May 20, 2025 • 47 mins
Eating disorders affect millions, yet they often remain shrouded in misunderstanding and stigma. In this episode of the Silver Disobedience® Perception Dynamics Podcast, host Dian Griesel, aka Silver Disobedience, explores the serious topic of eating disorders with her guest, psychoanalyst Maureen Kritzer-Lange. Recorded at the iconic Manhattan Center in New York City, Maureen shares her personal journey through anorexia and bulimia, revealing the hidden struggles and societal judgments that accompany these disorders. The conversation delves into Maureen's battles, the psychological factors, and the road to recovery. This episode offers hope and insights for those affected by eating disorders, emphasizing the importance of finding one's voice and seeking support. Tune in for an intimate and informative discussion aimed at understanding and overcoming eating disorders.
As the creator of the "Don't Trust the Mirror" movement and host of the podcast My Secret Life with an Eating Disorder, Maureen offers profound insights into the complexities of eating disorders, the societal pressures that contribute to them, and the path to recovery.
For more information about Maureen Kritzer-Lange and her work, visit Don't Trust the Mirror.
Additional info can be found here:
Please SUBSCRIBE! I’m Dian Griesel, Ph.D. aka @SilverDisobedience I am a perception analyst, hypnotherapist, author of books and a Wilhelmina model & creative who works both sides of the camera. For 30 years I have helped my clients to achieve greater understanding as to how perceptions impact everything we do whether personally or professionally. Text to book an appointment: 212-825-3210
I share inspiring and actionable ideas for free via my podcast, on my website: DianGriesel.com and also on my social media accounts which you might like to follow.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello everyone, I'm Diane Griselle.
I'm also known as Silver Disobedience to a lot of you.
This is the Silver Disobedience Perception Dynamics podcast and
we're recording at iconic Manhattan Center in New York
City. Today we're going to take a deep
dive into a topic that's a serious one.
(00:21):
We're going to be talking about eating disorders, and my guest
today is Maureen Kritzer Lang. She is a psychoanalyst who
specializes in this topic. Eating disorders, bulimia,
anorexia, orthorexia. These affect men and women, lots
(00:42):
of them, and they're mired in all kinds of just judgments.
There are societal issues to them and we're going to explore
them and look at what leads to them, what makes them so
insidious. Why do people hide them?
And with that, we're going to start with Maureen talking about
(01:06):
your podcast, your let's get thetitle straight, the Your Hidden
Life with an Eating Disorder. It's actually called My secret
Life with an eating disorder, Diane.
Yes, Maureen, where did that? It's a compelling title.
It's certainly an interesting topic.
It got my attention. What's the catalyst behind that?
(01:31):
Well, first of all, I am very excited to be here to talk about
this, so thank you very much forhaving me.
You're welcome. It's my pleasure.
Thank you. So my secret life with an eating
disorder came about because I had a terrible debilitating
(01:52):
eating disorder that lasted probably from the time I was
about. I can get chills talking about
it 1415 years old until I was almost 30 and for most of that
time it was a secret. I always looked good.
I was a high achiever. I was like that type A
(02:15):
personality, so people didn't know that I had an eating
disorder. My family did not know I had an
eating disorder. Can I ask eating disorder what
does? How are you defining what you
were dealing with? Because were you anorexic?
Were you bulimic? Were you throwing up what you
(02:35):
ate? What were you doing?
Well, I want to just say that eating disorders are on a
spectrum, right? So it's not just like the DSM,
you know, the diagnostic book that we use, which is your
anorexic, your bulimic, you haveorthorexia, it can shift, it can
be a combination, it can be justdisordered.
(02:57):
It can start off as disordered eating, which is just kind of
many, many people have, which isjust worrying about what they're
eating, being super careful, being restrictive, just really
worrying a lot about food and how they look.
Now for me, I will just start with a little bit of my story,
which is that I was, well, firstof all, I just wanted to say I'm
(03:21):
from the Midwest. I'm from Dayton, OH, and I grew
up in a privileged family and I'm the oldest of four kids.
And it really looked like we were sort of the quintessential
sixties, 70s family on TV. My father was an obstetrician
gynecologist. My mother was like the perfect
(03:44):
wife, mother looked perfect. And around 13 or 14, I felt like
I was just getting fat. And I never, I never was.
And I was starting to just I wasgoing into junior high school
and I was just, we had just moved to a new big house that my
(04:06):
parents had designed. Do you, do you mind if I stop
either? Sure, you said to.
You said I felt I was getting fat.
Now, obviously, when you go retroactively to how you felt
when you were 13, there you particularly as a psychoanalyst,
know you might not recall that feeling exactly.
(04:26):
It's what you think you may havefelt at that point of time.
Did you start to feel a little out of control?
Because I think there's a lot oftie between eating disorders and
a sense of wanting to control. And you hit 13, you're hitting
puberty, you've got sexual hormones gracing through your
body, which, whether people confront them or not, is, you
(04:49):
know, there, there's just biology happening.
You are changing shape one way or another.
Your skin might be breaking out.So I think there's a lot of
other things beyond that. Somebody starts to think they're
feeling fat. What do you say to that?
Well, I think you raised some really good points there because
(05:13):
things were starting to feel outof control in my family and I
again, was feeling very insecure.
But I will say that I started noticing some stretch marks.
And what I feel like maybe maybepeople will talk about it a
little more now, but back then, because this was in the 70s, so
(05:39):
way back when, nobody said what you just said, which is that as
we start developing, our bodies change.
So you go, you know, I was goingfrom this like, you know, kind
of thin young girl to starting to develop hips and a sense of
curviness. And I just thought I was getting
fat. So I told my mom that I wanted
(06:03):
to lose weight and I had investigated like a local Weight
Watchers kind of place. Oh yeah, those were the days of
Lucille Roberts. Weight Watchers both sit on that
machine that would vibrate. My babysat after school for
someone who did. That right yes yes, yes, yes,
yes yeah, yeah. So I.
Stillman Diet. Atkins Diet.
(06:23):
The grapefruit diet. The grapefruit has all of those
like drinking the cabbage. I don't know all those like
horrible diets, but I there was,it was a local, local Weight
Watchers. It wasn't Weight Watchers, but a
local like weight loss kind of place.
And I asked my mom if she would take me and she said yes.
(06:43):
And looking back, I think what was she actually thinking?
Because I was really not that, you know, whatever that means.
But on the other hand, I was, I was.
We had moved and it was a new school again.
I didn't feel like I fit in. Can I ask you a question looking
(07:04):
back on that, if you could try to get in touch with those
emotions? How did it feel when your mother
agreed? With you, I was glad you were
glad back then because again, I really believe that I needed to
lose weight. But I will also say that I felt
like if I lost weight, I would be prettier, smarter, more
(07:29):
popular, fit in. I believe that being skinnier
would change my life. So when she said yes, I was, I
was so happy. And The thing is, she took me to
this place and I was the youngest person there.
It was all people my mom's age that were there.
(07:50):
And I learned to count points ordo exchanges and, and I got
really, really good at it. So I want to share because I
think this is important too. As a younger, a young girl, I
was very creative and I was in theater and I was involved in
(08:14):
dance and I would make up stories, I would write stories.
I would spend a lot of time justin my own head, my own
imagination. But looking back, I can see my
world shifting from getting awayfrom my creativity to focusing
on food and calories and my body.
Do you also think because when you see younger people and
(08:36):
you're trying to find your identity, you're trying to
separate from your parents and in between your thirteens and
particularly at least your 20s, I mean, you like don't want to
even know. Most kids don't want to even
know their parents. They're embarrassed when their
parents come to school events. You know, maybe those
exceptional kids that don't feelthat way, but it's a pretty
normal formal development pattern.
(08:59):
When you're thinking in terms ofthat control, that creative
aspect that you went from more creative to more focused on
food. Do you think some of your
creativity was involved in that as well 'cause I do think it is
(09:20):
with people with getting. Disorders.
I think that's a really good point.
Yes. I think I channeled it in a
whole different way, but it was rigid and it was super focused
to the point where, and again, I, I really, my mom was young
(09:40):
when she had me, my mother was 20 years old, right?
And she had four kids by the time she was 30 and she was very
busy and our house was pretty chaotic.
So I would start making my own food and literally these these
crazy things like this pie of like cottage cheese and cottage,
(10:01):
I don't know, it was like, and, and I also started.
But that is such a 70s thing, yes.
Right, I know I I remember many girls in.
Junior high school or high school that weren't imitating
their mothers who were eating cottage cheese and tuna fish.
I said that to my husband the other day and he's like, that
sounds disgusting. Yes.
