October 16, 2021 • 42 mins
This is a conversation that lives in Ep. 2 of the "OG" 4-part OUTWEIGH series from 2020 on the '4 Things With Amy Brown' podcast. If you haven't listened to all 4 parts...we highly encourage you to check it out. Doing that 4-part series introduced us to licensed therapist, @Kat.Deffata, and for that we are forever grateful. Hope you enjoy revisiting (or hearing for the first time) the day Lisa & Amy met Kat...they unpacked a lot that day (especially regarding Amy's ED story) that could be helpful to you! Kat's wisdom in this field is priceless & we appreciate her willingness to share some of her ED story with us as well.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't let my body out be outwell everything that
I'm made dope, won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know who every part of me.
It's beautiful and now will always out way if you
(00:24):
feel it with yours in the air, She'll love to
the poop there. Let's say good day and did you
and die out? Happy Saturday. Outweigh fam Amy here and
I got a little treat for you today and it
is our o G interview with Cat Defata from Outweigh
(00:44):
before Outweigh was even its own podcast. So Lisa is
on maternity leave and I was thinking the other day
how Cat is such a big part of our lives
now and Lisa too for that matter, and kind of
just cool how things work out and you meet people
because I met Lisa on Instagram because she had her
program Fork the Noise, which was a instrumental piece to
(01:06):
my recovery puzzle. I had struggled with eating disorders and
disordered eating patterns and habits since I was a teenager,
and Lisa was a big, big reason why I finally
had some lightbulbs go off because I was so in
deep with a lot of disordered behaviors that I actually
(01:27):
thought they were healthy. I didn't realize they were disordered.
And again the lightbulb kind of went off when I
was doing some of Lisa's fork the Noise Curriculum, and
it all started to make sense and I had to
unlearn a lot and rewire my brain. I had already
been in the process of that after reading the book
Brain over Binge, because ben Jing was one of my behaviors.
(01:51):
But Lisa really helped me, and from that I thought
I had this idea for the Outwegh podcast, and then
we knew we were going to do a four part
series that would live on my fourth Things podcast, Four
Things with Amy Brown, and that's it. It was gonna
be a four part series, four Saturdays. We'd release an
episode for like the month, and we'd be good to
go call it a day. Well, it ended up going
(02:11):
so well that we were like, Okay, this is so cool.
Outweigh can be its own podcast and it's a passion
of ours, Like it's not something we were like, oh,
this is something where we can have a podcast and
make money off of it and different things. No, like
if we never made a dime from Outweigh, It would
be amazing because we were able to share so much
(02:32):
of our stories and get other people on, so that
you out there, if you happen to be dealing with
any of this on any given day, you can pull
up a podcast and know that you're not alone. And
I've been able to do that with other podcasts that
don't have anything to do with eating disorders. Sometimes I
don't even know how you found that way. Are you
an original listener? Were you searching up eating disorders and
our recovery or disordered eating and an outweigh came up
(02:55):
as an option, And if so, welcome, And I hope
that this is a good resource, a good tool for
you to have in your back pocket if you happen
to be going through some things as you're navigating towards
recovery or you're trying to stay in recovery or whatever
that looks like for you. With other things I've had
in life that don't have anything to do with this,
I've searched up podcasts and found some amazing help that way.
(03:17):
And I don't even know who these podcasters are. Sometimes
the guests that they're having on but what they had
to say met me where I was at that moment,
and it was exactly what I needed. And suddenly I
knew it wasn't so isolating. I wasn't alone. So I
want you to know that's why we started out Wigh,
And in the beginning, we didn't know Cat Defata, And
(03:38):
now she's a big part of that WAG. She has
her own podcast on our network called You Need Therapy.
She now co hosts the fifth thing of my podcast
with me called the Amy and Cat Chat. So she's
a big part of our podcasting world now. And we
wouldn't have met her if Lisa and I hadn't decided
to do Outweigh, And it's so cool that got to
(04:00):
meet her. Because of that. Lisa flew to Nashville from
New York to record for two days straight and we
booked a lot of interviews and had all kinds of
things ready to go so that we could just knock
it all out in two days and then get everything
edited and loaded up and put it up on the
podcast for an April release. And so it was March,
right before COVID we were recording all this. We had
(04:21):
no idea that COVID was even coming and was going
to rock our world and change our lives wherever. But
we were at the Bobby Bones Show studio recording and
Cat happens to have an office nearby, and she had
emailed us saying that she would love to come on
as an expert since she's a licensed therapist that specializes
and eating disorders. And she walked on over to the
studios and she recorded with us, and it was so cool,
(04:43):
and I remember thinking like, Oh, I just love the
way this girl puts stuff and she makes it easy
to understand and she's not intimidating at all, but she's
so smart. And she too has had an eating disorder
as well, and then now she's trying to help people
through it by specializing in it and working with her
clients on it, and then yeah, making it a main
feature of her podcast. And she's just awesome. So I thought,
(05:06):
what a cool thing to do, maybe because we might
have new listeners have never heard the O G Outweigh episodes,
Let's play Cat's original interview with Lisa and myself. So
that's what we're gonna do right now, the O G
Cat Defata interview that we did, and in case you
are new. I just want to say the reason why
(05:27):
this podcast is called Outweigh is because a life without
disordered eating outweighs everything. And I hope if you're not
to a place where you truly believe that that one
day you will get there, because it is so true,
a life without disordered eating outweighs everything. And for so long,
for so many years of my life, I prioritized food
(05:47):
and obsessing over food and exercise and avoiding social gatherings
because of food. I was prioritizing everything else, and my
relationship suffered, and memories that I have I suffered my
anxiety around food. I mean, I was definitely suffering. So
just know that you're not alone, and that once you
(06:08):
can get to a point of truly believing that a
life without all this junk will outweigh everything, it'll be awesome.
And there is hope because if I can do it,
Lisa can do it, Cat can do it. I don't
want to be cliche and say, well, then you can
do it, because it's not easy and it will take
hard work, but you can rewire your brain and you
can get there, and my hope is that you do. So.
(06:31):
Right now, we're going to play Cat's interview. Here you
go enjoy. So we've got Katherine de Fata in the
studio with us, So you're a guest that's actually here
in person. A lot of our interviews have been over
the phone just because of where people are in the country,
but you're right here in Nashville with us, which is
super cool. And you're a therapist here in town. But
you specialize in eating disorders, and so I talked about
(06:55):
it on the podcast and you listen to Four Things
with Amy Brown, and you sent me a note and
said that if you could be a part of it,
just like you know, and we started emailing back and forth,
and I was like, yes, can you come to the
studio and and let's record some stuff. So just before
we hit record, we were having an off air conversation
about eating disorder being an addiction and when I'm trying
(07:18):
to talk to my husband about it, or when I
was eating a lot and I just felt like I
couldn't stop, and he didn't understand. I would say, and
I don't know if I was right and how I
was saying it at all, but to me it felt
like I was like, I don't know, It's like an
alcoholic can't stop drinking. I was like, but you can
take alcohol out of your life and survive, Like with food,
I can't eliminate food from my life because you need
(07:40):
food to survive. I just remember that being like some
language out thrown out. I'm sure I heard it somewhere,
but that's I mean, that's comparing alcoholism is seen as
as an addiction. So one of the things that you
asked me was what's difference between self work and therapy
with an actual therapist? And I thought about it, and
I actually like, I had a different answer, and then
I was like, that's not right. The difference is the relationship,
(08:03):
and the relationship between a therapist and a client is
like the number one predictor of if it's going to
be successful, Like if you hate your therapist, you probably
won't get a lot done. So that goes into just
attachment theory and what that means. And do you guys
know what that is. No. Attachment theory comes from this guy.
His name is John Bowlby, and he was doing research
(08:24):
in orphanages and he was noticing that like these babies
that were getting everything that they needed like shelter, food, water,
they were dying or they're getting really really sick, but
there's no reason for it except they weren't being touched,
so there's no touch at all, which is crazy. And
what he came up was that a relationship is necessary
(08:44):
to survive. He did a lot of research and there's
a lot of stuff that I won't go into because
it might be a little bit boring, but he came
up with these three attachment styles, secure, anxious, avoidant, And
we get those attachment styles based on the relationships we
usually have with our primary caregiver. So if I have
a really great, loving environment and all my needs are
met all the time, I'm going to have a secure attachment.
(09:06):
But and that's the majority of people, But also I
see it on a spectrum to the majority of people
do have a sect relationship. Yeah, that's what they say
in the research, but also doing air quotes and they
can't see that's what they say. However, I think really
people are on a spectrum with this. So and then
anxious attachment would be when sometimes your needs are being met,
(09:26):
sometimes they're not, and so you don't know whether to
trust or not to trust. And then avoidant is when
your needs aren't really being met, and so you kind
of developed this idea of like I gotta go do
everything on my own, Like I gotta go figure everything
on my own. Okay, I'm gonna interject just a second,
because I do have two adopted children from Haiti, and
some people may know that, some people may not depending
(09:46):
on what they've listened to. And I had not heard
and described as attachment theory, but I know that my
kids and I've witnessed it. They have attachment disorder, yes, okay,
and the lack of stimulation that my son had, I
now see how it comes out in certain times, like
how he responds and reacts, and then even my daughter,
(10:07):
this is just is this even the same thing? Okay?
