restrictED Episode 04- The Pressure of Having to Look Sick for the Role

In this episode, host, Melissa Peruch, interviews an individual, who reflects on their years struggling with not just an eating disorder, but the neglect and invalidation they received from professionals. They had to grapple with reality and their emotions when their disorder was not believed since they didn’t “look sick enough” to play the part. Thank you so much for joining us!

Transcript Available for restrictED Episode 04 (link)

 

Eating Disorder Definitions:

Beat Eating Disorders: https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/get-information-and-support/about-eating-disorders/types/ 

Healthline Nutrition: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/common-eating-disorders#other-types 

 

Resources for Support:

Books:

• "Life Without Ed" by Jenni Schaefer
• "Hunger for Life" by Andy Marr
• "Good Girls: A Story & Study of Anorexia" by Hadley Freeman
• “Brave Girl Eating: A Family’s Struggle With Anorexia” by Harriet Brown

Podcasts: 

• "Unrestrict-ED" (https://open.spotify.com/show/0XOxPP7kAWRC9CZLlH5U1m?si=12dff0b16f0a49d7")
• "The Eating Disorder Diaries" (https://open.spotify.com/show/7iVxO2jieeKqsno3YVeFUe?si=ba14e7adfa414243)
• "Psychology Unplugged" (https://open.spotify.com/show/7wkYuqWC8z51nfetiZCTbT?si=166381c8df0142f0)
• "Therapy Thoughts" (https://open.spotify.com/show/4298EkFJWEK6VAxKARB7bS?si=47983d98f9374d9e)

Youtube Channels:

• Abbey Sharp (https://youtube.com/@AbbeysKitchen?si=F9uGdsXDNZVm8HWz) 
• Ro Mitchell (https://www.youtube.com/@RoMitchell)
• Linda Sun (https://www.youtube.com/@lindasunyt)
• Sierra Ann (https://www.youtube.com/@SierraAnn)

Resources:

• National Associated of Anorexia Nervosa & Associated Disorders- ANAD (https://anad.org/)
• F.E.A.S.T. (https://www.feast-ed.org/)
• Eating Disorder Hope (https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/)
• Project HEAL (https://www.theprojectheal.org/)
• Body Dysmorphic Disorder Foundation (https://bddfoundation.org/)
• Teen Line (https://www.teenline.org/)
• The Tribe (https://support.therapytribe.com/)
• Samaritans (https://samaritanshope.org/

Episode Transcript

Anonymous (00:00):
Growing up, I really wanted to be like, a super skinny girl, and I

(00:02):
was never that, so when I got into highschool, like, I was determined to be
the skinny queen that I wanted to be,and, like, now, at the age of 21, I'm
like, I don't know why I was ever, like,so obsessed with starving myself and
being skinny and like, the only thingthat was important to me at the time
because there's so much more in life.
There's so much more, to being aperson, and appreciating who you are.

Melissa Peruch (00:29):
Hey everyone, welcome back to my program series, restrictED,
in collaboration with Connectopod.
In this episode, I interviewedan individual who lived with an
eating disorder for several years.
They share some of the medical situationsthey confronted and highlight how
their diagnosis was not initiallyvalidated because they didn't "look sick
enough," which only made things worse.

(00:49):
Thank you so much for joining us.
Quick disclaimer, throughout thisseries we will touch on triggering
content, including discussions onweight, suicidal ideation, body
dysmorphia, dieting, and depression.
If at any point the content is harmingyour own journey toward recovery,

(01:12):
please feel free to skip ahead.
If you or anyone you know issuffering from mental health,
there will be a list of resourcesdown below in the description.
Could you introduce yourself andtell us what your relationship
is to an eating disorder?

Anonymous (01:29):
I am a senior at Cal State LA, and I had an
eating disorder in high school.
I'd say that I recovered, um, whenI was like 19 or 20 years old.
Um, that's the last time Iexperienced, like, symptoms of the

(01:50):
eating disorder I had in high school.
When I was 15 years old, I justbasically started starving myself.
It started with me restricting,how many calories I was eating.
I would restrict myself more and more.
And then it eventually got to mejust eating like one thing a day.
And then I'd go and likedo cardio at the gym.