My my mother lived. But The thing is, is my mother
(10:21):
did not worry about her weight. My mother was not somebody who
worried about her weight, who dieted.
She ate whatever she wanted. Now, my mother smoked
cigarettes, right? Because that was the thing at
then. And she had her glass of wine,
you know, not a lot, but, but itwas my dad who is the one who is
(10:42):
dieting all the time, which is not necessarily what you hear
about like mothers get a bad rap, I think.
But it was my dad who was so focused.
And again, let me just remind you, my dad was an obstetrician
gynecologist. He loved women.
He loved pretty women. And so I think part of it was
(11:03):
also to keep my dad's attention,right?
And but I just, I really got so good at, at restricting my food
that I would carry like a bottleof balsamic vinegar with me to a
restaurant. I would, I just like so
restrictive and I lost a lot of weight.
(11:26):
And but nobody really, again, I look back and I think nobody
said anything to me like, like, what is going on here?
Or you're really getting thin? And then I also lost my period,
which is something that happens right when you lose a lot of
weight. And, you know, I was at that
point anorexic. And again, my dad just said, oh,
(11:49):
I just think that it's, you know, something going on in your
body. And I had to do all these tests.
And again, it was this secret. And I didn't even really know.
I, I had an eating disorder. I didn't know.
You used an interesting word. It was this secret.
Was it a secret within your family because your father, as a
doctor did not potentially maybewant to deal?
(12:11):
I think it was, but it was also.Or even your mother not.
I think it was denial, denial and it, but it was my secret
because I also didn't want anybody messing with what I was
doing. I didn't want anybody telling me
I should eat this or I should eat that.
That's, that's a very, you hear that theme when you speak with
(12:31):
anyone who's dealt with or is dealing with anorexia or bulimia
or any kind of controlling eating pattern.
Yes. But I, I was, I was diving into
like a really dark place also. And what I started doing is
journaling. And I started journaling because
I decided that I want to be, I wanted to be a journalist and I
(12:54):
also was interested in fashion. So I would literally study 17
magazine, Mademoiselle magazine,Glamour magazine.
And I would study them because Ithought that I wanted to work
for fashion magazine and write and be a stylist.
And so I thought that if I started writing every single day
and again, I'm, I could be a very disciplined person that it
(13:16):
would help me do that. But it turned out that my
journaling was in a way kind of saved me because it became this
place that I could put down all these feelings of being lonely,
sad, depressed, super anxious, beyond anxious, feeling like I
couldn't do things. I was procrastinating.
(13:37):
I hated myself. I read back on my journals and
talking about how disgusting I was, how fat I was, how I hated
myself so much. And so I again, I but I looked
good. It looked good and.
It's interesting that dichotomy that develops that duality of
(14:03):
it's a, a form of a self loathing in a way, with this
incredible desire to control andhave this image that we think is
going to be more loved than how you know someone is feeling.
You know, it's that external gratification that we're hoping
(14:25):
we get or someone gets. It's it's.
It's complex. It's very complex.
And I, my parents at one point had decided that I should go to
because I was interested in theater and dance, right?
This camp, an arts camp, which is called Interlochen Music
Camp, up in northern Michigan. And when I went there, I finally
(14:49):
felt like I found like my peopleand fit in because where I grew
up, I call it like Friday Night Lights, right?
It was literally about football and sports and academics weren't
that, I mean, they were important, but it wasn't a
focus. But I just again, was trying to
find my place and where I fit in.
(15:10):
But when I went there, I also realized that that was super
competitive. But and, and I would with my
friends, we would talk about food.
We would go on these little binges, you know, the teenagers
do where they eat like junk foodand things like that.
But for me, it became a bigger situation than that where again,
I would literally, I have, I have notebooks where I would
(15:32):
write down every single calorie I ate all day long.
And I was in their dance program.
And literally like, like how little could I get by with
eating? But I call it a secret too.
I don't know, maybe secret denial, whatever.
But I in some ways I feel like Ialmost wanted somebody to know
how bad it was. I.
(15:54):
It was a crime for help. In some ways for help it was.
I think it's a way of saying I'moverwhelmed.
I can't handle this anymore. I'm not getting the attention I
need. You know, I think what I have
observed with people who've had severe eating disorders at some
in some way, they're the person who's trying to balance out a
family dynamic and they're feeling the weight on their
(16:17):
shoulders of, you know, craziness is happening over
here. Craziness is happening with the,
you know, my brother or sister or, or they have a brother or
sister that's disabled in some way or their parents have, you
know, something that's just not functioning.
I mean, there's all kinds of dynamics within a family.
But somehow that child that whether it's a boy or a girl
(16:40):
somewhere in those early teen years, says I have to almost
make myself invisible and make myself so perfect and make
myself be the the balance because God, I can't disrupt
anything. But within that is this painful
(17:01):
cry. Like, can't you notice that I'm
falling apart too? Is what I hear people say over
and over again when I talk to them about this.
Well, that's a perfect explanation.
Or a perfect description of of what it was like because my
parents marriage was falling apart and.
That doesn't surprise me becauseit's, it's, it's a common and
(17:24):
even if it doesn't completely fall apart, it's often some kind
of catalyst. There's some tension going on
there, right, that a child is picking up.
On yes, yes, and, and things were all kinds of craziness in
my family. But if I could focus on food and
calories and how I looked, I didnot have to think about all
those feelings. Because you could be in control
(17:44):
of something when you feel out of control of everything.
Yes, yes. And and somehow I always knew,
like even back then I thought myjournals like I thought I'm
going to use this to write a book one day.
I'm going to get better. Like I knew somehow I was going
to get through this. I had no idea how.
And I, I, I set my sights on going out east to college and I
(18:07):
wanted to get out of Ohio and get away from my family.
And I was determined to go to Syracuse, which I, I did go
there. And but again, because and
people will even say this to me now because I always look like I
had it so together, nobody knew that I was really having a hard
(18:31):
time and I. You know, one of my favorite
expressions is I have quite a few friends have gone through a
A and I bought, ended up buying all the a a literature and one
of which applies for eating disorders or any kind of, you
know, obsessive behavior. And one of my favorite lines is
don't compare your insides to other people's outsides because
(18:54):
most people I know who have had challenges, whether it's drugs
or alcohol, until it gets, you know, goes into that area of
real severity. You would look at them and say,
wow, they really have it all together.
You know, they, you know, everything's going great in
their life and they become almost the comparison.
So there's a status with maintaining it, which makes the
(19:18):
whole cycle somewhat insidious. Yes, yes, well, and also my
website is called Don't Trust the Mirror, right, Because what
you said before, which is, you know, your insides don't match
your outsides because what you see in the mirror is just a
projection so often of how you are feeling on the inside.
So how do you get them to match up a little bit too, right?
(19:41):
But I when I went to Syracuse again, kind of a fish out of
water here I am from Ohio and this is a sort of a funny story
where I go the first day and it's almost like I thought
people would have name tags on and be introducing themselves,
right? I carry, I'm very naive that
way. And I went to the bathroom and I
(20:02):
said to her, she was, I guess a couple years older than me.
And I said, people don't seem tobe all that friendly here.
And she said basically like, honey, you're not in Kansas
anymore. This is New York.
Like you better really toughen up here.
So and I'll never forget that. And so so I made my way, but but
it was really hard and, and it was around and I joined a
(20:26):
sorority. And so, you know, I found like a
group of people and but things in my family were getting worse.
And, and I'll just share anotherfunny story that when I went
away, I had my own room in our house growing up and my two
sisters shared a room. And when I left for college, my
(20:47):
younger sister got my room, which I still kind of torture my
mother. And I'll say like, see, like I
lost my room when I went to college.
I lost the family when I went tocollege.
And, and, and many, many years later, my younger sister said to
me, she's like, I really never even wanted your room.
She's like, I really like sharing your room with Suzanne,
(21:09):
who is my other sister. She's like, but I had to take
it. But I really felt like I was
losing everything. And as I was away at school, my
family was deteriorating. So when I went back home after
my first year in college, my family had was not the same
family. And what happened is is I you
(21:31):
can only well. So now you're about 23 and you
said this eating disorder. Went well.
I was still like. 20. Yeah, I was.
Still about 30. Right.
So what happened is I couldn't, I couldn't keep starving myself.
And so I was home for a summer and things were bad in my family
and I started binging. Well, I didn't start throwing up
(21:55):
yet, but I just started binging.But then I got terrified because
then I started gaining weight and I will never forget.