So I'm just making sure on the same page because
I also want to be aware of, like now that
i'm their primary caregiver, that I'm focused on whatever they're
going to need from me. But there's already walls built,
there's already My daughter came here at ten, she's twelve now,
but day one from her arrival was resistance. I can
(10:31):
handle this on my own. I don't need you should
basically give us the heisman anytime. I mean, it's been
two years of breaking it down and we're finally getting there,
but they're still testing, like I don't really trust you.
Are you going to really love me? What about if
I do this, You're still gonna love me? What if
I Okay, I'm gonna try this out. And so my
(10:52):
husband and I just have to remain consistent and so Yes,
at first when you talked about attachment theory, was like, no,
I don't know what you're talking about them, Like, way
does I get I do know this, but I'm also
trying to think of my childhood and how it was
with my So think about this. You've talked about your
own like issues with food and disordered eating, all that
(11:12):
I have that to think about as I explain this
kind of where your story pops up. Also, this is
going to be helpful because you're probably doing the things
you need to do with your children without even knowing
that you're doing them, just because you're a good caring person,
So you can develop a certain attachment style. Good news
is it's not static. It's fluid. So going back to
just describing this and how it relates to what we
(11:34):
were talking about in the beginning, is people develop these
attachments and they're all based on feeling like loved, like
you belong and so I have developed my own theory
that we all are born with these two desires to
be ourselves and then to have love and belonging, and
throughout our lives the desire for love and belonging becomes
very very, very very strong, and so we drop parts
(11:56):
of ourselves or pick parts of ourselves or pick things
up that aren't really parts of ourselves to get that
love and belonging. And so that's when the addiction comes in.
I'll use an example from my life to explain this.
So I never felt like I like really really really
fit into or had like a thing, or we're special
(12:16):
in certain parts of my friend groups, in certain areas
in my family, and so I started to do things
to get me attention. I attributed that attention to love, right,
I always say, like, any attention is good attention. So,
going back to what you said, what's the difference between
therapy and self work is a therapist is what we
call a secure base, which helps somebody develop a secure
(12:39):
attachment style. Because somebody's going to come into my office
probably not knowing that they have any of this or
any kind of drama I'm going to be that person.
Like you're explaining with your daughter, what if I do this,
you still love me? What if I yell at you?
Can I still come back? What if I miss a session?
What if I tell you that you're wrong? What if
I disagree with you? Um? What if I act out?
What if I really laps in what you told me
(13:01):
not to do? Are you still going to let me
come back in? And the answer is always yes, yes, yes,
with safe boundaries, and it helps them learn that like, hey,
I don't have to be a certain way. I can
show up as I am and like I can find love.
So when you say you were doing things to get attention,
what were those things? So it depends on which part
of my life. Well, let's go ahead and talk about
(13:21):
the eaty So in college, Yeah, it's easy for me
to talk about this. Now, I didn't know that this
was happening, no clue, which most people don't. But I
started with a diet, counting calories. And again in my family,
all my siblings went and played dan one sports and
I just went to college. And so I felt like
I was missing something because didn't have anything that my
(13:42):
parents would really brag that much about no fault to them,
my parents are great. And so I went on this diet,
started losing all this weight. I was getting tons of attention,
like tons, you look so good this this whatever. Guys
like started talking to me more. And so I attribute
that to that of like, Okay, now I fit and
now I belong belonging as love, I'm good, And then
(14:03):
I became a shell of a human. Tap into that
a little bit more. What were you feeling at that time?
Like what I mean, first, you're on the high. What
does it mean to be a shell, because you're certainly
not a shell today with the vibrants and your radiant ye.
So just so that people, because really we're doing this
so people don't feel alone. And I feel like with
each person that's sharing part of their real story, which
(14:25):
you just did, somebody's relating and they're like, wait, tell
me more. I would say. People would always describe me
as like loud and bubbly and like fun. I'm a
seven on the Instagram, so that which I didn't know
what the Instagram was back then. So that's how I
always was. So when I started restricting my food, I
ended up restricting every single part of my life because
(14:47):
I couldn't go to that party because what if I
drank alcohol and their scalaris and alcohol, and then what
if I got drunk and then I wanted to eat
something that I ate something I shouldn't eat that crippled me.
Or I can't go to that that restaurant because I
can't eat anything there. Then people are going to ask
me like, why aren't you eating and I I don't have
to come up with some excuse. Or I can't go
to that thing at night because I have to get
up and work out at six am and I need
(15:09):
my energy. And so I started cutting things out of
my life. I remember the start of my junior year
of college. That summer junior to senior year, I like
never left my parents house when I came home, and
I never saw any of my friends from high school,
which we were always very close. I remember I did
one thing. I went to my best friend from high
school's birthday party and then started at her house and
(15:31):
they all went out. I think it might have been
her twenty first birthday, and I went home after her
house that everybody else went out, and I went home
because I was like, I can't do that. So the
thing that got me all this attention, and all of
a sudden, then I was like, what's the point of
the attention because I'm not letting myself engage with anybody.
And then I came back that next year, my senior year,
and I didn't do anything. I didn't I was in authority.
(15:52):
I like would skip some of our date parties or
I would go I remember one time I also was
really into school. I like I went to a party.
It was a swaps which one that you would like
dress up like and where a costume, And I like
loved doing that, and I like took my note cards
to the bar and like study for my test. You
just like withdrew and lost interest in all the things
that you love to do. My friends did not love that.
(16:15):
So that's a part where that's just part of your
story of what you did to get attention to feel belonging.
But then you realize, like it's kind of like it
goes up, up up, and it's like this is where
I'm getting belonging love, And then all of a sudden,
you just it's like we just I think it happened
all of us, and you crash and burn because you
realize you have nothing around you and what is this for?
So then what do you do well? And I love
(16:36):
looking back at this because I don't know you'all's experiences,
but from my experience, I had no clue that I
was struggling, so like, not a clue. I thought I
was like on top of the world, like this actually
makes me want to cry. But my senior year, I
thought that I was killing it, like I had gotten
into all these graduate programs. I was like, gonna go
do all these things. And looking back, like another thing
(17:00):
I did that I have so much grief over it
is I skipped my last date party ever to come
back to Nashville and run the half marathon. I can
run that marathon whenever I want. I can never go
back and have my last party with my best friends.
I did not know that. I still was like, yeah,
I'd rather go run this marathon. This is my lifestyle.
I'm healthy. I don't like to drink, almost like this
(17:20):
grandiose sense of self healthy so us yea, And I
probably I was a brat, yes, like because yeah, because
I wouldn't judge what people are eating. You're going to
eat that? And I'm like, in my head, I wish
I could eat that, Like I wish I could eat that,
but I have eating distor. As we talk a lot
(17:42):
about how you have so much control, I had no control,
right well, it was like not like I could eat that,
Like wow, look at me, I have so much willpower
for not eating. But I don't really think I did
have willpower. Because I had willpower, I would eat a doughnut.
But that's what people would say to me. I'm like,
I wish I could be like Catherine, and like, you
don't want to be like me. Yeah, I know, because
they don't really know the struggle. That's why it's important,
(18:02):
and we'll reiterate it now since it's kind of coming up.
That's why it's important. You never know what's going on
inside someone's body. You might think it's all they've got
it all figured out and their life is together, and
then you can reinforce their behavior by complimenting something about
their body, and then that keeps them on that hamster
wheel and really you have no idea you contributed to
the problem just by giving the compliment. We've been trying
(18:23):
to just get it into people and even myself over
and over, to stop complimenting on people's bodies. There's so
many other things that we could probably compliment that like
do that's not necessary. It's kind of story quick. So
this is why I started to look at before I
really got into being like a eating disorder therapist. This
is like, I have a shame about this now, but
(18:44):
again I'm trying to not have that. I went to
grad school, I went to Vanderbilt in Nashville, and thinking
I was going to be eating disorder therapists, and guess
what I wanted to specialize in. I wanted to work
with specifically binge eating disorder and help them lose weight,
which is not how you do. It's not okay. I
could understand, not understand, not understanding. Yes, now I'm like,
oh my gosh, maybe explain why though that that wouldn't
(19:06):
be Yeah, that may not hand it. Yeah, because I
know more of that because I've been doing I've been
working alongside people, like he said, where y'all understand why
that would be bad, but someone else might not get why.
That's probably not like the best thing. So it's not
about the weight. And so with binge eating disorder, there's
something else going on, and if I help them lose weight,
(19:26):
their issues aren't going away like the reason that they're binging,
which would be the reason why any of us do
behavior that we would classify as an addiction. It's not
about the alcohol, it's not about the food, it's not
about any of that. It's about what's underneath of it.
And so yeah, it might be a side effect that
if these people do the work and I help them
through whatever it is that they're trying to work through,
(19:48):
they might lose weight. But that's not the goal because
if I just take the weight away, everything else still
And most people that are in it don't see it
as a underlying problem, like they see it as either
binge problem I can't stop when I eat, or they
see it as a weight problem I'm overweight because I eat.
Not going any deeper into why do you think that
(20:10):
there's anything to the binging and it being like in
the brain. We've touched on brain over binge, But there's
there's obviously with what you're saying with the addiction at
all coming back to attachment and love, right, So it's
like all goes back to some of that in a way.
But for me, I mean, I know that I had
issues with my dad leaving when I was younger, um,
(20:33):
but I know that I also was introduced to dieting
at an extremely young age, and I know when I
started dieting and then that led to restriction and binging.
But I didn't really realize I was binging at the
time because I didn't know really I was in high school.
