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Flawthentic ME
Flawthentic ME
79: When Food Becomes More Than Nourishment: Eating Disorder Recovery with Mallary Tenore Tarpley
Mallary Tenore Tarpley shares her harrowing journey from childhood anorexia to her present-day reality as a mother in recovery, exploring the complex relationship between grief, control, and disordered eating.
We talked about:
• Mallary's loss of her mother at age 11 that became a catalyst for developing anorexia as an attempt to "stop time" and feel closer to her
• The concept of "the middle place" in eating disorder recovery—the space between acute illness and full recovery where 85% of people identify
• "slips" are not failures but opportunities for growth and forward movement
• how cultural perspectives on food create additional complexities for those with eating disorders
• genetic factors in eating disorders—we inherit vulnerability, not destiny
• how motherhood transformed her relationship with her body and recovery
• the importance of helping children see their bodies as worthy of respect regardless of appearance
You can find Mallary's book "Slip: Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder Recovery" wherever books are sold. Connect with Mallary through her newsletter at mallary.substack.com or on Instagram.
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Maybe if I stayed the same size I was when my mom was alive, then I could somehow be closer to her. I began to restrict what I was eating. For me, the food restriction pretty quickly turned into an eating disorder.
Speaker 2:This is Flawthentic Me, a self-love podcast for South Asian women, a place where we celebrate self-love even when we feel imperfect or flawed. A safe space where you can be raw, real and authentic. And here's your host, self-love and mindset coach, sunny Lamba. Well, hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Flawthentic Me, and this episode is the one with a guest. My guest today is Mallory Tenori Tarpley. She is an award-winning journalist, a writing professor at University of Texas and now author of a powerful new book Slip Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder Recovery. In this book, Mallory blends her own harrowing journey from a childhood with anorexia to her present-day reality as a mother in recovery, alongside immersive reporting, emerging science and social history of eating disorders. Her articles and essays have published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, la Times and Teen Vogue. Welcome to the podcast, mallory.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to this Me too.
Speaker 2:Actually, when your team reached out to me, the something that really stood out to me is your story, which kind of goes very hand on hand with mine, and I'll talk about it in a moment. So today we are talking about eating disorders, emotional eating, recovery and what it means to embrace imperfection. I really want to talk about that as well. I was listening to your interview on the Glow Up and Show Up podcast last night just to get to know you a bit more, and you talked about how losing your mother at the young age of 11 and your struggle with eating disorders are deeply interconnected, and it was such a huge aha moment for me because I lost my mother when I was 14.
Speaker 2:So, first of all, I don't say this lightly, but when you said that, it made me realize that, even though I have not been diagnosed with an eating disorder, I have struggled with emotional eating my entire life, and I spent last night and today morning journaling about it and thinking about how has that played a huge role? Because I do feel that food has been my best friend. It has been there for me always whenever I needed it. When mom was not there, food was there. So I want to start right from that place and talk to you about how did that show up for you losing a mother and how did the eating disorders connect with that.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, thank you for that, and I'm so glad that my story prompted you to want to journal and to make some connections. I always think that's the power of storytelling. So my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was eight years old and she was sick for about three years, during which time the cancer metastasized her bone marrow, her liver, her brain. And while she was sick, our family really held on to hope that she was going to be okay and we referred to her as a soldier in a battle. And even as she got sicker and sicker, we just kept telling ourselves she's going to be fine. And as a child, I believed my parents when they said that, and I really wasn't privy to all that was happening to my mother's body. I could certainly see that she was frail and weak, but I didn't know just the extent to which she was sick. Looking back years later on her medical records, it was pretty clear she was not going to make it, but my family really wanted to shield me from that reality. And when she did pass away, when I was 11, I just felt like I was in complete shock because I really hadn't been prepared for that news and I continued with this narrative that I had to be okay. For so long we said mom's going to be okay. And now I thought I have to be okay.
Speaker 1:So I went to school the day after my mom died, I wrote the eulogy for her funeral and didn't cry at all. I didn't miss any school. I ended up getting a perfect attendance award for the rest of that year, and it just was this interesting situation where I was putting on this happy face and people were praising me for being strong and resilient and yet deep within I felt like I was falling apart, and the more time passed, the farther away I felt from my mother falling apart, and the more time passed, the farther away I felt from my mother and I really wanted to stop time. I felt like handcuffing the arms on the clock and just stopping time because I thought that would help me to feel closer to my mother. And at the same time, I was taking a health class where we were learning about good foods and bad foods, as the teacher called them, and learning what we should and shouldn't eat.