And I talk about this episode inmy podcast, which is that my mom
was sitting at a desk. My other, my younger, one of my
younger sisters was there with me and my mom got a call from my
dad and he he would like jerk around back and forth, back and
(22:19):
forth. My mother just really just
wanted to be back with my dad and my dad was with somebody
else. So he invited her out for
dinner. And I was like, don't go, don't
go, don't go. And she was like, yes, I'll go
out for dinner with you. And I was like, I was so angry.
And then my sister turned to me and she said to me, So what are
you making for dinner? And I was like, I don't know,
(22:40):
can I swear on this podcast? I was like, like, no effing way.
Are you kidding me? Like, how is this my
responsibility that I now have to deal with this?
And I don't even know where I got this idea, Diane, but I
ended up going into the pantry eating and I was like, you know
what, I'm just getting rid of all my food.
(23:00):
And I went in the bathroom and Istuck my finger down my throat
for the first time and, and. And that becomes an extra
insidious cycle because you can,as the expression goes, you can
have your cake and eat it too, and then you can get rid of the.
Evidence that was like the perfect solution.
That's what most people describeit as.
Oh, it was the perfect solution.And that's a very difficult
(23:23):
mental state to deal with when you're working with a patient,
you know, and they're saying, but but why doesn't everyone do
this right? It's right.
It's that twist of. But it does catch up with you
and also. Lost teeth, digestive disorders,
you know, people who have, you know, Barrett's esophagus or
(23:45):
different, you know, throat issues, throat cancer.
I've seen it. Right, right, and.
And I've seen it in men and women.
Well, and, and I'll, you know, Fast forward is that I've had to
have veneers put on all my teethbecause my enamel on my teeth
were, was really destroyed for many years of, of, of binging
and purging. But there's also a physiological
(24:07):
effect because you get a relief like it's this like discharge,
just relief of anxiety when you throw up.
So it's the emotional piece. It's like the physical, like you
think you get rid of all your food, which you really don't.
And there's the like physiological piece too, which
(24:28):
is addictive as well in some ways to that feeling.
And then you have the further physiological piece, which is
what I worked on with clients when they were referred to me
was the further physiological 1 is your body starts to burn
calories differently. So because your metabolism so
screwed up your sugar, how your body's processing sugar has been
(24:51):
completely altered. It's releasing insulin and
adrenaline at the wrong times all around and not related to
food you're taking in that you're trying to digest because
it's like, well, some is here todigest, but rotten, not really
enough for what I just released.And it's a vicious cycle.
It's a vicious cycle. So it just got worse and worse
(25:11):
and it got really out of control.
And, and here I was again, this like picture of me that didn't
match. I was, I became president of my
sorority. I, you know, graduated college.
I then went to Dallas, TX because I, I wanted to go to New
York, right? And my dad said to me, how are
(25:33):
you going to get to New York? Like what, what are you, how are
you going to do that? And I was like, I don't know,
aren't you going to help me? He's like, I don't really think
you should go to New York. And my dad was very, I would
always go to him because I always thought he knew better,
right? I lost my sense of, of knowing
me. And so I went to Dallas, TX.
It was a time when the Dallas TVshow was really big and it was
(25:57):
like a singles community. It was like, and I knew and I
was going there on my own. But again, I was like this a
parentified child, this adult sort of like looking adult, like
really not really feeling like this little girl.
And I went there and everything fell apart.
(26:17):
It really caught up, caught up with me in that way.
And, and so I, my eating disorder got worse and worse.
I became more and more isolated.I literally would spend like
lost weekends with just like binging and purging, binging and
purging, going through the garbage can like and and also I
(26:40):
started taking laxatives. I was really, really getting
sick and. So where was your turn around?
So what happened is that I, first of all, I went to a group
at, at Southern Methodist University that I had seen and,
and it was horrible because I just learned like better tips on
how to like be a better eating disorder person.
(27:02):
But I knew that I was going to, I, I was really afraid of
somebody finding me dead on the bathroom floor.
And so I found a psychiatrist and I do not remember her name.
I do not remember her office. I do not remember anything about
her at all. But I remember what I wore.
(27:23):
I wore this Navy polka dot dresswith like puppy sleeves and
pearls, right? And she said to me, you were
sitting there looking perfect with a smile on your face and
telling me that you think you'regoing to die, you're not safe
here, and I need to call your parents.
And I said, no, no, no, no, no, you cannot call my parents.
(27:46):
And she was like, you can't stayhere anymore by yourself.
And I said, if you call my parents, you cannot tell them
that I have been binging and purging.
I said, you can tell them I'm depressed, but you cannot tell
them that I have an eating disorder.
And she was like, OK, fine. So she called my parents.
My parents were like, what? And my dad at one point said to
(28:07):
me, what are you talking about? Like, I got you this far.
Like you're pretty, you're intelligent.
You're, you know, well put together like what?
What could be the problem here? And so it turns out I went home
and and then I went into a psychward of a hospital because I
(28:27):
didn't know where to go. I couldn't go home because my
family, there was too much chaos.
I couldn't be in Dallas by myself.
So I went to Cincinnati because I couldn't be in Dayton either
because my dad was very well known.
And so I went to Cincinnati. And I remember in some ways
feeling so relieved that I was going to this hospital because
(28:50):
it felt like a safe place for me.
I remember them taking my shoelaces.
I remember them. But.
What an interesting line. You couldn't stay in Ohio.
I couldn't stay in Dayton. I mean, in Dayton, you couldn't
stay in Dayton because your dad was so well known.
Yeah, that's a, that's a pretty,you know, all bullets loaded
(29:14):
statement. Right, right, right.
Because he because it was a small community and and.
A lot of images keep up. Exactly.
Exactly. And the interesting thing is
that, and this is such a like a dichotomy, which is that again,
pretending. So I, they took me to the
(29:37):
hospital on Yom Kippur and we went to services as a family
that day. Can you imagine like, going to
services, greeting people, seeing people I knew growing up,
knowing I'm going to the hospital after this?
No, I can't. Imagine and and nobody's like
saying anything either, so. It's almost like the irony, the
(30:01):
hot, the, the high holiday whereeveryone's fasting, right?
I mean, it's like very. Exactly, exactly that's.
Pretty intense. Yeah, yeah.
And so they took me there and, and dropped me off.
And I remember obviously having a second like, you know,
thinking about it again and feeling like maybe I shouldn't
(30:21):
be here, but I should. And I ended up staying in the
hospital for six weeks. And again, I went to the
hospital. They thought I was depressed.
It was still a secret. My eating disorder was still a
secret. But it couldn't have stayed a
secret that long because either 1 you stopped it, or two, they
(30:43):
would have noticed. Nobody noticed for six weeks
that you were eating and throwing up what you ate.
Well, in the hospital I started starving again.
And nobody noticed that. No, six weeks.
Pretty much. And, and at one point they had a
a stationary bike in a in a exercise room.
And I would spend hours, I wouldspend hours riding and I would
(31:04):
spend hours on this exercise bike.
And that was allowed. Yes, this is before eating
disorder programs. Before anything like that.
And at one point I said to my I was going home for a pass.
And I said to my psychiatrist, I'm really afraid to go home
because I'm afraid I'm going to throw up.
And he said just keep your fingers out of your mouth.
(31:24):
And I was like, what, What did you just say to me?
Keep my fingers out of my mouth like.
Well, it's good advice, but it'sa little.
Harsh. Like yes, yes, yes.
Like like it's to the point. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
If it could be that easy, yes, that would be great.
That would be great. So yeah, that would be great.
(31:46):
So where was your turn around? So my turn around was really, I
spent a year in Ohio. I went to a therapist in after I
got out of the hospital in Dayton.
And she's like, I don't know that much about eating
disorders, but I'll help you if I can.
And finally I did have to tell my parents that I had an eating
disorder and I turned out then Iended up going to getting to New
(32:07):
York because that was my goal still to get to New York.
And I went to paralegal school in Philadelphia and I got myself
to New York and I was reading Glamour magazine still, right.
And I saw and I would look in bookstores for books on eating
disorders. I would there was a book, I
think Cherry O'Neill Pat Boone'sor daughter or something had a,
(32:28):
had a book out, but very few things on, on eating disorders.
And I was reading Glamour magazine and there was an
article in there on eating disorders and it talked about
the center in New York, the Center for anorexia and bulimia.
And the woman's name in the, in the book was the magazine was
Ellen Short and it talked about you could get help there.
(32:50):
And so I called and a woman called me back and she, I set up
an appointment with her and I almost want to cry because I
started seeing her and she savedmy life.
And her name was Ellen Agri Chandler.
And I would go, she lived in, I'd go to her office, she had it
(33:11):
in the, I think around 16th St. and 5th Ave.
And I would see her like two or three times a week.
