This is Part 5 of a blog series that addresses healing your relationship with food, yourself, and others. I’m recording this as a podcast series as well, and what follows is a transcript of the episode. (Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Q&A Part 4 of the blog series).

This final post of the series is another Q&A post where I’ll answer your questions about this topic. Between Part 4 and this post, I’ll discuss nearly every question that I was sent from my email subscribers, but I did group some questions together if they were very similar. All questions are anonymous; I used only the first initial of the person who sent me the question. If you want to be part of any future Q&A episodes or posts on various topics, and if you want to get more support in your recovery, you can join my email list by signing up to get my free Inspiration Booklet.

Question 1: Low confidence, loneliness, and bulimia

S wrote about how bulimia led her to withdraw from relationships, but also, she talked about thinking that her own difficulties with connection—things like low self-esteem, shyness, and insecurity—may have contributed to the bulimia in the first place.

It’s definitely been a theme throughout this series that eating disorders commonly cause isolation and cause people to withdraw from relationships. When you’re caught in the binge eating cycle, socializing can feel very overwhelming—either because you’re worried about food, you’re worried about your body, or you’re feeling those awful physical and emotional effects of the bingeing and purging, which just kind of makes you want to stay home. Over time, it can really seem easier to pull back from people altogether.

In Part 3 of this blog series, I talked about how you can start to overcome this and gradually build skills to connect with people again, so I definitely recommend you read that post.

I also want to acknowledge your thought that maybe your shyness and insecurity were risk factors from the start, and I want to say that’s entirely possible. Many people who struggle with eating disorders can look back and see ways that their personality traits or their life circumstances might have made them more vulnerable. And it definitely helps to look back to your past self with all the compassion in the world, because you were simply doing the best you knew how to do at the time. But now in the present, I just want you to know that seeing something as a risk factor does not mean it has to doom you to the behavior now or in the future. Those same traits can and do exist without bingeing and purging. This connection is not permanent.

The connection between shyness or loneliness and the development of bulimia can come from a belief that if you change your body, then that will somehow help with the self-esteem or the insecurity—by possibly making you feel more accepted. You may think that if you lose weight, you may be more confident socially, or you’ll be somehow better in relationships. That desire to change your body or to fit in—to help solve some of the insecurity—can lead to unhealthy dieting behaviors, which then can set the stage for that survival response of binge eating, and then eventually bulimia. Then all of that has the opposite effect that you originally intended, and instead of fitting in more, you find yourself more and more isolated.

I think it’s helpful to realize that you may always be someone who has tendencies towards shyness or insecurity—and that does not mean you can’t work to improve your skills in that area—but I think it makes sense to acknowledge that these might be your tendencies, and that’s okay. You can acknowledge that while also deeply recognizing that those tendencies don’t need to result in binge eating or in restriction.

Tendencies are not destiny, and while you can work on any tendency, it’s also really useful if you start to recognize that you can be alone and not binge; you can feel insecure around others and not binge; you can have negative thoughts about yourself and not binge. Internalizing that truth is a big part of loosening the grip of the habit, because you’re no longer giving your tendencies so much meaning in terms of your recovery. You’re no longer giving shyness or insecurity the power to cause bingeing in your life now and going forward.

What can also help is to see the gifts in your own tendencies. The world often treats shyness or introversion as if something is wrong with you, but it doesn’t have to be wrong. People are naturally on a spectrum between introversion and extroversion and have very different social needs. You get to decide what your social needs and wants are, in terms of how and when you want to connect with others. Don’t assume there’s a problem just because society says you should have a big group of friends or you should have a busy social calendar.

As a fellow introvert who loves alone time, I can tell you that you can learn to accept and even value these parts of yourself while still challenging yourself in the areas where you do want to grow. Now, I realize that introversion is one thing, but if you’re having deep feelings of insecurity, this is always something to address—not in terms of a way to prevent bingeing, but as a way to relieve that harsh criticism you may be putting on yourself.

You can work on this gradually by starting with situations and relationships and people who you do feel more comfortable with, and you can learn to own who you are and own your unique gifts regardless of others’ opinions. Always remember that recovery does not require perfect confidence, but as you gain freedom from the binge-purge cycle, your self-worth will improve. Then, you can make even more empowered decisions about how to connect on a social level and how to build relationships that feel safe and nourishing to you.