Speaker 1:So I was beginning to realize that I could change the way my body looked based on what I ate, and so I conjured up this idea that maybe if I stayed the same size I was when my mom was alive, then I could somehow be closer to her. And I knew that I could change my size by restricting my food intake, and so I did. I began to restrict what I was eating, and that became this warped form of time travel. It did make me smaller and did make me the same size I was when my mom was alive, and for a brief time it did help me to feel closer to her. But ultimately the irony of eating disorders is that we sort of think they're going to give us one thing but they end up stripping it from us completely. And so for me, the food restriction pretty quickly turned into an eating disorder. That left me feeling more out of control than ever and farther away from ever from my mother.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow. I'm just listening to that and it's giving me goosebumps, especially that been there. Same story my mother had cancer as well in her uterus and three years around the same kind of timing that you're talking about. I was 11 when she was diagnosed, was never told that that's what was going on until way later and everything that you're sharing. It's very similar story, although I don't have access to her medical records.
Speaker 2:This was back home in India. We moved to Canada, so don't know anything what happened, but, as you're describing like it's just oh gosh, but something that you said and I'm so glad that I came across you because it has now opened this door for me and I can't wait to get my hands on your book to really see how I have used food to save me, to keep, to soothe me. A lot of times it's literally soothing your book Slip. What does the word slip mean For me? When I think of slip, it means that, oh, yesterday was my day before yesterday was my birthday actually, and I had a cake, but then there's this leftover cake. So next day, early morning, breakfast time, should I be eating my healthy breakfast or should I be eating that slice of cake and then I have that slice of cake and then I'm like, oh well, you know what, now that it has happened, let's just eat more. So what does the word slip mean for you? For the book?
Speaker 1:Yes, that's a great question, because some people may not necessarily make the connection right away. And, seeing the title, and for me, when I was in treatment for anorexia throughout my teenage years, I was quite sick and eventually was able to get to a better place in my recovery, and when I left treatment, I really wanted to just be fully recovered, and yet I didn't really know what that meant. In my mind, though, it meant that I couldn't make any wrong moves. I had to eat perfectly, I had to exercise just the right amount, I had to get all A's, do all the extracurriculars, I had to stop therapy, and that, in my mind, was what full recovery meant, and I was petrified of making any slips or making any wrong moves, because I thought that if I did, I would immediately slide back into dangerous territory and get sick again, and so that was quite insurmountable in terms of just the pressure that I felt to really maintain this full recovery. So for two years, I tried to maintain it, but then, in college, I ended up relapsing and fell into this vicious cycle of binging and restricting, and I felt like I was failing both at anorexia and at recovery, and in this period I would often slip, so to speak. So I would eat a pint of ice cream and I would think, oh man, well, I just blew it. So, similar to what you said, I would think to myself, well, I'll just eat the whole sleeve of Girl Scout cookies and I'll eat the bag of chips and I'll just keep going and then tomorrow I just won't eat at all. And I kind of was stuck in this cycle for so long, for well over a decade, partly because I really just stigmatized slips and thought that they were just grounds for failure and that felt really defeating and it led me to just stay really stuck in these behaviors.
Speaker 1:And it wasn't until my late 20s where I was helping journalists to tell stories about the messy middle. We called them restorative narratives and they're essentially stories that show how people make meaningful pathways forward in the aftermath of trauma and tragedy and illness. And as I was telling journalists to kind of explore these messy middles, which often get overlooked, it occurred to me that that could actually be a helpful framework for my own story and I began to question what would it look like if slips were not grounds for failure but rather opportunities for growth? And what would it mean if you could look at a slip as being an opportunity to move forward. Because if you think about that very word slip, it suggests some sort of movement and actually a lot of us slip when we're really doing hard things and trying to make progress. But instead of celebrating that, we fixate on the slip and that can then lead us to slide.
Speaker 1:And within the eating disorder field, slips are often stigmatized and they are often sort of framed as something that happens in this very temporary space where you're sick and then you're working on getting better. But for me, as a woman who's been in recovery for over 20 years, I still slip and with this book I really just want to speak truth to that and normalize the reality that slips happen in recovery and can happen in an ongoing way. But that doesn't negate the fact that progress is always possible.
