ED's + Body Dysmorphia
Truth, Resources and an opportunity for you to feel less alone
“I have an eating disorder.”
Over the last 48 hours, I have witnessed five different humans name their disordered relationship with food and body. This stands out because it is rare, especially in group settings that are not centered around eating or body topics, for people to share this vulnerably. For those of you who have exposed that part of yourselves to me, I am in deep reverence of you. Your willingness to reveal this often hidden layer is courageous and deeply admired.
You inspired this post. My wish is that it is useful in some way to anyone who comes across it.
My aim is to be transparent about my own relationship with food and body, to share resources I have gathered along the way, and to offer a safe space for anyone who needs to feel seen and supported wherever you are in this, in my experience, tumultuous journey.
A disordered relationship with food and body. What does that even mean?
Disordered. As in out of order? As in not right? As in disorganized? I wonder.
According to Google, “disorder” in the context of eating refers to a disruption of normal, healthy, and flexible eating patterns. It includes irregular, rigid, or unhealthy behaviors that significantly impact physical and mental health, even if they do not meet strict diagnostic criteria for a clinically recognized eating disorder.
When I was 15, I was diagnosed with a general eating disorder. I was not fully anorexic or bulimic so the clinician named it as “general.” In the beginning, as best as I can recall now, it started with running.
On top of training for two soccer teams, I began running cross country. I was encouraged to run more as conditioning for soccer. Many of the girls I played with ran cross country, so I decided to try it. This quickly became an obsession as the weight melted off my body.
Once the weight tapered off, the recognition began. The compliments poured in. I was being noticed for my body for the first time, and that felt so damn good as a 15 year old. I liked being seen. Looking back, I believe this is when my neurochemistry shifted. Get thinner. Get praised equals feel good chemicals equals keep going.
As Dr. Gabor Maté writes, “Addictions are not a choice that anybody makes. They’re not a moral failure. What they are is an attempt to solve a problem.”
Throughout middle school and high school, there was chaos in my household. All the training and running kept me away from it. With my schedule packed, I did not have time to feel the tragedies and intensity at home.
My days looked something like this. Wake up at 5 a.m. Morning soccer conditioning. School. Cross country practice. Team soccer practice. Homework. Dinner. Bed. Repeat.
At school, I was known for my hair and green apples. As my first cross country season progressed, I created what I believed was the formula for my best performance. Two large Nalgene bottles of water, a green apple, and a PowerBar. That was my lunch every single day.
I remember sitting in AP Art History, slowly breaking off tiny pieces of a PowerBar and taking large gulps of water, stretching that single bar over the entire hour long class.
Day in and day out, the same routine. More weight lost. More confidence. I believed I had found the secret to being the best athlete and becoming my most perfected self.
There was a peak. I was performing at my highest. Everything appeared to be working. I was captain of the soccer teams. I ran my fastest 5K. I excelled academically. I had no real awareness of what was happening in my household. My social circle was large and active.
From summit to base camp, the fall was steep.
I ended up in the hospital with an oxygen mask on, confused about how I had gotten there. Looking back now, it feels painfully obvious. I lost my period. I lost a significant amount of weight. I was rigid with food. I trained constantly. When I was not training, I was chasing straight A’s.
All the signs were there. None of it was noticed. Worse, much of it was encouraged. People told me I was impressive. That I was disciplined. That I was doing great.
What a bizarre reality. One that has left many scars.
What followed was a long arc. Hospitalization. Being benched for weeks, barely able to move. The backlash phase of binge eating and body dysmorphia. Eating disorder recovery groups. Extensive therapy. Antidepressants. And eventually, my first yoga class.
As Geneen Roth writes, “You don’t have to love your body to heal your relationship with food. You just have to stop hating it.”
Disordered eating led me to yoga. Those post cycle class yoga sessions quietly changed my life. A seed was planted that healing could come through a different lens, one I had not encountered in eating disorder groups.
In savasana, surrounded by people three or four times my age, I felt something unfamiliar. Contentment. Quiet. A sense of okayness with who I was, regardless of what I looked like or what I ate or did not eat.
That small seed has now grown into a 23 year journey of healing and recovery.
Today, my relationship with food and body is still a work in progress. My greatest teacher. My greatest humbler.
The stages of healing have been many. I want to name a few here and share what supported me along the way.
Acknowledging the disordered patterns
This begins with honesty. Looking in the mirror, metaphorically, and admitting to yourself that something is off. Naming it first internally, then perhaps with a trusted human, a therapist, or a group.
At the point when I acknowledged that I was depleted and unwell, journaling became my lifeline. A place to release. A place to stop clenching. A place to be free.
As Carolyn Costin writes, “Recovery begins with honesty. You cannot heal what you are unwilling to name.”
*Invitation: use the comments section to name your truth or reply to this email to share directly with me*
Key resources: naming the experience, journaling
Backlash
When my energy returned, I swung hard to the opposite extreme. I started eating again and could not stop. Over time, I came to understand this as a pattern of black and white behavior. One extreme to another. Learning neutrality became essential.
Weight gain followed, and with it, intense body image distress. This has been the most consistent and challenging work of my life.
At the time, I was told I had body image issues. Now we have clearer language: Body Dysmorphia.
Body dysmorphic disorder is a serious mental health condition marked by obsessive focus on perceived flaws in appearance, causing significant distress and interfering with daily life.