Question 2: Embarrassment around food choices, which is limiting relationships

E wrote about feeling embarrassed to eat certain meals in front of others—meals that work well for him and help him feel good—because of a fear that people will think he’s weird. E also mentioned feeling embarrassment around avoiding certai foods, which can sometimes lead to him skipping social events that are centered on food.

In Part 4, I addressed a couple of questions about sharing binge eating or the effects of bingeing with others, but this question is a little different. It’s more about wanting to hide certain food choices from others or feeling judged, and that leading to wanting to avoid the social situations altogether.

The first thing I’d encourage you to do, E—which it does seem like you already have a lot of insight about—is to get clear with yourself about what you need and want in terms of eating, especially in social situations. It’s possible that some of the embarrassment or insecurity you feel may be rooted in your own uncertainty about your choices. If maybe you’re not sure about whether or not you truly want or need to be avoiding a certain food, you might have the tendency to gauge others’ reactions—possibly looking for approval—even if some of this is going on at an unconscious level. This makes other people’s reactions, especially the negative ones, seem really discouraging.

A summary of this is simply that uncertainty with yourself can make fear of judgment dictate your actions, instead of you taking confident action—knowing what’s best for you. I’m not saying that you’re definitely uncertain, but when you’re really worried about being embarrassed or looking weird, I just want you to look a little deeper and confirm with yourself that you are on the right path for you.

Sometimes with eating disorders, this can get a bit confusing, and it can feel hard to fully trust yourself. You may have competing voices in your head—you may have a restriction voice telling you to avoid more and more foods, while the binge voice urges you to eat everything in excessive amounts. But you can learn to get in touch with your wise voice—that’s neither the restriction voice nor the binge voice—and when you’re in touch with that wise voice and you’re confident in your own choices, it becomes much easier to handle comments or questions from others without letting those comments derail you.

That confidence does not come from convincing anyone else that your way of eating is right, and it also doesn’t come from anyone else validating your decisions. It comes from knowing inside yourself that your choices are serving you. That’s why I see this question as more about the relationship with yourself than it is about your relationship with others. It’s about learning to look inward and connect with the part of you who has your best interest at heart and never wants to guide you toward deprivation or extreme overindulgence.

Once you know what genuinely nourishes you, and that you enjoy, and that makes you feel good—which, again, it seems like you already have a pretty good idea of—you can start owning those choices, even if those choices don’t match what people expect or what may be common in a certain social setting. You can realize that others possibly thinking you’re “weird,” or feeling a little embarrassment, is much better than abandoning your wise voice and abandoning your own self-care.

Also, something really helpful to realize is that others are probably not thinking as negatively about you as you think they are—and they may not be thinking negatively at all. Most people are pretty self-focused and are likely dealing with their own insecurities and may be worried about what you think of them.

If you start to have any feelings of embarrassment or judgment come up in social settings, you can have a simple mantra to say to yourself, like: I’m allowed to nourish my body in the way that works for me. And if you do encounter anyone who is openly critical, you can address it kindly but directly. You can say something like: I’m learning to eat in a way that makes me feel good, and this is simply what’s working for me right now. If the person continues to push or tries to pressure you into eating in a way you’ve already said is not right for you, it’s worth reevaluating whether that’s someone you want to spend time with.

Question 3: Marginalization, gender identity, and access to healing

This question addresses the larger social context. X wrote to me with a layered and deeply important question. They shared about being non-binary and an ethnic minority, a displaced person, and sociopolitically vulnerable—living much of their life without the safety or support that many take for granted. They’ve also been estranged from family and the larger community due to a lack of acceptance.

X also expressed how eating disorders can be tied to gender dysphoria, and weight and shape control through food and exercise can be a way to align one’s body with one’s identity. They wanted to know: How can we help our most vulnerable populations heal, and how do we truly acknowledge that a lack of safety can make recovery more complex?

First, X, I want to acknowledge everything you’re saying—that yes, some people do have a much harder path than others when it comes to getting support, or accessing resources, or just having that basic safety. Even though it’s my belief that the capacity for neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to rewire itself over time—is something that’s available to the vast majority of us, the process of creating those changes, and the challenges faced along the way, is not the same for everyone.

