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By Jennifer Rollin, MSW, LCSW-C  As an eating disorder therapist, one common thing that I hear all of the time, is a person’s belief that they aren’t “sick enough” to have an eating disorder or to need eating disorder treatment. Eating disorders can often be “competitive illnesses.” For instance, your eating disorder may cause you to compare yourself to others who are struggling and will then tell you that you “aren’t sick enough.” Your eating disorder will say this in an effort to keep you trapped and under it’s control. Often for your eating disorder there is no “sick enough.” I’ve heard from people who were near death and still didn’t believe that they were ill. Additionally, some people with restrictive eating disorders struggle with something called “anosognosia” which is a brain-based lack of awareness, where essentially the individual is unable to see that they are ill. This is why it’s so important for concerned individuals to push their loved ones to seek treatment, even if the person declares that they are “fine.” Even if you don’t suffer from anosognosia, if you try to convince yourself that you are “fine” you do not have to take the scary steps towards recovery. So it makes complete sense as to why you might want to believe that “everything is ok,” even if it’s not. Unfortunately, there is also a lot of stigma and misinformation about what someone with an eating disorder “looks like,” or the signs that someone might be struggling. Individuals who are suffering might internalize some of these messages. So today, I want to make a few things clear. · Even if you are considered to be “normal weight” or “overweight” (according to BMI charts, which are hugely problematic and political, but I reference it here to make a point). · Even if you think that you are “too big” to have an eating disorder. · Even if you’ve never had a feeding tube. · Even if your eating disorder never landed you in the hospital. · Even if you “still eat meals.” · Even if you never had medical complications from your eating disorder. · Even if your labs appear “normal.” · Even if you have some days that feel easier than other days. · Even if you think that others “have it worse than you.” · Even if family and friends do not seem concerned about you. If you are struggling with a preoccupation with food and weight-you are “sick enough” and you absolutely deserve to seek treatment and help. Eating Disorder Myth-Busting. Eating disorders are mental illnesses, and we cannot tell how much someone is suffering on the basis of their physical appearance. Additionally, life-threatening eating disorders can impact people of all weights, body types, ages, ethnicities, genders, cultures, and socioeconomic statuses. They do not discriminate. Seek Help I don’t even think I could count the number of times that I’ve worked with clients who say, “but I can’t possibly have an eating disorder because I’m not underweight,” or “It can’t really be that serious because I look normal.” As a therapist, I work almost exclusively with people struggling with eating disorders and they come in ALL different body shapes and sizes. You cannot tell whether someone is struggling on the basis of their weight or appearance. If you have a voice in your head that convinces you to restrict your food, over-exercise, binge, purge, or engage in any other eating disorder behaviors, you are “sick enough” and you deserve to get help and support. The Eating Disorder Center is a premier outpatient eating disorder therapy center founded by Jennifer Rollin. We specialize in helping teens and adults struggling with anorexia, binge eating disorder, bulimia, OSFED, and body image issues. We provide eating disorder therapy in Rockville, MD, easily accessible to individuals in Potomac, North Potomac, Bethesda, Olney, Silver Spring, Germantown, and Washington D.C. We also offer eating disorder therapy virtually throughout California and New York (NYC) serving those in cities including Palo Alto, San Francisco, Newport Beach, Los Angeles, Woodland Hills, San Jose, and Beverly Hills. We provide eating disorder recovery coaching via Zoom to people worldwide. Connect with us through our website at www.theeatingdisordercenter.com
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By Allyson Ford, MA, LPCC It’s no secret that the ‘thin ideal’ exists and has been a major factor in influencing body image distress, distortion and disordered eating for decades in Westernized cultures. And, I am here to tell you there is more to the story. Think about the last time you scrolled through social media, watched Netflix or passed by billboard ads down the highway. Think critically about the bodies portrayed to you and the other ‘ideals’ represented to you. What do you notice? Were the ‘desirable’ models/actors/influencers a certain body size, skin color, age range or gender? Were they able bodied? In a heterosexual relationship? If you answered yes to any of those, that is because the ideals represented to us are complex and more specific than the thin ideal. The thin ideal is SO real. Most of us grow up with the pressure to want to shrink our bodies. AND, so is the white Ideal. The ableist ideal. The gender binary ideal, the heterosexual ideal, the affluent ideal and the young ideal. The bodies represented and internalized in all of our psyches as the “ideal” are rooted in white supremacy and colonization. They are meant to erase our individual differences, make us conform to unrealistic standards, in order for entire industries to then capitalize off of those constructed insecurities. Traditional treatments for body image focus on helping clients reject the pursuit of thinness. However, that alone is not enough. When we talk about treating body image, we have to acknowledge ALL of the systems of oppression influencing ALL of the bodies that are marginalized in different ways. You see, we all have a personal ‘body image story.’ It is the way we came to view our bodies- because (surprise) you weren’t born hating your body. This story in our psyche is constructed and conditioned, in part, through cultural norms and expectations. It is heavily influenced by our politicized experiences in the world. Think of all the ways your body has been politicized. All the ways you have experienced being ‘othered’ by lack of representation of similar bodies, by violent acts of injustice towards people in bodies like yours, by racism, by sexism, by heterosexism, ableism, ageism. By fat phobia. And more. We internalize those experiences whether direct or indirect. We are taught that our bodies are not ‘good enough’ in so many ways and for some, bodies are even criminalized. As eating disorder survivor, therapist and recovery coach myself, I truly believe that ‘body positivity’ is not attainable for everyone until there is justice, equal representation, trust and safety for all marginalized bodies. We must hold space for all the ways in which bodies are being harmed in our society and fight for change by electing leaders and voting for policies that value humanitarianism and social justice. This starts with looking at our own varying degrees of privilege and how we may have been blind to others’ experiences. It starts with looking inwards and asking what can I be doing to impact change? How has my conditioned silence hurt others? On the personal front, not all hope is lost. Even if ‘body positivity’ does not feel attainable to you, even if these systems never fully change, there is still hope. What I have seen be accomplished in others and myself is body neutrality. Body acceptance. You don’t have to love the way it looks--in fact, there is some research that shows when we think loving how we look is always attainable, we still have an appearance focused outlook on our lives. The truth is: your appearance is the least important thing about you. What is important is that you can trust your body, you can treat it with kindness and respect even if others’ don’t. Your body is YOUR home, no one else's. Your body is your longest relationship and just like any relationship, it requires sometimes daily work to remind it that it can trust you, and you can trust it. Some ways you can practice working towards body neutrality is: #1 Treat it with respect: listen to your body! Tired? Prioritize sleep. Get proper nourishment. Move in ways that feel good, not punishing. Choose recovery when it comes to eating disorders, trauma and addiction. Recovery connects you back to your true self and to your body. Society takes you away. #2 Develop appreciation: make a list of all the things your body does for you (i.e. “I am so thankful for my arms, they allow me to hug my partner). Place those reminders all over your mirror. #3 Develop a self-care routine. This one is crucial to developing body respect and trust. You have to show yourself that YOU matter. Do small acts of kindness for yourself, put your needs first and watch how this transforms the way you talk to yourself and your body. #4 Unfollow triggering social media accounts (think: fitspo, thinspo or any appearance focused account). A lot of research shows when we follow accounts with more body diversity, we become more accepting of ourselves. My last piece of advice: find an eating disorder/ body image therapist to help walk you through this process. No one heals alone. These things are often deeply embedded in our personal and collective psyches. And remember, we are fighting a war that is a systemic in nature, it is going to take a force much larger than ourselves to fix the problem. I say this from a place of light skinned, mixed race, cisgender, thin, able-bodied privilege. I will never fully know what it is like to walk in the shoes of those more marginalized than myself. By Lauren Bickford  As a lil gal I don’t remember a time I didn’t have options to eat a wide variety of foods. I think back to stories my parents filled me in on – the ones where I was about 3 years old and the babysitter received instructions that if I ever got too upset she should just give me some asparagus and I would be happy again. Looking back, even I am perplexed with this seemingly odd child. But then again, if more children were given unlimited permission to eat all types of food, their comfort food when mom & dad are gone might be a vegetable as well. This veggie-lovin trend continued as I was growing up. Olive Garden was always the restaurant I chose for my birthday lunch during elementary school, equally for the unlimited salad and the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake. YUM. During this time though, I started to become observant of the women in my life, of the SlimFast in refrigerators when I would go play at different friends’ houses, of the poking and prodding and sucking in and toning. It was confusing, but it was laying a foundation I would later have to chip away at. As I made my way into the oh so manageable (yeah right) world of junior high my relationship with food began to change. Backing up a little bit, it’s important to keep in mind I was born into a very tall, very slender-bodied family. I’ll never forget the day a boy sitting behind me in English class in 7th grade called me Annie. Now, I wasn’t great friends with him but we had worked in groups together and were in many of the same classes. I asked why he hadn’t called me Lauren, “Don’t you know my name by now?” I was embarrassed and ashamed when he said, “Yeah but you know… Annie… like anorexic.” What did this word really mean? I thought it was “bad skinny” but didn’t know much more about it at the time. So, I would need to change from being “bad skinny” or at least prove to people that I ate. And so, I ate, and ate, and ate. This transition period in my life included moving schools, changes at home, and the usual teenage drama. Amongst all the transitions, food was a constant. Food was comfortable. Food could make everything better. And food could be eaten in excess to a point of feeling numb both physically and emotionally. So, food became my solution. It wasn’t until high school and a well-meaning comment from a great aunt that I started to question the amount of food I would eat regularly. “You’re not so skin and bones anymore.” And so began my first dip into the diet culture pool. When I arrived at college I was welcomed into a sisterhood. Turns out, talking about how much you dislike parts of your body and how many calories you logged in an app is a great way to bond. I bonded. I learned to build a giant and boring salad, ask for plain grilled chicken from the burger station, make microwaved egg whites and broccoli almost palatable with enough salsa, and substitute most of the foods I liked with lower calorie, trendier alternatives. But I was also majoring in biology and learning about how micronutrients work in the body. I was hooked. Nutrition was cool. And maybe, just maybe, there was more to food than calories. I decided in a four-month period during senior year that I liked this whole food thing and was accepted into a graduate program. THIS is what I would do with my life. Grad school was every level of intimidating and confusing. I was surrounded by other individuals that understood food, how to manipulate it for a desired result, and were really heckin’ smart. I’m beyond thankful for the family that was created during this experience. My classmates meant more to me than a study group, and still do. Together we learned how food can help to manage a variety of disease states. We learned how a dietitian can be a crucial member in an athletics department to maximize performance. And we learned about the deadliest of mental illnesses – eating disorders. No matter how much information I consumed on how to utilize food as a tool, the relationship we have with food and the psychology of our food desires and choices was always of interest. My own relationship was evolving with food as well. The relationship was being cultivated rather than ignored; and my body was being nourished and cherished, rather than hated. My friend Emma (shout out Emma!) brought a book to class one day. It was called Health At Every Size. A few weeks later, she brought another book, Intuitive Eating. The more our “nutrish crew” family learned about these topics, and the impact weight-neutral and relationship-focused work can have on eating disorder incidence, the more I knew how I wanted to spend my time as a dietitian. During my first year as a dietitian, I got my first RD job, invested my free time in continuing education, and fell in love with behavioral health nutrition. In this new chapter of life, I found myself in a unique place where my food choices were no longer regularly being influenced by others. I learned which foods I really liked and missed out on in college. I learned which “health foods” I tried out with my nutrition family that I honestly didn’t really enjoy. My self-care became intentional and my plate became all mine. I was able to experience a sense of peace, freedom, and lack of judgement, with food that I hadn't before. This new era was a time I felt like I was finally able to do the dietetics work I had always wanted to. I also become certificated as an intuitive eating counselor. I quickly found out the one thing that makes working as a dietitian in behavioral health the best is that it goes beyond the plate. One of the biggest misconceptions I hear about eating disorders is that they are all about the food. I like to say as much as they are about the food, they're also not about the food. What i've found is that so often the plate becomes a reflection of what's going on in life. I was getting to learn so much more about the people I was working with and really support and encourage them. I got to thinking, is it possible to do just that? To be that person that adds the little something extra to the recovery experience? Turns out: that’s exactly what I find myself doing now. As an eating disorder recovery coach with The Eating Disorder Center, I’m able to supplement the outpatient recovery experience to help clients continue to improve their relationship with food and their bodies. To the people who challenge the truths I’ve come to learn about food and our relationship to it: thank you. You’ve helped me stay on my toes in this diet culture consumed world and better understand what my clients are up against. And to everyone else who actively supported me in getting to this beautiful place in my life: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The Eating Disorder Center is a premier outpatient eating disorder therapy center founded by Jennifer Rollin. We specialize in helping teens and adults struggling with anorexia, binge eating disorder, bulimia, OSFED, and body image issues. We provide eating disorder therapy in Rockville, MD, easily accessible to individuals in Potomac, North Potomac, Bethesda, Olney, Silver Spring, Germantown, and Washington D.C. We also offer eating disorder therapy virtually throughout California and New York (NYC) serving those in cities including Palo Alto, San Francisco, Newport Beach, Los Angeles, Woodland Hills, San Jose, and Beverly Hills. We provide eating disorder recovery coaching via Zoom to people worldwide. Connect with us through our website at www.theeatingdisordercenter.com