Then I knew I would over eat so that I
would perge, but it wasn't all of the time. But
I knew that it was wrong, even so that I
(20:53):
went to my mom and said, I need help. I'm
throwing up and I don't know where this came from
or why, but I I need help with this. So
then she got me into therapy, and then that led
to therapy all through high school and college. But it
was always just focused on my dad having left. Nothing
ever resonated with me. And then I quit throwing up
(21:15):
for years. But what I realized in there is I
was still binging the whole time. But again I knew
that it was not right because I was like, I
just went to literally like four different fast food restaurants
in like one stop, Like that's not normal. So or
if I was on a road trip somewhere, I would
stop at like multiple gas stations and like just eat
(21:36):
the entire two hours. That was my drive from Austin
to College Station, which is where I went to Texas
a m. So I remember a lot of those road trips.
Was I ate the entire time, whether it was a
gas station sonic like, I had different stops and I
would go through and be like okay, and then next
day I would just do slim fast or something. But
it never I was still in therapy at that point,
(21:56):
and it never was getting anywhere other than somehow I
stopped the throwing up and it was gone, but I
kept the binging. And then when I read Brain over Binge,
I've been telling Lisa like, it just made sense to me.
She talks about rewiring your brain and that you just
go to a binge and you have to start denying
(22:17):
the binges. Because I started restricting at such a young age,
it trained my brain that I didn't know when I
was going to get food again, so it kept forcing
me to over eat and then I would binge. And
so I started implementing that over a year ago and
that worked for me, and that was the first thing
where it really made Since now I'm sure there's underlying
issues with what's going on, but I do want to
(22:38):
talk to you about how that worked for me. But
about five years ago, when my mom died, even though
I had not purged in twelve years, I had binged
but not purged. The day after my mom died, I
ate dinner and then I had to go throw it
up and I literally and it was not an easy thing.
It was my sister's birthday the day after my mom died,
(22:59):
and in laws decided to get a food truck, and
we have I mean otherwise, I mean there's food at
the house everywhere, but we just were not eating. But
then it was like my sister's birthday, so I felt
like I had to eat from the food truck and
I had to eat the cake. So I ate it
and then something about me literally and there were so
many people at my sister's house. I went over to
a neighbor's guesthouse and I threw up in their bathroom.
(23:21):
Like it wasn't easy for me to like make this happen.
That somehow I was desperate to get that food out
of my body and I hadn't even over eaten and
that started it again, just like that. It was back
and I probably it was a daily thing. Then it
was like every other day. Then it was like and
now sound now that you know you brought up that
(23:41):
it's eating disorders can be addictions. It sounds like an
alcoholic returning to alcohol. Yes, where all of a sudden
you need that whatever and you go and find it
and then okay, I'll just do it this one time,
and then you slowly kind of trickle back into the
same thing. Okay, but I don't even know that. I
was like, I felt like it was an out of
body experience what I was doing. I don't think I
had the rational fashion now to be like, Okay, it's
(24:02):
just gonna be this one time. I was just like,
I did it, and then I was like, what was that?
And I was so freaked out by it that just
like I went to my mom in high school, I
went to my husband almost immediately, and I'm like, here's
the deal. You've been married to me, and if I
haven't thrown up our entire marriage, so you don't know
this side of me. But now I'm terrified and it's here,
and I feel like an alcoholic that has just lost
their chip. That's exactly what I said to him, and
(24:25):
he was like, Okay, well we can do this, like
whatever you need. And I would say there's a lot
of times where after I mean, he would come home
and he'd be like, how is your day? And I
would be like, even a year after my mom died
or two years, there would still be discussions how is
your day? That's say, my day was fine except where
I threw up, you know, and I would be able.
I'm thankful for a relationship where I could be honest
(24:46):
with him about that. But I still was so perplexed
why it was happening. And now I've been over a
year without anything binges or purges, so I feel that.
But I have to share with you a revelation I
had with Lisa. But I don't even know if it
makes sense. And since you're a therapist, I'm gonna take advantage.
(25:07):
I need to pay you for the hour I told Lisa,
I said it, just did it. I went to therapy. Obviously.
I did M d R after my mom died because
it's very traumatic for me. She did not die. It
was not easy. She had cancer. I saw a lot
that I shouldn't see and laid with her in her
final breath. Me and my sister both and then it
(25:28):
is healthy or not. We probably laid with her for
about an hour after that, the corner of people were like,
we're here and to load her up, and we're like,
we're not done yet, So you know, whatever that looks
like for you, that's what we needed. But we definitely
my SI and I both saw a lot and it
was traumatic. And then you know, here I am the
(25:49):
next day throwing up the food and I'm not knowing why,
and I'm telling this to my therapist and she's like, well,
that's trauma. And the last trauma you had in your
life was when your dad left, and that was when
you're younger, eating disorder kind of started. I'm like, well,
not exactly, but I just couldn't wrap my head around
the fact that like that would just make me do it.
(26:10):
But then I had this thought because I think something
Lisa talked about or somebody talked about that like I
really felt because I was grieving, and this also could
be related to attention, since you said then and this
is just me having to get completely honest and almost
like embarrassed that, like what because it's not like it
was a very conscious thought out decision like oh, I
(26:31):
need attention, so this is what I'm gonna do. This
is almost like five years later and just having to
look back and be like, oh, yuck, was that really
what this was? Because what makes sense to me now
is that I felt like I was grieving, and if
you're grieving, you're supposed to lose weight. If you're grieving,
(26:51):
you're not supposed to have food because you're sad, and
sad people don't eat, and sad people get skinny. And
if I get skinny, I get attention, which is exactly
what happened. I mean, there was not a single person
in my life that did not comment on my body,
Like about a month after my mom died, because I
did get very thin, and I would weigh myself every
single day. I would drink juice in the morning, urge whatever.
(27:14):
I would do yoga twice a day. Also, I was
trying to keep busy to not think about my mom.
I would do wine and zan X for bed, so
would knock me out and I wouldn't think about food
and I but nobody knew this was happening to me.
But I would still come to work the next day
and someone from would be visiting from you know, another
city that hadn't seen me in awhile and be like,
oh my gosh, Amy, it looks so good. And then
(27:34):
I'd be like thank you. And then but I'd be like, yes,
I'm grieving. I'm doing a good job grieving. I'm doing
a good job grieving because I lost my mom and
I needed to recognize that I'm sad. My skinny represents
my sadness and that gives me attention. Yeah, it sounds
very twisted and messed up to say out loud, I
underveel that makes more sense to me than when the
(27:56):
therapist told me she thought like a trauma capsule open
to my head. And because that's how I dealt with
my dad leaving, that's immediately the route my my brain
was going to go to deal with losing my mom.
And I just don't know that that makes sense to me.
Thank you for share that. I think your therapist could
be right there. Part of it could be this is
the thing with therapy, and like me, there's no just
(28:19):
like one way. So that's why I mean, eating disorders
and addiction in general is hard because I can't just
say it's every time because of this, A lot of
times it's because of this, there could have been the
trauma part, but I think what you're talking about it's
probably attached to your trauma of not getting the attention
to the love and the belonging from your dad. And
(28:39):
then now this is like your mom, Like you're a
secure base, right, your person, and then she's gone, and
then like who's my person? And who's gonna recognize or
who's gonna know what I need or who's gonna All
of that comes up of like you lost your secure base?
So what do I do? You're sad? Right? Part of
it is I hear you saying like I want people
(28:59):
to my sadness. I think part of it also is
like I don't want to feel sad either, and so
what can I do to shove down all these feelings?
Because it feels good when I'm doing this. It's twisted
as it is, like it feels good to perch, it
feels good to go on a run for two hours,
it feels for a period of time it feels it
(29:22):
doesn't Yeah, yeah, until it doesn't. And at the beginning, yes,
it was like this high and this ride, and until
it got messy and it was just exhausting and it
was like I can't keep up, or if I would
try to throw up and it didn't work and I
was like, oh my gosh, I just ate all that food,
like and it's not coming up like it was. Just
tell me about like the embarrassment of like, this is
(29:44):
so messed up. I feel embarrassed that this is what
I did. I think because I could be wrong in this,
but if we're for the sake of our conversation of
viewing eating disorder as an addiction and alcoholism addiction, I
feel like, for lack of a better word, being addicted
to okaine or alcohol is a little more sexy. I
don't know it's the right word. First sake of this,
(30:05):
I'm just gonna say, binging a bunch of food and
then throwing it up for whatever the reason is is
disgusting to me. I'm never I don't look at and
it could just be me thinking that about myself. I'm
not saying that about anybody else and saying it literally
about myself. I'm sure there's shame associated with anything that
you're addicted to, but I feel like, gosh, if I
(30:26):
was addicted to cocaine, nobody would be like, oh, you're disgusting.
They'd be like, oh, wow, she that's crazy. She needs
to get some help. But I'm like, if they knew
what I was addicted to and that I was doing this,
they'd be like, she's so disgusting. So that's my own
thought processes. It's not as you putting it out here
right now on this is breaking down that factor of shame.
(30:47):
And I think like even on Instagram, like anxiety became
so popular to talk about, but like depression was in
the cloud of like this shift thing you can't talk about.
And I recently talked about something that I never said either,
which was laxative abuse, and flooded with messages, not comments
on my private on my public Instagram page, private messages
(31:09):
of me too. So there is something super secretive still
about the purging, whether it is up or down, that
people are still not acknowledging. But you right here saying
it is showing that there is no disgust to it,
there is no shame, especially you as Amy back right,
because I wouldn't want anybody else sharing too. I would
(31:30):
say that same thing to them. We're breaking it down.