There’s individuality and uniqueness in how each brain operates, and then when we go beyond the brain to the greater context of relationships and social structures as a whole, the challenges can become even more complex. Personal, relational, social, and cultural factors can add layers of difficulty, and those difficulties can be compounded by marginalization—as you’re pointing out.

I’ve talked about some of the challenges that specifically relate to gender identity in Episode 154: Eating Disorders and Recovery in the LGBTQ Community with Quinn Haisley. Quinn works extensively with LGBTQIA+ clients and brings important lived experience to these conversations, and I highly recommend that you listen to that episode.

An important thing to point out here is that if you’re in a situation that’s unsafe—whether that’s because of an abusive relationship (like I talked about in Part II of this series), or whether that’s because of a broader social environment where your safety is compromised—getting to safety becomes your first priority. Part I of this series addressed Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and I talked about how the basics of safety make other goals possible and make other forms of healing possible. If you can find communities, resources, or even a single person who understands and affirms you, that support can be a lifeline and a launching point toward deeper healing.

Now, beyond that, I want to go back to talking about neuroplasticity and changing habits being something that the majority of us can learn to do—even in the most difficult circumstances (once basic safety needs are met). Recovery—at its most basic level—comes down to the two things that I talk about all of the time: dismissing urges to binge and eating adequately. If you find that you cannot do one or both of those things right now based on something you’re going through, it’s really important to dig deeper and ask yourself what specifically is getting in the way.

With your own lived experience in mind and the realities of being marginalized, what specifically do you feel is holding you back from dismissing urges, and what is specifically holding you back from eating adequately?

You’ve already pinpointed something that you find is holding you back from adequate eating in terms of your gender identity, and that’s really insightful and important, and I’ll address that next. But by reflecting on these questions—about what specifically is preventing you from dismissing urges and eating adequately—what you’re doing is trying to make things just a little less overwhelming for yourself as far as recovery goes.

If you believe that so much needs to change out in the world or within your community in order for you to recover, it’s possible that this may get in the way of you taking steps toward healing, and it may put you in a situation where you continue to harm yourself because of issues that you’re not able to control at this point. Now, that does not mean to ignore those issues, and I fully realize that not being part of a marginalized community myself—that my perspective is very limited, and I don’t have the authority or the lived experience to speak directly to what that’s like.

My role here is to help people stop bingeing, and I never want to tell someone that their circumstances make recovery impossible. As much as I can, I want to try to help people to stay focused on solutions as far as the bingeing goes—even though I do not have all of the answers for the terrible things that go on in the world. Just like I encourage people not to wait until their relationship issues are resolved to stop bingeing, we also can’t wait for the culture to change or for others to treat us the way we deserve before we start believing that we deserve to treat ourselves with respect and care no matter what.

That never means to just accept abuse or mistreatment. It just means that, as much as possible, you can start to disconnect binge eating from those terrible things. And when you stop bingeing in response to things going on outside of yourself, you become better resourced to take whatever steps you need to take to deal with the complex and difficult things that are going on in your life.

All of that being said, I want to bring you back to the main point that I was trying to get across here, which was that there absolutely may be things you uniquely feel are holding you back—and although you can’t solve everything or wait until the world changes to stop bingeing—there may be things you need to address before you feel like you can approach recovery (with your basic safety being the priority).

To guide you as you reflect on what you may need to address, you can listen to Episode 15: Readiness for Recovery from Binge Eating, which explores how to get in touch with what circumstances or issues may be getting in your way—without making recovery unnecessarily complex or overwhelming.

I also hear your point about body shape and gender identity. For some, maintaining a certain physique is tied directly to wanting to feel like their body matches their identity, and that can create tremendous pressure to control weight and shape through food and exercise. That’s not just “wanting to look good”—that’s deeply connected with your inner world, and it can make the idea of eating more or letting go of certain controls feel threatening.

In that podcast conversation with Quinn Haisley, we talked some about this topic, so I do encourage you to go listen, if you haven’t already. What you’re bringing up here is an example of why I feel like stopping the binge eating itself can often be more straightforward than stopping dieting or restricting behaviors. And as you know, it’s impossible to stop bingeing for any sustained amount of time without stopping those dieting and restricting behaviors. What I’ve noticed over the years is that it’s common for people to have deeply held reasons for wanting to change their body or maintain a certain weight, and some of those reasons can date back as long as they can remember. For some, those reasons are much more complex and personal than they are for others—and that seems to be the case for you, but that doesn’t mean it’s insurmountable.

