August 31, 2025 • 43 mins
In this episode of Champion Mindset Collective, Anthony Dahya speaks with Mallary Tenore Tarpley, journalism professor and author of the forthcoming memoir Slip: Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder Recovery.Mallary shares her powerful story — from losing her mother to cancer at age 11, to developing anorexia nervosa as a teenager, to spending years caught in cycles of binge eating and restriction.As she explains: “It wasn’t until my late twenties that I began to reframe my thinking: What if slips weren’t failures, but growth opportunities?”This is a conversation about resilience, healing, and what it truly means to live in “the middle” of recovery.✨ Key Episode Highlights & Takeaways
- Grief and perfectionism: “When my mother passed away, I thought grief was something you were supposed to get over in a day. So I went to school the very next day and even read her eulogy without crying.”
- How eating disorders can begin: Mallary recalls trying to “stop time” by staying the same size she was when her mom was alive.
- The hidden struggles: “For over a decade I was caught in a cycle of binge eating and restricting — all while telling everyone I was fully recovered.”
- Re-framing recovery: Shifting from shame to growth — “Recovery is a middle place… where slips happen, but progress is always possible.”
- Hope in imperfection: Why it’s okay to be in process and not at a “perfect” endpoint.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I always go back to childhood when I was 8 years old and my
mother was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.
As you can imagine, when she passed away, I really just felt
like my whole world had crumbled.
I thought that grief was something you were supposed to
get over in a day, and I found myself wanting to stop time.
I thought maybe if I stayed the same size that I was when my mom
(00:21):
was alive, I could somehow be closer to her.
I began to reframe my thinking and to question what would it
mean if I were to look at my slips not as grounds for failure
and its opportunities for growth.
I began to think about recovery as more of a middle place where
you could exist in this space that is in between acute
sickness and full recovery. I really wanted to try to tell
(00:44):
an honest narrative about what recovery can look like.
I often felt like they were onlytelling one side of the story
because anytime I published an essay, for instance, people will
reach out to me, folks I don't even know, and they'll say thank
you for giving voice to my experience.
And the more we can speak truth to that, the more I think we can
actually help people to move forward in that space.
(01:06):
The more we can do that storytelling about where we
really are in our recovery process.
I think the more empowered we can feel to the more we can talk
about them. I think the more we can really
collectively move forward and whatever it is we're struggling
with. Storytelling can unite us, it
can bridge differences and it can help us to really realise
(01:29):
that we're not alone. Imagine walking a path filled
with challenges, setbacks, and in more moments of joy, all in
pursuit for healing. Today, we're joined by Mallory
Tanori Tapley, who understands this journey intimately.
Her upcoming book, Slip Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder
Recovery, offers valuable insights into complexities of
(01:51):
recovery which resonate deeply with anyone facing personal
struggles. Welcome to the Champion Mindset
Collective podcast. I'm your host, Anthony Dyer, and
I'm grateful that you're here watching or listening to this
episode where we explore the resilience and transformation.
Today we introduce Mallory to Nori Tapley, a journalism
professor at University of Texasand Austin and the author of the
(02:14):
forthcoming memoir Slip Life in the Middle of the Eating
Disorder Recovery. In this powerful narrative,
Mallory blinds personal stories with in depth research to
provide fresh perspective on healing process.
Her insights are especially relevant in today's world where
discussions about mental health are absolutely crucial.
(02:38):
Let's welcome Mallory to the Champion Mindset Collective
podcast. Thank you so much for having me,
I'm looking forward to the conversation.
Yes, it's my pleasure. I'm so glad that we finally got
here to have this interview. Anyway, before we click into
some Christians, I would really love for you to share with us
(02:58):
your journey and life from childhood to where you are today
and what really got you into. And then we'll sort of move into
what inspired you to write this book.
Great. So I'll try to give you somewhat
of the condensed version since Ijust wrote a book about my life
story. I feel as though I could go on
and on, but I always go back to childhood.
(03:19):
When I was 8 years old and my mother was diagnosed with
metastatic breast cancer and shewas sick for about 3 years.
She ended up passing away when Iwas 11 years old because the
cancer had spread to her bone marrow, her liver, her brain.
And as you can imagine, when shepassed away, I really just felt
like my whole world crumbled, and I really didn't know how to
(03:42):
grieve. And in my mind, I thought that
grief was something you were supposed to get over in a day.
And I thought, as a perfectionist, that I was
supposed to just try to carry onand be okay.
So I went to school the day after my mother died.
I read her eulogy without crying, and I really tried to
put up this happy facade. But I found that the more that
(04:04):
time passed, the farther away I felt from my mother.
And I found myself wanting to stop time.
I knew that I couldn't do that, that I was intrigued by this
notion that maybe I could somehow stop my own growth.
I at the time, was in a health class where we were learning
about good foods, quote UN quote, and bad foods and
(04:24):
learning that what we put into our bodies could change the way
they looked. And so I thought maybe if I
stayed the same size that I was when my mom was alive, I could
somehow be closer to her. So I did start restricting my
food intake, not with the intention of developing an
eating disorder, but within a matter of months I had developed
anorexia nervosa and ended up really struggling with that for
(04:49):
quite some time. Not being able to get the
medical help that I needed untilI was about 13, at which point I
was hospitalised and spent many of my teenage years in and out
of hospitalizations and residential treatment trying to
get better. I was able to get to a better
place in my recovery after residential treatment and went
(05:09):
back to high school and tried tobe fully recovered.
That I didn't quite know what that meant.
In my mind it was somewhat of a perfectionistic ideal, but I
tried to eat perfectly and exercise just the right amount
and tried to do all the extracurriculars and succeed
academically. But ultimately the pressure of
that felt very insurmountable. And by the time I got to
(05:31):
college, I relapsed. And for over a decade I was
caught in a very vicious cycle of binge eating and restricting.
But I still continued to tell everyone I was fully recovered
because I was really ashamed to admit that I was anything but.
And it wasn't until my late 20s when I began to reframe my
thinking and to question what would it mean if I were to look
(05:54):
at my slips not as grounds for failure, but as opportunities
for growth. And so I began to think about
recovery as more of a middle place where you could exist in
this space that is in between acute sickness and full
recovery. And you can recognise that slips
happen, but you also know that progress is always possible.
And so I, for a long time, thought that I was the only
(06:15):
person in this place. And as I began to really reframe
my thinking around this, I beganto make meaningful progress.
But I still felt very alone in this place because it's not
talked about in the eating disorder fields and it's
certainly not written about in books.
So I wanted to, as an author andwriter, really write about this
experience of being better, but not all better, and looking at
(06:37):
what does it mean to live with the vulnerability of your
disorder. And lo and behold, I did a lot
of interviews for the book and found out that the middle place
is quite populous. And so in my book, I really
blend together my own personal experiences with anorexia,
alongside the latest research oneating disorders, and alongside
perspectives from other people who are at all different points
(07:00):
in the recovery spectrum. And for me, my hope is that by
giving voice to the middle placeand helping people realise that
recovery is quite nuanced and messy and imperfect, I hope that
I can help people who are in this middle place to feel more
seen and heard. What a journey you've had, you
know, losing your mum, that young, you came to cover it up
(07:23):
because we put on a brave face, right?
And, but, and if it's unresolvedthen then it shows up later in
life. And yeah, I've, I've had those
slips myself many times. Thank you for sharing that.
I really appreciate you, you, you know, bringing your
vulnerability there to be shared, to share that.
So Mallory, what inspired you towrite Slip Life in the middle of
(07:47):
this eating disorder recovery? I really wanted to try to tell
an honest narrative about what recovery can look like because
so many of the eating disorder books that I read over the years
were helpful in different regards.
But I often felt like they were only telling one side of the
story because most eating disorder books are written by
(08:09):
people who are fully recovered. And for me, it felt very
isolating because there was thislack of a mirrored image,
because I never saw my own experiences reflected in those
books as someone who is in recovery, recovery as opposed to
fully recovered. And so that was really
challenging. And I don't really like tidy
(08:30):
narratives. I don't like narratives where
everything's tied up with a pretty bow at the end.
I'm someone who really likes to delve into the messiness of
recovery. And so that can take courage in
a society that really prefers protagonists who prevail and who
triumph over their disorders. But when those are the only
narratives that are getting published, it can make those of
(08:52):
us who haven't yet arrived at that place of full recovery feel
as though we're somehow less than.