By Megan Samuels, Intern for The Eating Disorder Center  Eating disorders are often accompanied with behaviors. Some behaviors include restricting, binging, and/or purging. These behaviors can arise with intense emotions (such as sadness, loneliness, anger, etc.). Eating disorder behaviors are not “fun”. People struggling do not choose to use these behaviors, the eating disorder chooses and that is often already hard-wired into our brains. As the eating disorder evolves, it chooses certain ways to protect us from those intense emotions or anything in life that is too much to handle. An aspect in recovery that you may choose to work on with your therapist or treatment team is understanding the role that your eating disorder played in your life and how it protects/protected you, also acknowledging all of the harmful aspects of eating disorder behaviors. There are a couple of go-to strategies that I like to use, one of which being creating time between the urge and the behavior (also known as the action). This could mean when I recognize the urge to purge, I will decide to do five coping skills first. The hope is that some coping skills could help soothe the intense emotions and use the behavior with more time after the urge or not use the behavior at all. Some coping skills I like to use are coloring, collaging, knitting, texting a friend, and putting my weighted blanket on me. I often like to think of this skill as a pause button. For example, let’s say you get an undesirable grade on an exam. You begin to have feelings of anger (at how difficult the exam was) and disappointment (that you let your parents down). You decide that you are going to go to the nearest grocery store and buy a bunch of binge food and then eat all of it in one sitting. PAUSE (this is where the skill comes in). The first step is recognizing that you have an urge to use a behavior (in this case it is to binge). Next, I like to actually say the word “pause” out loud to myself. This can allow your body to slow down and realize that you have some control in the next few decisions that you make. Then, you separate urge and action. This could be telling yourself that you will call and talk to a recovery friend before going to the store. While you are on the phone with a recovery friend, you can practice talking through your anger and disappointment from the exam and you ride the waves of those emotions without feeling the need to go to the grocery store and binge. After talking to your recovery friend, you may feel much better and continue on with your day, acknowledging how proud you are of yourself for standing up to the eating disorder and working on your recovery journey. Give this skill a try for yourself and see what you think! **Please note that bingeing is a resilient response to coping-even if it's no longer serving you. Try to practice compassion for yourself if you do end up bingeing, rather than beating yourself up. The Eating Disorder Center is a premier outpatient eating disorder therapy center founded by Jennifer Rollin. We specialize in helping teens and adults struggling with anorexia, binge eating disorder, bulimia, OSFED, and body image issues. We provide eating disorder therapy in Rockville, MD, easily accessible to individuals in Potomac, North Potomac, Bethesda, Olney, Silver Spring, Germantown, and Washington D.C. We also offer eating disorder therapy virtually throughout California and New York (NYC) serving those in cities including Palo Alto, San Francisco, Newport Beach, Los Angeles, Woodland Hills, San Jose, and Beverly Hills. We provide eating disorder recovery coaching via Zoom to people worldwide. Connect with us through our website at www.theeatingdisordercenter.com
By Jennifer Rollin, MSW, LCSW-C  “It seems like I’m actually experiencing my feelings, now that I’m no longer bingeing and purging my emotions,” my client in recovery from bulimia shared. Eating disorders are believed to be caused by a combination of factors including, genetic, temperamental, and environmental influences. However, one thing that almost all of my clients with eating disorders have in common is difficulty in expressing, processing, and coping with their emotions. Emotional Avoidance and Eating Disorders Emotional avoidance, is described as actions that are intended to prevent an emotional response from occurring, such as fear, anger or sadness. People struggling with eating disorders often turn to their eating disorder behaviors in an unconscious effort to try to help themselves to “feel better” and to cope with difficult emotions or life circumstances. For instance, for many people struggling with anorexia, their response when it comes to coping with feelings of anxiety, sadness, or loneliness, is to restrict their food. This may give them a false sense of “control” and specialness. For individuals with bulimia, bingeing and purging provides them a momentary feeling of comfort, “control,” or relief. For people struggling with binge eating, eating often feels like “an escape,” comforting, calming, or a way to numb out. The reality is that eating disorder behaviors often provide short-term relief or satisfaction, and long-term feelings of increased depression, loneliness, and misery. Let Yourself Feel Eating disorder treatment involves a variety of tools and strategies for helping clients to reclaim their lives. However, one important element is helping them to learn how to identify, process, and cope with their emotions in ways that align with their life values. I often say to clients that trying to suppress our emotions, is kind of like trying to hold a beach ball under water. It takes a lot of effort and eventually the beach ball will fly up above the water with force. As a culture, we are often not taught to express our emotions. It’s important to share with clients that their eating disorder behaviors are often coping strategies that they are using for “self-soothing.” These behaviors may have helped them to get through some difficult and traumatic times, however they are also no longer serving them. With treatment and support, people with eating disorders can learn how to heal their relationships with themselves, food, and their bodies. They can also learn how to express and process their emotions, without the constant strain of trying to suppress or run from their feelings. Part