We're broke it down for so many people. I'm becoming
more vocal about my story. I think that on the
radio years ago it maybe come up that I had
dealt with a needing disorder in high school and college.
It was kind of like I could relate on that level.
Never would talk about the issues with food or binging
(31:52):
or obsession food obsession for all these years. That just
doesn't come up organically. Then at the stuff with my mom,
Oh my gosh, I kept I mean, I told my
husband about it, but I was very private about it,
like very until now. Recently, I feel like I'm in
a better place and I don't want people to feel alone,
(32:15):
and I need to start sharing that part of my story.
So a lot of things I haven't said out loud yet,
like what I just shared, I haven't fully said out
loud in the whole, in its entirety, and so and
I don't even I'm still probably not all giving it all.
I feel good, I mean, I feel like I've been
like there's a couple of times where I'm like, okay,
(32:36):
smiling inside because it does feel good. There's a little
bit of a high from it. But also I was
at a low where I was taken back to it
and I was very sad for myself and I was
about to cry, but trying to keep it together for
the sake of the being one of the hosts here.
But in crying is okay. I have no issue crying
on air, done that plenty of times, So I'm sad
(32:58):
for that's that part of me. I want to tell
you a story, Okay, one. I have to say this
because this is huge. This is a side note. But
when people talk about this stuff, I mean what you
were saying, it is huge because yeah, people will talk
about in rexia and restricting and my exercise addiction. They
won't talk about the other stuff, and it's not any
better at all. And what you're talking about is shame.
(33:20):
I feel ashamed for what I did, And what shame
feeds off of is your silence and secrets. And so
when we talk about it more, this shame kind of
gets you starve the shame, so the shame dies. And
so that's a big deal because I'm sure there's one million,
jillion trillion people that are going to hear that and
be like, oh my gosh, I felt that way too.
(33:40):
Is it okay for me to talk about this? I
think I'm gonna try it. The other part is This
is the story I was gonna tell fifteen minutes ago,
but I'm glad I'm telling it now because there's this doctor.
His name is Dr Gabor Mate, and he does a
lot of research and stuff around addiction. He was working
with heroin addicts and he was trying to figure out
who's working Nate Center where harm reduction. So it's like
(34:03):
we're not gonna you're not gonna get sober, We're gonna
teacher how to responsibly use. But he was going around
and interviewing these men and women are like, why do
you why do you use heroin? We know that's bad,
we know that can kill you. And he went to
this one guy and he described him the way I
remember him describing him as this like almost like he
would look like a big bouncer at like a club
(34:23):
with like bald head, big guy tattoos, like tough. And
he said, can you tell me what heroin does for you?
Like why do you use it? And he said, I
don't really know how to describe it, but have you
ever been sick and your mom puts you on her
lap and she wraps you up in a blanket and
she starts feeding you chicken noodle soup. He was like,
(34:43):
that's what heroin feels like. So this guy concluded, oh, love,
Like that's what heroin feels like. Love. It feels like
a warm pug. And so I tell that story because
like there is so much shame in like why do
I do these things that are so bad? And I'm like,
what's wrong with me? Is what I hear all the time,
like Kavin, what is wrong with me? And I'm like,
nothing's wrong with you. There's actually something right with you,
(35:07):
Like Amy, there is something right with you. The fact
that you're like there's something wrong with me. I want
to feel better. I need to go do this thing
that I know that used to help me feel better.
That means that there's something right with you that you
are trying to find. Like we all need attention, we
all need love, we all need belonging. We are born
attached to our mothers like we need attachment. We're born
that way. And so I just say that because I
(35:29):
think a lot of people think to themselves like what
is wrong with me? Like why can't I stop? It's like,
because you're a healthy human that wants to get better,
and thank God that you did that rather than like
just being like take me away life, like when you
turn to your husband too, which is like telling I
think I'm not that's your secure attachment now can you
(35:49):
take you with? And it can't be any it can
be anybody that's your secure attachments like help me, Well,
thank you for letting me talk through that. That's actually
we just made a lot of Claire that we needed. Yeah,
I didn't know where where we would go with that
for sure, but I think that this is how do
you feel at LEAs? Do you have anything you want
(36:09):
to add from your think that the audience will feel
like I did, where we might not have your exact story,
or maybe you do. There's plenty of people who have
purged for that exact reason. But I feel like I've
made headway in my understanding of myself far beyond my
even years and therapy, just by understanding the importance of
secure attachment and personally not having that growing up either
(36:32):
despite what it looked like. Um and how we go
about seeking attention because we're scared not we don't feel safe,
and there's a million ways to do that, but for
a large majority of us, with the addition of the
emphasis on thin equals loved equals health equals applause. It's
an easy one kind of right next to it. So
(36:55):
what do you do with your clients? What is something
we can can leaves like they're like an activity or
like affirmations or something you encourage them to do that
those that are listening, that might be some of the
stuff we've talked about today's resonating with them, Like is
there like some stuff they can like a piece of
homework or something. My gut says, if this is really
(37:18):
resonating with somebody, I want them to reach out and
go to therapy. That could be great advice. That might
be because some people see that there's shame and therapy
and we should make sure that we're here to say
that there's not. There's nothing wrong with that at all whatsoever.
And something that you say on your Instagram all the
time that I am not a therapist, but I've been
in therapy my whole life is there doesn't have to
(37:38):
be something wrong with you to go to therapy. So
even if you don't identify with the purging or even
an eating disorder and you're just listening to this, I
mean I have found that my most profoundly huge steps
forward in therapy have been on days where I didn't
come discussing a trauma or anything relevant to my life.
Think it's just a tool to better get to know
(37:58):
your total being and that is profoundly huge in how
it will affect everything in your life. What about a
piece of homework for people, Um, that you had said earlier,
is you know which so second nature for us to
comment on somebody's body. What are some things that people
can maybe for the next week work on. I believe
in like human connection. I think the more we talk
to people and out loud, the more connected we feel.
(38:20):
Like being in an uber even and it's so easy
to just be on your phone the whole time, but
even interacting with an uber driver or taxi driver I
live in the city. What are ways that people can
complement people this week that are non appearance based, Like
can we push them to talk to people and say
things that they What are some some things we can
say to start conversation with strangers or loved ones? You
(38:41):
know what? I want to come back This actually comes
from your last week's episode. Um, what did Kelsey say
about if you think and it's nice, say it? Oh,
if it's kind so it's kind say So, just to clarify,
since this is a completely this is a different series,
but and it's airing in April, but I do have
I had an interview back in March with Kelsey Allerini
on the Four Things podcasts. So you're referencing something that's
(39:03):
you said it just so that we were just talking
about empowering women and Kelsey was just saying, you know,
one thing I've learned is if it's kind, say it,
Like who cares if you know the person or if
you don't know him. If it's kind, if you think it,
If you think it and it's kind, say it. That's
exactly what she says. So I would say that with
a caveat if it's about the shape of their body.
So because again you never know if that is a
(39:25):
point of contention for somebody. But one of the things
that I've worked on because I actually am like a
introverted extrovert, which it doesn't make a lot of sense.
I think I am too. Okay, so okay, we all are,
but like I sometimes don't I like go into a
place and I like think all these things about I
won't ever say anything because I just kind of keep
(39:45):
to myself and waite for somebody approach me. But I
think something that we can work on is like when
we see somebody, and if we're just happy to see somebody,
say it's good to see you, like I've missed you
means a lot to me, or rather than being like,
oh my god, girl, you look so good, you look
so happy. I think that a lot of the time,
when we do complement somebody's weight or body change, it's
(40:06):
because we've become So that's this is an okay thing
to say to somebody that you might not even know,
and so you might actually be thinking, this person looks happy.
But it's a weird thing to say, hey, girl, you
look happy. So let me say, did you lose weight?
Like I think that we actually are seeing again, going
back to the radiance in people, but it might feel
(40:28):
strange to say you look radiant because it's not a
normal exchange, like you look good, right, so I think
diving into your psyche. Okay, maybe you think this person
looks good. That's the first thing. Why do they look good?
What are they giving their fitting the standards of what
society tells us looks good. Because if society didn't say that, like,
(40:48):
what would we think Like I always say, we are
the decider of our own opinions, so we get to
actually decide that, like which a lot of people would
be like, yeah, dub. But then I'm like, well, do
you think that because the person next to you think that?
Or do you think that because you really think that
about yourself or about other people? And I use the
example of if I pulled out a peanut butter sandwich
and started eating it and you're like you peanut butter,
(41:10):
but I'm like, I don't like it anymore either. The
same thing as like if somebody is like, I don't
like your shirt, like, well, I you're allowed still like it.
If somebody thinks that you look whatever, you can still
think you look good if society says that you are not.
But we need to stop questioning ourselves based off of
others opinions, whether it's as profound as your body or
(41:32):
insignificant as your shirt. Peanut butter and peanut butter, Catherine,
thank you for coming to tell if you think it,
and it's kind to say it, which comes from both
doesn't come for me. I can't take said it. But
I don't know if she said it she got it
from somewhere or I always say make it easy to
be kind to yourself, So going along with that, it's
(41:53):
like make it easy to be kind to other people too,
Like all you have to do is go up to
somebody and say hi, how are you, and you can
start a conversation that could make somebody's day, exchanging a
smile every now and then. People may not remember what
you say, but they remember how you make them feel.
And then good one. Okay, Catherine, let's throw out your
Instagram so people can follow you. Can you say it
real quick? It's at three Chords Therapy. So three is
(42:17):
spelled like the word r E. Yeah, and then my
website is three Chords Therapy dot com. To perfect All right, well,
thank you so much for taking time to talk. Thank you.
It's
I won't let my body out be outwell everything that
I'm made dope, won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know who every part of me.
It's beautiful and now will always out way if you
(00:24):
feel it with yours in the air, She'll love to
the poop there. Let's say good day and did you
and die out? Happy Saturday. Outweigh fam Amy here and
I got a little treat for you today and it
is our o G interview with Cat Defata from Outweigh
(00:44):
before Outweigh was even its own podcast. So Lisa is
on maternity leave and I was thinking the other day
how Cat is such a big part of our lives
now and Lisa too for that matter, and kind of
just cool how things work out and you meet people
because I met Lisa on Instagram because she had her
program Fork the Noise, which was a instrumental piece to
(01:06):
my recovery puzzle. I had struggled with eating disorders and
disordered eating patterns and habits since I was a teenager,
and Lisa was a big, big reason why I finally
had some lightbulbs go off because I was so in
deep with a lot of disordered behaviors that I actually
(01:27):
thought they were healthy. I didn't realize they were disordered.
And again the lightbulb kind of went off when I
was doing some of Lisa's fork the Noise Curriculum, and
it all started to make sense and I had to
unlearn a lot and rewire my brain. I had already
been in the process of that after reading the book
Brain over Binge, because ben Jing was one of my behaviors.
(01:51):
But Lisa really helped me, and from that I thought
I had this idea for the Outwegh podcast, and then
we knew we were going to do a four part
series that would live on my fourth Things podcast, Four
Things with Amy Brown, and that's it. It was gonna
be a four part series, four Saturdays. We'd release an
episode for like the month, and we'd be good to
go call it a day. Well, it ended up going
(02:11):
so well that we were like, Okay, this is so cool.
Outweigh can be its own podcast and it's a passion
of ours, Like it's not something we were like, oh,
this is something where we can have a podcast and
make money off of it and different things. No, like
if we never made a dime from Outweigh, It would
be amazing because we were able to share so much
(02:32):
of our stories and get other people on, so that
you out there, if you happen to be dealing with
any of this on any given day, you can pull
up a podcast and know that you're not alone. And
I've been able to do that with other podcasts that
don't have anything to do with eating disorders. Sometimes I
don't even know how you found that way. Are you
an original listener? Were you searching up eating disorders and
our recovery or disordered eating and an outweigh came up
(02:55):
as an option, And if so, welcome, And I hope
that this is a good resource, a good tool for
you to have in your back pocket if you happen
to be going through some things as you're navigating towards
recovery or you're trying to stay in recovery or whatever
that looks like for you. With other things I've had
in life that don't have anything to do with this,
I've searched up podcasts and found some amazing help that way.
(03:17):
And I don't even know who these podcasters are. Sometimes
the guests that they're having on but what they had
to say met me where I was at that moment,
and it was exactly what I needed. And suddenly I
knew it wasn't so isolating. I wasn't alone. So I
want you to know that's why we started out Wigh,
And in the beginning, we didn't know Cat Defata, And
(03:38):
now she's a big part of that WAG. She has
her own podcast on our network called You Need Therapy.
She now co hosts the fifth thing of my podcast
with me called the Amy and Cat Chat. So she's
a big part of our podcasting world now. And we
wouldn't have met her if Lisa and I hadn't decided
to do Outweigh, And it's so cool that got to
(04:00):
meet her. Because of that. Lisa flew to Nashville from
New York to record for two days straight and we
booked a lot of interviews and had all kinds of
things ready to go so that we could just knock
it all out in two days and then get everything
edited and loaded up and put it up on the
podcast for an April release. And so it was March,
right before COVID we were recording all this. We had
(04:21):
no idea that COVID was even coming and was going
to rock our world and change our lives wherever. But
we were at the Bobby Bones Show studio recording and
Cat happens to have an office nearby, and she had
emailed us saying that she would love to come on
as an expert since she's a licensed therapist that specializes
and eating disorders. And she walked on over to the
studios and she recorded with us, and it was so cool,
(04:43):
and I remember thinking like, Oh, I just love the
way this girl puts stuff and she makes it easy
to understand and she's not intimidating at all, but she's
so smart. And she too has had an eating disorder
as well, and then now she's trying to help people
through it by specializing in it and working with her
clients on it, and then yeah, making it a main
feature of her podcast. And she's just awesome. So I thought,
(05:06):
what a cool thing to do, maybe because we might
have new listeners have never heard the O G Outweigh episodes,
Let's play Cat's original interview with Lisa and myself. So
that's what we're gonna do right now, the O G
Cat Defata interview that we did, and in case you
are new. I just want to say the reason why
(05:27):
this podcast is called Outweigh is because a life without
disordered eating outweighs everything. And I hope if you're not
to a place where you truly believe that that one
day you will get there, because it is so true,
a life without disordered eating outweighs everything. And for so long,
for so many years of my life, I prioritized food
(05:47):
and obsessing over food and exercise and avoiding social gatherings
because of food. I was prioritizing everything else, and my
relationship suffered, and memories that I have I suffered my
anxiety around food. I mean, I was definitely suffering. So
just know that you're not alone, and that once you
(06:08):
can get to a point of truly believing that a
life without all this junk will outweigh everything, it'll be awesome.
And there is hope because if I can do it,
Lisa can do it, Cat can do it. I don't
want to be cliche and say, well, then you can
do it, because it's not easy and it will take
hard work, but you can rewire your brain and you
can get there, and my hope is that you do. So.
(06:31):
Right now, we're going to play Cat's interview. Here you
go enjoy. So we've got Katherine de Fata in the
studio with us, So you're a guest that's actually here
in person. A lot of our interviews have been over
the phone just because of where people are in the country,
but you're right here in Nashville with us, which is
super cool. And you're a therapist here in town. But
you specialize in eating disorders, and so I talked about
(06:55):
it on the podcast and you listen to Four Things
with Amy Brown, and you sent me a note and
said that if you could be a part of it,
just like you know, and we started emailing back and forth,
and I was like, yes, can you come to the
studio and and let's record some stuff. So just before
we hit record, we were having an off air conversation
about eating disorder being an addiction and when I'm trying
(07:18):
to talk to my husband about it, or when I
was eating a lot and I just felt like I
couldn't stop, and he didn't understand. I would say, and
I don't know if I was right and how I
was saying it at all, but to me it felt
like I was like, I don't know, It's like an
alcoholic can't stop drinking. I was like, but you can
take alcohol out of your life and survive, Like with food,
I can't eliminate food from my life because you need
(07:40):
food to survive. I just remember that being like some
language out thrown out. I'm sure I heard it somewhere,
but that's I mean, that's comparing alcoholism is seen as
as an addiction. So one of the things that you
asked me was what's difference between self work and therapy
with an actual therapist? And I thought about it, and
I actually like, I had a different answer, and then
I was like, that's not right. The difference is the relationship,
(08:03):
and the relationship between a therapist and a client is
like the number one predictor of if it's going to
be successful, Like if you hate your therapist, you probably
won't get a lot done. So that goes into just
attachment theory and what that means. And do you guys
know what that is. No. Attachment theory comes from this guy.
His name is John Bowlby, and he was doing research
(08:24):
in orphanages and he was noticing that like these babies
that were getting everything that they needed like shelter, food, water,
they were dying or they're getting really really sick, but
there's no reason for it except they weren't being touched,
so there's no touch at all, which is crazy. And
what he came up was that a relationship is necessary
(08:44):
to survive. He did a lot of research and there's
a lot of stuff that I won't go into because
it might be a little bit boring, but he came
up with these three attachment styles, secure, anxious, avoidant, And
we get those attachment styles based on the relationships we
usually have with our primary caregiver. So if I have
a really great, loving environment and all my needs are
met all the time, I'm going to have a secure attachment.
(09:06):
But and that's the majority of people, But also I
see it on a spectrum to the majority of people
do have a sect relationship. Yeah, that's what they say
in the research, but also doing air quotes and they
can't see that's what they say. However, I think really
people are on a spectrum with this. So and then
anxious attachment would be when sometimes your needs are being met,
(09:26):
sometimes they're not, and so you don't know whether to
trust or not to trust. And then avoidant is when
your needs aren't really being met, and so you kind
of developed this idea of like I gotta go do
everything on my own, Like I gotta go figure everything
on my own. Okay, I'm gonna interject just a second,
because I do have two adopted children from Haiti, and
some people may know that, some people may not depending
(09:46):
on what they've listened to. And I had not heard
and described as attachment theory, but I know that my
kids and I've witnessed it. They have attachment disorder, yes, okay,
and the lack of stimulation that my son had, I
now see how it comes out in certain times, like
how he responds and reacts, and then even my daughter,
(10:07):
this is just is this even the same thing? Okay?
So I'm just making sure on the same page because
I also want to be aware of, like now that
i'm their primary caregiver, that I'm focused on whatever they're
going to need from me. But there's already walls built,
there's already My daughter came here at ten, she's twelve now,
but day one from her arrival was resistance. I can
(10:31):
handle this on my own. I don't need you should
basically give us the heisman anytime. I mean, it's been
two years of breaking it down and we're finally getting there,
but they're still testing, like I don't really trust you.