When this control over your body is creating or sustaining an eating disorder, it’s so important to really take a look at what this is costing you. It’s worth exploring ways that you can care for your body and affirm your identity at the same time, in ways that don’t push you into patterns that harm you physically or mentally. This is not a specialty of mine, so I recommend getting support from professionals who understand both eating disorders and gender identity. This way, you won’t be left navigating those complexities alone.

You deserve to exist in this world without feeling unsafe. You deserve to be seen and respected. I want you to consider that recovering from your eating disorder could be a way that you prove to yourself that you do deserve self-care, even in the midst of hardship, and that no one can take your self-worth away from you. You can become a person who is not drained by an eating disorder, and when you free up your energy that’s currently going toward the struggles with food, you also put yourself in a better position to heal from everything you’ve been through.

Question 4: How to be a supportive partner

H wrote that she wants support and some healthy accountability in recovery, but she’s not sure how to ask for it. Her husband is supportive and aware, but he feels helpless.

I want to answer this question a little differently than you might expect. In Part 4 of this series, I spoke directly to people with eating disorders about how they can share with others, ask for support, or when sharing maybe isn’t what they want to do. For this question, I’m going to talk directly to the partner—the person who wants to help but isn’t sure how. And H, you may even want to share this with him.

If you’re a partner or friend supporting someone who’s trying to recover, the first thing to remember is to simply treat them like the whole, wonderful person that they are. Try to see the eating issues as separate from their core being, and treat them like you did before you found out about this issue—assuming that you treated them with love and care and respect. Do the normal things that you’ve always done together—have fun, laugh, focus on your life with that person outside of food…and check in with them to see what they may need.

If the person you’re supporting doesn’t know exactly what they need yet, that’s okay. Just check in now and then—not as an interrogation but with genuine curiosity and care. Sometimes just knowing that someone is present and engaged without any pressure is enough, or it may help them open up to exploring what they may need specifically from you.

Basically, you want to take your cues from the person who is struggling, and if they don’t give you any cues, you can gently ask for them. Ask them how you can best help, don’t assume. If the person does not offer any ways for you to help, you can ask more specific questions, like: Would it help if I sit with you while you eat? or Would you like me to offer you any reminders? or Is there anything I should avoid saying? And honor any request that the person makes.

You don’t have to have all the answers. You just have to show up and be curious and be understanding. When you have meals with that person, simply try to be there and be present—without commenting on their eating habits, unless they’ve already made a specific request. Don’t try to take control or tell them what to do, and don’t try to become the “food police.” That does not mean you always have to be silent when you notice something concerning, but it’s often best not to bring it up within the meal itself—but afterward, at some point when you’re in a calm setting where you can ask questions and offer support.

It’s important to mention that what I’m saying here is for adults who are supporting other adults, not an adult supporting a child or adolescent. The most effective treatment for anorexia in children is family-based treatment (FBT), where parents do need to step in to provide structured meals and ensure that eating happens. It used to be the case where we told parents not to be the “food police” or comment on their kids’ eating habits—even if their children were engaging in dangerous behaviors—but all of that has changed as more research has emerged. FBT includes family-directed feeding which is definitely not the same as being the “food police.” It’s a very specific method for refeeding a child, with very important guidelines about food amounts, how to talk about food, and how to approach meals, so please do not try to do this without proper therapeutic guidance.

Another way you can be supportive is to be a good role model yourself as far as food. This doesn’t mean you have to eat perfectly, but the biggest thing is just to avoid making negative comments about food or about your own body. Don’t criticize yourself for eating something, or criticize your own weight, or say you need to lose weight, or label foods as good or bad. Try to be neutral or even positive about food, make an effort to nourish yourself well, and do not go to any extremes with food.

In addition to nourishing yourself, try to take care of yourself through this process. Supporting someone in recovery can feel uncomfortable and difficult at times. It can also be hard feeling like you don’t know what to do in certain moments, and it’s okay to admit that and ask for help for yourself when necessary. You can find that through therapy or a support group. The healthier and more grounded you are, the better you’ll be able to show up for the person that you care about.

H, I hope this will be useful to you and your husband. Take what you think makes sense from it, add your own ideas, and implement what works for you and your relationship—knowing that that may evolve as you recover.

Question 5: When sharing about your eating disorder backfires

S wrote that she told her husband about her eating disorder several years ago and has since regretted it because he uses it against her in arguments. She also said that she struggles not to take her frustration with continued bingeing out on her husband.

This is incredibly difficult. I want to say upfront that the fact that sharing your struggle has led to this dynamic does not mean you did anything wrong by telling him. You were doing what you thought was right for you at the time. You were trying to support yourself, and you were trying to get the support of someone you thought would be supportive. It’s not a problem with you sharing, it’s a problem with his lack of effort to try to understand how to support you—and, more importantly, which I’ll get to in a moment—his lack of kindness toward you about it.

Let’s talk about the understanding first. Even if you have a very supportive and kind partner, it’s helpful to take a step back and recognize that there are going to be limitations in what we can expect another person to really, truly understand about our struggles. Unless someone has experienced an eating disorder themselves, they’ll never be able to fully grasp what it’s like—and that’s not their fault. That’s true of so many things in life. Our internal struggles are in some ways ours alone, and to expect someone else to be able to fully empathize in a way that’s helpful 100% of the time is usually setting yourself up to be continually disappointed.

I’m not saying you’re doing that, S, but I just wanted to set those expectations upfront for anyone who is sharing with their partner, friend, or loved one. What we’re looking for when we share is effort to meet us halfway; we’re looking for connection—for a listening ear. We’re not looking for someone to know exactly what it’s like to be us, and it can help to give others some grace for not fully understanding.

Like I addressed in the previous question, it’s important to communicate about what kind of support you need, and it’s possible that doing this will help you in the area of taking your frustration with the eating disorder out on him. I realize I may be tipping into giving him excuses here—and I’m not—and I’m going to address that next. But it’s possible that he sees you so frustrated with the eating disorder and he doesn’t know how to help. Maybe in some ways you’re expecting him to know how to help, but he simply doesn’t—and it all culminates in him using the eating disorder against you, which is absolutely unacceptable.

Giving someone grace for a lack of understanding does not mean excusing poor treatment—especially the kind you’ve described. There’s a difference between someone not knowing how to support you, and then, on the other hand, someone taking something vulnerable and private that you’ve shared and using it against you. I believe that crosses a line.

If you haven’t already, and if it feels safe to do so, I would suggest that you explain the harm and hurt he’s causing when he brings this up in arguments. By being clear with him about how it affects you, you create clarity for both of you. He knows where you stand, and you know that he’s aware. And if after that, he continues to do it, then you need to consider next steps. That could mean something like couples therapy to talk through these dynamics, address any mistreatment, and also help you work through your own frustration. If you’re both willing to foster mutual respect, this could be very effective.

If you can’t come to any solutions—but you do want to keep the relationship going—another option is to basically remove him as a source of support and put some boundaries around the topic of the eating disorder. Make it something you both agree to not talk about, and then you can turn to other sources of support that you find more helpful. I know that it’s not ideal to not have the support of your primary relationship, but as I talked about in the previous post, it is possible to make that work and to seek support in other people in your life—and within yourself.

You definitely deserve relationships where your openness is met with care and not used against you—even if you do have moments of frustration. That’s not you expecting perfection from him, and it’s not you avoiding working on improving your own reactions. It’s just about expecting basic respect and kindness about something that is deeply personal to you.

My last piece of advice—as I’ve said in so many of these questions—is to try not to hinge your recovery on how he responds to any of this or how any of this goes. Imagine how empowering it will feel to possibly have an argument with him and not binge—or to feel ashamed of something that he said and not hurt yourself with food. Again, it’s never about accepting mistreatment, but it’s about treating yourself well and not falling for those lower brain messages that tell you a binge will fix things—because it never will.

Question 6: Learning to speak up in toxic relationships

J shared that she’s in a relationship with a person she said is a narcissist, and she’s beginning to learn to speak up for herself after years of people-pleasing, hiding to eat, or restricting.