And, and she taught like somebody asked me recently,
like, how did she help me? How did she help me?
And I think she just tolerated all my messiness, like all this
(33:32):
messiness inside of me, she tolerated it.
And and I think just by talking with her and talking about my
feelings, I started. I mean, I was still really bad.
I tried all kinds of medication.I don't know how she even
tolerated all like how she must have really worried about me a
(33:54):
lot. I was in a couple of abusive
relationships at the time. And so I feel like little by
little, I started kind of figuring out what I wanted to do
with my life. I was really unhappy as a
paralegal. I always wanted to go to social
work, school and and so I feel like my symptoms just started
(34:15):
decreasing a little bit. And I'll never forget, she said
to me at one point, she said as my symptoms started getting less
and less and it was hard and it was like 2 steps forward, one
step back. She said to me now the therapy
can begin because we were managing my symptoms really for
so long. Yeah, it's very, it's very
(34:37):
difficult to deal with someone that is physically, I mean to
address a mental or psychological issue when someone
is physically unstable, yes. You know, it's like another a, a
thing they say, you know, don't talk to anybody for 24 hours to
48 hours after they've been on abinge, right, right.
Because you are not dealing withsomeone who's mentally no
(34:59):
balanced in any way. Everything in their body from
sugar, you know, to everything right is off.
So it's very comparable. Yeah, yeah.
So she really just listened to me and she really just helped me
figure out what I wanted to do to help me feel better about
myself. And, and at that time, I had met
(35:25):
my husband at the time and he also encouraged me to go to
social work school. And, and I knew that I wanted to
be a therapist. I wanted to help people with
eating disorders, but I also knew if I was going to go to
social work school, I had to, I had to be well enough to go
because otherwise it was going to, I was going to fail.
I wasn't going to be able to concentrate.
(35:46):
I wasn't going to be able to getthrough school.
So I knew. So that was something that I
really wanted for myself. So I really worked hard and it
was hard to sort of, you know, deal with the urges I had to
binge to deal with the urges I had to throw up, to restrict.
(36:06):
And, and little by little, my symptoms got less and less.
But the work was real and continues to be hard
emotionally. So at some point you went into
private practice, and my guess would be that you recognized
your own voice and the importance of sharing your voice
(36:31):
because that's an underlying factor in so much with eating
disorders. What do you have to say to that?
Yes and yes. Is that I think with an eating
disorder or, or my eating disorder or many people I see
with eating disorders, it takes away your voice.
You're afraid to speak up. So that's you use your symptoms
(36:53):
as a way of expressing yourself rather than using your voice.
And so I did go into private practice and I really felt
passionate about helping others with an eating disorder, with
their eating disorder or disordered eating.
And I always say that I had my own journey and my eating
disorder, but everybody's journey is different.
(37:16):
But I would hope that even through my podcast, through
speaking here, that people can identify with certain things
that I'm saying and it can offerthem hope.
And I, in developing my podcast,I really felt like I wanted to
get out of my office because I can only see so many people in a
(37:36):
week, right? And I really wanted to reach a
wider audience because I feel passionately about helping
people, about giving people hope, about helping them find
their voice, feeling better about themselves.
So I decided and I, and like just to go back a bit to my
journals, right? As I had all these journals and
(37:58):
I was like, what am I going to do with all these journals?
And so I I incorporated them into my podcast, which is I
started with telling a bit of mystory and then reading some
journal entries and then talkingabout as a therapist, what I
would have wanted my younger self to know.
Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah, and really being able to
(38:21):
kind of go back to that young girl and what she was struggling
with and how hard it was and being able to talk to her and
what. Would you want a younger person
to know a younger you? Any person, male, female, that's
dealing with any kind of struggles they're having with
(38:43):
food, whether it's they're restricting it, counting every
calorie, throwing up what they eat over exercising, what would
you, what would you say to them?What would you give them as a
ray of hope or a direction that they could go towards?
(39:03):
I would say that there is help, that there is hope and there's
help. And because when you you
struggle like that, you are in your own personal hell and
prison with it. And that there is a way out.
And by by finding your voice, byfinding support, by developing a
(39:23):
village of people who love and care about you and who are
positive that you can find another way.
And that's really what what I have done is, is, is been able
to. I always knew that I was going
to get better. I just didn't know how and I
didn't know the trajectory of mylife and exactly how that would
(39:44):
turn out. And and, and I also, you know,
people ask me about recovery andI think that's a very, you know,
it's not like drugs or alcohol where you just you don't use
them anymore. You have to eat.
And so you really have to develop a whole different
relationship with food and with yourself and your body and be
(40:05):
able to accept yourself and also, you know, when working
with people who want to be at a certain weight, right.
And I'll say to them. Do you want to live your life
like you can be at that certain weight, but your life is going
to be really, really limited anddo you want to enjoy food?
Do you want to enjoy going out and being social?
Then how do you accept your bodyat a place where it really wants
(40:29):
to be and learn to love yourselfand, and not just focus on the
outside, but really focus on theinside and really being able to
take care of yourself? The other thing that that the
reason I was so afraid to tell people is because I was afraid
(40:49):
that people would take away my eating disorder.
I would. I was afraid like that
psychiatrist. Yeah, it's an identity.
And I was afraid. Well, you're going to tell me to
stop, but I can't. I can't.
And until you develop other coping skills and other ways to
deal, like speaking up, talking about your feelings, whether
(41:11):
it's through journaling, meditation, movement, whatever
it is, and being able to expressyourself and deal with really
dark places, you can't just giveup your eating disorder.
Well, I often say to people whenI'm advising them on, on all
kinds of things, is who would you be if you gave up the story?
(41:33):
Because we're all storytellers and we get caught up in a story
and that story becomes our identity, whatever it is.
You know, I'm a cheerleader, I'ma football player, I'm an
athlete, or I'm, you know, I'm an anorexic or I'm a bulimic.
Whatever the story is, we build a life around that in one way or
another and identify with it. So I think it's always an
(41:54):
important question and it's an abrupt question, but who would
people be if they gave up that story?
That's a good question. Yeah.
And who would people be? I feel like at this point in my
life, doing this has given me really a, a platform to speak
out about. It's an intersection of my
(42:15):
personal and professional life and something I feel like I said
very passionately about in termsof really being able to get a
message of hope to people. And also, I feel like I've
gotten back to who I was, that little girl, because that little
girl that was creative that, youknow, had such an imagination.
(42:40):
I'm really channeling it in a different way to continue to
heal myself and to be able to help others with that through
writing through my podcast. I'm working on a book right now
and I felt like I, I wanted to put my story into a book and be
able to share it with people that way too, and also use my
journalism background and come full circle with that and, and
(43:06):
really bring it all together. I I'm just curious how is it for
you to relive this story? That's a good question.
I don't know if it kind of makesme teary.
I I feel really sad for that little girl.
Yeah. I really sad it's I feel like
(43:30):
I've been through a lot and I also feel like it's been
important to to look at the people who are in my life and
feel like I need to be with people who actually see me, not
just what I look like, right, because I can get a lot of.
Attention inside because she's got a lot of heart.
Yes, yes, but who I am from the heart as well.
(43:52):
And, and it's, it feels like it's, you know, my eating
disorder is still a part of me in some ways.
And we were talking a little bitoff off Mike off camera, just in
terms of my life has changed where I've I've left a marriage
(44:14):
after a long time and I like relearning what it's like to be
with myself again. My, my own little room that I
had is now an apartment. So now I have my own room in an
apartment, but I'm having to learn how to feed myself again,
how to cook, how to do things that when I was married, it was
all taken care of for me. So it's, it's like I continue
(44:37):
to, to have my conversations with that little girl and be
able to give her the empathy andthe compassion for what she went
through. And also be able to see the
courage and the determination I've had and be able to offer
that to other people that you, you know, people are brave and
courageous to really seek help to, to really work hard on
(45:03):
themselves. It really is quite the journey,
quite the journey it is, and it's quite the journey to guide
other people through because we each have to find our own
answers, wherever those answers are and wherever they'll lead
us. And hopefully people seek them
(45:23):
before they have something very seriously adverse happened to
them. Right before it's too late.
Yeah. What would you encourage
somebody to do today who's listening to this?
I would say to find somebody to talk to, to find a support
system, even if it's one person that, that you can speak to, to
(45:48):
talk to, to share your truth. Not to feel like you have to be
somebody or somebody's expectingyou, but to really look and
listen to your heart in terms ofwhat you really need.
And, and to sit quietly also. And I will also, I will also
share this, which is, and I, I continuously tell myself this is
(46:12):
that our thoughts and feelings always change.
