BITE BY BITE | Honest Conversations About Eating Disorder Recovery

A Psychologist's Journey from Bulimia to PhD with Dr. Rachel Evans

• Kaitlyn Moresi • Season 1 • Episode 19

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Welcome back to the Bite by Bite Podcast.

Battling and recovering from an eating disorder does not mean you cannot be successful in life. It does not mean that you can’t reach your goals or not be able to bring your dreams to life. Rachel Evans is proof of that.

In this episode, Kait is joined by Rachel Evans to share her personal journey with her battle with Bulimia and her road to recovery. Rachel shares the influences that led to her struggles such as social media, diet culture, and societal pressure in general. As a psychologist, she discusses the importance of seeking support, understanding the cycles of bingeing and purging, and the role of family dynamics as it relates to each person. Ultimately, Rachel offers hope and encouragement to those who are facing similar challenges, reinforcing that change is possible and recovery is a learning process.

Episode topics:

  • Rachel shares her personal struggle with Bulimia (2:25)
  • Rachel touches on how social media impacted her (6:02)
  • How Rachel navigated recovery and her support systems (10:24)
  • Rachel highlights the importance of understanding the cycle of bingeing and purging (15:07)
  • Rachel’s unique path to recovery and self-discovery (22:32)
  • Family dynamics and how they impacted Rachels’ recovery (31:03)
  • How Rachel transitioned into her professional life as a psychologist (37:38)
  • Rachel and Kait discuss the gaps in eating disorder treatment (41:19)
  • Rachel touches on the differences between recovery coaching and formal treatment (44:19)
  • Rachel and Kait offer encouragement to those struggling (55:06)

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

Episode guest:  Dr. Rachel Evans is a chartered psychologist, hypnotherapist and podcast host of the Just Eat Normally Podcast. She combines her lived experience of bulimia recovery with professional expertise and training to support one-to-one clients who feel obsessed with food, hate their body, and use increasingly extreme methods to try and control it. At the heart of her practice is a compassionate, individualized, and trauma-informed approach, focusing on the person rather than a label. She has been featured in leading publications such as Psychologies and appeared on BBC radio, sharing her expertise to challenge diet culture and break the stigma surrounding eating disorders. A sought-after speaker, she has delivered impactful workshops for large and small organizations and spoken at conferences and wellness festivals, inspiring audiences with her evidence-based insights and personal journey.

RELATED EPISODES:

Finding My Way Back to Myself Through Anorexia Recovery

Batting an Eating Disorder and The Healthcare System with Courtney Stoltzfus-Zvara

Finding Purpose in Eating Disorder Recovery with Alex Sublette

Connect with Kait
@bitebybiterecovery
bitebybiterecovery@gmail.com

Connect with Rachel
Recover with Dr. Rachel Evans
@rachel.evans.phd
Just Eat Normally Podcast

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SPEAKER_00:

In this episode, Rachel does discuss some previous eating disorder behaviors that she previously engaged in. Please be mindful and only listen to this episode if and when it feels right for you. Good morning, Rachel. I'm so happy to have you here on the podcast. So for listeners who don't who do not know you, can you I'm gonna start over and edit that out.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Good morning. Good morning, Rachel. Thank you so much for coming onto the podcast. For listeners who do not know you, can you just share a little bit about who you are? Personally, professionally, everything in between. Yeah, great.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much for having me. Um so I'm in England, so it's my afternoon. And yeah, good afternoon. Just about. It's two o'clock. Um yeah, so I have a PhD um in psychology. That is what I do now. I'm a psychologist. I've got the people who are um struggling with restriction, binge eating, with purging behaviors, which I'm sure we'll get more into in this episode. Um this morning I took my son swimming. So right now I'm a mum, I've got two kids. Uh what else to say? I don't live in London and England. It seems like everything's happening in London. I live in Derby, which is like the Midlands. So I'm not the countryside, but I'm not um big city, and yeah, just kind of bobbing along at the minute between clients and family life and like trying to find that balance.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that finding that balance is is hard. So you are now a professional. You're you work in psychology, you work with people who have eating disorders, but you yourself have struggled with an eating disorder in the past, so you had that lived experience. So, do you want to talk a little bit about that? Like when you first started noticing struggles in yourself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So let me try and put this in a nutshell because I was on the podcast once and someone asked me, I spent like half an hour explaining because you're like, Can you probably get it? It's not just one finger that's like a whole buildup. Um, and for me as well, I went into denial several times and like the behaviors that I was experiencing changes. So it started off I had healthy eating. I thought it was healthy eating. Um, and then like the more and more I was reading different diet things, Instagram was starting to become bigger. So would you wellness influences?

SPEAKER_00:

So, would you say when you say healthy eating, you kind of saw something and you were like, I'm gonna try this, or like were you influenced in any way, or was it truly your own decision at first?

SPEAKER_01:

Um was I influenced? I think just generally growing up and having the idea that a certain type of body is desirable. Um this is this is gonna be the long version because I feel like there's always several factors um that are involved for people, you know. Oh yeah. So I think for me, I went to an old girl school and I just wasn't really interested in being in a relationship with someone of the opposite sex, um, because I was doing like I was really studying, I was doing swimming, um, and that took off a lot of my time. And even when I went to university, and then I think when I was leaving university, I was starting to think like, oh, um, you know, I was, you know, going on some dates and stuff. So I was feeling a bit of pressure for my body to look at that way. That I I didn't realise at the time, but I do looking back on it now, I'd stopped doing sports, which took up a lot of my time. A lot of my friends were there. I got a lot of achievement from that and self-worth from like getting medals um at the events and like I'd represented my country and stuff. Uh and also academically as well. I got a lot of self-worth on that. So, like these things were like I was losing them. I guess I did have a lot of grief around it that I didn't realise. And I sort of channeled my attention into like I say, healthy eating book, quote unquote. Um, so I guess it was influenced by what I was reading in magazines because a lot of just general women's magazines that I might read often had a bit about diet, or like, oh, this celebrity, this is what they eat in a week, and their food rules almost. Like, I remember reading one about someone didn't eat the same thing twice in a day, which is just like a small thing. But then I started taking these things as this is a ball, whereas before I might have read them and brushed them off. And then I think because I really didn't know what I wanted to do, I did a master's in health psychology, but you have to do a stage two training if you want to be a health psychologist, and you basically have to get your own work experience, which I didn't really have any connections. So it's been like, oh, I'm not doing that, what am I gonna do? I should, you know, have a job after university, other people do, like a lot of comparison. Um so I think all of those things were going on. I just think generally wasn't that happy, I wasn't that confident in myself. So I maybe if those things hadn't happened, you know, I wouldn't have got so sucked into the what I thought was healthy eating, and also because I thought I wanted to go into health promotion, you know, I thought like I need to look a certain way, otherwise people rate me. Um, you know, which I don't think is necessarily true. No, but at the time I'd try and like get a six-pack so people would listen to my health advice. So I was following a lot of influences. And I think as well, because so this was like 2012-2013, um, when Instagram was kind of up and coming. So I think I'm a lot more critical about it now. I think there are people on Instagram telling you to be more critical about what we're seeing. I don't think I really had anyone at the time that was like, Do you know what you don't have to like eat cheer seed pudding and drink kale smoothies? If you don't like those things, don't do it. I I need to do these things. So I kind of got stuck in that, and then I got a job abroad. So then I was away from my family could kind of do what I wanted. On top of being isolated because I was living abroad, uh, and the whole I was living in Singapore, and there were a lot of cultural differences, um, which then I wasn't eating enough, I was over exercising, so I was having to navigate all of those things with the added pressure of it. It never a diagnosed eating disorder. But when I did my training to work for people with eating disorders, we watched a video about anorexia. I literally had to leave the room and like started crying because I was just like, I can relate to so much of what the person said in the video, but it was almost like never validated for me. Uh I lived abroad for eight months, and in that time, actually, my dad did come out and see me, and he noticed a change from when I was living at home. I'd already be I was living at home during my masters, would I probably say that? Um, I'd already started working out loads and like not eating what my parents were eating, but not to the same degree as it then got. Um, and I think it was because I realised I can't break these rules now. I think before when I'd been on a diet, I would go on for a diet for a bit and then come off it, and it wouldn't cause the same level of stress and anxiety. Um and so I did go to one, I think your question was about like uh what was like an aha moment almost. I did go to one recovery support group meeting that was in our school. Um, and people were really supportive. And then looking back on what I was saying, I was gonna have my family coming over and I'm gonna have to you know go to a hotel and eat what they're meeting in the hotel, but you know, I don't really feel comfortable about doing that anymore. Um and the people were lovely, but then I never went back to that. I just I went to that one, realised like I'm not okay, and then just went into jail again, like when I didn't see my family again. Um, and then I came home, this I'll try and make this a quick one. Came home, I felt very depressed um because I didn't have a job to come back, uh, come back to in the UK. And then my parents um had their own company and their receptionists had left. So they're like, Can you come and work for us while you find a job? I feel like finding a job is a bit of a full-time job. Um, absolutely. So I didn't really find anything. And they could see um like how unhappy I was, I wasn't eating anywhere near enough. I'm like saying I was over exercising, I was just like hungry the whole time. Um, so they did encourage me to seek help, so I tried to get help from the NHL. They were gonna offer me CBT for anxiety. Okay, but this anxiety is very specifically about food and about my body, but I didn't meet other criteria um to be diagnosed with an eating disorder. Um at some mindline, I think I went to a couple of sessions um and I just decided it's not wasn't for me. Uh so then I was very, very lucky that I did get private um support. My s was like, right, we're gonna pay for you, really need to do something about this. Um I think it's really difficult for them to watch me going through this, and they couldn't say anything because I would get very defensive. I would really judge what they were eating. So like they were trying to support me. Um, and then stuff really did shift when I saw this when I saw the therapist, so I started binge eating. Like, like primal, I call it binge eating. You can have a whole episode on should we call it um primal hunger, what like what should we call it? But essentially I just felt like compelled to go and eat. And I think when you spent so long restricting and like priding yourself on being able to do that, that suddenly you're like, I just can't not eat all this food. Um, so then my weight did change because of that in quite a short amount of time. And actually, um, I think like six months later I was being fries made for my friends and I'd had a dress sifting when I was in the smaller body, and then you know, put on this weight and the dress had to be taken out. So, you know, just stuff like that was really impacting me as well. Um and then that's when I started making myself throw up because I thought, well, I've got to get rid of this food, which maybe later we can come on to why that is not a good idea. But I kind of felt like the only option at the time I was already exercising loads to try and make up for it as well. Um and then actually my therapist was really helpful with like life direction. Um, so I decided to apply for a PhD, got a place on a PhD that would start again in September. Binging started maybe like the January, February. Um, so stuff was getting better because I think something did click in my mind that I was like, right, if you're gonna be eating all this food, you might as well spread it out in the day a bit because the bingers were all happening. Like I would literally wake up in the night and go to the kitchen and just start eating because it felt very safe. Because it was like dark, like my parents, I was living with my parents going on, so when I um, you know, they weren't awake, I could just do this uh behaviour rather than having to eat that stuff in front of people. Um yeah, I think that did it get a bit better. I was still on a different diet, I was still making myself sick. I don't know how much. Um, I really like didn't write it down or I can't remember, but it was it was at least every week, if not more. I don't think it was every day at that point, but it was it was more, so I wasn't okay. But I just went into denial again, like, oh, I'm actually healthy because now I eat these different foods and I can go out and eat something, and you know, um, oh, and also just to just saying that, um, I'd had like a relationship and a relationship breakup, which really popped off on like hikers bead in terms of the restriction. Um, and then I'd had a boyfriend all the time I was in Singapore and he was in England, and then we split up, um, and that was quite a wake-up call as well. Like I'm choosing this eating disorder over him because he wants us to have more freedom and we're always falling up and always hangry, but I can't. I just felt like I couldn't stop what I was doing and the behaviours like they were controlling me at that point, even though I was really sad. And we did get back together um because we booked a holiday. He is now my husband. Um, and I said, We have we have two children, so it did work out, but it wasn't great. So yeah, then I started my PhD, then I started like healthy eating Instagram and blog, and I was like, Oh, it's fine, I'm better, but I really wasn't like, I couldn't have certain food in house without if I bought it, I would just bend on it as soon as I got home. Um, I was still regularly making myself throw up from eating certain things. I look at some of the pictures of the food I ate and I was like, that is not enough. But it was more than I was eating before. So I'm not sure if you would call it quasi recovery, I'm not sure if you would call it still having eaten disorder, but it wasn't taking over as much as it did before. Living with housemates at my PhD was about an hour drive away from where from where my parents lived and where I live now. And the first year was alright, it was doing really well. Like I got my study, I was doing I felt like I was achieving almost in that, so that was helping. And then I think looking back, stuff went downhill when I was on holiday. Then my supervisor was on holiday, and then we didn't analyze the data, and then I felt like I was falling behind, and also I moved in by myself. And so those things that I hadn't realized, like started off before, were present again. Um, and then because I was living by myself, I think um I saw in your introduction that it was kind of blunt podcast. Um, just to say before I say that's like people can struggle and have different behaviours, and not saying if you make yourself throw up more times, that's worse than if you don't. But it got to the point that it was happening like multiple times a day, every day. I would wake up and just the first things that I would be thinking about if I didn't have much food in the house is like I need to go to the shop, buy some food so I can binge purge before I go. So my lectures, like it escalated quite quickly in about two months of living by myself. Um, and then I noticed like it's ruining holidays because that's all I'm thinking about when I'm on holiday, and obviously like ruined Christmas and stuff like that, which had been ruined before. Uh when I came back from Singapore was like horrendous Christmas, because obviously we had so much food around, you're stressing about that and what to eat. And then the next year it was okay if but the year after that was awful. And so I think I just started building up all this evidence that like I cannot continue like this just for myself. Like I can't live like this because it's taking over. Um, and then I'd say from that point it probably took a year, I'd say, before I'd stop. The binging carried on after the purging had stopped for me. Um, because it felt like it was, you know, removal come on to talking about like what functions does it have for you as well. But it kind of slowly, slowly got better because I think I felt quite motivated that right, I need to change this because these diets just aren't working anymore. And I just don't want to go back to restriction because that was horrendous.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so I I've kind of gotten a sense that with the binging and purging cycle, it was good for a while, then I came back and was bad, and then I got good again, and then it was very up and down over the years. So looking back, do you see kind of a pattern or a way that this kind of served as a coping mechanism for you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I think in the beginning it it was about I think it was more about my body in the beginning, because I was thinking, oh, if I get rid of this food, then it's not gonna make me gain weight, but actually you can't throw up everything that you've eaten. And I think I was actually eating more because I don't know other people who experienced it. Like you end up eating more because you think you're gonna throw it up anyway, like the binge really escalates because of that, or I would do it multiple times in the same like session in vertical commons. Um yeah, so I think in the beginning it was more about body, but then I realized actually, so um I did have a couple of sessions uh with the NHS uh for bulimia. That was after the CBT um thing, probably about a year and a half after. And they helped me realize actually like it was for coping with stress. So I'd really hated my PhD, I thought I wasn't doing very well in it. Um, I was doing a metro analysis, which is meant to be like a gold standard type. You search for all the studies on a certain topic, and mine was about self-control and eating. And I was just so worried that at the end someone can be like, Oh, you've missed this paper. When I've looked through like thousands of papers and have to, you know, put them in my my criteria, which you think you've got your criteria, and then you're gonna be like, Oh, is this paper in it or is this paper not in it? Like it's not black and white, and it was just really stressful. And so I was I think I was like avoidance. If I was binging and purging, I was avoiding that. Um, so it was more, I guess, about emotion regulation as well, but I didn't realise. And I think maybe there was a strand as well of like I was trying more different foods as well, I think. And then some of those felt quite stressful to me, and then maybe didn't feel safe, or I like I said, I picked up so many food rules at one point there was hardly anything that I could eat. So I guess depending on my mental state when I was adding them back in, sometimes that would then trigger me to binger paired as well. So I think it was a few pieces, but I think once I realized about that avoidance, I could start to act on it because I was like, well, I don't have to binge repairs to avoid it. I could read a book and like not go to university for an hour and like give myself that bit of stuck because I I guess I was privileged and I didn't have to be there, you know, unless I had a meeting or something, I could be working from home.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. You could there was other ways that you could still get that same function of what you were trying to do. So it was kind of a long journey for you and now you're c recovered and in a great place. So what does that part look like? Like how did you get to recovery? What was recovery like for you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I think like I said, I think it took a year from when I was like, right, I really, really, really have to do something about this. Um I think I realized for me it the purging was escalating the binges and keeping it going even more. Um so I think for me it was a lot about like, right, okay, even if if I feel like I've eaten too much, if I feel like I've eaten the wrong thing in buttercomers, uh even if I've had an actual binge, um, in terms of like, you know, you're eating fast, you're eating in secret, like you feel kind of guilty about it. Um I cannot urge. So I guess it was kind of about willpower or finding other activities to do until those urges pass uh. Um looking a lot about the urges, I guess. Um, looking about how can I stretch my life so I don't feel the urge in the first place. So I guess more regular eating. Um, I guess eating more variety of things. Um but I I guess it was that. And then I did still have some spinges, but it wasn't as bad because I guess I was thinking as well, like sometimes I'd walk to the food market to buy food, and on the way, say to myself, like, no, you really don't want to do this. You can go back, or I'd be in the food market and have a whole basket full of stuff that I wanted to spinge on and have to go and put it back on the shelf. So it wasn't like once I decided that was just it, that would be lovely. But you know, I had to keep making a decision at different points in the kind of binger purge sequence and cycle. Um, I think just reminding myself of like, right, you do not want another Christmas. Like to be really blunt, I basically engineered the situation, so I was at home by myself and Christmas while my family were like out doing nice things so I could just stay at home and like binge-purged. And it's just that's not how I want to be spending my time. I mean, it was at the time because I felt very much like I have to do this, it's built up.