And it can make us feel like ournarratives are not worthy of
being told or shared. And I really didn't want to feel
that way myself, and I didn't want others to feel that way.
And one of the beauties for me in writing about my experiences
(09:12):
is that anytime I published an essay, for instance, people will
reach out to me, folks I don't even know, and they'll say thank
you for giving voice to my experience or thank you for
empowering me to feel like I could share my story without
feeling stigmatised for not having reached this place of
full recovery. And my hope is that the book
serves that same purpose and that it will help people to
(09:35):
realise that their narratives are still worthy of being
shared, their recovery story is still valid, and they are still
in a good place, even if they haven't gotten over their
disorders, so to speak. And so that for me was really
powerful and thinking about the message that I really wanted to
(09:56):
try to convey in this book. I love what you said about, you
know, being in the messiness andI'm, I'm like that as well.
You know, there's so much growthand the messiness and the, and
the valleys. I want to read out a really
quick quote. This is something that's on my
website, which I found from someone called Andrew Andrews
and says everybody wants to reach the peak, but there is no
(10:19):
growth at the top of the mountain.
It's in the valley that we slog through the lush grass, the rich
soil, learning and becoming whatenables us to summit to life's
next think. And so there's so much, so much
in that messiness of life to learn and to to grow, to let go
of things that no longer serve us, to acknowledge that things
(10:42):
happen in our lives. And then we, we, we have the
opportunity to move forward. But reading a post yesterday on
LinkedIn, which I responded to about fear and it's all about
this lady in a, in a, on a standup board paddle board in the
middle of the ocean. And this big whale comes along
(11:02):
and is swimming around it and playing with it and actually
pushing it along. And then the, and the other,
other whale comes along and and they just calmly, but it's like
that Lady did have had No Fear. She was just enjoying the
moment. And even when it was probably
scary for her. And that fear was actually her
companion. Yeah.
(11:24):
Are you able to share a moment from your journey and get
highlighted the importance of this conversation?
Yes, so I really just love that quote too and that anecdote.
I think those are really spot on.
So for me, there was this momentwhere I was running a non profit
organisation and I was helping journalists to tell stories
(11:47):
about the messy middles. We called these restorative
narratives, which was the name that we gave to stories that
show how people make meaningful progress forward in the
aftermath of trauma and tragedy.And very often in journalism, we
tell the story of what happened.We we talk about the tragedies
and the traumas, but then we kind of move on to the next
(12:07):
story. Maybe we get a couple little
stories sprinkled in or we go back to a one year anniversary
story. But it's often those stories
that look at this coexistence ofhope and hardship and slips and
progress that we overlook in journalism and storytelling in
general, I would say. And so I was working with
journalists and helping them to tell these stories.
(12:29):
And it occurred to me that this could be a really helpful
framework for my own story because for so long I was living
this very inauthentic narrative.And that, again, I was telling
people I was fully recovered. And yet behind closed doors, I
was still very much struggling. And I was really ashamed to
admit that. And so I thought, huh, maybe I
(12:51):
could think about my own story as a restorative narrative as
sorts. And what if I could look at this
as me trying to move forward in the aftermath of this illness,
or even in the midst of it, thentry to make progress moving
forward with the understanding that not every slip has to lead
to a slide, right? If you think about that word
(13:13):
slip, it suggests some sort of forward movement.
And so I thought, what if I could use a slip as an
opportunity to recognise the progress I'm making?
Because sometimes slips happen when we're making progress
because we're doing really hard things.
And what if when I slip, I can tell somebody about it rather
than shouting it in secrecy and think about how do I get up in
(13:34):
this next moment, right, rather than putting it off for the next
week or the next month, which weoften do when we've slipped.
And so working with journalists and helping them tell these
restorative narratives, and thenthinking about how that applied
to my own narrative was really helpful.
And it really empowered me to think more about this idea of a
middle place. Umm, yeah, absolutely, Totally
(14:00):
groovy. So he discussed the concept of
middle, the middle place in the recovery.
What? What does it actually mean for
those who are facing these disorders?
Yeah. So within the eating disorder
field, there are a lot of different definitions of full
recovery. If you look at the research
that's done on recovery, it's really hard to compare data
(14:22):
across studies because each study defines it a little bit
differently. Some studies will define full
recovery in terms of someone's weight.
Other times there's definitions about kind of the cessation of
behaviours. Sometimes there are ones that
look at the cognitive aspects, like are people still having
disordered thoughts, for instance.
(14:43):
So as a field, we've not come toa consensus definition, which
can then make it really difficult for folks with lived
experience to know what full recovery even looks like.
Especially when you consider that we're recovering into a
society that is very much steeped in diet culture and fat
phobia and where lots of people have kind of body image issues.
(15:04):
So what does that mean to recover into a society like
that? And very often in the eating
disorder field, we do talk aboutfull recovery for everyone.
And I don't want to discredit people who are fully recovered
because I think that that's important to hear those
narratives. But when we present that as the
only way of recovering, it can be quite limiting.
(15:25):
I think we need to recognise that there are a lot of people
for whom eating disorders are chronic or for whom the eating
disorder remains something that they need to contend with for
many, many years, perhaps most of their adult life.
And so for so long that message has been really stigmatised
(15:46):
because sometimes people think that it suggests that people
with eating disorders should just settle for stagnancy if
they can never get better. And that's not the message of
the middle place. The middle place is really a
reframing of how we think about recovery.
And it's a way of being able to say that you don't need to be
perfect with your recovery, nor do you need to live a life that
(16:07):
is free from slips. Because if you consider how many
times we are confronted with choices around food, that can be
difficult for anybody, but when you've had an eating disorder,
it's even more difficult. And so to recognise that and
give yourself grace for these times when you slip is really
important. And so the middle place is
(16:27):
really about trying to make surethat we're not limiting the ways
that we think about recovery andthat we're really taking a more
inclusive approach to talking about recovery.
So that those of us who have notarrived at that place of full
recovery and who may never arrive there, we don't feel like
we have to kind of be stigmatised or don't feel like
(16:48):
we have to then just be in this category that is never defined,
right? For so long I thought I'm either
have to be sick or fully recovered.
And I didn't think there was a space in between.
And I was petrified that if I made one wrong move, I would get
sick again. But there is this vast expanse
in between. And the more we can speak truth
to that, the more I think we canactually help people to move
(17:11):
forward in that space. Something to talk about the
slopes and that her proper process isn't it and what it
like when you were talking to people, what was the highlights
or the gems that you got out of that moment of having a chat
with someone about their slips? Yes.
So I ended up surveying over 700people with lived experience
(17:32):
from around the world. And all of these folks had had
eating disorders or were still struggling with them.
And I asked them if they could identify with the middle place
and 85% of them said that they could.
And so for me, that was quite eye opening because I thought,
wow, so many people can identifywith this place and yet we're
(17:52):
not talking about it. And so that was really
revelatory. Another thing too was just in
talking with individuals, many people who at the onset of the
conversation told me they were fully recovered by the end of
the conversation, they would tell me actually, you know, I
think I'm more in the middle place.
I just didn't really know how else to describe my recovery.
(18:14):
And so I think in some ways it was refreshing for them to
really be able to think about the fact that it was actually
okay for them to admit that maybe they weren't fully
recovered. Other times people have told me
that they really have felt sometimes stigmatised and
they've been made to feel ashamed about their slips.
(18:34):
And that shame has really kept them silent.
And so they've never really feltlike they've been able to make
meaningful progress because theyhave to keep it secret, right?
Because there's a lot of kind ofnotions around this idea that
you've got to reach this place of full recovery.
So I anecdotally was really struck by all of that.
(18:55):
And certainly I, I learned a lotabout kind of just research
around eating disorders and around kind of why these eating
disorders can be so hard to shake.
Turns out there's a lot of brainbased alterations that occur
when one has an eating disorder.So these disorders are not
simply about choice or about trying to be skinny.
There are actually a lot of neurobiological components to
(19:18):
these disorders which make it easier for us now to understand
why people can get stuck in these cognitive ruts and also
why it can be so hard to recover.
Sometimes people will say, well,why can't you just eat?
Or why can't you just stop eating all that food as if it
were that easy, right? And we know that it's not.