of living a meaningful life is being able to experience all of one’s emotions, both pleasant and unpleasant. One of the great privileges of doing this work is being able to see the light return into someone's eyes, for them to be exploring their true passions and interests, for their brain space to be no longer ruled with thoughts about food and their body. Full recovery is completely possible. The Eating Disorder Center is a premier outpatient eating disorder therapy center founded by Jennifer Rollin. We specialize in helping teens and adults struggling with anorexia, binge eating disorder, bulimia, OSFED, and body image issues. We provide eating disorder therapy in Rockville, MD, easily accessible to individuals in Potomac, North Potomac, Bethesda, Olney, Silver Spring, Germantown, and Washington D.C. We also offer eating disorder therapy virtually throughout California and New York (NYC) serving those in cities including Palo Alto, San Francisco, Newport Beach, Los Angeles, Woodland Hills, San Jose, and Beverly Hills. We provide eating disorder recovery coaching via Zoom to people worldwide. Connect with us through our website at www.theeatingdisordercenter.com
By Jennifer Rollin, MSW, LCSW-C  Around the New Year we are inundated with diet-culture messages that emphasize a focus on “fixing yourself.” Each New Year many people resolve to “lose weight,” and “get healthier.” There seems to be an increased focus on joining the gym, dieting, and “lifestyle changes” (aka diets in disguise). For individuals in recovery from an eating disorder, the New Year can be a particularly challenging time. With everyone around you racing to join the nearest gym and obsessing about their new “clean eating plan,” it may be difficult to maintain focus on recovery and body acceptance. Plus, it's super hard when your eating disorder is validated over and over again by diet culture (whose main aim is making that money $$$). The following are three quick tips for navigating the New Year and staying on track in your eating disorder recovery. 1. Do a social media detox. Food related “detoxes” are a ridiculous waste of time and money. There is simply no scientific evidence to support the need for a “detox." If you’ve got a functioning liver and kidneys, they are already doing this job for you. However, there is one kind of detox that I support, which is a social media and diet-culture detox. Essentially, the first step is to go into your social media and unfollow or unfriend anyone that causes you to feel badly about yourself. Make sure that you remove any social media accounts that talk about weight loss, changing your body, dieting, “lifestyle changes,” and promote an unhealthy fixation with food and exercise. Next, you can go ahead and add in some body-positive, health at every size, and eating disorder recovery accounts. While you cannot effectively remove all aspects of diet-culture from your life, you can work to make your social media feed pro-recovery and body-positive. It can also be helpful to follow people who promote body-diversity and demonstrate that you CAN be happy at any size. 2. Set some pro-recovery, body-positive, and self-compassion related intentions. I’ll be honest in that I’m not really into the idea of New Year’s resolutions. First off, here’s simply not a lot of data to support that people actually stick to their resolutions. Additionally, I think that it’s helpful to utilize goal setting throughout the year. The New Year is a fresh start and a time to really think about your priorities and values. It can be helpful to use this time to set some goals/intentions that support your recovery. However, rather than setting goals for the whole year, I think that it can be more useful to set them for the next month or so. This feels less overwhelming to some people and can make it easier to stick to the intentions that you have set for yourself. Some ideas for pro-recovery goals to set could include challenging yourself to certain “fear foods,” working on practicing body-appreciation, and developing a more compassionate approach to yourself through your self-talk and self-care. 3. Reach out to your support system if you start to feel triggered. It’s important to practice self-compassion if you start to feel triggered around the New Year. Eating disorder recovery is tough, especially when everyone around you is racing to join the nearest gym and ranting about their new “diet” plan. However, with time and practice you can learn how to effectively manage your triggers and use healthy coping strategies. If you are starting to feel triggered to return to disordered behaviors, it’s crucial to reach out to members of your support network, which could include family, friends, and your treatment team. Eating disorders thrive on shame and secrecy, thus it is important to be open with the people in your life about what you are experiencing. No one should have to struggle alone and you deserve to have some support. If you are not meeting with a therapist-i'd highly encourage you to reach out to one who specializes in health at every size and eating disorders. Therapy can be a crucial part of healing from an eating disorder. The Bottom Line The New Year is an exciting fresh start and a great opportunity to refocus on your values and priorities. However, it can also be a triggering time for those in recovery from an eating disorder. Work to practice compassion for those who are still stuck in body-hatred and the diet cycle. When they say that they want to “lose weight,” often this is simply masking their true aim, which is to feel loved, accepted, safe, and joyful. Remind yourself that your worth is not found in your weight, eating habits, or your body. Additionally, people of all shapes and sizes are worthy of love and belonging. If you must make a resolution this New Year, the following are some things that you can work to lose (instead of weight).