As bad as it feels at that moment, it will shift and it
will change. That's a really good point.
I'm constantly reminding people don't act in the moment because
your thoughts are like the tides.
They go in, they come out, they go in, they come out.
Yes. Yes, well, this was a
fascinating conversation and I hate to see it and everyone I
(46:35):
have been speaking with Maureen Kritzer Lang, She has a great
podcast. All the information's going to
be below. Highly recommend you pay
attention to what she's saying. She she has a lot of heart.
This episode will be found on every major channel.
Again, it was recorded in the great Manhattan Center, but all
(46:58):
of Maureen's info is in the in the links below this.
So please feel free to share this, tell your friends,
subscribe. And again, Maureen, thank you
very much. Thank you, Diane.
It was a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Truly mine. Thanks everybody.
Hit subscribe and share.
Hello everyone, I'm Diane Griselle.
I'm also known as Silver Disobedience to a lot of you.
This is the Silver Disobedience Perception Dynamics podcast and
we're recording at iconic Manhattan Center in New York
City. Today we're going to take a deep
dive into a topic that's a serious one.
(00:21):
We're going to be talking about eating disorders, and my guest
today is Maureen Kritzer Lang. She is a psychoanalyst who
specializes in this topic. Eating disorders, bulimia,
anorexia, orthorexia. These affect men and women, lots
(00:42):
of them, and they're mired in all kinds of just judgments.
There are societal issues to them and we're going to explore
them and look at what leads to them, what makes them so
insidious. Why do people hide them?
And with that, we're going to start with Maureen talking about
(01:06):
your podcast, your let's get thetitle straight, the Your Hidden
Life with an Eating Disorder. It's actually called My secret
Life with an eating disorder, Diane.
Yes, Maureen, where did that? It's a compelling title.
It's certainly an interesting topic.
It got my attention. What's the catalyst behind that?
(01:31):
Well, first of all, I am very excited to be here to talk about
this, so thank you very much forhaving me.
You're welcome. It's my pleasure.
Thank you. So my secret life with an eating
disorder came about because I had a terrible debilitating
(01:52):
eating disorder that lasted probably from the time I was
about. I can get chills talking about
it 1415 years old until I was almost 30 and for most of that
time it was a secret. I always looked good.
I was a high achiever. I was like that type A
(02:15):
personality, so people didn't know that I had an eating
disorder. My family did not know I had an
eating disorder. Can I ask eating disorder what
does? How are you defining what you
were dealing with? Because were you anorexic?
Were you bulimic? Were you throwing up what you
(02:35):
ate? What were you doing?
Well, I want to just say that eating disorders are on a
spectrum, right? So it's not just like the DSM,
you know, the diagnostic book that we use, which is your
anorexic, your bulimic, you haveorthorexia, it can shift, it can
be a combination, it can be justdisordered.
(02:57):
It can start off as disordered eating, which is just kind of
many, many people have, which isjust worrying about what they're
eating, being super careful, being restrictive, just really
worrying a lot about food and how they look.
Now for me, I will just start with a little bit of my story,
which is that I was, well, firstof all, I just wanted to say I'm
(03:21):
from the Midwest. I'm from Dayton, OH, and I grew
up in a privileged family and I'm the oldest of four kids.
And it really looked like we were sort of the quintessential
sixties, 70s family on TV. My father was an obstetrician
gynecologist. My mother was like the perfect
(03:44):
wife, mother looked perfect. And around 13 or 14, I felt like
I was just getting fat. And I never, I never was.
And I was starting to just I wasgoing into junior high school
and I was just, we had just moved to a new big house that my
(04:06):
parents had designed. Do you, do you mind if I stop
either? Sure, you said to.
You said I felt I was getting fat.
Now, obviously, when you go retroactively to how you felt
when you were 13, there you particularly as a psychoanalyst,
know you might not recall that feeling exactly.
(04:26):
It's what you think you may havefelt at that point of time.
Did you start to feel a little out of control?
Because I think there's a lot oftie between eating disorders and
a sense of wanting to control. And you hit 13, you're hitting
puberty, you've got sexual hormones gracing through your
body, which, whether people confront them or not, is, you
(04:49):
know, there, there's just biology happening.
You are changing shape one way or another.
Your skin might be breaking out.So I think there's a lot of
other things beyond that. Somebody starts to think they're
feeling fat. What do you say to that?
Well, I think you raised some really good points there because
(05:13):
things were starting to feel outof control in my family and I
again, was feeling very insecure.
But I will say that I started noticing some stretch marks.
And what I feel like maybe maybepeople will talk about it a
little more now, but back then, because this was in the 70s, so
(05:39):
way back when, nobody said what you just said, which is that as
we start developing, our bodies change.
So you go, you know, I was goingfrom this like, you know, kind
of thin young girl to starting to develop hips and a sense of
curviness. And I just thought I was getting
fat. So I told my mom that I wanted
(06:03):
to lose weight and I had investigated like a local Weight
Watchers kind of place. Oh yeah, those were the days of
Lucille Roberts. Weight Watchers both sit on that
machine that would vibrate. My babysat after school for
someone who did. That right yes yes, yes, yes,
yes yeah, yeah. So I.
Stillman Diet. Atkins Diet.
(06:23):
The grapefruit diet. The grapefruit has all of those
like drinking the cabbage. I don't know all those like
horrible diets, but I there was,it was a local, local Weight
Watchers. It wasn't Weight Watchers, but a
local like weight loss kind of place.
And I asked my mom if she would take me and she said yes.
(06:43):
And looking back, I think what was she actually thinking?
Because I was really not that, you know, whatever that means.
But on the other hand, I was, I was.
We had moved and it was a new school again.
I didn't feel like I fit in. Can I ask you a question looking
(07:04):
back on that, if you could try to get in touch with those
emotions? How did it feel when your mother
agreed? With you, I was glad you were
glad back then because again, I really believe that I needed to
lose weight. But I will also say that I felt
like if I lost weight, I would be prettier, smarter, more
(07:29):
popular, fit in. I believe that being skinnier
would change my life. So when she said yes, I was, I
was so happy. And The thing is, she took me to
this place and I was the youngest person there.
It was all people my mom's age that were there.
(07:50):
And I learned to count points ordo exchanges and, and I got
really, really good at it. So I want to share because I
think this is important too. As a younger, a young girl, I
was very creative and I was in theater and I was involved in
(08:14):
dance and I would make up stories, I would write stories.
I would spend a lot of time justin my own head, my own
imagination. But looking back, I can see my
world shifting from getting awayfrom my creativity to focusing
on food and calories and my body.
Do you also think because when you see younger people and
(08:36):
you're trying to find your identity, you're trying to
separate from your parents and in between your thirteens and
particularly at least your 20s, I mean, you like don't want to
even know. Most kids don't want to even
know their parents. They're embarrassed when their
parents come to school events. You know, maybe those
exceptional kids that don't feelthat way, but it's a pretty
normal formal development pattern.
(08:59):
When you're thinking in terms ofthat control, that creative
aspect that you went from more creative to more focused on
food. Do you think some of your
creativity was involved in that as well 'cause I do think it is
(09:20):
with people with getting. Disorders.
I think that's a really good point.
Yes. I think I channeled it in a
whole different way, but it was rigid and it was super focused
to the point where, and again, I, I really, my mom was young
(09:40):
when she had me, my mother was 20 years old, right?
And she had four kids by the time she was 30 and she was very
busy and our house was pretty chaotic.
So I would start making my own food and literally these these
crazy things like this pie of like cottage cheese and cottage,
(10:01):
I don't know, it was like, and, and I also started.
But that is such a 70s thing, yes.
Right, I know I I remember many girls in.
Junior high school or high school that weren't imitating
their mothers who were eating cottage cheese and tuna fish.
I said that to my husband the other day and he's like, that
sounds disgusting. Yes.
My my mother lived. But The thing is, is my mother
(10:21):
did not worry about her weight. My mother was not somebody who
worried about her weight, who dieted.
She ate whatever she wanted. Now, my mother smoked
cigarettes, right? Because that was the thing at
then. And she had her glass of wine,
you know, not a lot, but, but itwas my dad who is the one who is
(10:42):
dieting all the time, which is not necessarily what you hear
about like mothers get a bad rap, I think.
But it was my dad who was so focused.
And again, let me just remind you, my dad was an obstetrician
gynecologist. He loved women.
He loved pretty women. And so I think part of it was
(11:03):
also to keep my dad's attention,right?
And but I just, I really got so good at, at restricting my food
that I would carry like a bottleof balsamic vinegar with me to a
restaurant. I would, I just like so
restrictive and I lost a lot of weight.