SPEAKER_00:

Dumping your hair, and you were like, I don't like my life to be like that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. So I think I would get in better, and then there were a couple of instances in that year when stuff just pushed all my buttons, and I felt like I don't know how to cope without making myself sick now. Um, I was living with my boyfriend um at that point, and he was away, and I'd been to this like conference, and it was just so overwhelming that I think I didn't know how to break and get myself back down. Um, so I think it was I you must hear like um coaches or therapists say this all the time, but like, how can this be a learning opportunity? Okay, I've managed not to binge a purge for like several months now, and then this has just almost sent me over the edge with it. But okay, so what happens next time I go to a conference? So I don't feel like that next time. So I think it was kind of learning along the way. And I think also when I then started eating more to nourish myself, I guess, or like I don't know what word to use, like that's a quantity of truth for my for my body and my needs. I stopped waking up in the night, like feeling like I need to binge. So there's like the physiological side of things as well, I guess. Um, and then so the next year I did my training. So I think then we have to do some of the activities ourselves that we might do with science. So I think that was helpful of itself as well. And then as I've been doing different training courses, like neurolinguistic programming and things, like you've had to do the techniques, and I do hypnotherapy as well. So I've had to have you know hypnotherapy sessions on me. So I think that's kind of nice to just explore the different areas, like I say like self-worth was involved in it, so you know, how can I brush up those things a bit, I guess, and feel a bit better about those. And then you have kids and they're like, oh God, this is what I have so much stuff now. I have to do all my stuff again.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, so with recovery, you had mentioned that like taking things as learning opportunities. And I think that that is something to highlight because even though the main goal of recovery is to recover from the eating disorder, but I also think a big part of recovery, like you just said, and in my experience, is it is a learning process because you are basically relearning how to live without the eating disorder, and that slip-ups are not relapses, really. Slip-ups are can and should be used as learning opportunities. Okay, like if this this happens again, what do I do? Or oh, I didn't realize this was a trigger. How can I plan better or deal with it better?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so really strange happened to me, like when I felt I was recovered. Um, this again is kind of an overshadow, but um, you know, just so people could decide if they want to listen or not. Basically, when I was living in Sheffield, I would come home for the weekend. So Sheffield was like an hour away from where my parents live in Derby, um, when I was doing my PhD. And so I wouldn't really binge when I was home at the weekend because I was worried about someone catching me doing it. Um I did occasionally, but not not a lot. Um, and then when I would go back to my flat by myself, like as soon as I got in the doorbase here, I would start eating. But then it I think our escalation, because then it got wasn't like I probably shouldn't say this because of not an eagle, but like I would go to the supermarket, buy food and eat it on my in the car. So as soon as I got there, that I could like purge, and then it got one that I would like have to stop at a service station because I'd eaten so much in like 20 minutes. So that you know, that happened don't know how many times actually. I wasn't really counting, but you know, for a few months maybe. Um and then I'd eaten food in my car. So when was this? Maybe I can't remember, maybe like 2019, let's say. So it was like two or three years um after that was happening. I'd say two years. Um, I got in my car, and basically a whole long story that we don't need to go into, but basically we hadn't had proper dinner, it was late at night, we were driving around, and we just stopped at like the Tesco, which is a supermarket, just to buy a sandwich because it was like nine o'clock at night. Um, and there weren't any sandwiches that I wanted, so I got some crisp. I sat in my car and ate the crisp, and I just got this like weird wave of my body of like feeling naughty because I was like, I've eaten the crisps in my car since binging and purging and you know, having that behavior. But I think it's because I was really hungry, I was stressed, and then my body was like, oh, like it just there were several things about that situation that made my body remember what happened, and I think I could have been like, oh my god, I'm not recovered because this has happened and now I need to, you know, escalate. I thought, oh, this is so strange that this has happened. Like it's a very unusual situation for me to be driving around like that and not having youth and dinner and it just, you know, situational factors. But I just like to bring that up because I think sometimes stuff like that does happen and it can throw you. I feel because I'm in a recovery world because I talked about recovery all the time. I knew how to handle it, but I just think it's stuff like that happens for people and they're not, they might think, oh god, what's happening to me? But I think sometimes it does just happen, doesn't it? I don't know if you have a similar experience yet.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's just part of the process where things just catch you off guard at any point. And just moving forward is really learning from it and moving forward is what you the best two things that you can do. So now that you're recovered and looking back, what was one of what was the hardest part to let go? When you basically when you realize like your eating disorder isn't gonna be around anymore, you can't use it as a copy mechanism. What was the hardest part for you to really let go?

