lystn

“Sometimes recovery felt like a choice and other times it felt like a chore, but I knew I had to keep going. I am grateful to my previous self for sticking it out. Because I made a series of small choices then, I don’t have to make them now and can live comfortably. So kudos to my younger self. She was a bad ass” – Jess

Jess is a therapist who primarily works with adolescents with eating disorders because she was an adolescent when she was in recovery. Now recovered from all types of eating disorders, Jess tells the story of what it was like to be in treatment and recovery as a teenager, and how she shifted her identity from someone with an eating disorder to someone who is a true bad ass. In the interview portion of this episode, Jess gives some advice for the loved ones of adolescents with eating disorders. She also gives some body positive, fat acceptance literary suggestions for people who are struggling.

Questions Answered:
-What was it like to “identify as an eating disorder”?
-How did you separate yourself from your eating disorder and build your own identity?
-What were some things that made you special, outside of your eating disorder?
-What was the difference for you between choosing to go to treatment vs. when people told you that you had to go?
-How do you come to the realization that recovery was a choice to be made?
-What is it like looking back on the choice that you made to recover from the place of being recovered?  
-How did hearing that “you wouldn’t recover from an eating disorder?” affect you, especially since you were so young? 
-What advice do you have for adults with adolescents in their life with an eating disorder"
-What literature or resources have you come across that might be helpful for people in recovery?
-What's good in your life now?

Resources from this episode:

-Jess’ website
-"Two Whole Cakes" by Lesley Kinzel
-"Shrill" by Lindy West
- Health at Every Size
-"Body Kindness" by Rebecca Scritchfield
-Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch