Full Recovery from an Eating Disorder is Possible: Carolyn Costin's Journey From Patient to Professional

In the premiere episode of Becoming Recovered: Body and Soul, Carolyn Costin shares the personal recovery story that shaped her career as one of the most influential voices in the eating disorder field.

Throughout her career Carolyn has championed the concept that people can be fully recovered from an eating disorder. Due to her own experience and consequently helping thousands of others, Carolyn continues to challenge the widely held idea that, even when people get better, they are “in recovery” or “recovering” forever with this illness.  

Carolyn continues to say, “If I did it, so can you”, and describes what being recovered means, including: accepting one’s natural size and shape, no longer using eating disorder behaviors, and no longer compromising your health or betraying your soul to look a certain way or reach a certain number on the scale. 

The conversation explores Carolyn's own experience developing anorexia nervosa as a teenager after her father left her mother for a fashion model and a doctor told Carolyn she was overweight. The praise she got for losing weight spurred her on even more as her perfectionistic temperament kicked into gear. Carolyn reflects on the progression of her illness, struggling with anorexia before most people even knew it existed, and pivotal "aha moments" that helped her recognize that a separate part of her, she now calls The Eating Disorder Self, had taken control.

Listeners are introduced to Carolyn's foundational philosophy, the Healthy Self versus Eating Disorder Self model, a framework that is central to her treatment success. 

Carolyn describes how her illness led to her lifelong career helping others recover and teaching clinicians how to do the same. She discusses the various influences that contribute to eating disorders, the importance of addressing both behavioral recovery and deeper soul-level healing. Carolyn shares her current passion, training eating disorder recovery coaches at the Carolyn, Costin Institute, and the remerging role of coaching in the eating disorder field.

Throughout the conversation, Carolyn offers hope, practical wisdom, and a powerful message: full recovery is possible, and people can reclaim both their bodies and their souls. In this podcast series she brings proof of this to her audience, interviewing people from all walks of life  who are recovered. 

Thank you for listening. Please take a minute to review our helpful links and resources below.

Important Links:

Learn about the Carolyn Costin Institute

Apply to become a CCI Certified Recovery Coach

Follow the CCI Institute on Instagram

Subscribe to Carolyn's YouTube Channel

RECEIVE 20% OFF your purchase of the 8 Keys to Recovering from an Eating Disorder (book).

Recovery Resources and Support:

The National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA)

Project Heal

National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD)

Carolyn's Bio: 

Carolyn Costin is a world-renowned eating disorder clinician, author, and speaker. Recovered from anorexia, she pioneered the belief that full recovery is possible. Founder of Monte Nido, she transformed treatment with a holistic, home-based model. She later founded the Carolyn Costin Institute, training coaches and clinicians worldwide. She has authored six books, ...

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Becoming Recovered, Body and Soul, a podcast not only for individuals struggling with eating disorders and body image issues, but for loved ones and professionals trying to help them. I'm Carolyn Coston. I recovered from an eating disorder in my teens and have spent the last few decades helping countless others do the same. In my work as a therapist, my books, the treatment centers I founded, and now my institute where I train and certify eating disorder coaches, I've become an internationally recognized expert. But this podcast is about bringing in the real experts. People from all walks of life who, like me, became recovered themselves. They will be here to provide insights, discuss their journey, and inspire you on yours. This podcast is intended for educational purposes only and is not a replacement for professional therapy or treatment. Please understand that we mostly avoid what might be unnecessarily triggering content, but this is a real show about the reality of eating disorders and recovery. So there is a chance something might be personally triggering. If you're struggling, please reach out to a qualified provider for support. You can also check our resource list. Hi everyone, and welcome to Becoming Recovered Body and Soul. I'm Carolyn Coston, and I recovered from my own eating disorder many long years ago. And since then, I've been helping others become recovered too. In fact, for the last four decades or so, I've been in the eating disorder field as a therapist, a clinical director, a speaker, an author. In fact, I opened the first residential treatment program for eating disorders in 1996 that I called Montanito. And today I start my podcast series. And in this first episode, you're going to learn about my recovery story. You're going to learn a couple of aha moments that kind of turned me around and started me on my recovery journey. I'm going to tell you a little bit about how I got into the field, and I'm definitely going to talk about the definition of recovered and what I mean by that, because that is a super important piece. And it's in the show title, so you know it's important. And whether you are a sufferer, a loved one, a clinician, or a coach, I think basically what you're going to get out of this podcast is how people become recovered, how people get over body image issues, food and weight issues, how they let go of habitual sabotaging behaviors. In this podcast, you're going to learn how people get their healthy self back in control again, become recovered and stay recovered. And yes, I mean recovered, full stop. Almost four decades ago, it seems so long ago, I was the first person to stand up in an international conference and say, I'm recovered, and make the case that people with eating disorders can be fully recovered. It's an important part of my legacy, and to be clear, right up front, I'm going to spell out exactly what I mean by this definition. Being recovered is when the person can accept their natural size and shape and no longer has a self-destructive relationship with food or exercise. When recovered, food and weight take a proper perspective in your life, and what you weigh is not more important than who you are. In fact, numbers are of little or no importance at all. When recovered, you will not, this is my favorite part, compromise your health or betray your soul to look a certain way, wear a certain size, or reach a certain number on the scale. When recovered, you will not use eating disorder behaviors to deal with, distract from, or cope with other problems. Okay, so that's the definition. Uh and we're gonna use it and come back to parts of that in the show. Um I need to give a couple of important stipulations. One, there is an eating disorder called ARPID, um, avoidant food, let's see, avoidant restrictive food intake disorder. And that that particular eating disorder was not even around in the diagnostic manual when I came up with my definition of being recovered. So I was talking mostly about people who had anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating and sort of subclinical categories of that eating disorder. So I think we need a new one for RPID. I've been thinking about for a while, and maybe I'll come up with a definition for um uh people for RPID and what they're being recovered looks like. The second part about my definition is the two-year rule, and that is you can't just meet this criteria for a day or two and say, oh, I'm recovered. I learned over my long experience and working with clinicians who are recovered and all that, that you really need to have about two years where you meet the criteria of that definition. Because a lot happens in two years. There will be stresses, there will be losses, there will be challenges in your life. And if you can meet that definition and hold on to it, you know, no longer compromise your health or betray your soul to look a certain way, wear a certain size, reach a certain number on the scale, if you can do that, then you're gonna be recovered. You have a very, very small chance of relapsing. And so I learned that, and that's what I do when I'm training staff or training coaches or even talking to clients and their families. Um, if you can meet that criteria for that period of time, you're you're on your way. And call yourself recovered and and certainly be proud of it. And if anyone has doubts or curiosity uh about my definition or about you could be recovered, please subscribe, subscribe to the show because we're going to be talking about that. I've treated thousands of people who have recovered, and you're going to meet many of them on this show and hear their stories and hear from uh a couple people who treat them too. I've treated people who had an eating disorder for 10, 20, 50 years, even who are recovered. So I I everybody who walked through my door, I think you certainly I look at everybody as you have the chance to be recovered. So on this podcast, you're beginning you're gonna hear from people in all walks of life and um what the and how they became recovered, what they had to do to get there, a bit about their experience. And I want to introduce you to Cassie Copperfield. She is the director of operations for my institute, um, the Carolyn Coston Institute. And she is also the kind of assistant producer, I would say, on this show. She's here kind of to keep me on track. She'll be jumping in now and then. We're going to get into discussions. It's much better to have discussions about these topics, but she'll also probably try to make sure that I get everything in in the appropriate amount of time because I could go on for hours about these kinds of things. Um, is there anything else?

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Anything you want to add about your Yeah, you know what? I'm just really excited that we're doing this. Um I've uh had to do a lot of persuading to Carolyn to uh get her on board. Um, you know, Carolyn, when uh whenever we're working with with coaches or maybe talking to treatment centers and she's talking about her work and she's talking about um the things she's done in her life, um, you know, it just really always struck me that this really needs to be shared in a bigger way. So I'm really excited that we get to do this um with the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

We're going to be talking about, I mean, people from all walks of life. I I continue to say that because I I know people who are on the list to be interviewed, and um, we're gonna talk about how people have ceased using uh detrimental behaviors involving food and exercise to increase their self-esteem or cope with problems. We're gonna talk to people who have recovered from restricting or purging or binging or body image issues, but we're gonna talk about more than just eradicating symptoms. Um I want to talk about healing the disconnect between body, mind, and spirit, or what I call um loss of soul. And that's why I call this Becoming Recovered, Body and Soul. Near the beginning of every show, I I my idea is to start with a quote, some quote that has been meaningful to me. And today I want to share a quote by an author uh whose name is Kim Chernan, and and this is a book I read in 1981, and it really had an impact on me, and it was called Um Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness. And here's what she said The body holds meaning. When we probe beneath the surface of our obsession with weight, we will find that a woman obsessed with her body is also obsessed with the limitations of her emotional life. Through her concern with her body, she is expressing a serious concern about the state of her soul. That moved me then, it moves me now. Soul level healing is so often left out of treatment, but I feel it's an integral um aspect to why I've been so successful as an eating disorder therapist and and clinical director. And in fact, I think most of us in life um can use a little soul mentoring, and I think we can use some help leading a more soul-led life. It's easy to get disconnected in a way, and so I've spent a lot of time uh working with people, helping them reconnect with what it means to be a soul on this planet that happens to have a body rather than the other way around. And I think it's interesting to point out that psychotherapy actually means care of the soul. Um, therapy means comes from the roots of the words that mean care for, and psycho originally came from psyche, which originally meant soul. Kim Chernen's quote was about women, but all genders can be affected by eating disorders. You know, the field has been learning and growing uh since its beginning. Um and the current cultural climate affects all genders. We're we are bombarded with messages telling us get in shape, lose weight, um, go on this or that diet. Of course, the new one is take this or that new uh weight loss injection, you know. But the emphasis being on image over substance and um the message being more like what we look like is more important, who we are. And um, this cultural obsession we have with appearance, and and particularly on being thin, has confused the pursuit of thinness for the pursuit of happiness. And and I think everyone suffers because of it, um, some more than others. This podcast is gonna share some light on these issues and especially doing a deep dive and talking to people who have been in the throes of it and made it out. Um like myself. My own eating disorder started when I was um I don't know if you know all the details of this. When I was 16, it was in the summer before um going into my senior year in high school, and I had won uh the competition for to be the school mascot, Miss Pioneer. We were the pioneers. As I look back and look at it, I go, I look pretty good, you know. I mean, I look fine, but my mom took me to the doctor, um, and the doctor told my mom in front of me that I was overweight. Now, this happened to coincide some point after my father had left my mother for a fashion model. I'm such a classic example, right? A fashion model modeling in London with Twiggy. No lie. And so these two things sort of came together, and I was like, that's it. I'm going on a diet. And I uh I did, and I uh eventually lost 50 pounds and developed anorexia and nervosa. And um at that time though, uh I mean I started losing weight, uh, and so everybody in the beginning gave me a lot of praise for it, you know. So I went into my senior year, probably 10 pounds less, and then, you know, probably lost another 10 or 15 pounds. Nobody was really too upset about it, but I went away to college and I just kept on losing weight. And uh, you know, got thinner and thinner. Nobody knew what was wrong with me, though. Uh this was in the started in 1969, it was like 1970-ish. And uh there were no books about eating disorders, there were no television shows, there were no movies, no newspaper articles. I think my mom found an article somewhere. Um, you know, my my own eating, I like to say my eating disorder and the eating disorder field sort of grew up at the same time, you know. As I was developing an eating disorder, uh, the eating disorder field was growing. I went to a college counselor um because I just thought, you know, there's something wrong with me. And I I remember saying to her, I feel guilty when I eat. She'd never seen anybody with anorexia nervosa. She she had no idea what to say to me. Um dietitians were were were ladies in the lunchroom with hair nets, you know, they I it didn't even occur to me that that there was I could seek a dietitian for help. And and after working so hard to lose the weight, like valuing my self-discipline, counting all my calories, not eating after a certain time at night, it's really hard to turn that around. And some people like me, and we're gonna talk a little bit about the predisposition and the temperament traits, get really trapped into it. And um, it is really hard to turn it around. I sort of had a new mantra. Gaining weight is bad, losing weight is good. And it was like my brain got hijacked. I literally remember having a sip of a regular Coke and going out to the football field and crying and actually spitting because I felt like I had almost poisoned myself. Um, and I got really bad. I mean, I wouldn't lick uh this is really weird for viewers to hear, but people who know people with eating disorders who have an eating disorder will understand it. I wouldn't lick uh an envelope because I was worried I was gonna get the calories off of the envelope or a stamp. I mean, it it does get so so but I remember it, it's so interesting. And I think people do can look back and remember, wow, what I used to do. And it's hard to imagine yourself getting out of it. And that's why I think it's so important to have recovered people helping, because it it means a lot, you know, if you've been there, you've gone from first certain foods are fattening to then food, just food itself is fattening. And to get out of that and turn that around, um, even when my hair fall out, fell out, even when I was afraid to go out on a date with someone because I I I I couldn't really eat in front of them, it was still really hard to change. And um so you know, how did I turn it around? Uh I I do think there are aha moments that I um talk to my clients about, and uh I'll share what they are. Uh because I think people, it it's good to help people, and I try to help people grab on to these aha moments. You get a glimpse of yourself and what you're doing. And uh so here's a couple of mine. The first one was when I got on the scale and I had decided already I'm not gonna lose any more weight. And I got on the scale and my weight was down. And what I realized is my fear of gaining weight kept me losing weight. And the big aha was I'm not in control of this, it's in control of me. And the the second one, I think um you you have heard about the Christmas party. Have you heard my story about going to the Christmas party?

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

So I'm on my way to a Christmas party, I'm in college, and I tell myself, you're not gonna eat one thing. When you walk in that door, you're not gonna have one cookie, you're not gonna have one one thing. I'm just giving myself the self-disciplined pep talk. And another part of me, right after that, said, wait a minute, that's easy for you. You've been not eating cookies for how long now? What would really be hard for you is to go in there and eat a cookie or two and feel okay about it. It was kind of a shocker. I was a little bit like, who's that talking? But it was me talking to me. Now, what I what I know now is it was my healthy self talking to my eating disorder self. And I started having a dialogue right there in my head. I started having a dialogue, and I was like, oh, you're just trying to get me to break my discipline. It's like, no, that's not discipline for you to do that. In fact, look, you already decided that you're not in control of this, you're out of control. So I started writing in a journal. I started dialoguing about these two parts. I I realized that this my healthy self was still in there. I wouldn't tell my sister to restrict her food like me or not eat after a certain amount of time, or you can only have this many calories and you can't have breakfast. I wouldn't tell anyone else to do that. Why was I telling myself? That those conversations and my journaling ultimately turned into the whole philosophy: eating disorder, self, healthy self. And I believe every single person, you know, they're born with a healthy core self, and over time they develop what I call this eating disorder ego state, part, whatever you want to call it, that is kind of split off, and they're living these sort of dual lives. And what my work has been is to step in and not say, oh, I'm gonna take the eating disorder away. In fact, anybody said that to me, I would say, like, you're taking me away. What are you talking about? You know, it doesn't, to the person who has an eating disorder, it feels like they're losing something for whatever reason they have it. And and some have different reasons that want to hang on to it uh or not. And even when you want to get rid of it, it's it's hard. So the goal is not to just go after that eating disorder part, but strengthen the person's healthy part. Because the fight, I always say to a client, the fight is not between me and you, or your parents and you or your therapist and you. The fight is between you and you. And when I get your healthy self stronger, when I get your healthy self doing for you what it's doing for your friends or your kid. You know, I have moms who are feeding their kids fine and not feeding themselves fine. There is a healthy self in there, no matter how small it is. And my work has been to teach people about this concept, to help them make this realization, to start the struggle and battle, and to strengthen the healthy self until it gets strong enough that it basically puts the eating disorder self out of a job. And I call it integration. I feel like what happened to me, it isn't like one day you're sick and one day you're recovered. Uh, it it it it you get more and more recovered, it gets stronger and stronger. And one day I just felt like I don't have the two voices anymore. I don't have two parts. I'm just a whole person again. But that what I call the eating disorder self is just integrated as a part of my personality. That knows when I am in trouble, when I have a need that has to be met, you know, when I need something paid attention to. So I say that we're not getting rid of that part. We're getting rid of all those eating disorder behaviors that it thought it had to have. That part gets gets integrated back in and you're whole again. So yeah, okay. That's that's that's a big part of my story and a big part of the healing that that that happened.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

So how did you go from recovering from an eating disorder to like treating other people with eating disorders and and uh oh yeah, it is interesting, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Uh thanks. Uh well, I I I became a teacher. I wanted to work with kids, I became a teacher, and then I became a high school counselor, and then I became a therapist, and I wanted to work with troubled youth. I didn't ha think at all about treating people with eating disorders. I mean, at that time, I got my my license as a therapist in I I was an intern in 1978, uh licensed in 79. Um, there weren't people around with eating disorders. Again, I didn't know anybody. I think I had heard about somebody else who had one. Uh, my mom had found this article, um, which was kind of weird to read. Like, wow, those people think like me. But um, so I thought I was just gonna be a therapist uh treating troubled adolescents, and the high school principal that I worked for said, Hey, you know, there's this girl across town who has that thing you had. That's exactly how he said it. Um and I knew what he was talking about, and I was a little bit like, ooh, I don't know, you know, that I really want to see her. I I think I was afraid of being pulled in, afraid, uh, afraid of I'm not sure, but I I felt a bit nervous that I had gotten out of it. Maybe like an alcoholic who was gonna go be around a drinking buddy or something. I don't know, but but I decided to do it. And uh really thank God I did. It it was uh this was supposed to happen because there was a recognition, there was an empathy, there was an understanding between us. And um I think it was inspiring for her to hear that I had recovered. I I say I had sort of insider information to ask her questions that nobody had asked her before. You know, do you cut up your food into little bits? Do you look at the clock and delay eating? Are there foods you call safe? You know, safe foods, which is a weird concept, right? Um, do you try to hide food from other people? Uh there were so many things that there was just an instant rapport. And also what's interesting is I didn't have data like 30% of people with eating disorders are in and out of the hospital, 30% of people with um uh eating disorders, specifically anorexia nervosa, um, die from their illness. I didn't have that data that started to come in uh as researchers started to study this, that it was so difficult to treat. I treated her slowly, step by step, like I had treated myself, step by step, bit by bit. You can start small, have a start with a few bites of pizza. You don't have to eat a whole meal of pizza, you know, behavior mod, talking about the soul. And she recovered. And um her mom was uh was at the beauty parlor, which it was called in those days, and uh was talking to some other women, and somebody's daughter had uh bulimia. This was before bulimia was even in the diagnostic and statistical uh manual of disorders. Um, I think it was added in 1980, but this is early on. This happened pretty fast with me because I was really the only person in town. It's like, oh, there's that, there's a person in our town who treats that. So people came from other cities, and I I made a name for myself, treating people with eating disorders. And it did not occur to me not to share my own experience. And sharing my own experience was a huge factor in providing inspiration, um, motivation, hope, and also the dogged belief that if if if I recovered, you can recover too. Um, you know, it was uh people would, as people got to know me, they would say, you, you know, other therapists would say, you share your, you know, that you have an eating disorder. And I would say, you know, not sharing it is like if if a client came to me and they had got hit by lightning, and I had been hit by lightning, and I'm not gonna share it. That was just like be voyeuristic, it seemed, you know. And it was that rare then, that of course I disclosed my own eating disorder, and I never looked back, you know. I I I just keep uh keep talking about it. It it just seemed weird to do it any other way. And and I learned that um uh, you know, clients would say it was a big part of their journey becoming recovered that that I had done it too. I never even doubted that other people could become it too.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

So then how did you transition into like the treatment center world? How did that enter your life?