SPEAKER_01:

Maybe exercise in a way, because I think I realized, I think I had come to the point with the food with realizing, well, when I started the binging, it felt so uncontrollable that it didn't feel like I was choosing to let go of restricting. Felt like it was kind of imposed on me. Uh whereas I think at that point as well, um I chose to like reduce exercise and I was just like doing stretching or walking or something because I hadn't had periods for like a year, and so I was thinking, oh, maybe I won't be I didn't even know if I wanted to have children anyway, but like I don't want to take it off the table for myself. So I was thinking, right, I do need to help my body get healthier. Um so I think that was difficult then, and then also um when I was struggling when I lived in the flat by myself, um, like on a Friday before I would come home for the weekend, I would like to make myself do like a hip workout, and then that was just getting more and more stressful to squeeze it in before I wanted to drive to like miss the heavy traffic to get home. So I think just deciding, right, you're not gonna be doing all this exercise anymore. So I think that had had the functional, I guess, endorphins from exercise, or uh, you know, for a long time in that I felt very guilty if I didn't do it, or a lot of anxiety if I didn't do it in a day. So I think deciding, right, okay, move movement, or I guess people tend to call it different stuff when they've recovered, um, is gonna look different for me. Yeah. From now on. Because I think it felt like, oh, but if I'm eating differently, that's still a way to control how my body's looking and deciding, right, I want to have a better relationship with exercising. Like I could say at one point that meant really cutting down. Um, I think I switched to running with my friend, like the second time I decided, right, and more yoga type type stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, letting go of exercise, and that was something that I severely struggled with with my eating disorder was over-exercising. And it's a very tough thing to kind of let go of because it just in general, exercise is good for you. It has a lot of positive benefits. So it's just a natural argument, at least I had okay, I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm exercising, I'm working out. This is basically what someone should be doing to be healthy. But then there's also that line you cross where it's not even about exercise anymore. You're not exercising to exercise, you're not exercising for the benefits, you're exercising to compensate, you're exercising to control something. So it turns negative. But it's also hard when yourself, society, medical professionals reinforce exercise is healthy. Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_01:

I think as well, like when I was living in Singapore, actually, so one of the people who I worked with then came to the UK and actually had already applied to do the masters that I did. Um, so she was living near me and she lived here for a year after I came back. And so I could kind of get her perspective on things as well. That she was like, Oh, we thought you were like really healthy. Like almost my stereotype then was like the healthy one. Like, I was always giving my pack luncheon because I was really scared to eat what was there, or like, oh, you would always work up. Yes, because I you know would feel really guilty if I didn't. But interesting, so I think I did almost have that, like, oh, this is my healthy persona. So I guess letting go of that as well, like to say what you think other people think of you doing these behaviours, or I think as well when I started going to the pub and ordering different stuff, like when I was struggling, I would always order a similar thing. I said that's like a side point as well, but it's just coming up for me now. I'm not sure if you noticed when you were like recovering, other people were kind of reinforcing your old behaviours. Like, say if we were going to the pub and the food I was ordered always like a jacket potato by itself with like nothing. And then if it had butter on or like a salad with a dressing, I would just start crying because obviously it wasn't what I was ordered and I was really, really hungry and just needed the food. So like if we've got say if we went to the pub and then my parents or my partner, if it came out and it wasn't what I ordered, they would start to like get really tense about it. Whereas I feel like when I was like I'm a recovery it's like it's okay it wasn't what I ordered, but I can eat this anywhere else. Like how both trying to eat a bigger range of food. So I was trying to not let it bother me but they were like oh god it's not what Rachel wants like oh what the consequences of this gonna be for her. So I think I found that tricky. I found it a lot easier to go out with like my friends who maybe didn't know what had gone on as well than it was some stuff for my family or even maybe maybe two years after I thought I'd recovered went to my sister's house and she made a dinner which is something that I like never would have eaten when I was restricting and my dad was like oh do you want me to like change that for you I'm like it's fine like I actually genuinely didn't have a problem at that point. But I'm like the toilet's okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah so because that could be awkward. With people who it could be friends, family members, just anyone who knows about your struggle I think for me I start it makes me a little nervous because I I don't want them to walk around angstiles around me. I don't want them to act different because they shouldn't have to and also that's not the real world. Like I I need to be exposed to it to just normal stuff because that's what recovery when you are recovered will be like but I do find it or I did find it easier to be around people who had no idea because it took the pressure off of me like oh they have no idea so I can just do what I need to do and not have to worry about what they're thinking or gonna say because even when you are with the people who know everything that they try to say or will say or do even if it's annoying or frustrating for you it's well intentioned and I think in my experience I think specifically of my dad like he tries so hard to support me and be there but he I also can tell that he has no idea what to do or say so he'll his thing is like are you eating enough to do eat today? Yes dad yeah I did and just little things like that where there's a part of guilt too where I don't want people to have to feel like they have to ask me that or worry about that.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know if you ever felt a kind of guilt when you were in recovery or even recovered where you didn't want people to not that you didn't want them to worry about you but you didn't want them to feel like they had to Um I don't sure because I think I did it without my family in a sense because I wasn't living with them at the time when I decided to recover I guess when when I was living with them so after I'd moved back from living abroad I think then I felt felt up still oh I can't talk still felt very much like but me not eating these foods is like the right thing to do. So I think that was still very deep in struggling even though I was seeing the therapist and like things were changing. And then I think because I was living by myself um in a flat and then I moved in with my boyfriend. So I I don't think they saw they didn't see the worst of like the making myself grow up and things. And I think because then at that point I was eating more when I was with them I think they thought I was okay. But I wasn't okay. Um but yeah I'm not I don't know I generally felt more antagonistic towards them to be honest when I was with them because they were trying to say those things and they were trying to help me but it was just landing in the totally rough wrong way as I think you're almost uh saying as well in what you're saying about sometimes it can be difficult to hear that stereotypical like people say oh you look well and you just hear like oh well you look fat now but I think unless you've been in that situation you just don't understand it just doesn't make sense like that other this is like a total side topic um I was just thinking like so my friend and we I think it's maybe one of my first year at university she had to drop out of her her first year to do inpatient um treatment for anorexia and I went to her house I think this is when she'd come out maybe just before she went in can't quite remember um but anyway she'd made a sandwich and it was a sandwich on white bread it was like a chewing sandwich on white bread and like I was trying to eat healthy healthy inverted comments at that point which to me meant like brown bread is healthier than white bread. I would probably prefer brown I probably prefer seeded actually because of like the seeds but if like today actually I did have a sandwich on white bread flint because that was what was in the house like it doesn't bother me but at the time I did have I'd say some food noise about it but it was not I was still like okay all right we've got the sandwich like I almost remember thinking like okay I'm gonna show her how to eat the sandwich um like that was gonna make all the difference anyway um and we sat down and she did not touch her sandwich and I said to her like I do know you try and think of how she had phrases but I said she like you've eaten your sandwich and she said because I've got to have dinner with my parents later and I was very confused because I was like well breakfast lunch and dinner like I was trying to eat less but I would still eat breakfast lunch and dinner whereas that made sense to her and then I think there was this part of me that worried when that made sense to me like I can't eat these things well because even I might eat it later even if you didn't or I might eat this later in the week but I can't eat this thing like a specific food now because it might I think when that started to make perfect sense I was like ooh and then quickly like dismissed as a problem. So I think it's almost like your brain changes doesn't it and the stuff makes sense in a different way to other people but you're like no this this is my own logic here. Yeah and I found too that like during even sometimes still like I'll talk about things on the podcast or on my Instagram and I'll post real stuff that I dealt with and if I type it out in an Instagram post or I say it on the podcast and like for example like oh this is something that I used to think or believe or do and then I would hear myself say it out loud and I'm like that is so silly like that doesn't even make any logical sense and it's just so scary and sad that the eating disorder can convince you to believe and follow silly rules and believe so I think for me as well I really remember being with that therapist and like the first one that I had she was challenging the rules that are like essentially like what are you scared of and I so terrified to eat them or to eat more but I couldn't even verbalise what it was. It was just this massive fear or this thing I knew in me that's like I I just can't do that because of bad things that's gonna happen but I can't tell you what that bad thing is. It wasn't even specifically like that I'm gonna gain weight and people won't like me till the time in a larger body. I don't think it was even specifically that because it feels like you know once it did start out as that but then like you're saying it has different functions and different you know physiologically different stuff is going on in your brain which can make it harder to be flexible and change these. At least I do feel in some ways I was lucky that I did start binging because I don't know when I would have stopped myself if that hadn't have happened.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah so sometimes the things in the moment that we think are negative actually end up being end up saving you in ways. So you're recovered now so let's switch gears a bit. So with your experience with eating disorders in various forms, how did that kind of impact what you do now professionally? Like what did it help you make the choice of oh this is what I want to do. Yeah to be honest even so my PhD was a research PhD so I wasn't really sure what I was going to do after that anyway.