Are you going to really love me? What about if
I do this, You're still gonna love me? What if
I Okay, I'm gonna try this out. And so my
(10:52):
husband and I just have to remain consistent and so Yes,
at first when you talked about attachment theory, was like, no,
I don't know what you're talking about them, Like, way
does I get I do know this, but I'm also
trying to think of my childhood and how it was
with my So think about this. You've talked about your
own like issues with food and disordered eating, all that
(11:12):
I have that to think about as I explain this
kind of where your story pops up. Also, this is
going to be helpful because you're probably doing the things
you need to do with your children without even knowing
that you're doing them, just because you're a good caring person,
So you can develop a certain attachment style. Good news
is it's not static. It's fluid. So going back to
just describing this and how it relates to what we
(11:34):
were talking about in the beginning, is people develop these
attachments and they're all based on feeling like loved, like
you belong and so I have developed my own theory
that we all are born with these two desires to
be ourselves and then to have love and belonging, and
throughout our lives the desire for love and belonging becomes
very very, very very strong, and so we drop parts
(11:56):
of ourselves or pick parts of ourselves or pick things
up that aren't really parts of ourselves to get that
love and belonging. And so that's when the addiction comes in.
I'll use an example from my life to explain this.
So I never felt like I like really really really
fit into or had like a thing, or we're special
(12:16):
in certain parts of my friend groups, in certain areas
in my family, and so I started to do things
to get me attention. I attributed that attention to love, right,
I always say, like, any attention is good attention. So,
going back to what you said, what's the difference between
therapy and self work is a therapist is what we
call a secure base, which helps somebody develop a secure
(12:39):
attachment style. Because somebody's going to come into my office
probably not knowing that they have any of this or
any kind of drama I'm going to be that person.
Like you're explaining with your daughter, what if I do this,
you still love me? What if I yell at you?
Can I still come back? What if I miss a session?
What if I tell you that you're wrong? What if
I disagree with you? Um? What if I act out?
What if I really laps in what you told me
(13:01):
not to do? Are you still going to let me
come back in? And the answer is always yes, yes, yes,
with safe boundaries, and it helps them learn that like, hey,
I don't have to be a certain way. I can
show up as I am and like I can find love.
So when you say you were doing things to get attention,
what were those things? So it depends on which part
of my life. Well, let's go ahead and talk about
(13:21):
the eaty So in college, Yeah, it's easy for me
to talk about this. Now, I didn't know that this
was happening, no clue, which most people don't. But I
started with a diet, counting calories. And again in my family,
all my siblings went and played dan one sports and
I just went to college. And so I felt like
I was missing something because didn't have anything that my
(13:42):
parents would really brag that much about no fault to them,
my parents are great. And so I went on this diet,
started losing all this weight. I was getting tons of attention,
like tons, you look so good this this whatever. Guys
like started talking to me more. And so I attribute
that to that of like, Okay, now I fit and
now I belong belonging as love, I'm good, And then
(14:03):
I became a shell of a human. Tap into that
a little bit more. What were you feeling at that time?
Like what I mean, first, you're on the high. What
does it mean to be a shell, because you're certainly
not a shell today with the vibrants and your radiant ye.
So just so that people, because really we're doing this
so people don't feel alone. And I feel like with
each person that's sharing part of their real story, which
(14:25):
you just did, somebody's relating and they're like, wait, tell
me more. I would say. People would always describe me
as like loud and bubbly and like fun. I'm a
seven on the Instagram, so that which I didn't know
what the Instagram was back then. So that's how I
always was. So when I started restricting my food, I
ended up restricting every single part of my life because
(14:47):
I couldn't go to that party because what if I
drank alcohol and their scalaris and alcohol, and then what
if I got drunk and then I wanted to eat
something that I ate something I shouldn't eat that crippled me.
Or I can't go to that that restaurant because I
can't eat anything there. Then people are going to ask
me like, why aren't you eating and I I don't have
to come up with some excuse. Or I can't go
to that thing at night because I have to get
up and work out at six am and I need
(15:09):
my energy. And so I started cutting things out of
my life. I remember the start of my junior year
of college. That summer junior to senior year, I like
never left my parents house when I came home, and
I never saw any of my friends from high school,
which we were always very close. I remember I did
one thing. I went to my best friend from high
school's birthday party and then started at her house and
(15:31):
they all went out. I think it might have been
her twenty first birthday, and I went home after her
house that everybody else went out, and I went home
because I was like, I can't do that. So the
thing that got me all this attention, and all of
a sudden, then I was like, what's the point of
the attention because I'm not letting myself engage with anybody.
And then I came back that next year, my senior year,
and I didn't do anything. I didn't I was in authority.
(15:52):
I like would skip some of our date parties or
I would go I remember one time I also was
really into school. I like I went to a party.
It was a swaps which one that you would like
dress up like and where a costume, And I like
loved doing that, and I like took my note cards
to the bar and like study for my test. You
just like withdrew and lost interest in all the things
that you love to do. My friends did not love that.
(16:15):
So that's a part where that's just part of your
story of what you did to get attention to feel belonging.
But then you realize, like it's kind of like it
goes up, up up, and it's like this is where
I'm getting belonging love, And then all of a sudden,
you just it's like we just I think it happened
all of us, and you crash and burn because you
realize you have nothing around you and what is this for?
So then what do you do well? And I love
(16:36):
looking back at this because I don't know you'all's experiences,
but from my experience, I had no clue that I
was struggling, so like, not a clue. I thought I
was like on top of the world, like this actually
makes me want to cry. But my senior year, I
thought that I was killing it, like I had gotten
into all these graduate programs. I was like, gonna go
do all these things. And looking back, like another thing
(17:00):
I did that I have so much grief over it
is I skipped my last date party ever to come
back to Nashville and run the half marathon. I can
run that marathon whenever I want. I can never go
back and have my last party with my best friends.
I did not know that. I still was like, yeah,
I'd rather go run this marathon. This is my lifestyle.
I'm healthy. I don't like to drink, almost like this
(17:20):
grandiose sense of self healthy so us yea, And I
probably I was a brat, yes, like because yeah, because
I wouldn't judge what people are eating. You're going to
eat that? And I'm like, in my head, I wish
I could eat that, Like I wish I could eat that,
but I have eating distor. As we talk a lot
(17:42):
about how you have so much control, I had no control,
right well, it was like not like I could eat that,
Like wow, look at me, I have so much willpower
for not eating. But I don't really think I did
have willpower. Because I had willpower, I would eat a doughnut.
But that's what people would say to me. I'm like,
I wish I could be like Catherine, and like, you
don't want to be like me. Yeah, I know, because
they don't really know the struggle. That's why it's important,
(18:02):
and we'll reiterate it now since it's kind of coming up.
That's why it's important. You never know what's going on
inside someone's body. You might think it's all they've got
it all figured out and their life is together, and
then you can reinforce their behavior by complimenting something about
their body, and then that keeps them on that hamster
wheel and really you have no idea you contributed to
the problem just by giving the compliment. We've been trying
(18:23):
to just get it into people and even myself over
and over, to stop complimenting on people's bodies. There's so
many other things that we could probably compliment that like
do that's not necessary. It's kind of story quick. So
this is why I started to look at before I
really got into being like a eating disorder therapist. This
is like, I have a shame about this now, but
(18:44):
again I'm trying to not have that. I went to
grad school, I went to Vanderbilt in Nashville, and thinking
I was going to be eating disorder therapists, and guess
what I wanted to specialize in. I wanted to work
with specifically binge eating disorder and help them lose weight,
which is not how you do. It's not okay. I
could understand, not understand, not understanding. Yes, now I'm like,
oh my gosh, maybe explain why though that that wouldn't
(19:06):
be Yeah, that may not hand it. Yeah, because I
know more of that because I've been doing I've been
working alongside people, like he said, where y'all understand why
that would be bad, but someone else might not get why.
That's probably not like the best thing. So it's not
about the weight. And so with binge eating disorder, there's
something else going on, and if I help them lose weight,
(19:26):
their issues aren't going away like the reason that they're binging,
which would be the reason why any of us do
behavior that we would classify as an addiction. It's not
about the alcohol, it's not about the food, it's not
about any of that. It's about what's underneath of it.
And so yeah, it might be a side effect that
if these people do the work and I help them
through whatever it is that they're trying to work through,
(19:48):
they might lose weight. But that's not the goal because
if I just take the weight away, everything else still
And most people that are in it don't see it
as a underlying problem, like they see it as either
binge problem I can't stop when I eat, or they
see it as a weight problem I'm overweight because I eat.
Not going any deeper into why do you think that
(20:10):
there's anything to the binging and it being like in
the brain. We've touched on brain over binge, But there's
there's obviously with what you're saying with the addiction at
all coming back to attachment and love, right, So it's
like all goes back to some of that in a way.
But for me, I mean, I know that I had
issues with my dad leaving when I was younger, um,
(20:33):
but I know that I also was introduced to dieting
at an extremely young age, and I know when I
started dieting and then that led to restriction and binging.
But I didn't really realize I was binging at the
time because I didn't know really I was in high school.
Then I knew I would over eat so that I
would perge, but it wasn't all of the time. But
I knew that it was wrong, even so that I
(20:53):
went to my mom and said, I need help. I'm
throwing up and I don't know where this came from
or why, but I I need help with this. So
then she got me into therapy, and then that led
to therapy all through high school and college. But it
was always just focused on my dad having left. Nothing
ever resonated with me. And then I quit throwing up
(21:15):
for years. But what I realized in there is I
was still binging the whole time. But again I knew
that it was not right because I was like, I
just went to literally like four different fast food restaurants
in like one stop, Like that's not normal. So or
if I was on a road trip somewhere, I would
stop at like multiple gas stations and like just eat
(21:36):
the entire two hours. That was my drive from Austin
to College Station, which is where I went to Texas
a m. So I remember a lot of those road trips.
Was I ate the entire time, whether it was a
gas station sonic like, I had different stops and I
would go through and be like okay, and then next
day I would just do slim fast or something. But
it never I was still in therapy at that point,
(21:56):
and it never was getting anywhere other than somehow I
stopped the throwing up and it was gone, but I
kept the binging. And then when I read Brain over Binge,
I've been telling Lisa like, it just made sense to me.
She talks about rewiring your brain and that you just
go to a binge and you have to start denying
(22:17):
the binges. Because I started restricting at such a young age,
it trained my brain that I didn't know when I
was going to get food again, so it kept forcing
me to over eat and then I would binge. And
so I started implementing that over a year ago and
that worked for me, and that was the first thing
where it really made Since now I'm sure there's underlying
issues with what's going on, but I do want to
(22:38):
talk to you about how that worked for me. But
about five years ago, when my mom died, even though
I had not purged in twelve years, I had binged
but not purged. The day after my mom died, I
ate dinner and then I had to go throw it
up and I literally and it was not an easy thing.
It was my sister's birthday the day after my mom died,
(22:59):
and in laws decided to get a food truck, and
we have I mean otherwise, I mean there's food at
the house everywhere, but we just were not eating. But
then it was like my sister's birthday, so I felt
like I had to eat from the food truck and
I had to eat the cake. So I ate it
and then something about me literally and there were so
many people at my sister's house. I went over to
a neighbor's guesthouse and I threw up in their bathroom.
(23:21):
Like it wasn't easy for me to like make this happen.
That somehow I was desperate to get that food out
of my body and I hadn't even over eaten and
that started it again, just like that. It was back
and I probably it was a daily thing. Then it
was like every other day. Then it was like and
now sound now that you know you brought up that
(23:41):
it's eating disorders can be addictions. It sounds like an
alcoholic returning to alcohol. Yes, where all of a sudden
you need that whatever and you go and find it
and then okay, I'll just do it this one time,
and then you slowly kind of trickle back into the
same thing. Okay, but I don't even know that. I
was like, I felt like it was an out of
body experience what I was doing. I don't think I
had the rational fashion now to be like, Okay, it's
(24:02):
just gonna be this one time. I was just like,
I did it, and then I was like, what was that?
And I was so freaked out by it that just
like I went to my mom in high school, I
went to my husband almost immediately, and I'm like, here's
the deal. You've been married to me, and if I
haven't thrown up our entire marriage, so you don't know
this side of me. But now I'm terrified and it's here,
and I feel like an alcoholic that has just lost
their chip. That's exactly what I said to him, and
(24:25):
he was like, Okay, well we can do this, like
whatever you need. And I would say there's a lot
of times where after I mean, he would come home
and he'd be like, how is your day? And I
would be like, even a year after my mom died
or two years, there would still be discussions how is
your day? That's say, my day was fine except where
I threw up, you know, and I would be able.
I'm thankful for a relationship where I could be honest
(24:46):
with him about that. But I still was so perplexed
why it was happening. And now I've been over a
year without anything binges or purges, so I feel that.
But I have to share with you a revelation I
had with Lisa. But I don't even know if it
makes sense. And since you're a therapist, I'm gonna take advantage.
(25:07):
I need to pay you for the hour I told Lisa,
I said it, just did it. I went to therapy. Obviously.
I did M d R after my mom died because
it's very traumatic for me. She did not die. It
was not easy. She had cancer. I saw a lot
that I shouldn't see and laid with her in her
final breath. Me and my sister both and then it
(25:28):
is healthy or not. We probably laid with her for
about an hour after that, the corner of people were like,
we're here and to load her up, and we're like,
we're not done yet, So you know, whatever that looks
like for you, that's what we needed. But we definitely
my SI and I both saw a lot and it
was traumatic. And then you know, here I am the
(25:49):
next day throwing up the food and I'm not knowing why,
and I'm telling this to my therapist and she's like, well,
that's trauma. And the last trauma you had in your
life was when your dad left, and that was when
you're younger, eating disorder kind of started. I'm like, well,
not exactly, but I just couldn't wrap my head around
the fact that like that would just make me do it.
(26:10):
But then I had this thought because I think something
Lisa talked about or somebody talked about that like I
really felt because I was grieving, and this also could
be related to attention, since you said then and this
is just me having to get completely honest and almost
like embarrassed that, like what because it's not like it
was a very conscious thought out decision like oh, I
(26:31):
need attention, so this is what I'm gonna do. This
is almost like five years later and just having to
look back and be like, oh, yuck, was that really
what this was? Because what makes sense to me now
is that I felt like I was grieving, and if
you're grieving, you're supposed to lose weight. If you're grieving,
(26:51):
you're not supposed to have food because you're sad, and
sad people don't eat, and sad people get skinny. And
if I get skinny, I get attention, which is exactly
what happened. I mean, there was not a single person
in my life that did not comment on my body,
Like about a month after my mom died, because I
did get very thin, and I would weigh myself every
single day. I would drink juice in the morning, urge whatever.
(27:14):
I would do yoga twice a day. Also, I was
trying to keep busy to not think about my mom.
I would do wine and zan X for bed, so
would knock me out and I wouldn't think about food
and I but nobody knew this was happening to me.
But I would still come to work the next day
and someone from would be visiting from you know, another
city that hadn't seen me in awhile and be like,
oh my gosh, Amy, it looks so good. And then
(27:34):
I'd be like thank you. And then but I'd be like, yes,
I'm grieving. I'm doing a good job grieving. I'm doing
a good job grieving because I lost my mom and
I needed to recognize that I'm sad. My skinny represents
my sadness and that gives me attention. Yeah, it sounds
very twisted and messed up to say out loud, I
underveel that makes more sense to me than when the
(27:56):
therapist told me she thought like a trauma capsule open
to my head. And because that's how I dealt with
my dad leaving, that's immediately the route my my brain
was going to go to deal with losing my mom.
And I just don't know that that makes sense to me.
Thank you for share that. I think your therapist could
be right there. Part of it could be this is
the thing with therapy, and like me, there's no just
(28:19):
like one way. So that's why I mean, eating disorders
and addiction in general is hard because I can't just
say it's every time because of this, A lot of
times it's because of this, there could have been the
trauma part, but I think what you're talking about it's
probably attached to your trauma of not getting the attention
to the love and the belonging from your dad. And
(28:39):
then now this is like your mom, Like you're a
secure base, right, your person, and then she's gone, and
then like who's my person? And who's gonna recognize or
who's gonna know what I need or who's gonna All
of that comes up of like you lost your secure base?
So what do I do? You're sad? Right? Part of
it is I hear you saying like I want people
(28:59):
to my sadness. I think part of it also is
like I don't want to feel sad either, and so
what can I do to shove down all these feelings?
Because it feels good when I'm doing this. It's twisted
as it is, like it feels good to perch, it
feels good to go on a run for two hours,
it feels for a period of time it feels it
(29:22):
doesn't Yeah, yeah, until it doesn't. And at the beginning, yes,
it was like this high and this ride, and until
it got messy and it was just exhausting and it
was like I can't keep up, or if I would
try to throw up and it didn't work and I
was like, oh my gosh, I just ate all that food,
like and it's not coming up like it was. Just
tell me about like the embarrassment of like, this is
(29:44):
so messed up. I feel embarrassed that this is what
I did. I think because I could be wrong in this,
but if we're for the sake of our conversation of
viewing eating disorder as an addiction and alcoholism addiction, I
feel like, for lack of a better word, being addicted
to okaine or alcohol is a little more sexy. I
don't know it's the right word. First sake of this,
(30:05):
I'm just gonna say, binging a bunch of food and
then throwing it up for whatever the reason is is
disgusting to me. I'm never I don't look at and
it could just be me thinking that about myself. I'm
not saying that about anybody else and saying it literally
about myself. I'm sure there's shame associated with anything that
you're addicted to, but I feel like, gosh, if I
(30:26):
was addicted to cocaine, nobody would be like, oh, you're disgusting.
They'd be like, oh, wow, she that's crazy. She needs
to get some help. But I'm like, if they knew
what I was addicted to and that I was doing this,
they'd be like, she's so disgusting. So that's my own
thought processes. It's not as you putting it out here
right now on this is breaking down that factor of shame.
(30:47):
And I think like even on Instagram, like anxiety became
so popular to talk about, but like depression was in
the cloud of like this shift thing you can't talk about.
And I recently talked about something that I never said either,
which was laxative abuse, and flooded with messages, not comments
on my private on my public Instagram page, private messages
(31:09):
of me too. So there is something super secretive still
about the purging, whether it is up or down, that
people are still not acknowledging. But you right here saying
it is showing that there is no disgust to it,
there is no shame, especially you as Amy back right,
because I wouldn't want anybody else sharing too. I would
(31:30):
say that same thing to them. We're breaking it down.
We're broke it down for so many people. I'm becoming
more vocal about my story. I think that on the
radio years ago it maybe come up that I had
dealt with a needing disorder in high school and college.
It was kind of like I could relate on that level.
