Publication
Talking about eating disorders (reprinted 2010)
Looking ahead
Getting over an eating disorder can take a long time. Many people worry they will never be free of it. It is a daunting prospect - as if you need to take your life to pieces and put it together in a different way. But it can be done.
Food and eating are part of our existence and cannot be avoided if we are to survive and to share parts of our lives with other people. We have to find some way of dealing with the distress which we previously disguised in the use we made of food.
We may need to assert our independence to find out what we really want. We may opt to make a fresh start doing something we choose to do.
Whatever route we take, we are unlikely to come out of the experience unchanged. We may even look back on it as an important landmark in our lives which helped us find out who we are and who we want to be.