Speaker 2:I just love how you said that slips are not a failure but opportunities for growth. In my work I work with a lot of women who are struggling with their habits so healthy eating and exercising and meditation and whatever all those personal growth habits and something that I have noticed over and over is that one failure and they think that's it. In fact, for the month of July in my community we were doing a habits challenge and I noticed a few people who messed up or mixed up or slipped a couple times, didn't show up for the next whole week and in fact, one of them didn't show up for the whole month. Because you slip and then you're sitting in this guilt and shame that there's something wrong with me while everyone else is doing it and I love that spin that you put on it. That slip doesn't mean you failed. It means you're doing something hard. You're working hard and you're doing things that are going to make you a better person or help you grow on the road to recovery. It's just such a beautiful way to look at that. I want to talk about you.
Speaker 2:You mentioned that messy middle and I know you call it the middle place of recovery. So when I think of that again. I feel that middle place is the hardest place to be. I am. I haven't actually. You know what this is it we're going to make this public. I haven't mentioned it. I decided a day before my birthday that I'm not going to color my hair anymore, and no one knows. So here we go everyone. Now you know it's public information, but I am so scared of that messy middle because I know when it starts growing from that roots and that and I have a lot of gray roots and when it gets to that, you know you have that line and it starts showing. I'm super scared of that messy middle and people feel that they cannot move on until they are fully recovered. They feel that it has to be perfect, and you just talked about imperfection as well. So what is your interpretation of that middle place when it comes to recovery?
Speaker 1:Well, I am glad that you mentioned just your hair and talking about the middle place, because I think that the middle place is such an apt term for just so many phases that we find ourselves in and so many transitions that we find ourselves in throughout life. So while I talk about it within the context of eating disorders, it's also very helpful for other contexts. So, within sort of the framework of eating disorders, the middle place is really this name I've given to this liminal space between acute sickness and full recovery, and it really is a place where I've lived out pretty much most of my adult life and, like I had said earlier, for so long I felt like there wasn't this space in between full recovery and acute sickness and I thought, if I slipped just once, I'm going to immediately get sick again. But I have realized that this middle place is a hard place to live in because you're not yet over your disorder. But it also takes a lot of courage to both live in this place and also to just be honest about that with other people, because for so long I told people that I was fully recovered, even though I was very much struggling behind closed doors, and that narrative felt so inauthentic to me, but I didn't have the words to describe where I was at and while I was really struggling, I was more on the side of sickness than not during that period of relapse. But then, once I began reframing my thinking around slips and came up with this middle place terminology, I began to make progress forward and began to realize that I was no less special, no less courageous, just because I hadn't yet reached full recovery.
Speaker 1:And for me full recovery often seems like a fixed state, whereas with the middle place it feels like there's always this movement and momentum that can happen and that can occur, and sometimes that movement is backwards a little bit, but there's always that hope and possibility of being able to continue to move forward. And so now in the middle place, every time I slip, I say okay, I slipped. What happened in that moment? Why do I think it happened? Who can I talk to about it? And how do I get back up now? Not next week, once my deadlines are done, or not next month, once school starts, or whatever it might be Just thinking about how can I get back up now?
Speaker 1:And I will say that our society collectively tends to prefer stories about protagonists who prevail over their disorders, and that is a narrative that we hear time and time again in literature and for so long I would read eating disorder books and they were always told from the perspective of people who are fully recovered and I don't want to discredit their experiences, because I think they're quite valid and that can be really hopeful for folks, just to know that some individuals can get to that place of full recovery. But for me it always felt like there was this lack of a mirrored image, because I couldn't see myself reflected in those books as someone who was better but not all better, and I thought for a long time I was the only one in this middle place. But I ended up surveying over 700 people for my book who have lived experience with an eating disorder and 85% of them said I can identify with this middle place. So I thought there's something to this. I need to be writing about this place, which is not talked about and often stigmatized.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love that. It also reflects that whole idea of imperfection. Healing or recovery doesn't have to be this linear path to this end state. It can be where you have those slips and you maybe go five steps back, but then you go six steps forward, and there are times when you are going to feel like did I just fail? But then you pick yourself up and you move ahead again. Yes, exactly, I want to talk about this from a cultural perspective.