Never would talk about the issues with food or binging
(31:52):
or obsession food obsession for all these years. That just
doesn't come up organically. Then at the stuff with my mom,
Oh my gosh, I kept I mean, I told my
husband about it, but I was very private about it,
like very until now. Recently, I feel like I'm in
a better place and I don't want people to feel alone,
(32:15):
and I need to start sharing that part of my story.
So a lot of things I haven't said out loud yet,
like what I just shared, I haven't fully said out
loud in the whole, in its entirety, and so and
I don't even I'm still probably not all giving it all.
I feel good, I mean, I feel like I've been
like there's a couple of times where I'm like, okay,
(32:36):
smiling inside because it does feel good. There's a little
bit of a high from it. But also I was
at a low where I was taken back to it
and I was very sad for myself and I was
about to cry, but trying to keep it together for
the sake of the being one of the hosts here.
But in crying is okay. I have no issue crying
on air, done that plenty of times, So I'm sad
(32:58):
for that's that part of me. I want to tell
you a story, Okay, one. I have to say this
because this is huge. This is a side note. But
when people talk about this stuff, I mean what you
were saying, it is huge because yeah, people will talk
about in rexia and restricting and my exercise addiction. They
won't talk about the other stuff, and it's not any
better at all. And what you're talking about is shame.
(33:20):
I feel ashamed for what I did, And what shame
feeds off of is your silence and secrets. And so
when we talk about it more, this shame kind of
gets you starve the shame, so the shame dies. And
so that's a big deal because I'm sure there's one million,
jillion trillion people that are going to hear that and
be like, oh my gosh, I felt that way too.
(33:40):
Is it okay for me to talk about this? I
think I'm gonna try it. The other part is This
is the story I was gonna tell fifteen minutes ago,
but I'm glad I'm telling it now because there's this doctor.
His name is Dr Gabor Mate, and he does a
lot of research and stuff around addiction. He was working
with heroin addicts and he was trying to figure out
who's working Nate Center where harm reduction. So it's like
(34:03):
we're not gonna you're not gonna get sober, We're gonna
teacher how to responsibly use. But he was going around
and interviewing these men and women are like, why do
you why do you use heroin? We know that's bad,
we know that can kill you. And he went to
this one guy and he described him the way I
remember him describing him as this like almost like he
would look like a big bouncer at like a club
(34:23):
with like bald head, big guy tattoos, like tough. And
he said, can you tell me what heroin does for you?
Like why do you use it? And he said, I
don't really know how to describe it, but have you
ever been sick and your mom puts you on her
lap and she wraps you up in a blanket and
she starts feeding you chicken noodle soup. He was like,
(34:43):
that's what heroin feels like. So this guy concluded, oh, love,
Like that's what heroin feels like. Love. It feels like
a warm pug. And so I tell that story because
like there is so much shame in like why do
I do these things that are so bad? And I'm like,
what's wrong with me? Is what I hear all the time,
like Kavin, what is wrong with me? And I'm like,
nothing's wrong with you. There's actually something right with you,
(35:07):
Like Amy, there is something right with you. The fact
that you're like there's something wrong with me. I want
to feel better. I need to go do this thing
that I know that used to help me feel better.
That means that there's something right with you that you
are trying to find. Like we all need attention, we
all need love, we all need belonging. We are born
attached to our mothers like we need attachment. We're born
that way. And so I just say that because I
(35:29):
think a lot of people think to themselves like what
is wrong with me? Like why can't I stop? It's like,
because you're a healthy human that wants to get better,
and thank God that you did that rather than like
just being like take me away life, like when you
turn to your husband too, which is like telling I
think I'm not that's your secure attachment now can you
(35:49):
take you with? And it can't be any it can
be anybody that's your secure attachments like help me, Well,
thank you for letting me talk through that. That's actually
we just made a lot of Claire that we needed. Yeah,
I didn't know where where we would go with that
for sure, but I think that this is how do
you feel at LEAs? Do you have anything you want
(36:09):
to add from your think that the audience will feel
like I did, where we might not have your exact story,
or maybe you do. There's plenty of people who have
purged for that exact reason. But I feel like I've
made headway in my understanding of myself far beyond my
even years and therapy, just by understanding the importance of
secure attachment and personally not having that growing up either
(36:32):
despite what it looked like. Um and how we go
about seeking attention because we're scared not we don't feel safe,
and there's a million ways to do that, but for
a large majority of us, with the addition of the
emphasis on thin equals loved equals health equals applause. It's
an easy one kind of right next to it. So
(36:55):
what do you do with your clients? What is something
we can can leaves like they're like an activity or
like affirmations or something you encourage them to do that
those that are listening, that might be some of the
stuff we've talked about today's resonating with them, Like is
there like some stuff they can like a piece of
homework or something. My gut says, if this is really
(37:18):
resonating with somebody, I want them to reach out and
go to therapy. That could be great advice. That might
be because some people see that there's shame and therapy
and we should make sure that we're here to say
that there's not. There's nothing wrong with that at all whatsoever.
And something that you say on your Instagram all the
time that I am not a therapist, but I've been
in therapy my whole life is there doesn't have to
(37:38):
be something wrong with you to go to therapy. So
even if you don't identify with the purging or even
an eating disorder and you're just listening to this, I
mean I have found that my most profoundly huge steps
forward in therapy have been on days where I didn't
come discussing a trauma or anything relevant to my life.
Think it's just a tool to better get to know
(37:58):
your total being and that is profoundly huge in how
it will affect everything in your life. What about a
piece of homework for people, Um, that you had said earlier,
is you know which so second nature for us to
comment on somebody's body. What are some things that people
can maybe for the next week work on. I believe
in like human connection. I think the more we talk
to people and out loud, the more connected we feel.
(38:20):
Like being in an uber even and it's so easy
to just be on your phone the whole time, but
even interacting with an uber driver or taxi driver I
live in the city. What are ways that people can
complement people this week that are non appearance based, Like
can we push them to talk to people and say
things that they What are some some things we can
say to start conversation with strangers or loved ones? You
(38:41):
know what? I want to come back This actually comes
from your last week's episode. Um, what did Kelsey say
about if you think and it's nice, say it? Oh,
if it's kind so it's kind say So, just to clarify,
since this is a completely this is a different series,
but and it's airing in April, but I do have
I had an interview back in March with Kelsey Allerini
on the Four Things podcasts. So you're referencing something that's
(39:03):
you said it just so that we were just talking
about empowering women and Kelsey was just saying, you know,
one thing I've learned is if it's kind, say it,
Like who cares if you know the person or if
you don't know him. If it's kind, if you think it,
If you think it and it's kind, say it. That's
exactly what she says. So I would say that with
a caveat if it's about the shape of their body.
So because again you never know if that is a
(39:25):
point of contention for somebody. But one of the things
that I've worked on because I actually am like a
introverted extrovert, which it doesn't make a lot of sense.
I think I am too. Okay, so okay, we all are,
but like I sometimes don't I like go into a
place and I like think all these things about I
won't ever say anything because I just kind of keep
(39:45):
to myself and waite for somebody approach me. But I
think something that we can work on is like when
we see somebody, and if we're just happy to see somebody,
say it's good to see you, like I've missed you
means a lot to me, or rather than being like,
oh my god, girl, you look so good, you look
so happy. I think that a lot of the time,
when we do complement somebody's weight or body change, it's
(40:06):
because we've become So that's this is an okay thing
to say to somebody that you might not even know,
and so you might actually be thinking, this person looks happy.
But it's a weird thing to say, hey, girl, you
look happy. So let me say, did you lose weight?
Like I think that we actually are seeing again, going
back to the radiance in people, but it might feel
(40:28):
strange to say you look radiant because it's not a
normal exchange, like you look good, right, so I think
diving into your psyche. Okay, maybe you think this person
looks good. That's the first thing. Why do they look good?
What are they giving their fitting the standards of what
society tells us looks good. Because if society didn't say that, like,
(40:48):
what would we think Like I always say, we are
the decider of our own opinions, so we get to
actually decide that, like which a lot of people would
be like, yeah, dub. But then I'm like, well, do
you think that because the person next to you think that?
Or do you think that because you really think that
about yourself or about other people? And I use the
example of if I pulled out a peanut butter sandwich
and started eating it and you're like you peanut butter,
(41:10):
but I'm like, I don't like it anymore either. The
same thing as like if somebody is like, I don't
like your shirt, like, well, I you're allowed still like it.
If somebody thinks that you look whatever, you can still
think you look good if society says that you are not.
But we need to stop questioning ourselves based off of
others opinions, whether it's as profound as your body or
(41:32):
insignificant as your shirt. Peanut butter and peanut butter, Catherine,
thank you for coming to tell if you think it,
and it's kind to say it, which comes from both
doesn't come for me. I can't take said it. But
I don't know if she said it she got it
from somewhere or I always say make it easy to
be kind to yourself, So going along with that, it's
(41:53):
like make it easy to be kind to other people too,
Like all you have to do is go up to
somebody and say hi, how are you, and you can
start a conversation that could make somebody's day, exchanging a
smile every now and then. People may not remember what
you say, but they remember how you make them feel.
And then good one. Okay, Catherine, let's throw out your
Instagram so people can follow you. Can you say it
real quick? It's at three Chords Therapy. So three is
(42:17):
spelled like the word r E. Yeah, and then my
website is three Chords Therapy dot com. To perfect All right, well,
thank you so much for taking time to talk. Thank you.
It's
4 Things with Amy Brown News
Host
Amy Brown
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