood from the innocents who fall under his spell, so, too, the eating disorder takes the very life spirit of those who relentlessly pursue the seductive belief that their true selves do not measure up to societal expectations and substitute a “perfect” self in order to be acceptable. Recovery involves a reclaiming of one’s true self, giving up the eating disorder identity, making peace with one’s body, shifting away from negative self-talk, relinquishing a victim mentality and staying optimistic despite setbacks and difficult times. As Dan Millman, author of Way of the Peaceful Warrior, said, “You don’t have to control your thoughts; you just have to stop letting them control you.”
Life Beyond Your Eating Disorder is a true recovery guide for individuals at any stage of eating disorder treatment or recovery. It is also excellent for families and friends to better understand how to provide support while maintaining their own lives. The book provides a candid, comprehensive look at the ups and downs of recovery and offers tips, resources, hands-on tools and strategies for breaking free from the distortions and beliefs that make up the world of the eating-disordered individual. The book is exceptional, as is its author.
Adrienne Ressler, MA, LMSW
National Training Director for the Renfrew Center Foundation
President, International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals (IAEDP)
Preface
MY MISSION
I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
—WALDEN, HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I’M NOT A PSYCHIATRIST; I’m not a psychologist or a therapist or a nutritionist or a doctor of any kind. But I have been an anorexic, an exercise bulimic and a binge eater, and if either you or someone you love is struggling with an eating disorder, I can honestly say that I know what you’re going through—maybe not the day-to-day details, but certainly the physical and emotional landscape of your struggle.
Perhaps one of the most important and startling things I learned both during my ten-year battle with an eating disorder and during my recovery is just how much ignorance, misinformation, fear and stigma are still attached to eating disorders even in the midst of the so-called information age. The entire time I was struggling and during my recovery process, I never knew anyone who had successfully recovered from an eating disorder. Truthfully, I didn’t know if recovery was even possible. All I knew was that I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, so I decided to seek help.
As I began my own journey to recovery, I vowed to myself that if I were given a second chance at life, I would do everything in my power to dispel some of that darkness and bring eating disorders awareness and information into the light. I strongly believe that no one should have to struggle with or recover from an eating disorder alone.
No one should have to struggle with or recover from an eating disorder alone.
Eighteen years ago, when I first began to develop my eating disorder, I had no idea how many people had the same terrible disease. I honestly believed I was one of the very few. But here are the facts: according to the Eating Disorders Coalition, today, in the United States alone, approximately 10 million women and 1 million men are struggling with anorexia or bulimia, and 25 million people are battling binge eating disorder. Eating disorders do not discriminate; they affect men and women, young and old, and people of all economic levels. You need to know that anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate—estimated to be up to 20 percent—of any psychiatric illness. And only one in ten people with an eating disorder receives any kind of treatment. Those figures make me sad and are, quite simply, unacceptable.
As I began to recover and find my strength, I kept the promise I had made to myself all those years ago, and in late 2000 I founded the Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness in my hometown of West Palm Beach, Florida. The Alliance is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to prevent eating disorders and promote positive body image by advancing education and increasing awareness. To this end we do community outreach through talks at schools, we provide educational programs about eating disorders to therapists and other health-care professionals, we lead support groups for people in recovery and we do whatever we can to convince government officials that eating disorders ought to be a health-care priority. For specific information about the Alliance, see page 215. I believe we are fulfilling that mission with each person we are able to reach and inform that he or she is not alone and that recovery is possible.
I know how difficult the recovery process can be, but I want you to know that it is possible to get better—and it’s definitely worth it! We all trip and fall along the way. But recovery is not about the trips and falls; it is about what happens after you pick yourself up. It’s about getting back on your feet, dusting yourself off and moving forward, because that is how we learn. Realistically, neither life nor recovery is ever going to be a fairy tale, but we do have the power to create our own version of a real happily-ever-after.
It is possible to get better—and it’s definitely worth it!
Give yourself permission to imagine your life beyond your eating disorder. You will get to be present in every moment; you will get to feel; you will get to laugh. You deserve the freedom to live every aspect of your life.
Eating disorders can be very strong—mine spent years telling me all the things I couldn’t, shouldn’t or wasn’t good enough to do. That negative voice isn’t going to go away overnight, but there are many tools available to you as you recover to make that voice