Speaker 2:So a lot of my listeners are South Asians and food is very intricately weaved into our culture. All our celebrations, even meetups, get togethers, families coming over, someone's visiting it's all about food. What are we cooking? What's for breakfast, what's for lunch, what are the snacks? And not just that, but also there is this pressure to eat more. So I don't know if you have ever heard about this, but in Indian culture, if I don't eat enough, I am kind of insulting the host. That's the usual narrative, and you will be if you say, okay, I'm done. No, there will always be this pressure Come on, just take one more, a little bit more, have more, one more serving. There will always be this pressure. Come on, just take one more, a little bit more, have more, one more serving. There's that pressure. There's that also pressure to be thankful and grateful to the host.
Speaker 2:On top of that, there's a lot of shame that comes with body image. There's a lot of shame, and I just did. I think that's the podcast episode that your team listened to when they reached out to me. It was called Fat Babies Skinny Teens.
Speaker 2:So when you are a baby, there's this whole thing about your kid is not eating enough, and my son was one of them. He was very skinny and I had to hear from everyone you got to feed him more. You're not feeding him enough. He's so skinny. And the moment that kid is like 11, 12, 13, now they're like, oh, your baby's too chubby, he or she needs to lose weight. And then and this narrative goes on you're pregnant and then, oh, you didn't gain enough. And then the moment the baby is delivered, you got to lose the weight. So there's all this shame and blame, and I can go on and on and on. But I want to ask you what has been your findings in your research during writing this book? What role does that? Cultural role and also the body image and being flautantic that's the name of the podcast. What role does being flautantic play in eating disorder recovery?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 1:So it's really important to just do what you did, which is to acknowledge that food plays a different role for each of us individually, but also culturally and societally, and so that was one of the reasons why I didn't just want this book to be about me and my story. I wanted to really interview a lot of people and capture different experiences. So I interviewed almost 200 clinicians and researchers and other people with lived experience so that I could really understand how food played out differently for them and how their disorders played out differently. And there were a lot of instances where people who were not white like me and who were from different sort of countries and cultural backgrounds would say well, actually my family thought that it was really offensive when I wouldn't eat meals, and they would say why aren't you eating? And they didn't realize that I was stuck in this disorder that I really couldn't get out of. They thought that I was just offending them. They didn't understand what I was actually struggling with, and eating disorders in my culture just aren't very prevalent. So a lot of times there was this feeling of isolation, particularly in communities where eating disorders may not be quite as prevalent or not talked about as much, and so in those cases it was sometimes harder for the individuals to get help and also harder for them to be understood by their families because they were struggling with something that seemed so enigmatic and that seemed to run so contrary to just their cultural norms and systems. And so there are many cases like that, even talking with individuals from the Black community who would say well, it's very common for Black women, for instance, to have binge eating disorder, but far less common for Black women to struggle with anorexia. So I didn't feel like I really had anyone to talk to and again, it felt misunderstood.
Speaker 1:So it's important to recognize that there are a lot of stereotypes about who does and doesn't struggle with eating disorders and why that's the case, and we really need to move away from this thinking that eating disorders or disordered eating only affect young white teenage girls, because that has been the stereotype for far too long.
Speaker 1:And so part of that, too, comes with recognizing that we need to have diverse staffs and treatment centers and more diverse dietitians. For instance, I interviewed one woman who was Hispanic and she said that a dietitian she'd seen for her anorexia had essentially told her that she should be making lots of kale at home, which was an odd recommendation to begin with, but her mother never cooked with kale, right? I mean, her mother grew up in Guatemala and didn't really cook with kale or quinoa, which is another recommendation. And so there was this disconnect between what the dietician, who had lived all of her life in the US, was recommending for this girl who had grown up in Latin America. And so thinking about those disconnects is really important so that we can really be culturally sensitive when we approach conversations with people who may be struggling and also when we approach treatment who may be struggling and also when we approach treatment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and something you said reminded me of a conversation I had with my niece, when you said that it's not just young white teenagers or young women, and so it's not just white, it is very prevalent in my culture. So everyone who's listening right now, I want you to take that moment, if you're not struggling, but look around you and look at your kids, your daughters, especially with this world of social media. So I'm going to tell you about the conversation I had with my niece. We took a picture and she's 21 and she's like oh my gosh, I'm looking so fat in this picture, like she literally used that term, like the F word, and I said look at me, look, look at you. You are like this skinny, like literally I can hold her waist in my two hands and I'm like where, how? So this body image, as I mentioned, with the social media and this whole obsession with how you look, especially being looking very skinny, we think that this was a thing of the past, but I feel it's this huge pandemic I'm sorry to use that word, but this huge pandemic, coming especially with the comparison thanks to social media. While it's a boon, it's also sometimes a curse. So I want everyone who's listening to realize that that this is not just something that happens to young white girls. Our girls in our culture are struggling with body image and they're sometimes not open to say that, especially when they see their mother struggling with her own body. I have clients who are like constantly looking in the mirror and all they see is every flaw that they can imagine, and then that's the message they're giving to the younger girls. So when you say this I'm really grateful that you said this that it's not something that only a certain group of girls or people struggle with. It's everywhere and it's becoming more and more actually.