(02:11):
And I continued to do, like the whole,I would starve myself and work out
like every day, that continued forabout like five or six months before
I finally like went to a doctor andkind of got, um, treated for it.
I wasn't like really treated for it,but I spoke to a doctor about it and
kind of got officially diagnosed.

(02:34):
And then from there, I guess I continuedstarving myself, and restricting calories,
and shoving my fingers down my throat.
There was a bit of like, bulimia, like Isaid, making myself throw up and stuff.
And then, I think, about, when I waslike 17 years old, I finally started

(02:56):
seeing a therapist or no, I was 16.
That was when I saw my first therapistand I didn't really have a great
experience, with the first therapistI saw cause she wasn't technically
like a licensed therapist yet.
I guess she was still in gradschool I'm not quite sure.
Anyway, I didn't really like her.
She wouldn't diagnose me with aneating disorder, like she didn't really

(03:18):
agree that I had an eating disorder.
She even flat out told me that I didn'tlook like I had an eating disorder.
And, um, she wasn't very helpful.
So that kind of, made matters worse.
And then, I guess around, this wasall around my 16th birthday and
that was when I was at my thinnest.

(03:38):
I think I was like five, six at the time.
And right now I weigh like 140 poundsand, um, I was at my lowest weight at
that time and I weighed like 105 pounds.
So I was really like scary thin.
So I saw that therapist and theneventually, you know, I like told my
parents that I didn't like her and thatI didn't want to see her anymore and
then it took some time for my parents tofind me like a new therapist cause it's

(04:05):
very, very, very hard to find therapistsand psychiatrists, in Los Angeles.
Around the age of 17, I startedseeing a psychiatrist and then I also
started seeing another talk therapist.
And like, she was okay.
Like, I didn't really have any likeissues with her, but I also don't think

(04:27):
that she was, like, a great therapist,like, she also, she wasn't very helpful.
Um, I feel like at the end of the day,I ended up, like, healing myself a
lot, and my family was really helpful.
But anyway, so, when I was, like, 17years old, I started seeing a psychiatrist
and then a talk therapist, and I had,the second talk therapist for like
two and a half years or something.

(04:48):
And maybe not two and ahalf years, but two years.
I stopped seeing my psychiatrist causelike, the they were misdiagnosing
me in so many different ways.
I was still seeing my talk therapistfor a while, but then she actually,
like, left the practice, and I'm prettysure she decided to leave, like, the
therapy business altogether, so, that'swhen I stopped seeing a therapist.

(05:11):
I went from being anorexic to overweight.
And then I started working food servicejobs and I was on my feet all the
time and I lost a bunch of weight.
And at that time, like, thankfullyI wasn't, um, falling back into
my eating disorder, like I waslosing weight in a healthy way.
And I'm at a healthy weight now.
Since then, I've had some issues with,like, restricting, what kind of food I

(05:35):
eat, and then, sometimes, if I'm feelingreally down about my appearance, I'll
work out like too much, like I'll workout seven days a week and then I'll kind
of heavily restrict what I'm eating.
So sometimes like I occasionally fallback into, my eating disorder, but I'd
say like, this is the first time in mylife where I feel like I'm a fully healthy

(05:59):
human being in terms of my eating habits.
So, yeah.

Melissa Peruch (06:04):
Well, thank you so much for sharing that.
I think one of the biggest thingsthat impacted me when hearing you
talk about that, was the fact thatyou heard the phrase that you don't
look like you have an eating disorder.
For some reason, there's a criterialist for how an eating disorder
is diagnosed, or a certain waythat you have to look in order for
people to believe that you have one.

