Lessons My Eating Disorder Taught Me About Healing and Self-Worth

Welcome back to the Bite by Bite Podcast.

It took a bit of time but Kait finally was able to realize that her eating disorder was actually serving a purpose for her. As a result, this sparked many lessons learned as she worked through the recovery process.

In this episode, Kait shares what her eating disorder didn’t necessarily mean to teach her - but somehow did. From building a healthier relationship with herself to setting boundaries and practicing self-compassion, these lessons that Kait learned offer hope and perspective for anyone navigating recovery.

Episode topics:

• Lesson 1: The importance of looking at your emotions as messengers, not threats (6:00)
• Lesson 2: Trusting that your body has innate, protective wisdom (8:17)
• Lesson 3: There is power in admitting your struggles and setting boundaries (10:10)
• Lesson 4: You can be separate from societal standards and expectations (12:05)
• Kait reflects on the lessons she learned and her ongoing recovery journey (14:34)

Content Warning: This episode contains brief mentions of eating disorder behaviors that Kait has previously engaged in. Please listen in a way that feels safe for you and your recovery. 

Books mentioned in episode:

8 KEYS TO RECOVERING FROM AN EATING DISORDER

REHABILITATE, REWIRE, RECOVER

Related Episodes

FROM HIDDEN TO HEARD: Reclaiming My Voice in Eating Disorder Recovery

THE SECRET THAT ATE ME ALIVE: My 10-Year Eating Disorder Recovery Timeline 

WHERE I'M REALLY AT: The Messy Reality of Eating Disorder Recovery

UNEXPECTED LESSONS: Lessons My Eating Disorder Taught Me About Healing & Self-Worth