Speaker 2:So get Mallory's book If you feel that you can talk to anyone, and if you feel that you don't have that support, reach out for help. Send me a message, but talk to someone. If you feel that you're not getting that support, reach out for help, send me a message. But talk to someone If you feel that you're not getting that support from your family or they don't understand and they just think that, oh, eat, I'm all over the place. But it also reminds me you said that you looked at the social history of eating disorders Something in my culture I have noticed is that my parents grew up in that age of colonization and one thing that I heard growing up is we didn't have food to eat, and here you are not eating, so there's that whole guilt then that, oh, you know, my parents didn't have food, but I don't want to eat right now, so that I really just wanted to highlight that that reach out, ask someone for help.
Speaker 2:So thank you for saying that I also. So my next question I had in my mind was that your book blends that personal experience. You interviewed so many people. What surprised you the most in your research when you were talking to experts or the patients about the reasons behind eating disorders? Like what was the one thing that you were like? Whoa, I didn't expect that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it was really interesting when I spoke with a geneticist who talked with me about just how genetics play into the development of eating disorders, and this was really intriguing to me, both as a woman with lived experience but also as a mother who has a seven-year-old son and a nine-year-old daughter. So there's been a lot of really fascinating genetic research that looks at the genetic risk and essentially girls who have a relative with anorexia nervosa are 11 times more likely to develop the disorder themselves. And I remember when I learned that statistic I just felt so crestfallen and heartbroken. I thought, oh my gosh, am I going to pass this on to my daughter or my son? But in looking at the research and talking with geneticists, I realized that we don't inherit eating disorders. We inherit a vulnerability to them. So we are not genetically doomed if our parents had an eating disorder, nor are our children genetically doomed if we've had an eating disorder.
Speaker 1:So there are sort of four factors that often play into whether someone develops an eating disorder. So certainly there are genetic risk factors, but there are also genetic protective factors. We don't know as much about those, but we know that they exist. And then there are environmental protective factors and environmental risk factors, and as a mom, I try to focus a lot on those environmental protective factors, knowing that I can't control the genetic factors, and sometimes we can't control those environmental risk factors either. So for me, one of those risk factors environmentally was losing my mother, right. So trauma, we know, is something that can really trigger the onset of an eating disorder, and that's an environmental risk factor.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, though, it's something that is more innocuous.
Speaker 1:So, for instance, maybe it is a series of comments that a health teacher makes about a child's body, and that child begins to internalize that and then begins to restrict food intake.