Ultimately, talk back to that voice in your head that says that you 'aren't enough.' The voice that whispers that 'wouldn't things be better if you just lost a few pounds?' The one that argues, 'well other people are doing it-so why can't I?' Your eating disorder is lying to you. A focus on weight loss and shrinking yourself, only serves to shrink the rest of your life too. You are enough, just as you are. The Eating Disorder Center is a premier outpatient eating disorder therapy center founded by Jennifer Rollin. We specialize in helping teens and adults struggling with anorexia, binge eating disorder, bulimia, OSFED, and body image issues. We provide eating disorder therapy in Rockville, MD, easily accessible to individuals in Potomac, North Potomac, Bethesda, Olney, Silver Spring, Germantown, and Washington D.C. We also offer eating disorder therapy virtually throughout California and New York (NYC) serving those in cities including Palo Alto, San Francisco, Newport Beach, Los Angeles, Woodland Hills, San Jose, and Beverly Hills. We provide eating disorder recovery coaching via Zoom to people worldwide. Connect with us through our website at www.theeatingdisordercenter.com
By Megan Samuels, Intern for The Eating Disorder Center  I’ve done a lot of grieving these past few months. As a college student, the end of a semester means leaving those classes, teachers, and daily patterns that grounded me the past few months. That was my normal. This is also the end of the year. Someone said, “See you next year!” to me and I realized that I haven’t processed the fact that 2019 is ending and we are coming onto a new year and a new decade. Saying goodbye to semesters and years is something that I have to do constantly. I make sure to dedicate a lot of self-care for myself during these transitions so I can think about and process the changes that are happening in my life and around me. Last week, I said goodbye to my dog. She battled with cancer for months and not even my tears throughout the last few days could bring her back. After talking to my therapist and many of my friends, I have solidified my intention to cope with all of this extreme grief with healthy coping skills, instead of using eating disorder behaviors. Some coping skills that I have developed include watching TV (I have decided to rewatch Friday Night Lights and One Tree Hill), getting a weighted blanket, journaling, and talking to friends when I need support. The extreme grief of my dog passing away is not something I have felt and had to personally deal with in a number of years. Losing a family member (which for my family includes a dog) is probably the hardest thing humans go through. I have talked with my therapist about the process of grieving. As a perfectionist, I wanted an outline of this process. I wanted to know what I had to do to get over these feelings and feel better. Similar to work that I’ve done to fight against my eating disorder, my therapist told me the biggest thing is looking inwards and asking myself what I need. That might mean starting a new book or working on graduate school applications, and this might mean crying in my room and looking at pictures of my dog. I realized how quickly I wanted to dismiss my feelings of grief, that included sadness, anger, and frustration. Even with knowledge of emotions and almost a bachelors degree in psychology, I still tried to push the feelings away. Grief is complicated and it is still something I am learning about. I know one thing for sure is that the feelings will bottle up and get worse if their needs are not met. This is similar to eating disorder recovery work. In order to cope with feelings, it is important to identify the feeling and sit with it and let it pass. For example, yesterday I started crying because I missed my dog. I sat down and questioned what I was feeling. I was feeling sad. Sad is a feeling and I don’t need to make it go away. I sat on my bed with pictures of my dog and a tissue box and felt the sadness. I didn’t fight it, I welcomed it throughout my body. A few minutes later (that felt like hours) the sadness passed and I continued on with my day. This experience proved to me that I am able to feel a feeling and let it pass. It is one thing to be told to let feelings pass or to be shown the wave of emotions. For me, I needed to experience it. I needed to see for myself that I could have a feeling that felt too unbearable to cope with and be able to sit with it and believe that it will pass. A key to the grieving process is letting myself feel any emotions that come to me, which can be difficult to do. I was packing for a vacation and remembered my dog not being here anymore and I had to stop what I was doing because I felt a sudden wave of sadness. I sat on the ground and let the tears stream down my face. It was liberating to be able to let my emotions express themselves and for me to tell them that I hear them and I support them. This