(11:26):
And but nobody really, again, I look back and I think nobody
said anything to me like, like, what is going on here?
Or you're really getting thin? And then I also lost my period,
which is something that happens right when you lose a lot of
weight. And, you know, I was at that
point anorexic. And again, my dad just said, oh,
(11:49):
I just think that it's, you know, something going on in your
body. And I had to do all these tests.
And again, it was this secret. And I didn't even really know.
I, I had an eating disorder. I didn't know.
You used an interesting word. It was this secret.
Was it a secret within your family because your father, as a
doctor did not potentially maybewant to deal?
(12:11):
I think it was, but it was also.Or even your mother not.
I think it was denial, denial and it, but it was my secret
because I also didn't want anybody messing with what I was
doing. I didn't want anybody telling me
I should eat this or I should eat that.
That's, that's a very, you hear that theme when you speak with
(12:31):
anyone who's dealt with or is dealing with anorexia or bulimia
or any kind of controlling eating pattern.
Yes. But I, I was, I was diving into
like a really dark place also. And what I started doing is
journaling. And I started journaling because
I decided that I want to be, I wanted to be a journalist and I
(12:54):
also was interested in fashion. So I would literally study 17
magazine, Mademoiselle magazine,Glamour magazine.
And I would study them because Ithought that I wanted to work
for fashion magazine and write and be a stylist.
And so I thought that if I started writing every single day
and again, I'm, I could be a very disciplined person that it
(13:16):
would help me do that. But it turned out that my
journaling was in a way kind of saved me because it became this
place that I could put down all these feelings of being lonely,
sad, depressed, super anxious, beyond anxious, feeling like I
couldn't do things. I was procrastinating.
(13:37):
I hated myself. I read back on my journals and
talking about how disgusting I was, how fat I was, how I hated
myself so much. And so I again, I but I looked
good. It looked good and.
It's interesting that dichotomy that develops that duality of
(14:03):
it's a, a form of a self loathing in a way, with this
incredible desire to control andhave this image that we think is
going to be more loved than how you know someone is feeling.
You know, it's that external gratification that we're hoping
(14:25):
we get or someone gets. It's it's.
It's complex. It's very complex.
And I, my parents at one point had decided that I should go to
because I was interested in theater and dance, right?
This camp, an arts camp, which is called Interlochen Music
Camp, up in northern Michigan. And when I went there, I finally
(14:49):
felt like I found like my peopleand fit in because where I grew
up, I call it like Friday Night Lights, right?
It was literally about football and sports and academics weren't
that, I mean, they were important, but it wasn't a
focus. But I just again, was trying to
find my place and where I fit in.
(15:10):
But when I went there, I also realized that that was super
competitive. But and, and I would with my
friends, we would talk about food.
We would go on these little binges, you know, the teenagers
do where they eat like junk foodand things like that.
But for me, it became a bigger situation than that where again,
I would literally, I have, I have notebooks where I would
(15:32):
write down every single calorie I ate all day long.
And I was in their dance program.
And literally like, like how little could I get by with
eating? But I call it a secret too.
I don't know, maybe secret denial, whatever.
But I in some ways I feel like Ialmost wanted somebody to know
how bad it was. I.
(15:54):
It was a crime for help. In some ways for help it was.
I think it's a way of saying I'moverwhelmed.
I can't handle this anymore. I'm not getting the attention I
need. You know, I think what I have
observed with people who've had severe eating disorders at some
in some way, they're the person who's trying to balance out a
family dynamic and they're feeling the weight on their
(16:17):
shoulders of, you know, craziness is happening over
here. Craziness is happening with the,
you know, my brother or sister or, or they have a brother or
sister that's disabled in some way or their parents have, you
know, something that's just not functioning.
I mean, there's all kinds of dynamics within a family.
But somehow that child that whether it's a boy or a girl
(16:40):
somewhere in those early teen years, says I have to almost
make myself invisible and make myself so perfect and make
myself be the the balance because God, I can't disrupt
anything. But within that is this painful
(17:01):
cry. Like, can't you notice that I'm
falling apart too? Is what I hear people say over
and over again when I talk to them about this.
Well, that's a perfect explanation.
Or a perfect description of of what it was like because my
parents marriage was falling apart and.
That doesn't surprise me becauseit's, it's, it's a common and
(17:24):
even if it doesn't completely fall apart, it's often some kind
of catalyst. There's some tension going on
there, right, that a child is picking up.
On yes, yes, and, and things were all kinds of craziness in
my family. But if I could focus on food and
calories and how I looked, I didnot have to think about all
those feelings. Because you could be in control
(17:44):
of something when you feel out of control of everything.
Yes, yes. And and somehow I always knew,
like even back then I thought myjournals like I thought I'm
going to use this to write a book one day.
I'm going to get better. Like I knew somehow I was going
to get through this. I had no idea how.
And I, I, I set my sights on going out east to college and I
(18:07):
wanted to get out of Ohio and get away from my family.
And I was determined to go to Syracuse, which I, I did go
there. And but again, because and
people will even say this to me now because I always look like I
had it so together, nobody knew that I was really having a hard
(18:31):
time and I. You know, one of my favorite
expressions is I have quite a few friends have gone through a
A and I bought, ended up buying all the a a literature and one
of which applies for eating disorders or any kind of, you
know, obsessive behavior. And one of my favorite lines is
don't compare your insides to other people's outsides because
(18:54):
most people I know who have had challenges, whether it's drugs
or alcohol, until it gets, you know, goes into that area of
real severity. You would look at them and say,
wow, they really have it all together.
You know, they, you know, everything's going great in
their life and they become almost the comparison.
So there's a status with maintaining it, which makes the
(19:18):
whole cycle somewhat insidious. Yes, yes, well, and also my
website is called Don't Trust the Mirror, right, Because what
you said before, which is, you know, your insides don't match
your outsides because what you see in the mirror is just a
projection so often of how you are feeling on the inside.
So how do you get them to match up a little bit too, right?
(19:41):
But I when I went to Syracuse again, kind of a fish out of
water here I am from Ohio and this is a sort of a funny story
where I go the first day and it's almost like I thought
people would have name tags on and be introducing themselves,
right? I carry, I'm very naive that
way. And I went to the bathroom and I
(20:02):
said to her, she was, I guess a couple years older than me.
And I said, people don't seem tobe all that friendly here.
And she said basically like, honey, you're not in Kansas
anymore. This is New York.
Like you better really toughen up here.
So and I'll never forget that. And so so I made my way, but but
it was really hard and, and it was around and I joined a
(20:26):
sorority. And so, you know, I found like a
group of people and but things in my family were getting worse.
And, and I'll just share anotherfunny story that when I went
away, I had my own room in our house growing up and my two
sisters shared a room. And when I left for college, my
(20:47):
younger sister got my room, which I still kind of torture my
mother. And I'll say like, see, like I
lost my room when I went to college.
I lost the family when I went tocollege.
And, and, and many, many years later, my younger sister said to
me, she's like, I really never even wanted your room.
She's like, I really like sharing your room with Suzanne,
(21:09):
who is my other sister. She's like, but I had to take
it. But I really felt like I was
losing everything. And as I was away at school, my
family was deteriorating. So when I went back home after
my first year in college, my family had was not the same
family. And what happened is is I you
(21:31):
can only well. So now you're about 23 and you
said this eating disorder. Went well.
I was still like. 20. Yeah, I was.
Still about 30. Right.
So what happened is I couldn't, I couldn't keep starving myself.
And so I was home for a summer and things were bad in my family
and I started binging. Well, I didn't start throwing up
(21:55):
yet, but I just started binging.But then I got terrified because
then I started gaining weight and I will never forget.
And I talk about this episode inmy podcast, which is that my mom
was sitting at a desk. My other, my younger, one of my
younger sisters was there with me and my mom got a call from my
dad and he he would like jerk around back and forth, back and
(22:19):
forth. My mother just really just
wanted to be back with my dad and my dad was with somebody
else. So he invited her out for
dinner. And I was like, don't go, don't
go, don't go. And she was like, yes, I'll go
out for dinner with you. And I was like, I was so angry.
And then my sister turned to me and she said to me, So what are
you making for dinner? And I was like, I don't know,
(22:40):
can I swear on this podcast? I was like, like, no effing way.
Are you kidding me? Like, how is this my
responsibility that I now have to deal with this?
And I don't even know where I got this idea, Diane, but I
ended up going into the pantry eating and I was like, you know
what, I'm just getting rid of all my food.
(23:00):
And I went in the bathroom and Istuck my finger down my throat
for the first time and, and. And that becomes an extra
insidious cycle because you can,as the expression goes, you can
have your cake and eat it too, and then you can get rid of the.