Speaker 1:Especially if they're already genetically predisposed to having an eating disorder, that food restriction can get them into an energy deficit where they're essentially kind of consuming fewer calories than they're burning, and they are really sort of setting their bodies up to get into this rhythm of restriction, and it becomes harder and harder to get out of that. Other times it can be something innocuous, like someone choking on food and then being fearful of eating after the fact, and then that food restriction just gets worse and worse. So there's a variety of different factors, and it's rarely ever just one thing that contributes to an eating disorder, but it's really important to just recognize that sometimes something that seems relatively harmless could actually lead one to develop a disorder. So, particularly for individuals who may seem or feel like they're beginning to restrict or beginning to notice what may feel like warning signs, it's so important at that juncture to try to seek help, because the earlier someone receives help for what could be an eating disorder, the better the long-term prognosis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you talked about motherhood. I know you're a mother as well and you said this whole genetics factors and everything. So that reminds me of well. So it reminded me of an instance that happened with a client, but I'm not going to go there. Actually, I just want to ask you how has motherhood changed your perspective on recovery, because you call yourself a mother in recovery. So how does that play a role? And even your whole, when you thought of being a mother and pregnancy and recovering in that middle of place. How did that play a role?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I always knew that I wanted to be a mother and for a time I thought that maybe once I became a mother I would reach full recovery, and I knew that that probably wasn't going to happen. It seemed a little idealistic, but the writer in me liked this idea of having a very cyclical story with these beautiful bookends where I thought, well, I lost my mother and then developed an eating disorder, so maybe becoming a mother is what will free me from my disorder. But that didn't end up being the case. But pregnancy was a really just beautiful time for me, with both of my children. It was a time where I really took good care of my body and really listened to my body's needs. I slowed down my body, so instead of going for runs I would just take leisurely walks. I would kind of just eat whenever I was hungry. And I was scared of engaging in any sort of disordered behaviors because I thought, even from within the womb, I could somehow pass those behaviors onto my children. But interestingly, postpartum was when I had unexpected challenges, so I ended up falling into this obsessive pattern around pumping breast milk for my children. So this was not something I expected. But when I was sick. As an adolescent I also had obsessive compulsive disorder, which is a pretty common comorbidity of eating disorders, and that flared back up postpartum where I began to obsessively pump as a form of burning calories. But just to create awareness, because sometimes there are these moments in life where in our recovery we may not even necessarily expect that they're going to be difficult. But looking back now I wish that I had realized that that could have become a possibility and wish I had a better understanding of the fact that these transitions in our lives often can be challenging and we need to have more supports in place to help us navigate these different changes. Even if one part of the transition like in this case pregnancy was easier than we expected, the other side of that transition may be harder. But once I stopped nursing my children I was able to fall out of that behavior and kind of get back on track.
Speaker 1:But as a mom now, I really just think about how I can help my kids to see who they are outside of the way their body looks. So for my nine-year-old's birthday I created this little mirror and it's in the shape of a flower and on each petal I drew a word that describes who she is so creative, kind, loving, empathetic. She is so creative, kind, loving, empathetic and it hangs in her bedroom now and when she looks at it, she can look at it and see who she is and not just what she looks like. And so I really try to help my kids to think along those lines and to realize that all bodies are worthy of respect. It doesn't matter what they look like, how big or small, how short or tall. I want them to recognize that their bodies are always going to be worthy of respect, just as others are, and I try to help them to see how food fuels their body.
Speaker 1:I don't have any foods off limits in our house, and that's partly just my own efforts at eating disorder prevention. I don't like to forbid foods. I of course want my kids to eat a variety of different foods, but I try to help them to think about how food fuels their bodies and how it helps them to be able to take up space and move and play.
Speaker 2:Wow, I love that mirror idea. That is so, so beautiful. I do mirror work for myself. I tell my clients to do that. But that's just taking it to next level, because now, every time you look in the mirror, you are seeing these beautiful words that describe you as a person, but not your body. I just love, love, love that. I feel this conversation is just so beautiful and I want to wrap up at the end with talking more about your book. But in every episode I do something called a rapid fire round. So I don't know if you were aware of that, but we're just going to throw it at you. If you're ready, let's do it.
Speaker 1:Yes, I will do my best.
Speaker 2:Okay, one word to describe your writing mood.
Speaker 1:I'm going to say nuanced.
Speaker 2:Okay, the first thing you googled when you decided to write Slip.
Speaker 1:Hmm, eating disorder recovery.
Speaker 2:Okay, pretty obvious. You go to snack when you are going through an emotional phase in life.
Speaker 1:I go to snack. Is that what you said? Yes, yes, so usually the snack that I choose is trail mix. There's something about kind of just picking it apart and the sweetness and the nuts that I've always found satisfying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't want. I didn't want to ask this as a triggering question, but your answer. Actually, I find trail mix very mindful. It's interesting. Most snacks you just eat and you don't realize how much, but with trail mix, because you're picking, I find eating trail mix very mindful. So that's a good snack, a book that you would recommend to someone.
Speaker 1:So I love the book Between Two Kingdoms. It's written by a Tunisian writer named Suleyka Jawad and it looks at just her life as someone who has cancer. That is incurable, but she does a really beautiful job of talking about middle spaces, so certainly resonated with me.
Speaker 2:Wow, I got to add that to my list. It sounds something I would enjoy. If your inner critic had a name, what would it be? Gremlin, oh yeah, those gremlins. If you weren't a writer or a professor, what would you be doing today.