will happen countless more times throughout my grieving process and throughout my life and I am thankful that I have the understanding of the importance of accepting my emotions in the present moment. The Eating Disorder Center is a premier outpatient eating disorder therapy center founded by Jennifer Rollin. We specialize in helping teens and adults struggling with anorexia, binge eating disorder, bulimia, OSFED, and body image issues. We provide eating disorder therapy in Rockville, MD, easily accessible to individuals in Potomac, North Potomac, Bethesda, Olney, Silver Spring, Germantown, and Washington D.C. We also offer eating disorder therapy virtually throughout California and New York (NYC) serving those in cities including Palo Alto, San Francisco, Newport Beach, Los Angeles, Woodland Hills, San Jose, and Beverly Hills. We provide eating disorder recovery coaching via Zoom to people worldwide. Connect with us through our website at www.theeatingdisordercenter.com
By Jennifer Rollin, MSW, LCSW-C  ‘Wow. I can’t believe I really look that bad. I’ve been fooling myself this whole time. I look disgusting.’ Sound familiar? Photos can be really triggering for people in eating disorder recovery. Here’s a few tips on how to cope when you can’t stand a photo of yourself. 1. Recognize that it’s just one perspective of a moment in time. There was a gorgeous sunset outside of my apartment. The sky was filled with pink and orange hues. I took out my iPhone to capture the moment. When I looked at the photo, it hardly looked like the same sky. You couldn’t really see any colors in the sky. It looked kind of washed out. The picture was simply not able to capture the beauty of the sunset. This is the same thing that happens with photos of you! A photo is just a moment in time-not the full perspective of how you look, and more importantly doesn’t capture the beautiful soul which lies beneath. 2. Refocus on the memory being made. Your eyes are hijacked by an eating disorder and will zoom in on any areas that you’ve deemed as ‘problems.’ Try to zoom out and think about the memory that you made in that moment. When you look back on your life at age 90, it’s unlikely that you’ll be judging the size of your arm in the photo. Rather, you’re gonna be reflecting on the memories that you made and the fun times that you had. Remember that a photo is to capture a memory-not a modeling contest or some kind of arbitrary beauty award. What’s most important is that you were there. 3. Remind yourself that you are SO much more than your appearance. Diet culture and eating disorders love to fixate on your body and appearance, but this is actually the least interesting thing about you. You were put on this earth for a far greater purpose than ‘being thin’ or adhering to some BS societal standard of beauty. I told a client once, ‘I don’t need you to fall in love with your body. I want you to fall in love with your life.’ The reality is that all of our bodies will change as we age and chasing after some illusive beauty standard is a recipe for unhappiness. Instead, chase after your passions, strengthen your relationships, focus on being more present and joyful in the moment. The Bottom Line At the end of your life you can’t get back the time wasted spent bashing photos of yourself. Think about some more self-accepting mantras that you can tell yourself when your inner critic starts picking apart your appearance in photos. It does NOT matter how you look in photos. It matters that you were there to make a memory. The Eating Disorder Center is a premier outpatient eating disorder therapy center founded by Jennifer Rollin. We specialize in helping teens and adults struggling with anorexia, binge eating disorder, bulimia, OSFED, and body image issues. We provide eating disorder therapy in Rockville, MD, easily accessible to individuals in Potomac, North Potomac, Bethesda, Olney, Silver Spring, Germantown, and Washington D.C. We also offer eating disorder therapy virtually throughout California and New York (NYC) serving those in cities including Palo Alto, San Francisco, Newport Beach, Los Angeles, Woodland Hills, San Jose, and Beverly Hills. We provide eating disorder recovery coaching via Zoom to people worldwide. Connect with us through our website at www.theeatingdisordercenter.com
 Eating disorders make your whole world small. Recovery opens up an amazing life that you never could have imagined. In this free 42 page e-book, we share a compilation of coping tips and strategies from some of the therapists and coaches at The Eating Disorder Center! We can't wait to hear what you think. As always, we're over here rooting for you. Link To Your Free E-Book 