Evidence that was like the perfect solution.
That's what most people describeit as.
Oh, it was the perfect solution.And that's a very difficult
(23:23):
mental state to deal with when you're working with a patient,
you know, and they're saying, but but why doesn't everyone do
this right? It's right.
It's that twist of. But it does catch up with you
and also. Lost teeth, digestive disorders,
you know, people who have, you know, Barrett's esophagus or
(23:45):
different, you know, throat issues, throat cancer.
I've seen it. Right, right, and.
And I've seen it in men and women.
Well, and, and I'll, you know, Fast forward is that I've had to
have veneers put on all my teethbecause my enamel on my teeth
were, was really destroyed for many years of, of, of binging
and purging. But there's also a physiological
(24:07):
effect because you get a relief like it's this like discharge,
just relief of anxiety when you throw up.
So it's the emotional piece. It's like the physical, like you
think you get rid of all your food, which you really don't.
And there's the like physiological piece too, which
(24:28):
is addictive as well in some ways to that feeling.
And then you have the further physiological piece, which is
what I worked on with clients when they were referred to me
was the further physiological 1 is your body starts to burn
calories differently. So because your metabolism so
screwed up your sugar, how your body's processing sugar has been
(24:51):
completely altered. It's releasing insulin and
adrenaline at the wrong times all around and not related to
food you're taking in that you're trying to digest because
it's like, well, some is here todigest, but rotten, not really
enough for what I just released.And it's a vicious cycle.
It's a vicious cycle. So it just got worse and worse
(25:11):
and it got really out of control.
And, and here I was again, this like picture of me that didn't
match. I was, I became president of my
sorority. I, you know, graduated college.
I then went to Dallas, TX because I, I wanted to go to New
York, right? And my dad said to me, how are
(25:33):
you going to get to New York? Like what, what are you, how are
you going to do that? And I was like, I don't know,
aren't you going to help me? He's like, I don't really think
you should go to New York. And my dad was very, I would
always go to him because I always thought he knew better,
right? I lost my sense of, of knowing
me. And so I went to Dallas, TX.
It was a time when the Dallas TVshow was really big and it was
(25:57):
like a singles community. It was like, and I knew and I
was going there on my own. But again, I was like this a
parentified child, this adult sort of like looking adult, like
really not really feeling like this little girl.
And I went there and everything fell apart.
(26:17):
It really caught up, caught up with me in that way.
And, and so I, my eating disorder got worse and worse.
I became more and more isolated.I literally would spend like
lost weekends with just like binging and purging, binging and
purging, going through the garbage can like and and also I
(26:40):
started taking laxatives. I was really, really getting
sick and. So where was your turn around?
So what happened is that I, first of all, I went to a group
at, at Southern Methodist University that I had seen and,
and it was horrible because I just learned like better tips on
how to like be a better eating disorder person.
(27:02):
But I knew that I was going to, I, I was really afraid of
somebody finding me dead on the bathroom floor.
And so I found a psychiatrist and I do not remember her name.
I do not remember her office. I do not remember anything about
her at all. But I remember what I wore.
(27:23):
I wore this Navy polka dot dresswith like puppy sleeves and
pearls, right? And she said to me, you were
sitting there looking perfect with a smile on your face and
telling me that you think you'regoing to die, you're not safe
here, and I need to call your parents.
And I said, no, no, no, no, no, you cannot call my parents.
(27:46):
And she was like, you can't stayhere anymore by yourself.
And I said, if you call my parents, you cannot tell them
that I have been binging and purging.
I said, you can tell them I'm depressed, but you cannot tell
them that I have an eating disorder.
And she was like, OK, fine. So she called my parents.
My parents were like, what? And my dad at one point said to
(28:07):
me, what are you talking about? Like, I got you this far.
Like you're pretty, you're intelligent.
You're, you know, well put together like what?
What could be the problem here? And so it turns out I went home
and and then I went into a psychward of a hospital because I
(28:27):
didn't know where to go. I couldn't go home because my
family, there was too much chaos.
I couldn't be in Dallas by myself.
So I went to Cincinnati because I couldn't be in Dayton either
because my dad was very well known.
And so I went to Cincinnati. And I remember in some ways
feeling so relieved that I was going to this hospital because
(28:50):
it felt like a safe place for me.
I remember them taking my shoelaces.
I remember them. But.
What an interesting line. You couldn't stay in Ohio.
I couldn't stay in Dayton. I mean, in Dayton, you couldn't
stay in Dayton because your dad was so well known.
Yeah, that's a, that's a pretty,you know, all bullets loaded
(29:14):
statement. Right, right, right.
Because he because it was a small community and and.
A lot of images keep up. Exactly.
Exactly. And the interesting thing is
that, and this is such a like a dichotomy, which is that again,
pretending. So I, they took me to the
(29:37):
hospital on Yom Kippur and we went to services as a family
that day. Can you imagine like, going to
services, greeting people, seeing people I knew growing up,
knowing I'm going to the hospital after this?
No, I can't. Imagine and and nobody's like
saying anything either, so. It's almost like the irony, the
(30:01):
hot, the, the high holiday whereeveryone's fasting, right?
I mean, it's like very. Exactly, exactly that's.
Pretty intense. Yeah, yeah.
And so they took me there and, and dropped me off.
And I remember obviously having a second like, you know,
thinking about it again and feeling like maybe I shouldn't
(30:21):
be here, but I should. And I ended up staying in the
hospital for six weeks. And again, I went to the
hospital. They thought I was depressed.
It was still a secret. My eating disorder was still a
secret. But it couldn't have stayed a
secret that long because either 1 you stopped it, or two, they
(30:43):
would have noticed. Nobody noticed for six weeks
that you were eating and throwing up what you ate.
Well, in the hospital I started starving again.
And nobody noticed that. No, six weeks.
Pretty much. And, and at one point they had a
a stationary bike in a in a exercise room.
And I would spend hours, I wouldspend hours riding and I would
(31:04):
spend hours on this exercise bike.
And that was allowed. Yes, this is before eating
disorder programs. Before anything like that.
And at one point I said to my I was going home for a pass.
And I said to my psychiatrist, I'm really afraid to go home
because I'm afraid I'm going to throw up.
And he said just keep your fingers out of your mouth.
(31:24):
And I was like, what, What did you just say to me?
Keep my fingers out of my mouth like.
Well, it's good advice, but it'sa little.
Harsh. Like yes, yes, yes.
Like like it's to the point. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
If it could be that easy, yes, that would be great.
That would be great. So yeah, that would be great.
(31:46):
So where was your turn around? So my turn around was really, I
spent a year in Ohio. I went to a therapist in after I
got out of the hospital in Dayton.
And she's like, I don't know that much about eating
disorders, but I'll help you if I can.
And finally I did have to tell my parents that I had an eating
disorder and I turned out then Iended up going to getting to New
(32:07):
York because that was my goal still to get to New York.
And I went to paralegal school in Philadelphia and I got myself
to New York and I was reading Glamour magazine still, right.
And I saw and I would look in bookstores for books on eating
disorders. I would there was a book, I
think Cherry O'Neill Pat Boone'sor daughter or something had a,
(32:28):
had a book out, but very few things on, on eating disorders.
And I was reading Glamour magazine and there was an
article in there on eating disorders and it talked about
the center in New York, the Center for anorexia and bulimia.
And the woman's name in the, in the book was the magazine was
Ellen Short and it talked about you could get help there.
(32:50):
And so I called and a woman called me back and she, I set up
an appointment with her and I almost want to cry because I
started seeing her and she savedmy life.
And her name was Ellen Agri Chandler.
And I would go, she lived in, I'd go to her office, she had it
(33:11):
in the, I think around 16th St. and 5th Ave.
And I would see her like two or three times a week.
And, and she taught like somebody asked me recently,
like, how did she help me? How did she help me?
And I think she just tolerated all my messiness, like all this
(33:32):
messiness inside of me, she tolerated it.
And and I think just by talking with her and talking about my
feelings, I started. I mean, I was still really bad.
I tried all kinds of medication.I don't know how she even
tolerated all like how she must have really worried about me a
(33:54):
lot. I was in a couple of abusive
relationships at the time. And so I feel like little by
little, I started kind of figuring out what I wanted to do
with my life. I was really unhappy as a
paralegal. I always wanted to go to social
work, school and and so I feel like my symptoms just started
(34:15):
decreasing a little bit. And I'll never forget, she said
to me at one point, she said as my symptoms started getting less
and less and it was hard and it was like 2 steps forward, one
step back. She said to me now the therapy
can begin because we were managing my symptoms really for
so long. Yeah, it's very, it's very
(34:37):
difficult to deal with someone that is physically, I mean to
address a mental or psychological issue when someone
is physically unstable, yes. You know, it's like another a, a
thing they say, you know, don't talk to anybody for 24 hours to
48 hours after they've been on abinge, right, right.