SPEAKER_01 28:07

I knew I would really like to treat people in a in a in a different way, but I didn't know anything about residential. I'd never heard about residential treatment. I knew, I sort of vaguely knew that there were, and we're gonna go back to chemical dependency or I mean substance use disorders, there were like sober living houses. I kind of had heard about that, but not a lot. I didn't know a lot about them. But also, you know about the dream. Should I talk about the dream? I think you should talk about the dream. Okay, so so I'm having these thoughts about people. Um most of them are not medically unstable. Most people with eating disorders don't need to be in a hospital, but they do need to be in a supervised setting. They do need to have people at the meals with them. They need to be um observed afterwards or entertained afterwards so they don't purge their food. Um, this distress that happens, and they need to eat meals and snacks. So it made sense that that there needed to be a place to care for these people, but not a hospital. So uh my friend, she was buying a house over in uh Malibu off Malibu Canyon, and she wanted to turn it into a rehab center. And so you're probably gonna hear a little more details than than maybe you've heard. And she asked me if I would um drive over and just have a look with her, you know, for buying this house. And I drove over there and I drove up the driveway, and I got this weird deja vu feeling, like, oh my God, this is uh I've I've I I've been here before. This is a really weird, like almost goosebump experience. I parked the car, I walked up the stairs, and it's like the hair on my arm stood up. I opened the door and she was greeting me, and a whoosh came to me, and I realized I had had a dream about this place. Not a house like this, but this house. I said, Oh my god, I had a dream about this house. And in my dream, and the dream had happened at least 10 years prior, and I had told my husband about it. Um, and in the dream, I was in this house treating six girls for eating disorders. And we had a chef and we were cooking dinner and we were gonna go for a walk in the foothills afterwards. So I'm telling this to my friend, and and it it was so uncanny. She actually said, uh, you can have the house. I think you need to have the house. And it's a good thing she was kind of what do you want to say, maybe a bit spiritually minded. I mean, we both were like, if you've ever had a prophetic dream where the exact same thing comes true, it's a big whoosh moment. It's a big what do I do with this? And I felt some kind of divine intervention, like, uh yeah, I think I'm supposed to have a treatment center here.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Well, I just got goosebumps listening. I mean, and I've heard the story, but not in that much detail. And I just got goosebumps hearing you describe it.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

I don't know all what to make of it, but it it is, it is, it is so interesting that that happened, and that my friend said, you know, okay, it's fine. Uh you can have the house. Uh anyway, that house turned into Montanito. That house turned into um the first treatment center, and that grew to, I think, 15 or 16. And there was no license for residential. It was the first, and there was no licensing for it, and and it was an uphill battle. I won't even go into all the weird details about it. We had to push the state of California to let me do it, but I knew there were sober homes for chemical dependency, although they wouldn't let me license it in the same uh department. Anyway, uh I filled that gap in the field and through a variety of reasons sold it. And um, and then it was shortly thereafter that um I opened the Carolina Carson Institute to start training coaches.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

So I would love for you to give the audience some kind of summary of your philosophy and how, especially for me, coming with a background in um with uh substance use disorder treatment. Um I'm kind of curious how you would describe to listeners um the difference between like the 12-step philosophy versus your philosophy, and especially because it's been such a big part of who you are in your career, um being recovered versus being in recovery. Yeah, or recovering. Yeah, in recovering, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Um uh yeah, this has been a big thing and it comes around in different ways. Um I think, well, I believe it starts with my belief that people can be recovered, and it's why I started the show with that, you know, definition. You know, um, you you no longer have a self-destructive relationship with food or exercise. And being recovered is not the same thing. They they use the terms recovering and recovery. Um, like if you are an alcoholic and you go to a meeting, you you say, I'm a recovering alcoholic. You you always have it, you deal with it one day at a time, you know, you you can't have a drink because if you do, you're gonna go off the wagon and and and all those things. And I respect that, and I respect the 12-step program. But but let's go back to the 70s when when uh you know I'm treating people, and a few people came to me and they said, Oh, I'm going to OA, Overeaters Anonymous. And um we say that we're always recovering, you know, you're always gonna have this. And I was like, I don't, I don't have it, I don't think that's true, you know. Uh, and they would say, like, you know, step one is we admit we're powerless over food. And I was like, wait a minute, I I my work with you is to empower you and to teach you, you're way more powerful than food. But even even behind that was my realization, you can get alcohol out of your life. Even if you, even if it becomes not a substance use thing and it's about gambling, you can get, and you go to gamblers anonymous or whatever, you can get gambling out of your life. You cannot get food out of your life. So it it didn't make sense to me. I didn't really argue with people. I said, if that helps you going to meetings and stuff, do that, but I'm gonna talk to you about my philosophy. And every single person I saw who was trying to do it through like the 12-step ended up realizing that it just really wasn't working with the food. And um so I decided to do uh a talk, and I was so scared, and it was in 1992. So I've learned a lot now. I've had a lot of people. I I showed up to Iade, the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals. Well, I got accepted to do a talk called Recovered versus Recovering. And uh, and I remember the day before the talk, I'm at the conference and some people came up to me and said, You're so brave. And I said, What do you mean? They said, This organization was started by people, 12-step people. And I was like, But, you know, I gotta get up and say what I think is the truth. And so I laid out my whole program and I had brought with me, which also was a little, I think, sacrilegious, uh five people I had treated who were recovered and who had been recovered for at least five years. Because I'd been in practice for a while now, it's 1992 and some with anorexia, someone with bulimia, someone with binge purge anorexia, and someone with been, I think no, two people with bulimia. Anyway, and they talked about their own experiences about being recovered. So I just early on was saying, look, it's this is it's I don't think it's an addiction. Uh there are behaviors, first of all, I'm recovered, so you can't tell me I'm not. Secondly, at this point, I've treated a ton of people who are recovered, and I don't think you should tell people. I think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy to tell people you are going to have this for the rest of your life. And I think if you tell people, I think what we believe as clinicians matters. I think what we believe as human beings matters. If we believe we're, if if I believe someone is gonna have it for the rest of their life, I'm passing that belief on to them. And why would they even expect themselves to go further and go all the way? It's hard to get better. And I think when you're struggling, it's one of the hardest things I ever did. And I think it's it's super hard if you think I'm gonna struggle through this, but deal with it for the rest of my life. It just it just didn't seem right. And I've not changed my position now since way back then.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