(06:24):
I know weight comes into it a lotof the times because people expect
you to look a certain weight orlook a certain way to validate
the fact that you're mentally ill.
So I wanted to ask for my secondquestion, what was your relationship
to numbers and the scale throughoutyour eating disorder and how did that
relate to your perception of self value?

Anonymous (06:45):
When I was really like in the depths of my eating
disorder, I'd weigh myself likeevery single day throughout the day.
I'd take walks throughout the day tosee if I could lose water weight, so I
was like obsessing over my weight a lot.
If I didn't weigh in at a certain weight,I felt like, total crap about myself.
It was really important to me that,you know, I'd wake up every day and,

(07:07):
weigh in at the weight I wanted to be.
And now it's not like, of course,sometimes, if I step on the scale
and I'm not like the weight I wantto be, it's upsetting, but it doesn't
upset me as much as it used to.
Like it used to ruin my day.
Now it's like, oh, you know, it's fine.
You had too much foodover the last few weeks.

(07:27):
You'll deal with it.

Melissa Peruch (07:30):
Yeah, no, I understand that from my
perspective, it was the same way.
I know, like, seeing those numbers canreally fool with your head, and I think
we think of it as a devastating thingwhen we look at the number go above
our self expectations in that way.
So moving on to my next question, Iwant to ask, at what point did you

(07:51):
accept recovery, and when did youfeel like you were actually ready to
say goodbye to your eating disorder?

Anonymous (07:58):
I'd say that I felt fully ready to say goodbye to my eating disorder
after I lost weight for the second time.
Cause like I said, you know, Istarved myself throughout high school.
Was like anorexic, then gained abunch of weight, and then I lost it.
And I feel like after I lost weightthe second time, I didn't feel like

(08:19):
my eating disorder was gonna comeup again in my life for some reason,
because when I lost the weight thesecond time, I didn't starve myself.
I didn't like obsessively work out.
I didn't like restrictwhat I was eating per se.
It wasn't like, I was doing it interms of an eating disorder, so.

Melissa Peruch (08:38):
So my next question was, throughout your personal journey, did
you ever come across any stereotypes?
And if so, what would yourresponse be to them now?

Anonymous (08:49):
Um, when I had my eating disorder, like, the only time a
stereotype ever came up, was whenI met with that therapist and like,
she wasn't nice and she said that.
I was like, what, 15,almost 16 at the time.
It, really hurt me.
I'm a sensitive person in general,but, you know, at that age, I

(09:09):
was really extremely sensitive.
I internalized it and I keptdoing what I was doing, which
was, you know, starving myself.
It, it made things worse.
Um, and I didn't feel like I had anyone totalk to about it except for like my mom.
And I did tell her at the time,cause you know, like I couldn't tell
my therapist because my therapistwas the person who had said that.

(09:32):
Other than that, like, everyone wasvery concerned for me, even people who
I wasn't really, like, friendly with.
They were concerned for me.
My family was concerned for me.
One thing is like I mentioned earlier,not all people who have eating disorders
look like they have an eating disorder.
So like, I'm not builtto be a skinny person.
Like that's just not who I am.
Like anorexic for me is justlike thin for someone else.

(09:57):
You never really know when someone'sgoing through an eating disorder,
like you can tell sometimes,but you just don't always know.
And also don't ever say that to someonedon't ever like if especially if you're
a therapist, also she wasn't licensedyet, but anyway, yeah, don't tell
someone they don't look like they havean eating disorder because what it does
is it makes them starve themselves more.
Not all people are supposedto be, like, super skinny.

(10:19):
Growing up, I really wanted to be like, asuper skinny girl, and I was never that,
so when I got into high school, like, Iwas determined to be the skinny queen that
I wanted to be, and, like, now, at theage of 21, I'm like, I don't know why I
was ever, like, so obsessed with starvingmyself and being skinny and like, the
only thing that was important to me at thetime because there's so much more in life.

(10:42):
There's so much more, to being aperson, and appreciating who you are.