First, J, I want to commend you for working on this skill of standing up for yourself. It’s definitely not easy, but you absolutely deserve to have your voice and needs heard. I also want to acknowledge that building the skill of speaking up is even more challenging in a toxic or manipulative relationship. It can feel a bit daunting, and it can take up a lot of emotional energy, and the speaking up does not always go as planned.

If you’re dealing with someone who is truly narcissistic, know that many common relationship strategies or communication tips that encourage open communication and mutual respect simply do not work with people who have high levels of narcissistic traits. It can be easy to believe that all you need to do is calmly assert yourself or make the person understand your perspective, but it’s rarely that straightforward. I read something recently that captures this well. It said something like: the conundrum with boundaries in relationships is that the people you most need to set boundaries with are often the people with whom it’s nearly impossible to set boundaries with.

I’m not saying it will definitely be this way for you, because everyone is different, and you do want to try to assume the best in people and give people the opportunity to create mutual understanding. But the issue with narcissism is that—because of their lack of empathy—it can make the non-narcissistic person think that maybe they’re just not saying things right, or maybe they’re setting the boundary wrong, or maybe they just need to be kinder or more understanding. This can really take you down a rabbit hole of thinking that you’re the problem.

If any of this resonates with you, I recommend listening to Episode 144: Eating Disorders and Narcissistic Relationships with Dr. Ramani. Dr. Ramani is a renowned expert on narcissism, and I highly recommend her as a resource as you’re dealing with these struggles.

Now, getting back to the bingeing—if your binge urges have connections to relationship stress, know that you can break those connections. Your lower brain might offer binge eating as a “solution” to calming yourself during times of relationship stress, or those lower brain messages may even present the binge as a “reward” for standing up for yourself or as a “relief” after a difficult conversation.

Any and all of these relationship-related messages that encourage bingeing are neurological junk, and when you can dismiss them, you put yourself in a much better position to care for yourself and be the person you want to be in your relationship—or make the decisions you need to make regarding staying in the relationship or not.

Something I want to add here is that even not speaking up does not cause bingeing. Being a people pleaser does not cause bingeing. In my own therapy, I definitely learned the idea that I had to stand up for myself and get my needs met so that I wouldn’t “turn to bingeing” to try to fulfill those emotional needs. I could probably spend the rest of this post talking about why that didn’t work and why it wasn’t true for me personally—and for so many others that I’ve worked with.

Being accommodating to others—or even overly accommodating—does not inherently lead to bingeing. Just like you can take any tendency you have and connect it to bingeing, you can take any tendency you have and disconnect it from bingeing. Then you get the opportunity to work on whatever tendencies you want to improve—without having to worry about bingeing. You can fail at standing up for yourself, and you can still not binge.

Just as a personal example, I had a nearly three-year relationship relatively recently where some of my people-pleasing and not-standing-up-for-myself tendencies were alive and well. It’s not something I’m the most proud of, and I feel like I’ll be a work in progress in this area for the rest of my life, but not once did an urge to binge show up—because I stopped believing that being assertive or avoiding people-pleasing is a cure for bingeing.

Yes, learning to speak up is an extremely valuable goal, and I’m definitely working on it, but even if you haven’t mastered it yet, you can still stop the eating disorder. That’s where your freedom begins.

Question 7: Binge eating and self-hatred

J asked about deep self-hatred that can come from the bingeing itself—specifically, hating yourself for the damage done to your body.

This is another question about that relationship with the self, and to me this question is not about self-worth overall or hating yourself in every aspect. It’s about the binge eating creating consequences and pain that negatively affects your relationship with yourself, and I completely get that.

Binge eating can do terrible things to a person’s health, wellbeing, and quality of life, and that’s why I’m here to try to help people avoid that as much as possible. But when the bingeing is doing those terrible things, it makes sense that feelings of hate would arise in relation to that. I hated it too, and these feelings can run deeper the longer you’ve had the problem or the more health effects that add up over time.

It gets more complicated than just hating the pain and the consequences, because you also recognize that you are the one doing the action of bingeing, and you’re the one having to live with the consequences. So, then it’s easy to assume that it’s all your fault. It feels like you are the one hurting you, so it makes sense that you may start hating yourself for it. But like I always talk about, it’s not truly you—at least not the real you. The bingeing is a primitive drive; it’s a habit that’s become deeply rooted in the lower brain over time. It’s separate from your identity, and values, and what you want for your life.