The years following hospitalization were marked by deep sadness, anger, and self hatred. I was medicated. I took myself off those medications without telling anyone. I destabilized my own chemistry. I wanted my thinner body back and did not know how to regain control.
Eating disorder groups did not land for me then. What helped most was one on one coaching and yoga.
Therapy gave me space to work through the shame and shed the tears. Yoga gave me moments of peace.
Key resources: one on one therapy or coaching, yoga
Body hate and disordered eating
This phase lasted well into my late twenties. Over 10 years.
This is where eating disorders become especially sneaky. Restriction, diets, and intense exercise are easily disguised as self care. It takes immense discernment and self honesty to recognize when behaviors are supportive and when they are harmful.
Having people who were willing to lovingly call me out was essential. So was expanding my definition of healing beyond a strictly western medical model.
When I brought in energy work and stopped hiding my fascination with spirit, soul, nature, and the energy of all that is, my mental health shifted profoundly. What was slowly massaged into my daily capacity was Presence. For years, my attention had been consumed by food and body management.
Meditation, theta healing, and open conversations about spirituality helped clear energetic blockages, soften compulsive thinking, and bring me into deeper connection with others. As I shared more openly, others did too.
Key resources: daily meditation, energy healing, open conversations about spirit, nature, God, life force, or whatever name feels true for you
On-Going. Loving Maintenance
Are we ever fully healed? No.
Is healing a spiraling, non-linear path? Yes.
In my experience, and at this point in my career, having witnessed thousands of people on their healing journeys, I answer those questions with certainty. No one I have ever met is fully healed. Everyone eventually circles back to familiar lessons along their path toward peace, purpose, and love.
You may have heard words like these at some point: every challenge is our greatest teacher. In my experience, this has absolutely been true, time and time again. My challenges with food and body are what set the wheels in motion for some of the most ecstatic and blissful experiences of my life. I would not know the depths of intimate connection with myself, with others, with the earth, and the energy of all that is, without first touching the depths of despair, hurt, and depression.
Still, to this day, I lovingly catch myself wanting to cling to the good, juicy, perfect moments in life. It feels so good to feel good. And, as one of my mentors told me ten years ago, “Heather, you would be so fucking bored if all you ever experienced was bliss, peace and only the feel good.”
A part of me wanted to argue back. No way. I would love that. I would love to feel good all of the time.
And after letting that land and marinate, I do agree with her. I would be pretty fucking bored. Plus, I remind myself often that we live in a world of duality in this human, earthly experience. That is simply how it is.
So I accept that and know this: shitty, funky body and food days will likely happen for the rest of my life.
What I have noticed is that they are farther and farther apart, and the intensity has softened. A realistic hope I hold for myself, and for any of you who struggle with similar patterns, is this: may the intensity lessen, and may there be more and more days in between the “off” days and the balanced ones.
Key resources: mindset shifts, acceptance of the natural fluctuations of this human experience and community.
A Closing Invitation
If you are reading this and something in your body relaxed, tightened, stirred, or went quiet, I want you to know you are not alone.
You do not need to be “better” or “fixed.” You do not need to have the right language or the right diagnosis or the right story. If food and body have ever felt like battlegrounds, if control has masqueraded as care, if shame has whispered that you are failing, you are welcome.
Healing, in my experience, is not linear. It is cyclical, layered, humbling, and alive. There are seasons of clarity and seasons of confusion. There are moments of deep peace and moments where the old patterns reappear, asking to be met with more honesty, more tenderness, more support.
If this piece stirred something in you, my invitation is simple. Name it. Write it down. Say it out loud to one safe human. Let yourself be seen just a little more than feels comfortable.
As Geneen Roth says, “You don’t have to love your body. You just have to stop punishing it.”
And sometimes, stopping the punishment begins with telling the truth.
If you are in need of support click here.
Thank you for being here. You are so so appreciated. ✨
With love, Heather
Resources & Voices that have supported me
These are voices that have supported me across different seasons of this journey. Not as rule books, but as companions.
Geneen Roth
Author of When Food Is Love and Women, Food and God
Geneen’s work helped me understand emotional eating, shame, and the deep tenderness beneath our relationship with food. Her writing is compassionate, accessible, and human.
Carolyn Costin
Author of 8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder
Carolyn offers grounded, practical insight from decades of clinical experience while maintaining deep respect for the individual path of recovery.
Gabor Maté
Author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
While not specific to eating disorders alone, his work reframed addiction and compulsive behaviors for me as responses to pain rather than personal failures.
Linda Bacon
Author of Health at Every Size
Her work radically challenged the cultural myths linking body size, morality, and health. This perspective was deeply liberating for my nervous system.
Bessel van der Kolk
Author of The Body Keeps the Score
This book helped me understand how trauma lives in the body and why disordered eating patterns often make sense when viewed through a nervous system lens.
I can't thank you enough for your vulnerability and transparency. I can't remember a time when I haven't struggled with this issue. It wasn't until my early thirties when somebody said you have body dysmorphia disorder. I didn't do anything with it at the time but the words stayed with me. I feel like this issue is coming to a head. It's always been around and I've looked at it from different angles but freedom has been fleeting so I know there's more work to do here. Thank you for sharing your experience, strength, and hope. I am encouraged and inspired. I hope to report back progress based on what you shared. Much love and light! ❤️🙏
Thank you for sharing your story with us ❤️ it's never easy to share such a vulnerable part of ourselves, but I know it will help other readers on similar journeys.