Melissa Peruch (10:48):
So if you could touch on it real quickly, how did your family
or your parents react to realizingthat you had an eating disorder?
Did, they know what an eatingdisorder was prior to that?

Anonymous (10:59):
Um, they were very concerned, like I said.
Once they figured out that somethingwas going on, they pretty much almost
immediately brought me to a doctor.
And started trying tofind therapists for me.
So they've always been on my side.
I mean, I have my frustrations withthem but no, they've been very helpful.

(11:20):
And I think they've been more helpfulthan, any of the therapists I've seen.

Melissa Peruch (11:25):
So I guess just reflecting on everything that
you went through and your journeywith all the growth, strength, and
knowledge that you have acquired now.
If you could go back in time,what is one thing you would say
to young you or let her know?

Anonymous (11:39):
Uh, a lot of things.
Don't be so concerned with your physique.
Care less about what others think.
I think that's pretty classic.
Don't allow mean people to colorhow you feel about yourself.
I guess that's what I would say to myself.
Believe in yourself more.
I wish I believed in myself andappreciated me for who I am as a person.

Melissa Peruch (12:04):
And in relation to that, I wanted to ask you, what are
some final words of advice that youwould give to individuals out there who
are struggling with an eating disorderright now, or to people who know
someone that is struggling with one.

Anonymous (12:17):
Um, well, you know, if you feel like you have people in your
life who you can reach out to forhelp, you should do that immediately.
I know that not everyone has a familywho they can reach out to for assistance.
Not all of us have the resources weneed, to deal with our issues, but
if you are experiencing an eatingdisorder, tell your teachers, tell your

(12:41):
parents, go on the internet and like,look up community resources and stuff.
One word of advice is like, don'ttell all of your friends that
you have an eating disorder.
I kind of wish that I hadn't donethat when I was experiencing it, but
if you have supportive parents whoare understanding, reach out to them.

Melissa Peruch (13:06):
Apart from that, I guess I wanted to ask you really
quickly, what would you say to anindividual who is scared to ask for help.
I know with an eating disorder, alot of it comes with how you attach
yourself to the identity, um, and howyou feel like that is your identity.
So I know, for example, when I was goingthrough my eating disorder, I was scared

(13:29):
for the idea of receiving help becauseI felt like I was going to lose the
identity that I've known for so long.
Um, and oftentimes you hear thephrase like, Oh, I don't know who
I am without my eating disorder.
So I guess if you can offer somequick words of wisdom as like for
people who are thinking that, or arescared to receive help because of

(13:51):
that idea that they don't know whothey are without an eating disorder.

Anonymous (13:56):
I guess, well, that's kind of hard because I remember like feeling
the same way when I had my eatingdisorder, like you don't, part of it is
like, when you, you're, when you haveyour eating disorder and you're really
like, experiencing it, you're like,oh, I don't want to get rid of this.
Like, this is my thing.
Like, as you said, it'spart of my identity.

(14:16):
So, I think it just like, takestime for someone who's experiencing
an eating disorder to like, getthemselves to that point where they're
like, no longer attached to it.
I don't think there's any real adviceI can give to anyone other than that.
Like, you need to base yourfeelings in logic and not emotion.
Starving yourself isn't theanswer to your problems.

(14:37):
Maybe that's not the right way to wordthings, but, yeah, I I don't know.
It's just that's kind of like apersonal thing for people, you know
everyone has their own path to likegetting out of their eating disorder
and like separating themselves fromit, so I'm not sure how to answer.

Melissa Peruch (14:55):
Well, I didn't have any other questions for you, so I really
appreciate your time and patiencefor this interview and I appreciate
everything that you let us know and aboutyour journey with an eating disorder.

Anonymous (15:05):
Of course, thank you for thinking of me

Melissa Peruch (15:11):
We hope you enjoyed this episode and stick around
to hear what other individualshave to share in future ones.
You can listen to Connectopod on Podbean,Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get
your podcasts, and visit connectopod.
net to see all of whatwe do and have in store.
Thank you for listening!