Connect with Kait

@bitebybiterecovery

bitebybiterecovery@gmail.com 

Affiliate Links

COMFRT 

FIND THE GOOD 

Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 0:36

Hi everyone! Welcome to Bite by Bite, the podcast that takes you step-by-step through the messy, beautiful, and real journey of my struggle with an eating disorder and my recovery. I'm Kate, and I'm here to share my experiences, lessons, and the wisdom that I've gathered along the way. Here, I share it all, the raw, the real, and the uncensored, so those who can relate know they're not alone in the tough moments. And for those of you who haven't battled an eating disorder, your attention is just as important in helping to educate and break the societal stigma. Before we dive in, please remember that while I hope my story and reflections can be helpful, this podcast is not a substitute for professional treatment. If you are struggling or need extra support, please reach out to a qualified mental health professional. In today's episode, I'm sharing and reflecting on some of the lessons I've learned, not just in recovery, but also in the time, I felt like I was in a gunfight with a knife, fighting something powerful with tools that didn't really stand a chance. It took me a while to realize that if I wanted to recover, I couldn't just bet on my way out. I had to get curious. I had to ask the question, what is my eating disorder actually doing for me? That was the turning point, when I stopped seeing it as just another monster to slay and started recognizing it as something that was actually serving a purpose. Not a healthy one, but a purpose nonetheless. And that changed everything. Because once I understood what it was doing for me, I could start learning the real lessons, getting to know myself more deeply, and most importantly, finding something more fulfilling to take the eating disorders place. And one more thing, this podcast is explicit. Because if I'm going to do something, there's no way in hell I'm going to leave my personality out of it. So let's dive in. For a long time, I truly believed my eating disorder was helping me. I thought it made me strong. I thought it made me disciplined. And I thought it made me have control. I thought it kept me safe from rejection or failure or pain. And for a while, it did feel like a solution. Until it started taking more than it gave. That's the thing about eating disorders. They promise you peace, but feed on your aliveness. And eventually, I had to start asking myself, what am I really chasing here? What am I afraid of feeling? So some of the lessons that I've learned, not from the eating disorder itself, but from the process of healing from it, have really changed my life. Recovery forced me to get curious about myself. Why did I feel safest in restriction? What was I avoiding by restricting? This level of inner work was not comfortable, but it did change how I related to myself. I started to educate myself about eating disorders outside of my own experience. There are two specific books that really changed my perspective and helped me on this journey. I will link them in the show notes if you're interested. The first book is Eight Keys to Recovery by Carolyn Costa and Gwen Schubert Grab. This book is actually a book that I started reading in my first bout with my eating disorder about 10 years ago, and this book gave me tools to use and journal prompts to trigger my thinking and digging deeper. I still use this book today. The second book by Tabitha Farrar, Rehabilitate, Rewire, and Recover, put a lot of aspects of an eating disorder and recovering from an eating disorder into matter-of-fact and relatable terms. By educating myself, by journaling and reflecting, I learned that my personality predispositions, such as being type A, being perfectionistic, and always wanting to control and knowing the outcomes are very common traits of someone who struggles with an eating disorder. Well, fuck, that makes a lot of sense. These traits are very useful in life and may even be considered strengths for someone. But in relation to my eating disorder, these traits were the perfect trifecta for my eating disorder to exploit. When things were out of control, when things were not perfect, when things were irritating my type A tendencies, my eating disorder was there and saved the day. When things were unknown, my eating disorder was also there to save the day. My eating disorder hadn't convinced me that it's okay if things were not aligning perfectly or I did not know the outcome of something because through my eating disorder, I could have that perfection and I could have that sense of control that I was always craving. But I quickly learned learned that the chase for control and perfection never ended because I was chasing something that simply did not exist. I had to work really hard to accept the fact that not everything is perfect and I won't always know the outcome and I won't always be in control. So how do I do that? I literally live by telling myself, fuck it. If something feels out of control, fuck it. If I don't get everything completed on my to-do list, fuck it. I simply had to stop fighting the fact that most of life is unknown, and by taking things as they come and saying fuck it when I need to, I am happier and more at peace. A perfect example of this is last week. This exact episode that you're listening to was supposed to go live last week, but life happened and I was unable to finalize the episode. The old me, the one who was ruled by perfection would have got it done. But instead I said, fuck it. I can get it done for next week. I used to believe that feelings were dangerous, but healing taught me that emotions are messengers, not threats. Learning to sit with grief, learning to sit with loneliness or anger without needing to do anything about them, that's a superpower. Whenever an uncomfortable feeling came up, I would use my eating disorder to cope. If I was anxious, I would go to my eating disorder. Nervous, I would go to my eating disorder. Pissed, I would also go to my eating disorder and it didn't help for that long. But what it did create was a vicious cycle that never ends. Because I would have that feeling, I would turn to my eating disorder and then I would feel anxious or guilty or shameful because of my eating disorder. And then I would rinse, wash, and repeat that entire cycle. But as bad as that cycle is, someone with an eating disorder can't get out because they don't know how. Or, in my case, sometimes I didn't want to sit with my emotions. Now in recovery, I have to be aware of the signs that come along with my emotions. For example, I have learned that anxiety triggers my eating disorder and definitely my urge to exercise. I do what I can to avoid known things that make me feel anxious and not going against what I truly want or don't want, which triggers my anxiety. By avoiding those things and staying away from those things, I keep my anxiety levels low, which makes my compulsions to engage in my eating disorder behaviors, even lower. I know that whenever I have a compulsive urge to engage in cardio, there is something underlying that I'm anxious about or that is unsettled about in my life. I have learned that that thing that is making me anxious or that thing that is unsettled needs my attention. Cardio does not need my attention. If I deal with the thing, if I deal with the feeling, ironically enough, the compulsion to exercise disappears. For years, I treated my body like a problem to fix. But since recovery, I have started to see how fiercely it was trying to protect me, even in the darkest times. Over time, I began to trust its cues, I began to trust its needs, and I also began to trust its boundaries in a new way. Take a second and