The Eating Disorder Center is a premier outpatient eating disorder therapy center founded by Jennifer Rollin. We specialize in helping teens and adults struggling with anorexia, binge eating disorder, bulimia, OSFED, and body image issues. We provide eating disorder therapy in Rockville, MD, easily accessible to individuals in Potomac, North Potomac, Bethesda, Olney, Silver Spring, Germantown, and Washington D.C. We also offer eating disorder therapy virtually throughout California and New York (NYC) serving those in cities including Palo Alto, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Woodland Hills, San Jose, and Beverly Hills. We provide eating disorder recovery coaching via Zoom to people worldwide. Connect with us through our website at www.theeatingdisordercenter.com
By Jennifer Rollin, MSW, LCSW-C  Multiple times a week on my Instagram account, I get a message where someone asks me ‘is recovery really worth it though?’ There was a time back when I was struggling with an eating disorder where I was unsure myself. I wasn’t too happy with my life in general and there were a lot of thoughts like, ‘if my life is going to suck anyway-does it even matter if I have an eating disorder?’ I know it can feel impossible at times and hard to believe when people who have recovered say that ‘recovery is worth it,’ so rather than try to explain the reasons why-I want to describe two of my worst eating disorder days (leaving out certain details that might be too triggering) and a snapshot of my life now. My Worst Eating Disorder Days Scene 1: I was anxious and crying a week in advance-anticipating my weekend away visiting my boyfriend (at the times) family. I was worried about having to eat food that I hadn’t prepared-and not being able to have access to a gym. I was terrified of gaining weight and felt like my world was about to unravel. I remember feeling bone-chillingly cold much of the time. The kind of cold where it felt like I’d never feel warm again. I did very disordered things with food during that weekend-and my brain was hardly getting any nourishment. I felt ashamed of my eating habits-and hoped that I was inconspicuous enough that no one would notice, but they definitely did. Every morning at the crack of dawn-I sprinted up and down the street in front of his house-trying to appease the part of me that was demanding that I exercise. It felt like taking time off from exercise was not an option. I felt so trapped. I was constantly thinking about food and counting down the minutes until my next meal (in hindsight this is because I was starving). I could hardly think about anything else. Pictures were taken and I couldn’t stand the sight of myself. Scene 2: I woke up with a puffy face, swollen cheeks, and a scratchy throat. I had spent the night purging. In that moment-I felt some ‘relief’ and like I finally had ‘a break’ in my day. But afterwards, I hated myself. ‘Please just let me die’ this pain is too much was the mantra that I repeated to myself most days. I felt utterly possessed by my eating disorder. I couldn’t see myself ever being able to stop and because of this I wanted to die. I saw no way out. My Life Now “Do you want pancakes-he asks?” “Sure!” I reply. He makes pancakes with blueberries and sprinkles. We eat them together drizzled with maple syrup as we laugh and then talk about our plans for the day. My mind isn’t ruminating on calories or carbs (or my body!)-instead, I am present, focused, and joyful in the moment. Afterwards we snuggle together in bed catching up on The Bachelor-and crack jokes about the content. I feel free. I feel at peace. And I am filled with gratitude to not have the shadow of an eating disorder hanging over my shoulder. The Bottom Line Recovery is 1 million percent worth it. My past life in an eating disorder pales in comparison to my life now. Currently, I now a career that I love helping people to recover from eating disorders, an amazing group practice The Eating Disorder Center, an upcoming book on eating disorder recovery with one of my best friends, an amazing boyfriend, good friends, the ability to travel and be present in the moment, and a sense of peace and freedom that I truly never thought was possible. Ultimately, I don't know anyone who is recovered who wishes that they could go back to their eating disorder. Life is so much better on the other side. The Eating Disorder Center is a premier outpatient eating disorder therapy center founded by Jennifer Rollin. We specialize in helping teens and adults struggling with anorexia, binge eating disorder, bulimia, OSFED, and body image issues. We provide eating disorder therapy in Rockville, MD, easily accessible to individuals in Potomac, North Potomac, Bethesda, Olney, Silver Spring, Germantown, and Washington D.C. We also offer eating disorder therapy virtually throughout California and New York (NYC) serving those in cities including Palo Alto, San Francisco, Newport Beach, Los Angeles, Woodland Hills, San Jose, and Beverly Hills. We provide eating disorder recovery coaching via Zoom to people worldwide. Connect with us through our website at www.theeatingdisordercenter.com
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