There's so many factors at play.So to be able to speak truth to
(19:41):
that and shed a light on all of that in terms of both the
anecdotal stories from others and also the research that's
coming out, I think has really just brought in my own
perspective and I hope it will do the same for readers.
Yeah. What some of the factors that
what are some of the factors that you could name that that
cause us, you know this? This order.
(20:07):
Yes. So eating disorders stem from a
complicated mix of factors. Sometimes it can be trauma.
So for instance, with me, the death of my mother was certainly
the trauma that really triggeredthe eating disorder.
Although there were other factors at play, like the health
class that I mentioned and just suppressed grief and then just
(20:28):
media that I was consuming at the time that was very much
rooted in kind of weight loss. And so usually it's not just the
result of one thing, but sometimes it can be something
seemingly innocuous, like someone who's a child, for
instance, may choke on food and then be very fearful of eating
again. And so they therefore begin to
(20:50):
restrict. And when they are in that energy
deficit where they're expending more calories than they're
taking in, that can actually then lead them to develop an
eating disorder, particularly ifthey're genetically predisposed.
So we know that when we think about what causes an eating
disorder, there are genetic riskfactors, but there's also
(21:11):
genetic protective factors, and there are environmental risk and
protective factors. So it's not a matter of nature
versus nurture. It's really more about nature
and nurture. I think about this a lot as a
mom, because I've got two kids who are 7 and 9.
And research shows that girls who have a relative with
anorexia are 11 times more likely to develop the disorder
(21:34):
themselves, which is a very daunting statistic.
But we don't inherit eating disorders, we inherit A
vulnerability to them. So even though someone may have,
for instance, a high genetic risk, if there's nothing in the
environment like a trauma or a choking incident or something
like that, that triggers it, then they may go through their
whole lives without an eating disorder.
(21:56):
In other instances, you may havesomeone with a very low genetic
risk factor, but there are environmental triggers that are
so strong as to cause the onset of an eating disorder.
So all of that is to say that it's typically never just one
thing. There are a lot of elements that
often will play into whether or not someone develops an eating
(22:17):
disorder. What were some of the steps that
you took to to help you recover from this?
Yeah, so a big part of it was really getting into treatment.
I was hospitalised five times and then I was in a residential
treatment programme for a year and a half and I lived there for
(22:37):
that year and a half. Fortunately my public school
system and the Department of Mental Health and the state that
I lived in was paying for that treatment, otherwise there is no
way that I would have been able to go.
But I in treatment, really learned how to, one, take care
of my body. I mean, I was just rehabilitated
(22:59):
and that they were able to get me to eat again and be in a
place where physically I was better.
But it's obviously not just about the number on a scale.
There's really these disorders are of both the body and the
mind. So there are a lot of cognitive
distortions that I still struggled with even once my
weight got back up to where it needed to be.
(23:19):
And really in therapy, I worked through a lot of those kind of
cognitive aspects. And I really, in my recovery,
tried to think about who I was outside of the disorder because
for so long, I really let the disorder define me to the point
where I stopped socialising, I stopped engaging in hobbies that
(23:40):
I liked. I just was a shell of my former
self. And so part of what I needed to
do in recovery was really reclaim those parts of my
identity and think about who am I outside of the disorder, what
makes me special apart from anorexia?
And I needed to also grieve. I really needed to think about
what are the ways that I can maintain closeness with my
(24:01):
mother without needing to rely on the eating disorder.
What are some of the ways that Ican feel in control without
having to really restrict my food intake or exercise
obsessively. So the grieving ended up being a
really big part of the recovery process for me.
Yeah. Wow.
(24:23):
So in the the book, the stories,the patients, the healthcare
professionals, how did these contributions shape the
narrative? And which interviews actually
stood out for you during this writing process?
Yeah, so it was really importantfor me to not just have this
book be about my own lived experience because in many ways
I fit the stereotypical mould ofsomeone with an eating disorder
(24:46):
and that I'm white, I identify as female, I live in a smaller
body, I'm middle to upper class.So while my narrative is the
through line of the book, I really wanted to include a
diversity of perspectives and interview people and different
body types, different genders, races, ethnicities, etcetera.
And I also wanted to bring in those perspectives from
(25:07):
clinicians and researchers who could really help me to
understand more about the latestresearch on eating disorders and
the evolution of care. And one thing that was really
interesting to learn about was how treatment has evolved since
I was younger. So I was in treatment in the
late 1990s, early 2000s. And at the time, it was very
(25:28):
much the mindset that children in particular needed to be
extricated from the home in order to get better.
So the thinking was that the child needs to be removed from
the parental units because the child will never get better at
home. And part of this stemmed from
this long standing belief that mothers were to blame for eating
(25:48):
disorders. There was a lot of mother
blaming and shaming that happened.
We now know that parents cannot categorically cause eating
disorders. Certainly they can have an
influence right as we think about those environmental
factors. But we can't solely blame
parents for one's eating disorder.
And so now there's been a real shift and treatment for eating
(26:10):
disorders, particularly at the adolescent level, where the
mindset is that parents can actually be a critical part of
the recovery process and the treatment process.
And so there's now what's calledfamily based treatment, where
the push is to try to keep adolescents at home and to work
with the parents to help them tounderstand how they can really
(26:32):
work with the child to get them to eat, to get them to try to
consume a variety of foods, to try to ease their anxiety around
meal times. And of course, this is
imperfect. It doesn't always work and it
requires that you have parents who can really be dedicated to
this. But it has removed a lot of that
parental blame that once accompanied eating disorders.
(26:55):
And it also is preventing peoplefrom always just immediately
being institutionalised. Certainly there are some who
need that higher level of care. They need to be in an inpatient
facility because their health isat a very dire place.
But what I found is that being in treatment helped me, but it
(27:16):
also institutionalised me to thepoint where it really made me
identify even more with the eating disorder.
It made me feel like I was a sick patient and I ended up
cleaning to that. And so I think that while it can
be really important to be sort of in a hospital setting, if you
need that, that shouldn't alwaysbe the first go to as it was
(27:37):
years ago. We can also look at what are
some of the other options so that we're not necessarily just
hospitalising someone or puttingthem in a psychiatric ward when
they may not necessarily need that at this moment.
So that was one of many things that I found really interesting
in terms of how the landscape has changed.
(27:58):
Yeah, and what about people who are feeling isolated at a given
time? Like how can these stories help
them? Yeah.
So it really is important to have a community of support.
And that community may be very small, but it may be larger.
And I think one of the things that we can really do to help us
(28:21):
in our recovery is to find people with whom we can share
our stories and our vulnerabilities, because that
often is an important step in the recovery process.
One, it removes that need to be secretive about your disorder
because we know that eating disorders thrive in secrecy.
But two, it can really be helpful to think about being
(28:44):
your most honest self when you're with other people who you
trust, and recognising that thathonesty can actually help you to
make connections in your own story.
And it can help other people to feel like it's okay for them to
share their story as well. So often as we think about just
the story, so to speak, that we hear on social media, we see
(29:05):
these very lacquered lives whereeverything seems shiny and
bright, and we need more of these really honest narratives.
And they don't necessarily need to be on social media.
Not everyone feels comfortable sharing those.
But but even if we can share them with a partner or a group
of small friends or therapist orother clinician, the more we can
(29:26):
do that storytelling about wherewe really are and our recovery
process, I think the more empowered we can feel to try to
make progress and to also try tokind of feel a little bit
gentler with ourselves when we've had our days or slips.
Was down to being authentic and having that authenticity.
(29:49):
And also as Brené Brown talks about, you know, vulnerability
and being able to shear. And yeah, you're so right.
There's so much, you know, perfectionism and shiny things
that people, hey, look at me, look at, you know, and, but
really, if you dig down deep, there's probably a lot of a lot
of things going on underneath itand the facade, right?
(30:11):
So, yeah, it's I, I think, you know, I agree with you.
More people could cheer, be venerable and share their
stories to help others. And, you know, I'm, I'm so
grateful that you've come along to share your journey and your
experiences because this is going to help so many people,
(30:32):
you know, and it's going to create an impact on the world.
Even if we all did that, then imagine what could happen.
So if we talked about community support and you know how
community can help, what about family and friends?
How can family and friends better support someone on their
recovery journey? A big part of that has to do
with figuring out what kind of help individuals need.
(30:54):
So it can be really beneficial if family members or friends go
to the individual in recovery and say, how can I best support
you, right? Because especially when it comes
to eating disorders, they're so often misunderstood.
It can be very enigmatic if you've not had experience with
1. And so it can be really helpful
(31:14):
to just ask that question as opposed to going in and assuming
that you know exactly what kind of help that person needs.
Because that one question that empowers the individual to
really be able to think about what help do I need?
And then can feel like they are able to more easily trust that
person and to go to them and say, okay, this is the help that
(31:36):
I need. I need it in this moment also to
recognising that if somebody is has slipped, not approaching
that with shame or blame and really instead saying, you know,
I've noticed that you seem to have had a stretch of really
hard days. I'm just curious as to how I can
(31:58):
best help you and wanted to talkwith you about why you think
that is right. You have any sense as to what
might be causing this lips? I'd love to be able to be there
for you and help you think through this, right?
So you're approaching it from a lens of being curious and also
from the lens of opening up avenues for storytelling as
opposed to saying, I can't believe that you keep doing
(32:20):
this, right? Why can't you just stop, right?
And sometimes that can be the natural reaction when you see a
loved one who's struggling, right?
Or maybe they're kind of going through a rough patch in their
recovery. But trying not to do that is
going to be most beneficial. And so I think that ultimately
that can then really help to establish that trust and make
(32:40):
the person they're likely to want to come to you when they
need help. And it also enables them to
think through a little bit more about, okay, why did I have
these slips or why have I had a harder stretch?
What's going on here? And lastly, I would just say
that sometimes we turn a blind eye toward people who we think
might be struggling. And so I would just say on kind
(33:02):
of the more front end of things,if you notice that a child or
relative or friend may be struggling with an eating
disorder, really trying to talk with them.
Sometimes people think, well, I don't want to overstep my bounds
or that's not my place. But if you know the person well
enough and you're genuinely concerned, really try to broach
that conversation, as hard as that is.
(33:23):
And just again, from a place of curiosity and storytelling and
compassion, just say, I've seen that things have changed lately,
right? You're more withdrawn at meals,
or I notice you've been going tothe bathroom after every meal,
right? Which may suggest purging.
Just noticing those things and saying something can really be
helpful. It could potentially save a life
(33:44):
because we know that over 10,000people every year will die due
to complications from an eating disorder and the earlier someone
receives treatment, the better the prognosis.
So if you can be that person to help them realise they need
treatment, or help to help them get into treatment, that could
really be doing them a huge service.
Yeah, absolutely. So compassion, empathy, and
(34:07):
definitely coming from a place of curiosity, right.
And and asking, look what's going on.
This is something that I can youwant to talk about and just
really getting us beside them asa friend rather than telling
them why you keep doing this. Yeah, absolutely.
So as a journalism teacher, how do you see storytelling and to
(34:30):
sitting with mental health awareness and what ways can can
journalists reshape the narrative around us?
So eating disorders. Journalists can really try to do
a better job of looking at that messy middle.
And I say this as a journalist by trade, as a journalism
professor. So I am not of the camp of
(34:52):
people who likes to bash the media, right?
But I always think it's important for us to think about
how can the media do better because there's always room for
improvement. And I really think journalists
often miss that middle part of one's recovery story.
So for instance, I was recently reading a piece that was talking
about a writer who had an eatingdisorder.
(35:12):
And the first half of the story talked about the kind of
sickness and all that this person went through when they
were in the throes of their disorder.
And then it immediately jumped to a paragraph that said that
this person is now rosy cheeked and has three kids, right?
So there are a lot of assumptions there that like,
okay, well, she she must be recovered if she's Rosie biggest
children. But then it just sort of went to
(35:34):
the fact that now she's recovered.
And I thought, well, how did sheget from point A to point B,
right? Like what happened in between?
And that in between is so important.
And one, I think that overtime we just individually tend to
oversimplify narratives. And so we will sometimes say,
well, ex caused my eating disorder and then this one thing
(35:54):
led me to recovery, right? But we don't really get into the
nitty gritty details unless we are writing about it or unless a
journalist, for instance, is asking us to go there.
And so I think for journalists, being able to go there with
their line of questioning and say, well, what was sort of this
moment where you chose recovery over the disorder?
(36:15):
Walk me through that moment. What was that like, right?
Or tell me about a time that youslipped, right?
Why do you think you slipped? How did you get back up?
Being able to look at these little moments that happen in
that middle place can be really important because all too often
we tend to ask these big grandiose questions, like what
was the big turning point in your recovery or like the big
(36:37):
moment that made you choose recovery.
And at least for eating disorderrecovery, it's typically not
sort of one big thing. It's this accumulation of very
slow steps. So if we can really take a more
granular look at those small steps in journalism, then we can
tell stories that really are more nuanced and that ultimately
(36:57):
will help other people to see how somebody did it right, how
they actually moved forward. Are there any examples of
impactful storytelling that havesparked important conversations
for change in this area? I would say that at least within
the eating disorder literature, there has not been a whole lot
(37:20):
of storytelling really around the middle place outside of what
I've been writing about it. And, and that's such a big part
of why I want to write about it,because we're not talking about
it enough. We're not talking about these
grey spaces, but there has been some interesting research that's
come out. For instance, there was a study
that came out a year or two ago looking at caregivers
(37:42):
definitions of recovery and talked about how full recovery
remains very elusive for caregivers.
And caregivers in many cases thought that their children were
fully recovered and then six months later did not think that
at all. And I thought that was really
refreshing to just hear that phrase, that it remains elusive.
(38:04):
Because for me, that got me thinking more about how can we
tell stories about that reality?Because it's all too easy to
just try to sweep that under therug because it doesn't serve the
full recovery narrative. But what if we looked at just
how difficult that can be to struggle with a disorder in
(38:26):
which recovery remains elusive? Or to be a parent of a child
who's struggling with the disorder and to not know what
recovery means or if the child will become fully recovered?
O To really think about the waysin which research can open up
different lines of and avenues for storytelling can be really
interesting and meaningful. Thank you so much for sharing
(38:49):
all of us, Mallory, if people have listened or listening to
this episode and something has touched them, how can they get
in touch with you and how you helping others?
Love to talk with any of your listeners and just be a
resource. My website is just my full name,
which is a little bit of a mouthful.
(39:09):
Maybe we can put it in the show notes, but it's just Mallory to
noritarpley.com. But there is a contact page on
there and folks are more than willing to or more than welcome
to just message me there. I'm also quite active on
Instagram and again, it's just my full name, Mallory Tenori
Tarpley, but can feel free to message me on there as well.
(39:31):
No, I meant a lot of different places.
And if you go to my website, you'll be able to find kind of
more avenues for reaching me. Was nice and easy.
We'll we'll put that in the shownotes so that people can connect
with you. Well, we're at that stage
nowhere. We've got 6 quick fire questions
for you and you may choose to answer these with a short
sentence or a single word. The first question is what is
(39:55):
your definition of success and has that definition changed for
you over time? So my definition of success is
being. My best authentic self and not
hiding behind my struggles. He's.
Been your greatest inspiration and why?
I would say my father, he has stuck with me throughout my
(40:15):
entire sickness and my recovery and has really just always
believed that I would be better and also that I'd one day become
an author. That's something that you
believe that others may disagreewith.
That adults may disagree with. So what's something that you
believe that others may disagree?
With I believe that it's really important to talk about our
(40:40):
slips and to not hide behind theshame of them.
The more we can talk about them,I think the more we can really
collectively move forward in whatever it is we're struggling
with. If you could go back and give
your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?
That I was special without my eating disorder.
I thought my eating disorder, what was is what was the thing
(41:03):
that made me special. And it turns out it wasn't at
all. So I wish I could have told
myself that at the time. What's 1 message that you'd like
to share with the world? That storytelling can unite us,
it can bridge differences and itcan help us to really realise
that we're not alone. And the last question is, what
(41:24):
does it mean to you to be a champion and to have a champion
mindset? So for me, being a champion is
trying to carve the best pathwayforward for my children.
I think a lot about how I do notwant to pass my disorder on to
them, so I try my hardest to be a champion for them and to show
(41:45):
them what it means to live a full life.