think about everything your body does for you. Whether or not you struggle with an eating disorder or whatever you may be struggling with, take a second and think about it. Now, thank your body for all of those things. Unfortunately, it took years of abusing my body through my eating disorder to really feel thankful and appreciative of everything my body does. I feel tired. My body is telling me that I need rest. That gut feeling that something just isn't right, for fuck's sake, don't go against it. Your body is always looking out for you. Your body always wants to keep you safe. Personally, I have put my body physically through hell for the better part of the last 10 years. From starving it, to hating it, to making it exercise with injuries, I've talked about many of the physical symptoms I've experienced in episode 3. But even though they are negative, I think it really highlights how amazing our bodies really are. For example, the loss of my hunger cues. This is something I have previously talked about that happened to me on and off throughout the past 10 years. But if we separate the loss of hunger cues from my eating disorder, it is amazing to me that my body learned something and responded in a way to conserve energy for me. Again, I know that it is a negative symptom, but the fact that my body did things for me, even when I was not treating it very well, gave me a new outlook and appreciation for all of the things that my body does without even realizing it. These days, recovery looks like listening to my body and giving it what it needs. I don't fight against it. I don't ignore it. I don't argue with it. I just let and I provide myself and my body with exactly what it is asking for. Admitting I needed help, letting people see my struggle, it was fucking terrifying. But it was also the first step toward connection and real support. I don't have to have it all together to be worthy of love and be worthy of support. It's very cliche to say the first step is admitting there's a problem, but I'm here to say that that was true. For me. The first time around when I learned that I had an eating disorder that was a little less daunting. It was still hard but as compared to the second time around it was a little easier probably because I didn't really know what I was doing with to the full extent. The second time around was harder because I had kept the appearance that everything was okay for so long and I didn't know how the people closest to me would react. I didn't want them to go through the stress and the worry again but in admitting I needed help, admitting I was struggling again, a Allowing me to take some of my power back. This time around, I'm more prepared. I'm more committed. And I'm not fucking afraid to set boundaries and advocate for what I need. For the longest time, I used to think that putting my needs first was selfish. But it's actually not. What is selfish is putting everyone else's needs first when it results in sacrificing your own. Because when your needs are not met, you cannot fully show up in all aspects of your life the way you should or the way you want to. For me, not listening and honoring my needs results in anxiety for me, which I have already shared as one of the biggest triggers for my eating disorder. Now that I know this, I try really hard to honor what I need first because I cannot fill from an empty cup. Recovery opened my eyes to how diet culture, fat phobia, and toxic wellness messages shaped my beliefs. Unlearning that was like reclaiming a part of myself I didn't even know I had lost. You do not have to adhere to society's standards or even even the standards of your loved ones. The only standards that matter are the ones that you set for yourself. There is nothing wrong with wanting what you want and declining what you don't want. Your life is your life, and the only expectations you need to meet are your own. I have learned that a lot of my anxiety and frustration triggered my eating disorder because I knew I did not conform to society's standards in a lot of ways, and I was afraid of what that meant. For example, society says that happiness comes from being with someone and having a life with them. No, I'm not saying that's not true, but what I am saying is that a person can be happy on their own. Society also reinforces and puts thinness on a pedestal, giving the message that the smaller you are, the happier you will be. Well, I'm here to tell you that's fucking bullshit. And I know I am not the only one who is annoyed when someone asks them, how come you're not married with kids yet? Have you lost weight? You look great. Countless times people have said to me, but I know you I know you want that. Well, actually, I don't want that. So just because I'm not married with kids doesn't mean there's something wrong with me. It just means I can do what I want when I want without having to wrestle a toddler into the car seat. Just kidding. But not really, actually. My point is, just because you have your own wants and your own expectations for yourself that may not align with what someone wants for you or what society thinks you should have doesn't mean there's anything wrong If you live your life according to other people's standards, you will not live a fulfilling life. And it wasn't until my 30s when I opened up and really became aware that the feeling of guilt that comes along with not meeting societies and other people's standards also triggered my anxiety at times. So how does this relate to my eating disorder? Growing up, and even as a teenager in college, and even until recently, I would always be wondering or second-guessing myself if I was doing something wrong. right or wrong because I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be doing. I knew what society wanted me to do, but it wasn't always in alignment with what I wanted. Until I learned to let all of that external shit go and focus on what I wanted, I became freer. My anxiety lessened. The lessons my eating disorder taught me really come down to my personality predispositions, such as perfectionism, control, can be strengths, but there is also strength in the ability to let go of that control. I need to sit with my emotions and not avoid them, especially anxiety and gut feelings because those are likely trying to tell me something. I need to be more self-aware. Compulsions to exercise are really just a signal letting me know that something else in my life is going on and I need to confront it. and not exercise my way around it. I need to continue to set boundaries and say no to shit that makes me anxious. I need to honor my needs and remember that I can be kind and still say fuck no. Now even though there have been many lessons learned, there are still many lessons unfolding. I'm still learning how to rest without guilt. I'm still learning how to trust that I can be in a body and still be free. Recovery is not a straight line. It's a relationship. Some days are clear, some days are messy, but every step and every day teaches me something new. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Bite by Bite. I'm so grateful to be able to share this space with you, and I hope today's conversation brought you some insight, comfort, or maybe even a sense of community. Remember, no matter what you're healing from, healing isn't perfect, and every step you take does matter. If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with someone who might need it. Leave leaving a review, or subscribing on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. And if you want to connect more, you can find me on Instagram at Bite by Bite Recovery. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Your stories are just to say hi. Until next time, let's keep taking life by bite.