Speaker 1:I think I could see myself as a psychologist. I had ideas about maybe one day studying psychology, but ultimately just went with writing, which was always my first choice.
Speaker 2:First choice. Oh beautiful One thing that you do which always calms you down.
Speaker 1:Beautiful One thing that you do which always calms you down. So I do origami and I love the act of just keeping my hands busy and creating something, and all it takes is a little square piece of paper.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which brings me to next question what's the coolest thing you have ever folded with origami?
Speaker 1:So I once made a really beautiful vase that had all of these different lilies coming out of it, so it had lilies with stems and I used this really beautiful paper for the lilies. So eventually they got all dilapidated and I had to throw them away, but they were on my desk for quite some time oh, wow, okay, you live in Texas, so question is what's your favorite season?
Speaker 1:So I love fall, although we don't have as great of a fall down here as we did in Massachusetts where I grew up but I love just yeah, the leaves falling and just the start of cooler air.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I ask that question because we Canadians are obsessed with fall especially and we have, like I live in Ontario and we just have these beautiful colors and we have an obsession with weather in general because it's just too cold all the time. My last question is my favorite question. I ask it to everyone. So the name of this podcast is Flawthentic Me Fill in the blanks. I am flawthentic because Fill in the blanks.
Speaker 1:I am flaw-authentic because I embrace the real honesty that underlies my story and I don't try to pretend to be someone I'm not.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, and I saw that throughout the conversation how you've talked about not just that finish line of recovery but these day-to-day slips and the middle place. So I can see that how that plays a role. Okay, so, coming back to our conversation, I just have one question and then we'll wrap up. What was the hardest chapter to write in the book?
Speaker 1:I would say the hardest chapter was the one about when I was in a psychiatric ward. So I was hospitalized five times and then I was on a psychiatric ward three of those times and it was just really challenging going back through those medical records from that time and I revisited the hospital and just that was a really challenging part of my life and treatment. And in reporting that chapter I learned that two of the girls who were on the board with me had actually died due to complications from anorexia and so I ended up reaching out actually to one of their parents and was able to interview the mother and include her perspective in the book. But just writing about my own experiences and then learning about those girls and the fact that eating disorders really can be life-threatening was just a really poignant part of the writing process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm really, as you're mentioning that, I'm really grateful to you for visiting those parts which might be really hard or maybe even triggering. But you took your story and you I always say this that your story can be someone else's survival guide, and I'm glad that you took your story and you wrote this survival guide for those who are in the, maybe in the beginning of the recovery or maybe in the middle place, and you wrote this book for them. So thank you so so much for writing this book. I can't wait. Tell me more. I think it's coming out next week, so tell me more about the book.
Speaker 1:Yes, so it comes out August 5th, which feels so surreal because I've been writing this book for more than half my life. So finally it will be out in the world, but you can find it wherever you buy books, so Amazon, barnes and Noble, targetcom, and then lots of independent bookstores around the country will be stocking it as well.
Speaker 2:That's perfect, because that's the day our podcast is going to come out as well, which is next Tuesday, august 5th. So thank you, so so so much. Where can my listeners find you? They can find your book on Amazon, as you mentioned. I will share the link in the show notes as well, but where can they connect with you?
Speaker 1:So I have a weekly newsletter where I share writing tips, and it's just Mallory M-A-L-L-A-R-Ysubstackcom. And then I'm also pretty active on Instagram and that's just my full name, Mallory Tenori Tarpley, which maybe we can put in the show notes because it's a bit of a mouthful.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I will add all those in the show notes. Thank you so much for being on here Everyone who's listening. If you have ever struggled with, it doesn't have to be an eating disorder. I finally, finally, realized that my emotional eating and my struggles come from this trauma that I had as a child. So if you are someone who has struggled with body image or just emotional eating or eating disorder, and maybe you haven't recognized that, thank you for listening to this podcast first of all. And secondly, go get help and thirdly, grab Mallory's book, because that could be that first place where you finally see the insights. So thank you so much, mallory. It was a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for having me and, on that note, this is Sunny and Mallory signing off. Keep loving yourselves and stay Fl. Thank you so much for having me at Sunny underscore Lamba. You can also sign up for our newsletter so that you can get weekly tips and tools. Until next time, keep loving yourself and stay Flauthentic.