Nice, Thank you so much. Thank you Mallory for sharing
your insights today. It's been, it's been eye opening
for me, but having having not gone through any of this myself,
but I can, I can understand, I can appreciate and understand
what what now gives me some appreciation of what people go
(42:10):
through. Your work deepens understanding
of the eating disorder and recovery and encourages the more
important conversations about mental health.
So if you've enjoyed watching this episode or listening to it,
please subscribe and share this with someone who can benefit
from this. Follow the Champion Motor
Collective podcast and also connect with Mallory on
(42:34):
Instagram or on the website. And let's keep nurturing
resilience and personal growth together.
And lastly, I just want to say, ohh, you are worthy and you are
loved. Champion your life, champion
your greatness. Have an amazing day.
I always go back to childhood when I was 8 years old and my
mother was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.
As you can imagine, when she passed away, I really just felt
like my whole world had crumbled.
I thought that grief was something you were supposed to
get over in a day, and I found myself wanting to stop time.
I thought maybe if I stayed the same size that I was when my mom
(00:21):
was alive, I could somehow be closer to her.
I began to reframe my thinking and to question what would it
mean if I were to look at my slips not as grounds for failure
and its opportunities for growth.
I began to think about recovery as more of a middle place where
you could exist in this space that is in between acute
sickness and full recovery. I really wanted to try to tell
(00:44):
an honest narrative about what recovery can look like.
I often felt like they were onlytelling one side of the story
because anytime I published an essay, for instance, people will
reach out to me, folks I don't even know, and they'll say thank
you for giving voice to my experience.
And the more we can speak truth to that, the more I think we can
actually help people to move forward in that space.
(01:06):
The more we can do that storytelling about where we
really are in our recovery process.
I think the more empowered we can feel to the more we can talk
about them. I think the more we can really
collectively move forward and whatever it is we're struggling
with. Storytelling can unite us, it
can bridge differences and it can help us to really realise
(01:29):
that we're not alone. Imagine walking a path filled
with challenges, setbacks, and in more moments of joy, all in
pursuit for healing. Today, we're joined by Mallory
Tanori Tapley, who understands this journey intimately.
Her upcoming book, Slip Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder
Recovery, offers valuable insights into complexities of
(01:51):
recovery which resonate deeply with anyone facing personal
struggles. Welcome to the Champion Mindset
Collective podcast. I'm your host, Anthony Dyer, and
I'm grateful that you're here watching or listening to this
episode where we explore the resilience and transformation.
Today we introduce Mallory to Nori Tapley, a journalism
professor at University of Texasand Austin and the author of the
(02:14):
forthcoming memoir Slip Life in the Middle of the Eating
Disorder Recovery. In this powerful narrative,
Mallory blinds personal stories with in depth research to
provide fresh perspective on healing process.
Her insights are especially relevant in today's world where
discussions about mental health are absolutely crucial.
(02:38):
Let's welcome Mallory to the Champion Mindset Collective
podcast. Thank you so much for having me,
I'm looking forward to the conversation.
Yes, it's my pleasure. I'm so glad that we finally got
here to have this interview. Anyway, before we click into
some Christians, I would really love for you to share with us
(02:58):
your journey and life from childhood to where you are today
and what really got you into. And then we'll sort of move into
what inspired you to write this book.
Great. So I'll try to give you somewhat
of the condensed version since Ijust wrote a book about my life
story. I feel as though I could go on
and on, but I always go back to childhood.
(03:19):
When I was 8 years old and my mother was diagnosed with
metastatic breast cancer and shewas sick for about 3 years.
She ended up passing away when Iwas 11 years old because the
cancer had spread to her bone marrow, her liver, her brain.
And as you can imagine, when shepassed away, I really just felt
like my whole world crumbled, and I really didn't know how to
(03:42):
grieve. And in my mind, I thought that
grief was something you were supposed to get over in a day.
And I thought, as a perfectionist, that I was
supposed to just try to carry onand be okay.
So I went to school the day after my mother died.
I read her eulogy without crying, and I really tried to
put up this happy facade. But I found that the more that
(04:04):
time passed, the farther away I felt from my mother.
And I found myself wanting to stop time.
I knew that I couldn't do that, that I was intrigued by this
notion that maybe I could somehow stop my own growth.
I at the time, was in a health class where we were learning
about good foods, quote UN quote, and bad foods and
(04:24):
learning that what we put into our bodies could change the way
they looked. And so I thought maybe if I
stayed the same size that I was when my mom was alive, I could
somehow be closer to her. So I did start restricting my
food intake, not with the intention of developing an
eating disorder, but within a matter of months I had developed
anorexia nervosa and ended up really struggling with that for
(04:49):
quite some time. Not being able to get the
medical help that I needed untilI was about 13, at which point I
was hospitalised and spent many of my teenage years in and out
of hospitalizations and residential treatment trying to
get better. I was able to get to a better
place in my recovery after residential treatment and went
(05:09):
back to high school and tried tobe fully recovered.
That I didn't quite know what that meant.
In my mind it was somewhat of a perfectionistic ideal, but I
tried to eat perfectly and exercise just the right amount
and tried to do all the extracurriculars and succeed
academically. But ultimately the pressure of
that felt very insurmountable. And by the time I got to
(05:31):
college, I relapsed. And for over a decade I was
caught in a very vicious cycle of binge eating and restricting.
But I still continued to tell everyone I was fully recovered
because I was really ashamed to admit that I was anything but.
And it wasn't until my late 20s when I began to reframe my
thinking and to question what would it mean if I were to look
(05:54):
at my slips not as grounds for failure, but as opportunities
for growth. And so I began to think about
recovery as more of a middle place where you could exist in
this space that is in between acute sickness and full
recovery. And you can recognise that slips
happen, but you also know that progress is always possible.
And so I, for a long time, thought that I was the only
(06:15):
person in this place. And as I began to really reframe
my thinking around this, I beganto make meaningful progress.
But I still felt very alone in this place because it's not
talked about in the eating disorder fields and it's
certainly not written about in books.
So I wanted to, as an author andwriter, really write about this
experience of being better, but not all better, and looking at
(06:37):
what does it mean to live with the vulnerability of your
disorder. And lo and behold, I did a lot
of interviews for the book and found out that the middle place
is quite populous. And so in my book, I really
blend together my own personal experiences with anorexia,
alongside the latest research oneating disorders, and alongside
perspectives from other people who are at all different points
(07:00):
in the recovery spectrum. And for me, my hope is that by
giving voice to the middle placeand helping people realise that
recovery is quite nuanced and messy and imperfect, I hope that
I can help people who are in this middle place to feel more
seen and heard. What a journey you've had, you
know, losing your mum, that young, you came to cover it up
(07:23):
because we put on a brave face, right?
And, but, and if it's unresolvedthen then it shows up later in
life. And yeah, I've, I've had those
slips myself many times. Thank you for sharing that.
I really appreciate you, you, you know, bringing your
vulnerability there to be shared, to share that.
So Mallory, what inspired you towrite Slip Life in the middle of
(07:47):
this eating disorder recovery? I really wanted to try to tell
an honest narrative about what recovery can look like because
so many of the eating disorder books that I read over the years
were helpful in different regards.
But I often felt like they were only telling one side of the
story because most eating disorder books are written by
(08:09):
people who are fully recovered. And for me, it felt very
isolating because there was thislack of a mirrored image,
because I never saw my own experiences reflected in those
books as someone who is in recovery, recovery as opposed to
fully recovered. And so that was really
challenging. And I don't really like tidy
(08:30):
narratives. I don't like narratives where
everything's tied up with a pretty bow at the end.
I'm someone who really likes to delve into the messiness of
recovery. And so that can take courage in
a society that really prefers protagonists who prevail and who
triumph over their disorders. But when those are the only
narratives that are getting published, it can make those of
(08:52):
us who haven't yet arrived at that place of full recovery feel
as though we're somehow less than.
And it can make us feel like ournarratives are not worthy of
being told or shared. And I really didn't want to feel
that way myself, and I didn't want others to feel that way.
And one of the beauties for me in writing about my experiences
(09:12):
is that anytime I published an essay, for instance, people will
reach out to me, folks I don't even know, and they'll say thank
you for giving voice to my experience or thank you for
empowering me to feel like I could share my story without
feeling stigmatised for not having reached this place of
full recovery. And my hope is that the book
serves that same purpose and that it will help people to
(09:35):
realise that their narratives are still worthy of being
shared, their recovery story is still valid, and they are still
in a good place, even if they haven't gotten over their
disorders, so to speak. And so that for me was really
powerful and thinking about the message that I really wanted to
(09:56):
try to convey in this book. I love what you said about, you
know, being in the messiness andI'm, I'm like that as well.
You know, there's so much growthand the messiness and the, and
the valleys. I want to read out a really
quick quote. This is something that's on my
website, which I found from someone called Andrew Andrews
and says everybody wants to reach the peak, but there is no
(10:19):
growth at the top of the mountain.
It's in the valley that we slog through the lush grass, the rich
soil, learning and becoming whatenables us to summit to life's
next think. And so there's so much, so much
in that messiness of life to learn and to to grow, to let go
of things that no longer serve us, to acknowledge that things
(10:42):
happen in our lives. And then we, we, we have the
opportunity to move forward. But reading a post yesterday on
LinkedIn, which I responded to about fear and it's all about
this lady in a, in a, on a standup board paddle board in the
middle of the ocean. And this big whale comes along
(11:02):
and is swimming around it and playing with it and actually
pushing it along. And then the, and the other,
other whale comes along and and they just calmly, but it's like
that Lady did have had No Fear. She was just enjoying the
moment. And even when it was probably
scary for her. And that fear was actually her
companion. Yeah.
(11:24):
Are you able to share a moment from your journey and get
highlighted the importance of this conversation?
Yes, so I really just love that quote too and that anecdote.
I think those are really spot on.
So for me, there was this momentwhere I was running a non profit
organisation and I was helping journalists to tell stories
(11:47):
about the messy middles. We called these restorative
narratives, which was the name that we gave to stories that
show how people make meaningful progress forward in the
aftermath of trauma and tragedy.And very often in journalism, we
tell the story of what happened.We we talk about the tragedies
and the traumas, but then we kind of move on to the next
(12:07):
story. Maybe we get a couple little
stories sprinkled in or we go back to a one year anniversary
story. But it's often those stories
that look at this coexistence ofhope and hardship and slips and
progress that we overlook in journalism and storytelling in
general, I would say. And so I was working with
journalists and helping them to tell these stories.
(12:29):
And it occurred to me that this could be a really helpful
framework for my own story because for so long I was living
this very inauthentic narrative.And that, again, I was telling
people I was fully recovered. And yet behind closed doors, I
was still very much struggling. And I was really ashamed to
admit that. And so I thought, huh, maybe I
(12:51):
could think about my own story as a restorative narrative as
sorts. And what if I could look at this
as me trying to move forward in the aftermath of this illness,
or even in the midst of it, thentry to make progress moving
forward with the understanding that not every slip has to lead
to a slide, right? If you think about that word
(13:13):
slip, it suggests some sort of forward movement.
And so I thought, what if I could use a slip as an
opportunity to recognise the progress I'm making?
Because sometimes slips happen when we're making progress
because we're doing really hard things.
And what if when I slip, I can tell somebody about it rather
than shouting it in secrecy and think about how do I get up in
(13:34):
this next moment, right, rather than putting it off for the next
week or the next month, which weoften do when we've slipped.
And so working with journalists and helping them tell these
restorative narratives, and thenthinking about how that applied
to my own narrative was really helpful.
And it really empowered me to think more about this idea of a
middle place. Umm, yeah, absolutely, Totally
(14:00):
groovy. So he discussed the concept of
middle, the middle place in the recovery.
What? What does it actually mean for
those who are facing these disorders?
Yeah. So within the eating disorder
field, there are a lot of different definitions of full
recovery. If you look at the research
that's done on recovery, it's really hard to compare data
(14:22):
across studies because each study defines it a little bit
differently. Some studies will define full
recovery in terms of someone's weight.
Other times there's definitions about kind of the cessation of
behaviours. Sometimes there are ones that
look at the cognitive aspects, like are people still having
disordered thoughts, for instance.
(14:43):
So as a field, we've not come toa consensus definition, which
can then make it really difficult for folks with lived
experience to know what full recovery even looks like.
Especially when you consider that we're recovering into a
society that is very much steeped in diet culture and fat
phobia and where lots of people have kind of body image issues.
(15:04):
So what does that mean to recover into a society like
that? And very often in the eating
disorder field, we do talk aboutfull recovery for everyone.
And I don't want to discredit people who are fully recovered
because I think that that's important to hear those
narratives. But when we present that as the
only way of recovering, it can be quite limiting.
(15:25):
I think we need to recognise that there are a lot of people
for whom eating disorders are chronic or for whom the eating
disorder remains something that they need to contend with for
many, many years, perhaps most of their adult life.
And so for so long that message has been really stigmatised
(15:46):
because sometimes people think that it suggests that people
with eating disorders should just settle for stagnancy if
they can never get better. And that's not the message of
the middle place. The middle place is really a
reframing of how we think about recovery.
And it's a way of being able to say that you don't need to be
perfect with your recovery, nor do you need to live a life that
(16:07):
is free from slips. Because if you consider how many
times we are confronted with choices around food, that can be
difficult for anybody, but when you've had an eating disorder,
it's even more difficult. And so to recognise that and
give yourself grace for these times when you slip is really
important. And so the middle place is
(16:27):
really about trying to make surethat we're not limiting the ways
that we think about recovery andthat we're really taking a more
inclusive approach to talking about recovery.
So that those of us who have notarrived at that place of full
recovery and who may never arrive there, we don't feel like
we have to kind of be stigmatised or don't feel like
(16:48):
we have to then just be in this category that is never defined,
right? For so long I thought I'm either
have to be sick or fully recovered.
And I didn't think there was a space in between.
And I was petrified that if I made one wrong move, I would get
sick again. But there is this vast expanse
in between. And the more we can speak truth
to that, the more I think we canactually help people to move
(17:11):
forward in that space. Something to talk about the
slopes and that her proper process isn't it and what it
like when you were talking to people, what was the highlights
or the gems that you got out of that moment of having a chat
with someone about their slips? Yes.
So I ended up surveying over 700people with lived experience
(17:32):
from around the world. And all of these folks had had
eating disorders or were still struggling with them.
And I asked them if they could identify with the middle place
and 85% of them said that they could.
And so for me, that was quite eye opening because I thought,
wow, so many people can identifywith this place and yet we're
(17:52):
not talking about it. And so that was really
revelatory. Another thing too was just in
talking with individuals, many people who at the onset of the
conversation told me they were fully recovered by the end of
the conversation, they would tell me actually, you know, I
think I'm more in the middle place.
I just didn't really know how else to describe my recovery.
(18:14):
And so I think in some ways it was refreshing for them to
really be able to think about the fact that it was actually
okay for them to admit that maybe they weren't fully
recovered. Other times people have told me
that they really have felt sometimes stigmatised and
they've been made to feel ashamed about their slips.
(18:34):
And that shame has really kept them silent.
And so they've never really feltlike they've been able to make
meaningful progress because theyhave to keep it secret, right?
Because there's a lot of kind ofnotions around this idea that
you've got to reach this place of full recovery.
So I anecdotally was really struck by all of that.
(18:55):
And certainly I, I learned a lotabout kind of just research
around eating disorders and around kind of why these eating
disorders can be so hard to shake.
Turns out there's a lot of brainbased alterations that occur
when one has an eating disorder.So these disorders are not
simply about choice or about trying to be skinny.
There are actually a lot of neurobiological components to
(19:18):
these disorders which make it easier for us now to understand
why people can get stuck in these cognitive ruts and also
why it can be so hard to recover.
Sometimes people will say, well,why can't you just eat?
Or why can't you just stop eating all that food as if it
were that easy, right? And we know that it's not.
There's so many factors at play.So to be able to speak truth to
(19:41):
that and shed a light on all of that in terms of both the
anecdotal stories from others and also the research that's
coming out, I think has really just brought in my own
perspective and I hope it will do the same for readers.
Yeah. What some of the factors that
what are some of the factors that you could name that that
cause us, you know this? This order.
(20:07):
Yes. So eating disorders stem from a
complicated mix of factors. Sometimes it can be trauma.
So for instance, with me, the death of my mother was certainly
the trauma that really triggeredthe eating disorder.