Because you are not dealing withsomeone who's mentally no
(34:59):
balanced in any way. Everything in their body from
sugar, you know, to everything right is off.
So it's very comparable. Yeah, yeah.
So she really just listened to me and she really just helped me
figure out what I wanted to do to help me feel better about
myself. And, and at that time, I had met
(35:25):
my husband at the time and he also encouraged me to go to
social work school. And, and I knew that I wanted to
be a therapist. I wanted to help people with
eating disorders, but I also knew if I was going to go to
social work school, I had to, I had to be well enough to go
because otherwise it was going to, I was going to fail.
I wasn't going to be able to concentrate.
(35:46):
I wasn't going to be able to getthrough school.
So I knew. So that was something that I
really wanted for myself. So I really worked hard and it
was hard to sort of, you know, deal with the urges I had to
binge to deal with the urges I had to throw up, to restrict.
(36:06):
And, and little by little, my symptoms got less and less.
But the work was real and continues to be hard
emotionally. So at some point you went into
private practice, and my guess would be that you recognized
your own voice and the importance of sharing your voice
(36:31):
because that's an underlying factor in so much with eating
disorders. What do you have to say to that?
Yes and yes. Is that I think with an eating
disorder or, or my eating disorder or many people I see
with eating disorders, it takes away your voice.
You're afraid to speak up. So that's you use your symptoms
(36:53):
as a way of expressing yourself rather than using your voice.
And so I did go into private practice and I really felt
passionate about helping others with an eating disorder, with
their eating disorder or disordered eating.
And I always say that I had my own journey and my eating
disorder, but everybody's journey is different.
(37:16):
But I would hope that even through my podcast, through
speaking here, that people can identify with certain things
that I'm saying and it can offerthem hope.
And I, in developing my podcast,I really felt like I wanted to
get out of my office because I can only see so many people in a
(37:36):
week, right? And I really wanted to reach a
wider audience because I feel passionately about helping
people, about giving people hope, about helping them find
their voice, feeling better about themselves.
So I decided and I, and like just to go back a bit to my
journals, right? As I had all these journals and
(37:58):
I was like, what am I going to do with all these journals?
And so I I incorporated them into my podcast, which is I
started with telling a bit of mystory and then reading some
journal entries and then talkingabout as a therapist, what I
would have wanted my younger self to know.
Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah, and really being able to
(38:21):
kind of go back to that young girl and what she was struggling
with and how hard it was and being able to talk to her and
what. Would you want a younger person
to know a younger you? Any person, male, female, that's
dealing with any kind of struggles they're having with
(38:43):
food, whether it's they're restricting it, counting every
calorie, throwing up what they eat over exercising, what would
you, what would you say to them?What would you give them as a
ray of hope or a direction that they could go towards?
(39:03):
I would say that there is help, that there is hope and there's
help. And because when you you
struggle like that, you are in your own personal hell and
prison with it. And that there is a way out.
And by by finding your voice, byfinding support, by developing a
(39:23):
village of people who love and care about you and who are
positive that you can find another way.
And that's really what what I have done is, is, is been able
to. I always knew that I was going
to get better. I just didn't know how and I
didn't know the trajectory of mylife and exactly how that would
(39:44):
turn out. And and, and I also, you know,
people ask me about recovery andI think that's a very, you know,
it's not like drugs or alcohol where you just you don't use
them anymore. You have to eat.
And so you really have to develop a whole different
relationship with food and with yourself and your body and be
(40:05):
able to accept yourself and also, you know, when working
with people who want to be at a certain weight, right.
And I'll say to them. Do you want to live your life
like you can be at that certain weight, but your life is going
to be really, really limited anddo you want to enjoy food?
Do you want to enjoy going out and being social?
Then how do you accept your bodyat a place where it really wants
(40:29):
to be and learn to love yourselfand, and not just focus on the
outside, but really focus on theinside and really being able to
take care of yourself? The other thing that that the
reason I was so afraid to tell people is because I was afraid
(40:49):
that people would take away my eating disorder.
I would. I was afraid like that
psychiatrist. Yeah, it's an identity.
And I was afraid. Well, you're going to tell me to
stop, but I can't. I can't.
And until you develop other coping skills and other ways to
deal, like speaking up, talking about your feelings, whether
(41:11):
it's through journaling, meditation, movement, whatever
it is, and being able to expressyourself and deal with really
dark places, you can't just giveup your eating disorder.
Well, I often say to people whenI'm advising them on, on all
kinds of things, is who would you be if you gave up the story?
(41:33):
Because we're all storytellers and we get caught up in a story
and that story becomes our identity, whatever it is.
You know, I'm a cheerleader, I'ma football player, I'm an
athlete, or I'm, you know, I'm an anorexic or I'm a bulimic.
Whatever the story is, we build a life around that in one way or
another and identify with it. So I think it's always an
(41:54):
important question and it's an abrupt question, but who would
people be if they gave up that story?
That's a good question. Yeah.
And who would people be? I feel like at this point in my
life, doing this has given me really a, a platform to speak
out about. It's an intersection of my
(42:15):
personal and professional life and something I feel like I said
very passionately about in termsof really being able to get a
message of hope to people. And also, I feel like I've
gotten back to who I was, that little girl, because that little
girl that was creative that, youknow, had such an imagination.
(42:40):
I'm really channeling it in a different way to continue to
heal myself and to be able to help others with that through
writing through my podcast. I'm working on a book right now
and I felt like I, I wanted to put my story into a book and be
able to share it with people that way too, and also use my
journalism background and come full circle with that and, and
(43:06):
really bring it all together. I I'm just curious how is it for
you to relive this story? That's a good question.
I don't know if it kind of makesme teary.
I I feel really sad for that little girl.
Yeah. I really sad it's I feel like
(43:30):
I've been through a lot and I also feel like it's been
important to to look at the people who are in my life and
feel like I need to be with people who actually see me, not
just what I look like, right, because I can get a lot of.
Attention inside because she's got a lot of heart.
Yes, yes, but who I am from the heart as well.
(43:52):
And, and it's, it feels like it's, you know, my eating
disorder is still a part of me in some ways.
And we were talking a little bitoff off Mike off camera, just in
terms of my life has changed where I've I've left a marriage
(44:14):
after a long time and I like relearning what it's like to be
with myself again. My, my own little room that I
had is now an apartment. So now I have my own room in an
apartment, but I'm having to learn how to feed myself again,
how to cook, how to do things that when I was married, it was
all taken care of for me. So it's, it's like I continue
(44:37):
to, to have my conversations with that little girl and be
able to give her the empathy andthe compassion for what she went
through. And also be able to see the
courage and the determination I've had and be able to offer
that to other people that you, you know, people are brave and
courageous to really seek help to, to really work hard on
(45:03):
themselves. It really is quite the journey,
quite the journey it is, and it's quite the journey to guide
other people through because we each have to find our own
answers, wherever those answers are and wherever they'll lead
us. And hopefully people seek them
(45:23):
before they have something very seriously adverse happened to
them. Right before it's too late.
Yeah. What would you encourage
somebody to do today who's listening to this?
I would say to find somebody to talk to, to find a support
system, even if it's one person that, that you can speak to, to
(45:48):
talk to, to share your truth. Not to feel like you have to be
somebody or somebody's expectingyou, but to really look and
listen to your heart in terms ofwhat you really need.
And, and to sit quietly also. And I will also, I will also
share this, which is, and I, I continuously tell myself this is
(46:12):
that our thoughts and feelings always change.
As bad as it feels at that moment, it will shift and it
will change. That's a really good point.
I'm constantly reminding people don't act in the moment because
your thoughts are like the tides.
They go in, they come out, they go in, they come out.
Yes. Yes, well, this was a
fascinating conversation and I hate to see it and everyone I
(46:35):
have been speaking with Maureen Kritzer Lang, She has a great
podcast. All the information's going to
be below. Highly recommend you pay
attention to what she's saying. She she has a lot of heart.
This episode will be found on every major channel.
Again, it was recorded in the great Manhattan Center, but all
(46:58):
of Maureen's info is in the in the links below this.
So please feel free to share this, tell your friends,
subscribe. And again, Maureen, thank you
very much. Thank you, Diane.
It was a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Truly mine. Thanks everybody.
Hit subscribe and share.
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