SPEAKER_01:

I thought maybe I'll stay in research. Then I decided well I don't really like research because you're very specialist in what you know that you can't really have a conversation with other people about it. So again it's quite isolating um I don't really do well without feeling isolated. So I did think I do want to be a psychologist to work with people and then like you say I think because I've had this experience myself I think I felt when I've talked to therapists and they just don't seem to get it in a certain way. I think it has impacted how I structure like my programs and things. So with my programs if someone's able we would start with like a three hour session. So sometimes people aren't because maybe they're not fueling themselves enough and they can't concentrate that long or if someone's doing it in their working day they can't take three hours off work. But I think when I have done therapy before sometimes it feels like you've taken a while before you've got anywhere. And I think because I'm private practice I tend to get clients who have made that realization they've you know stopped being so ambivalent about it that they're like right this is taking over my life I'm really scared but I do want to do something about it. Like there are these changes I can I've started to see everything that's costing me and my bigger vision of how I would want my life to be um so you know people kind of already gone through those parts of the process that they want to jump in and kind of get going with things rather than be telling me about their history and their life for like three weeks. So stuff like that. And also I think as well I'm very much like okay what is this person bringing what are we going to do on different weeks provide example what I do hypnotherapy do you like the DFC uh emotional freedom technique like tapping like more somatic things some people like that more some people aren't really into that so I think it's having that flexibility um to kind of change with the client and to you know try and be able to juggle the things that we need to do well not that we we never need to do anything but I mean in terms of like their past what strategies do they need now looking for the future um whereas I just felt sometimes when people like oh you can have CBT this is your option with the NHS yes we're I'm not saying that we're not lucky to have the NHS but that didn't really feel like it was suited to me and what I needed. And I think as well being in private practice I was actually talking um to someone the other day who's a mental health nurse working in eating disorders and do you want to open private practice and she was saying do you weigh your clients and I'm like no you know we will have a conversation with my clients about if they think that might be helpful for them and you know how much are they already weighing themselves. You know some people are weighing themselves multiple times a day and you know it's having a massive impact but I think I've got that flexibility just to decide you know what is it where is a guess if you're in inpatient or you've gone to treatment with the NHS usually never would want to weigh you so I think I've got a more flexible approach to things I guess.

SPEAKER_00:

So as a recovery coach are there any gaps that you see in the treatment process that with your clients you kind of notice a theme?

SPEAKER_01:

Um I guess a big one is people not being able to access care. I think depending on where you are in the UK some places are you know have a lot of funding for eating disorders some people don't have as much so we call it a co-coder um whether you would be able to get support or not do you meet the criteria for an eating disorder and so a lot of my clients at the minute are binging and purging um but you know when I've worked with clients who maybe aren't doing those behaviours and they're restricting whether weight you know isn't a certain level they like I say it really depends on area but often aren't put up to the top of the waiting list. You know, unfortunately that is the situation that we're in at the minute. So I think not almost not having that validation of you are struggling with this. I think when people are told okay either there's these people who are higher priority than you or actually no we just don't have the funding right now you're on a year long waiting list I think some people are probably motivated for me actually um when I did seek help from the NHS a second time and got offered CBT they did say oh well way you and I was like shall I just leave now but I thought right just do it just do it because I think that I do understand the rationale for like wait is just a number and then you can start to feel neutral about it if you see it more often but anyway um I was I had a meeting with a psychologist before that actually really helpful. I was meant to have a meeting with the dietitian but the dietitian did turn up and I think there could be so many reasons for it at the time I was like can you just tell me what to eat to like make this end which she wasn't going to do that anyway I thought she was um but I was really offended that she didn't turn up like I'm not important enough and like I don't know her son could have been in hospital or you know there could have been however many reasons but I just really angry and that made me like right I'm gonna recover without you then always let a fire not that they ever care or ever knew but like that actually felt motivating for me I think when you're part on a meeting list some people might feel motivated but a lot of people feel demotivated about that or think oh well actually what I'm experiencing isn't really that bad or like she was saying about the exercise oh actually but exercise is healthy so let me carry on with this even though you know I'm doing this instead of going to other important things in my life and it's causing me a lot of stress and all the downsides and also physical downsides.

SPEAKER_00:

Um so yeah that probably two gaps I would say yeah those are very they kind of align with what we see here with treatment isn't always accessible and also the biggest thing too is the weight and it infuriates me. Like you said I do understand the rationale for many reasons but I also see the other side of it is where you can be at a quote unquote healthy weight and still be at rock bottom with an eating disorder. And if if you are weighed and the medical professional or mental health professional deems you at a healthy weight you're gonna basically be flagged out of needing eating disorder treatment and that is so unfortunate I'll say um so there is kind of a difference in getting formal clinical treatment that's covered by health insurance and then recovery coaching is a so can you just explain for the listeners who do not know what the difference is between like a recovery coach and getting formal insurance reimbursement treatment?

SPEAKER_01:

So I don't we don't really have insurance so much. Okay so yeah so here some people would I guess if they you know maybe get it through work or something. So I think recovery coaches from what I've seen to have lived experience a lot more. And I guess the benefit of that like I guess for my client comes to see me because I'm private practice like you would choose who you're going to see as opposed to sometimes I guess if it's insurance cover, they'll be like right okay this is the person you know that you're going to see not always I think you can apply No I definitely think that it limits the pool though.

SPEAKER_00:

Like if you if you if let's say for example there's a hundred recovery places but your insurance only covers seven. So now you can only choose from seven. So I think that that does play a huge role in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh and I think it really depends on the individual as well in terms of recovery coaches how much they would raise with other services as well like if you're a dietitian or you know you needed medical support as well might be a bit more separate than I guess if you are within a treatment centre or receiving support like that. Maybe a bit more integrated if there's a team of people I guess recovery coaches again just from what I've seen generally they tend to work on their own single person rather than have a team but um I guess in the UK actually that do you see more options opening up for like a team of specialists sort of dietitians that work with eating disorders like maybe someone will have five in their clinic that you can see and specialise in sort of different areas like gut health and stuff as well. I think that's one of those isn't it like people just have to work out like what is their best option. I think as well the thing that I've been thinking about recently which does kind of tie into this is like self-awareness. Like trying to have that self-awareness in the first place like okay what what what kind of thing works well for me what kind of thing doesn't so like I've realized I'm not the kind of person who's like here's a homework worksheet and now we're gonna do this worksheet next week like that just doesn't work for me whereas I have some clients who really want something very structured so I'll probably say to them in the first place actually like I have a structure in my head obviously but it's not you know as formal as if you were maybe doing like a group course on DBT or something like that.

SPEAKER_00:

So if you're the kind of person that's like right I need this concrete every week you might know to take that when you were talking to potential therapists or you know I have some clients who maybe they don't work on a specific goal then we're just talking about things and we bring it all together and then they just want to go away after that week and just process it all the people like right give me your homework even if it's not a written down situation they want that specific goal for that week that I think can be really helpful just to think for yourself like you know say when I was at school what was kind of where I worked or like now I'm uh working or whatever you're doing like what generally how do you take in information or like make a change um I don't know but just yeah in in there because yeah no I think the biggest um benefit from recovery coaches is like you said most of them if not all I don't know um they have that lived experience a lot of recovery coaches are recovered and I think that that adds another layer of education and support that comes from someone who understands and has been there whereas some clinicians and some professionals in the formal setting may have all the experience working and all of the educational background but at the end of the day they're missing that they truly don't know what it's like and I Yeah now you said that now you said that back to me I was thinking like I guess with coaches as well a lot of them tend to work on the here and now maybe a bit about where did this come from to understand it.

SPEAKER_01:

But I guess if you have realized like actually I do have a lot of traumas from my childhood it actually might be more like a therapy route that you might want to take to address those or like therapy or something like that. Um rather than more like what a strategy is right now. But then you might think oh actually I don't want to touch that just tell me with what's going on. Yeah. It's not so cut and dry as that is obviously but you know that might depending on what you've realized your need might be.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I've I I'll admit I um I currently have a recovery coach and I see her monthly and it's very informal, very unstructured and like for me I'm in a very good place. I don't need formal treatment I don't need really I'd be just as okay without a coach but my where I'm at now is like okay I kind of just need help like getting across the point where recovery stops becoming a daily choice where I have to be mindful and conscious of it. Like how do I turn it into a lifestyle where it's not even really recovery anymore. This is just life. This is just how I live so with that I meet with her monthly and then I have tech support. So there'll be times that I can just send her a text message and be like hey this is what I'm thinking um this has never happened before or it can be just something positive. And it's very like I said a million times it's very informal but it's very helpful. Like how do you navigate the final next step of you know yes to be recovered but you don't really think about it every day because it's just life.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah I think that's a good point as well because actually with my clients I do include um support between sessions and so like they say they can text me which when I started it I was like am I allowed to do this because I think being a psychologist it's very much like you know you don't get taught to do that but I just thought well if I was a client great and I was struggling with this and like you say actually a lot of my clients use it more to a firm stuff as well or if they leave me a voice note by the time it's like three minutes long they've actually talked themselves around in a circle and they've answered their own question or even if it's like oh the scavengers that okay you know check it out I think it could be nice to have someone and a lot of them like it's up the offering there to use it every day but most people don't because you know you're going about doing what you're doing. I think it's just having it there is kind of reassuring.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah I was just gonna say I think a big part of it is just knowing if you want it, if you need it, it's there. And I think that that in in and of itself is a lot of help because like you said people don't use it every day. But even just knowing it's there is just a level of comfort um and then in my experience half the time when I reach out for that tech support I pretty much know whatever the situation is, I pretty much know nothing is wrong. I didn't do anything wrong nothing is happening. But even just hearing that yeah you're right think about it is helpful because as you know when you live in disorder for 10 plus years all you know is disordered thoughts and disordered behavior. So it's like you have to just simply relearn what is not disorder. So there's a lot of different layers.