Although there were other factors at play, like the health
class that I mentioned and just suppressed grief and then just
(20:28):
media that I was consuming at the time that was very much
rooted in kind of weight loss. And so usually it's not just the
result of one thing, but sometimes it can be something
seemingly innocuous, like someone who's a child, for
instance, may choke on food and then be very fearful of eating
again. And so they therefore begin to
(20:50):
restrict. And when they are in that energy
deficit where they're expending more calories than they're
taking in, that can actually then lead them to develop an
eating disorder, particularly ifthey're genetically predisposed.
So we know that when we think about what causes an eating
disorder, there are genetic riskfactors, but there's also
(21:11):
genetic protective factors, and there are environmental risk and
protective factors. So it's not a matter of nature
versus nurture. It's really more about nature
and nurture. I think about this a lot as a
mom, because I've got two kids who are 7 and 9.
And research shows that girls who have a relative with
anorexia are 11 times more likely to develop the disorder
(21:34):
themselves, which is a very daunting statistic.
But we don't inherit eating disorders, we inherit A
vulnerability to them. So even though someone may have,
for instance, a high genetic risk, if there's nothing in the
environment like a trauma or a choking incident or something
like that, that triggers it, then they may go through their
whole lives without an eating disorder.
(21:56):
In other instances, you may havesomeone with a very low genetic
risk factor, but there are environmental triggers that are
so strong as to cause the onset of an eating disorder.
So all of that is to say that it's typically never just one
thing. There are a lot of elements that
often will play into whether or not someone develops an eating
(22:17):
disorder. What were some of the steps that
you took to to help you recover from this?
Yeah, so a big part of it was really getting into treatment.
I was hospitalised five times and then I was in a residential
treatment programme for a year and a half and I lived there for
(22:37):
that year and a half. Fortunately my public school
system and the Department of Mental Health and the state that
I lived in was paying for that treatment, otherwise there is no
way that I would have been able to go.
But I in treatment, really learned how to, one, take care
of my body. I mean, I was just rehabilitated
(22:59):
and that they were able to get me to eat again and be in a
place where physically I was better.
But it's obviously not just about the number on a scale.
There's really these disorders are of both the body and the
mind. So there are a lot of cognitive
distortions that I still struggled with even once my
weight got back up to where it needed to be.
(23:19):
And really in therapy, I worked through a lot of those kind of
cognitive aspects. And I really, in my recovery,
tried to think about who I was outside of the disorder because
for so long, I really let the disorder define me to the point
where I stopped socialising, I stopped engaging in hobbies that
(23:40):
I liked. I just was a shell of my former
self. And so part of what I needed to
do in recovery was really reclaim those parts of my
identity and think about who am I outside of the disorder, what
makes me special apart from anorexia?
And I needed to also grieve. I really needed to think about
what are the ways that I can maintain closeness with my
(24:01):
mother without needing to rely on the eating disorder.
What are some of the ways that Ican feel in control without
having to really restrict my food intake or exercise
obsessively. So the grieving ended up being a
really big part of the recovery process for me.
Yeah. Wow.
(24:23):
So in the the book, the stories,the patients, the healthcare
professionals, how did these contributions shape the
narrative? And which interviews actually
stood out for you during this writing process?
Yeah, so it was really importantfor me to not just have this
book be about my own lived experience because in many ways
I fit the stereotypical mould ofsomeone with an eating disorder
(24:46):
and that I'm white, I identify as female, I live in a smaller
body, I'm middle to upper class.So while my narrative is the
through line of the book, I really wanted to include a
diversity of perspectives and interview people and different
body types, different genders, races, ethnicities, etcetera.
And I also wanted to bring in those perspectives from
(25:07):
clinicians and researchers who could really help me to
understand more about the latestresearch on eating disorders and
the evolution of care. And one thing that was really
interesting to learn about was how treatment has evolved since
I was younger. So I was in treatment in the
late 1990s, early 2000s. And at the time, it was very
(25:28):
much the mindset that children in particular needed to be
extricated from the home in order to get better.
So the thinking was that the child needs to be removed from
the parental units because the child will never get better at
home. And part of this stemmed from
this long standing belief that mothers were to blame for eating
(25:48):
disorders. There was a lot of mother
blaming and shaming that happened.
We now know that parents cannot categorically cause eating
disorders. Certainly they can have an
influence right as we think about those environmental
factors. But we can't solely blame
parents for one's eating disorder.
And so now there's been a real shift and treatment for eating
(26:10):
disorders, particularly at the adolescent level, where the
mindset is that parents can actually be a critical part of
the recovery process and the treatment process.
And so there's now what's calledfamily based treatment, where
the push is to try to keep adolescents at home and to work
with the parents to help them tounderstand how they can really
(26:32):
work with the child to get them to eat, to get them to try to
consume a variety of foods, to try to ease their anxiety around
meal times. And of course, this is
imperfect. It doesn't always work and it
requires that you have parents who can really be dedicated to
this. But it has removed a lot of that
parental blame that once accompanied eating disorders.
(26:55):
And it also is preventing peoplefrom always just immediately
being institutionalised. Certainly there are some who
need that higher level of care. They need to be in an inpatient
facility because their health isat a very dire place.
But what I found is that being in treatment helped me, but it
(27:16):
also institutionalised me to thepoint where it really made me
identify even more with the eating disorder.
It made me feel like I was a sick patient and I ended up
cleaning to that. And so I think that while it can
be really important to be sort of in a hospital setting, if you
need that, that shouldn't alwaysbe the first go to as it was
(27:37):
years ago. We can also look at what are
some of the other options so that we're not necessarily just
hospitalising someone or puttingthem in a psychiatric ward when
they may not necessarily need that at this moment.
So that was one of many things that I found really interesting
in terms of how the landscape has changed.
(27:58):
Yeah, and what about people who are feeling isolated at a given
time? Like how can these stories help
them? Yeah.
So it really is important to have a community of support.
And that community may be very small, but it may be larger.
And I think one of the things that we can really do to help us
(28:21):
in our recovery is to find people with whom we can share
our stories and our vulnerabilities, because that
often is an important step in the recovery process.
One, it removes that need to be secretive about your disorder
because we know that eating disorders thrive in secrecy.
But two, it can really be helpful to think about being
(28:44):
your most honest self when you're with other people who you
trust, and recognising that thathonesty can actually help you to
make connections in your own story.
And it can help other people to feel like it's okay for them to
share their story as well. So often as we think about just
the story, so to speak, that we hear on social media, we see
(29:05):
these very lacquered lives whereeverything seems shiny and
bright, and we need more of these really honest narratives.
And they don't necessarily need to be on social media.
Not everyone feels comfortable sharing those.
But but even if we can share them with a partner or a group
of small friends or therapist orother clinician, the more we can
(29:26):
do that storytelling about wherewe really are and our recovery
process, I think the more empowered we can feel to try to
make progress and to also try tokind of feel a little bit
gentler with ourselves when we've had our days or slips.
Was down to being authentic and having that authenticity.
(29:49):
And also as Brené Brown talks about, you know, vulnerability
and being able to shear. And yeah, you're so right.
There's so much, you know, perfectionism and shiny things
that people, hey, look at me, look at, you know, and, but
really, if you dig down deep, there's probably a lot of a lot
of things going on underneath itand the facade, right?
(30:11):
So, yeah, it's I, I think, you know, I agree with you.
More people could cheer, be venerable and share their
stories to help others. And, you know, I'm, I'm so
grateful that you've come along to share your journey and your
experiences because this is going to help so many people,
(30:32):
you know, and it's going to create an impact on the world.
Even if we all did that, then imagine what could happen.
So if we talked about community support and you know how
community can help, what about family and friends?
How can family and friends better support someone on their
recovery journey? A big part of that has to do
with figuring out what kind of help individuals need.
(30:54):
So it can be really beneficial if family members or friends go
to the individual in recovery and say, how can I best support
you, right? Because especially when it comes
to eating disorders, they're so often misunderstood.
It can be very enigmatic if you've not had experience with
1. And so it can be really helpful
(31:14):
to just ask that question as opposed to going in and assuming
that you know exactly what kind of help that person needs.
Because that one question that empowers the individual to
really be able to think about what help do I need?
And then can feel like they are able to more easily trust that
person and to go to them and say, okay, this is the help that
(31:36):
I need. I need it in this moment also to
recognising that if somebody is has slipped, not approaching
that with shame or blame and really instead saying, you know,
I've noticed that you seem to have had a stretch of really
hard days. I'm just curious as to how I can
(31:58):
best help you and wanted to talkwith you about why you think
that is right. You have any sense as to what
might be causing this lips? I'd love to be able to be there
for you and help you think through this, right?
So you're approaching it from a lens of being curious and also
from the lens of opening up avenues for storytelling as
opposed to saying, I can't believe that you keep doing
(32:20):
this, right? Why can't you just stop, right?
And sometimes that can be the natural reaction when you see a
loved one who's struggling, right?
Or maybe they're kind of going through a rough patch in their
recovery. But trying not to do that is
going to be most beneficial. And so I think that ultimately
that can then really help to establish that trust and make
(32:40):
the person they're likely to want to come to you when they
need help. And it also enables them to
think through a little bit more about, okay, why did I have
these slips or why have I had a harder stretch?
What's going on here? And lastly, I would just say
that sometimes we turn a blind eye toward people who we think
might be struggling. And so I would just say on kind
(33:02):
of the more front end of things,if you notice that a child or
relative or friend may be struggling with an eating
disorder, really trying to talk with them.
Sometimes people think, well, I don't want to overstep my bounds
or that's not my place. But if you know the person well
enough and you're genuinely concerned, really try to broach
that conversation, as hard as that is.
(33:23):
And just again, from a place of curiosity and storytelling and
compassion, just say, I've seen that things have changed lately,
right? You're more withdrawn at meals,
or I notice you've been going tothe bathroom after every meal,
right? Which may suggest purging.
Just noticing those things and saying something can really be
helpful. It could potentially save a life
(33:44):
because we know that over 10,000people every year will die due
to complications from an eating disorder and the earlier someone
receives treatment, the better the prognosis.
So if you can be that person to help them realise they need
treatment, or help to help them get into treatment, that could
really be doing them a huge service.
Yeah, absolutely. So compassion, empathy, and
(34:07):
definitely coming from a place of curiosity, right.
And and asking, look what's going on.
This is something that I can youwant to talk about and just
really getting us beside them asa friend rather than telling
them why you keep doing this. Yeah, absolutely.
So as a journalism teacher, how do you see storytelling and to
(34:30):
sitting with mental health awareness and what ways can can
journalists reshape the narrative around us?
So eating disorders. Journalists can really try to do
a better job of looking at that messy middle.
And I say this as a journalist by trade, as a journalism
professor. So I am not of the camp of
(34:52):
people who likes to bash the media, right?
But I always think it's important for us to think about
how can the media do better because there's always room for
improvement. And I really think journalists
often miss that middle part of one's recovery story.
So for instance, I was recently reading a piece that was talking
about a writer who had an eatingdisorder.
(35:12):
And the first half of the story talked about the kind of
sickness and all that this person went through when they
were in the throes of their disorder.
And then it immediately jumped to a paragraph that said that
this person is now rosy cheeked and has three kids, right?
So there are a lot of assumptions there that like,
okay, well, she she must be recovered if she's Rosie biggest
children. But then it just sort of went to
(35:34):
the fact that now she's recovered.
And I thought, well, how did sheget from point A to point B,
right? Like what happened in between?
And that in between is so important.
And one, I think that overtime we just individually tend to
oversimplify narratives. And so we will sometimes say,
well, ex caused my eating disorder and then this one thing
(35:54):
led me to recovery, right? But we don't really get into the
nitty gritty details unless we are writing about it or unless a
journalist, for instance, is asking us to go there.
And so I think for journalists, being able to go there with
their line of questioning and say, well, what was sort of this
moment where you chose recovery over the disorder?
(36:15):
Walk me through that moment. What was that like, right?
Or tell me about a time that youslipped, right?
Why do you think you slipped? How did you get back up?
Being able to look at these little moments that happen in
that middle place can be really important because all too often
we tend to ask these big grandiose questions, like what
was the big turning point in your recovery or like the big
(36:37):
moment that made you choose recovery.
And at least for eating disorderrecovery, it's typically not
sort of one big thing. It's this accumulation of very
slow steps. So if we can really take a more
granular look at those small steps in journalism, then we can
tell stories that really are more nuanced and that ultimately
(36:57):
will help other people to see how somebody did it right, how
they actually moved forward. Are there any examples of
impactful storytelling that havesparked important conversations
for change in this area? I would say that at least within
the eating disorder literature, there has not been a whole lot
(37:20):
of storytelling really around the middle place outside of what
I've been writing about it. And, and that's such a big part
of why I want to write about it,because we're not talking about
it enough. We're not talking about these
grey spaces, but there has been some interesting research that's
come out. For instance, there was a study
that came out a year or two ago looking at caregivers
(37:42):
definitions of recovery and talked about how full recovery
remains very elusive for caregivers.
And caregivers in many cases thought that their children were
fully recovered and then six months later did not think that
at all. And I thought that was really
refreshing to just hear that phrase, that it remains elusive.
(38:04):
Because for me, that got me thinking more about how can we
tell stories about that reality?Because it's all too easy to
just try to sweep that under therug because it doesn't serve the
full recovery narrative. But what if we looked at just
how difficult that can be to struggle with a disorder in
(38:26):
which recovery remains elusive? Or to be a parent of a child
who's struggling with the disorder and to not know what
recovery means or if the child will become fully recovered?
O To really think about the waysin which research can open up
different lines of and avenues for storytelling can be really
interesting and meaningful. Thank you so much for sharing
(38:49):
all of us, Mallory, if people have listened or listening to
this episode and something has touched them, how can they get
in touch with you and how you helping others?
Love to talk with any of your listeners and just be a
resource. My website is just my full name,
which is a little bit of a mouthful.
(39:09):
Maybe we can put it in the show notes, but it's just Mallory to
noritarpley.com. But there is a contact page on
there and folks are more than willing to or more than welcome
to just message me there. I'm also quite active on
Instagram and again, it's just my full name, Mallory Tenori
Tarpley, but can feel free to message me on there as well.
(39:31):
No, I meant a lot of different places.
And if you go to my website, you'll be able to find kind of
more avenues for reaching me. Was nice and easy.
We'll we'll put that in the shownotes so that people can connect
with you. Well, we're at that stage
nowhere. We've got 6 quick fire questions
for you and you may choose to answer these with a short
sentence or a single word. The first question is what is
(39:55):
your definition of success and has that definition changed for
you over time? So my definition of success is
being. My best authentic self and not
hiding behind my struggles. He's.
Been your greatest inspiration and why?
I would say my father, he has stuck with me throughout my
(40:15):
entire sickness and my recovery and has really just always
believed that I would be better and also that I'd one day become
an author. That's something that you
believe that others may disagreewith.
That adults may disagree with. So what's something that you
believe that others may disagree?
With I believe that it's really important to talk about our
(40:40):
slips and to not hide behind theshame of them.
The more we can talk about them,I think the more we can really
collectively move forward in whatever it is we're struggling
with. If you could go back and give
your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?
That I was special without my eating disorder.
I thought my eating disorder, what was is what was the thing
(41:03):
that made me special. And it turns out it wasn't at
all. So I wish I could have told
myself that at the time. What's 1 message that you'd like
to share with the world? That storytelling can unite us,
it can bridge differences and itcan help us to really realise
that we're not alone. And the last question is, what
(41:24):
does it mean to you to be a champion and to have a champion
mindset? So for me, being a champion is
trying to carve the best pathwayforward for my children.
I think a lot about how I do notwant to pass my disorder on to
them, so I try my hardest to be a champion for them and to show
(41:45):
them what it means to live a full life.
Nice, Thank you so much. Thank you Mallory for sharing
your insights today. It's been, it's been eye opening
for me, but having having not gone through any of this myself,
but I can, I can understand, I can appreciate and understand
what what now gives me some appreciation of what people go
(42:10):
through. Your work deepens understanding
of the eating disorder and recovery and encourages the more
important conversations about mental health.
So if you've enjoyed watching this episode or listening to it,
please subscribe and share this with someone who can benefit
from this. Follow the Champion Motor
Collective podcast and also connect with Mallory on
(42:34):
Instagram or on the website. And let's keep nurturing
resilience and personal growth together.
And lastly, I just want to say, ohh, you are worthy and you are
loved. Champion your life, champion
your greatness. Have an amazing day.
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