The most important point I want to make is that you can absolutely hate the binge eating, you can hate this lower brain habit, you can hate what it’s done to you—without turning that hatred toward yourself as a person. You can instead start to have compassion for yourself—seeing you and the eating disorder as separate.

When you direct your negative feelings at the eating disorder, or even at the factors that led you to start these behaviors in the first place, you’re not avoiding responsibility. You’re simply placing the blame where it belongs and stepping into the role of someone who can stand outside of the problem and its origins—and start taking action to end it.

Most people get into binge eating in a very innocent way—through dieting, food restriction, overfocus on weight, or overeating from a very young age—and they simply don’t know how the brain and body are going to respond to those things. It’s not your fault. You didn’t know what was going to happen when, for example, you went on that first diet.

Have compassion for that past version of yourself who was doing the best they could with the information, circumstances, and influences they had at the time. When the “I hate myself” thoughts come up, try to shift them to “I hate this,” and then let those “I hate this” thoughts fuel your determination to recover. I want you to think about if someone that you care about was struggling with something difficult and then blaming and hating themselves for it. Think of what you may say to them. You’d probably encourage them to see their worth beyond the problem, and you would try to convince them that they deserve to take steps forward to overcome what they’ve been through.

Try to give yourself that same compassion and that same encouragement. Your worth does not vanish because you’ve been caught in this habit. You can hate the problem and still decide that you’re valuable enough to solve it.

Question 8: What’s blocking the real me?

A asked: What am I so afraid of? How do I dig deep to find out what’s blocking the real me?

All of the questions in this post are so important, and a lot of them are really getting at that core relationship with yourself. The previous question was about learning not to hate the real you (even if you hate the effects of the eating disorder), and this one is about strengthening the real you by trying to understand what might be getting in the way and overcoming that.

As far as what’s holding you back, consider that some of it simply might be the voice of your lower brain. You may be mistakenly viewing that voice as you, when in reality, it’s just a stream of automatic messages generated by the habit. In that case, when what’s holding you back is those faulty messages from the lower brain, you can let go of the idea that there’s something deep and meaningful that’s blocking the real you.

It’s just that the real you is getting caught up in those habitual messages and taking them seriously—but you can learn to separate from them. What can help is to write down the specific lower brain messages that you’ve been believing, and then you can either reframe those thoughts in a way that aligns with your goals, or you can dismiss them altogether.

On the other hand, you may feel like what’s blocking you goes beyond the harmful, habitual messages of your primal brain. If you truly believe something else is holding you back from dismissing urges or from eating adequately, I want you to take the advice I gave to X in the question earlier—and try to get very specific about what it is that’s preventing you from eating enough or not acting on the urges to binge.

I would recommend that you also listen to Episode 15: Readiness for Recovery from Binge Eating. It could be an attachment to dieting, it could be feeling like you don’t have any motivation to recover due to any issue like depression, for example. When you’re not able to connect with your motivation, and when you’re not able to see reasons for recovery because of overwhelming negative feelings overall, this is something to address before you can start to see a way out.

Of course, you don’t have to be perfectly healed, happy, or self-actualized in order to recover, but you do have to see reasons to stop the behavior. You need to know at some level that binge eating is not what you want, and that it’s hurting you. You need to recognize that you do have the ability to override the urges when they arise, even if that takes some practice. Also, very importantly, you need to be willing to eat enough food. If you’re not, you’ll continue to feel like something is blocking you—that something is not enough nourishment.

There can be a tendency to think you must first do deep healing work for yourself and for your relationships before you can end this habit. And what I’ve said in response to X’s question and this question is that, yes, in your unique situation, there may be things you need to do to feel more ready for recovery. But try to be strategic about this so that you can figure out what you need to do, get to work on doing it, and then move on to getting some space and freedom from bingeing—because no one deserves to stay stuck there, no matter how hard life gets.

The journey of self-discovery, relationship work, and overall healing can go on forever, and that’s not a bad thing—because if we’re trying to live life well, I don’t think that journey ever stops. But the nightmare of bingeing can end much sooner than you think!

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