SPEAKER_01:

It can be nice to have someone as well to like celebrate with you within your family in a way because like you say when you're like moving towards recovery or you're recovered you I felt like I don't always want to bring it up to them as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Not that you're actually keeping it separate separate but you're just like okay you know right there comes a point where the recovery is really well the recovery really is always just for you and about you. So there comes a point where I agree it doesn't you start to feel where it shouldn't be a part of your everyday conversation with your loved ones.

SPEAKER_01:

So I think what you were saying about the choice thing as well I think some of it is repetition because now I do tend to work with people for at least three months or like at least six months because some of the changes like sometimes when we do hypnotherapy people can make a change in a specific belief quite quickly um like feeling guilty about eating and start to feel a lot less guilty or something like specific. Like it might be the first time someone's gone to buy new clothes and try them on in a different side and that's probably going to bring up you know something for them isn't it so I think even if you've been doing all that positive work and you've been thinking you know more positively about your body maybe in different situations and stuff is going to come in and throw a little spanner in the work that you're gonna then have to repeat those behaviours. I mean not behaviors those thoughts in that situation. So I think a lot of it is getting these new habits in which you know you don't build habits overnight if you sat down and put on paper there might be a lot of things that you're doing right now that you used to overthink about or you used to have to make a choice about now you're only making a choice about 30% when you have to make a choice about like 80% right so and I think that's huge is it's always changing it's always evolving and you are always changing and evolving.

SPEAKER_00:

So along with you the things you need your state of recovery all changes. So it's a learning experience for everyone so with your lived experience as someone who's recovered but then also someone who struggled to wrap things up if there was someone you knew or even someone just listening who is struggling with any sort of eating disorder what is something that you know now that you wish you knew when you were struggling that you would want to share oh big question. And I know there's probably a million responses to that question.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah I think if it's someone I knew who was struggling well I guess a positive thing that like change is possible. So I think sometimes when you're so stuck in it and when you've reached that stage that you have almost that like friction that you're not happy with what's going on anymore can kind of feel impossible to change all these things but like that it's possible to change it. I think that's that's a big one um because I think as well at one point I did look for like private therapy when I was binging and purging so much and I I was just I remember looking through and thinking that's they've got a testimonial but it's not gonna work for me. Like I'm this person who's so broken that it's just not gonna work for um but I think you know I always say with my clients like what you're going through is understandable and then we would look to okay what has happened to you until this point that helps us understand what's going on for you now which I guess is kind of like the questions you were asking me actually about like the functions and things. So just that person like it's understandable and other people who have gone through everything that you've gone through you know might be in a similar situation the same situation to what you are now. And then also I think I was really reluctant to get help. I think as well if you know I've had um not close friends but you know further out friends um who have been struggling and kind of said something to me about it and I think they seem quite reluctant to speak to someone but just you know sometimes that's what you need like you were saying earlier you need someone to reflect back that thought that doesn't quite make sense and until you're like oh okay you know let's have shakers up a bit so it can be scary do that but actually sometimes seeking support can be the most helpful thing no I agree eating disorders are very secretive so the more you talk about it not that it makes it go away but it does and at least for me in my experience it makes it a little a little less heavy every time you talk about it or mention something or honest about something it chips away. Yeah actually now you said that I do remember my mum saying when I started seeing that therapist when I was living with them she was like oh you're talking a lot more I didn't realize I wasn't but I was probably so in my head about food like every meal that I didn't say anything but I think she started to notice that I was opening up more and more and I think that lets people in to understand it more doesn't it as well the more you just talk about it also people understand but at the same time it is something that is hard to understand unless you experience it in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00:

So again thank you so much for your time it was great chatting with you and I appreciate you giving me your time um it's great to say I always have been saying lately that it's great to have this community through the podcast and even through the social media platform and having all these people interact and relate to what we share. But at the same time it's very sad because eating disorders are very difficult and tough and it's just so sad to see that so many people can relate. So thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh sorry you know what it's uh It's like some tests that the government are doing for everybody on your phone. Because I still I've seen posts about it like if you suffer from domestic violence or something do these settings on your phone so it doesn't we're not gonna have an emergency event. Emergency test. Okay well that's okay it was right at the end anyway not in the middle. Yeah thank you so much for having me and I'm just saying like I guess because this wasn't such a professional I'm not I am in my professional major at the minute but not like this is an entirely professional uh you know eating disorder recovery professional hat on obviously there are lots of physical consequences and things binging and purging that can be quite dangerous that obviously we didn't cover so I I guess I just encourage people to have a look about that as well if they don't if they don't know because we I don't know if we didn't talk about it positively did we?

SPEAKER_00:

No I don't think how it was helping me but yeah I guess it was just no I don't think there's any way to talk about that in a positive okay that's fine. No I I appreciate you saying that though. So again thank you it's great having you and thank you so much for joining me for this episode Does matter. If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with someone who might need it, leaving a review, or subscribing on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast so you never miss an episode. And if you want to connect more, you can find me on Instagram at ByteByBiteRecovery. I'd love to hear your thoughts, your stories, or just to say hi. Until next time, let's keep taking life bite by bite. See ya.

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Kaitlyn Moresi

Host
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Dr. Rachel Evans

Guest