What makes me think about coaches now as well and the testimonials that we get in and how um many of them, like the what we'll what we will hear from people is that they never believed they could recover until they were working with someone who is recovered.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Yeah, and it blows my mind that that still happens today. And as you know, because my work in Australia over the last three and a half years or so, I think that's the right timing of it. I helped Australia open their first residential, and you've been along for this process with me going back and forth to Australia. But the same thing started happening to me there when I would get up and do talks, and people would stand up in line and come up to me and say things like this is a weird one. That first talk I did in 1992, a lot of people came up to me and said, I work with eating disorders and I've never met somebody who's recovered. And I was like, How what if you were a cancer doctor and never met anybody who got well from it or recovered from it, or anything, just pick anything. I thought that is so interesting, but it's because partly because people weren't talking about it. And then professionals would come up to me and say, I'm recovered, but I don't tell anybody. Why don't you tell anybody? Oh, because self-disclosure in the therapy field, you're not supposed to disclose, we're supposed to be a blank slate. And I, oh, that's a problem. That is is a a problem. And I I see it's changed a lot. It's definitely changed in in the US. Um, but the same same thing started happening to me in Australia. People lining up, coming up and saying, Oh, I'm recovered, but I just don't talk about it. I say, you're doing and I still know prominent people in the eating disorder field today in the United States who don't talk about their past history of having an eating disorder because they didn't back then, and it's too embarrassing for them to do it now. And I think all treat Montanito, we had 30 staff at the original Mantenido, 22. I went back and looked at this article I wrote called Been There, Done That, about this issue. Twenty-two of the Montanito staff were recovered. Why? I didn't recruit for it. People heard about me. They knew I was recovered. I had already been doing lectures around the country and hiring staff, and people thought I could get a job there and get trained there. And that, as you know, I believe is a suit super important part. It's not just being recovered. You you have to be trained too. I don't think it's enough to be recovered to help somebody. I think you do need training in how to best use that. How about we pop to talking about the eight keys? I was really thankful to Norton and company. They actually asked me to write the eight keys to recovery from an eating disorder book. And I just thought, okay, if I only had eight, what are the main eight most important things I think people have to do to get better? So here's what they briefly are. Key one is motivation, patience, and hope. And these are things that I we've talked about a little bit already. These are things I think are so important to keep coming back to when you're working with somebody or somebody's trying to get better from an eating disorder. Motivation comes and goes. Someone can be really motivated to get better and then they gain weight and uh you know, freak out and lose all their motivation. It's not worth it. I can't do it. Patience, because it takes a long time. And hope. Um, this is where we instill hope by having exposing people to people who are are recovered. Then the second one is you have to strengthen your healthy self to heal your eating disorder self. And if there was only one thing I could teach people, if you put me in a room and said, here's people wanting to learn how to get over an eating disorder or help someone else, it would be that. It would be that whole part of it's not going to be between you and them. It's going to be between them and them. And uh there's there's so much more information we'll talk about, you know, on this show. Key three sounds really weird because it's not, it says it's not about the food. And um, that's because of all the underlying issues and the genetic predisposition and the temperament, and some people have trauma and abuse and anxiety and all that stuff. So there's all these other things. Um key four um is all about learning how to feel your feelings and not try to distract from them or use an eating disorder to deal with them, and but challenge your thoughts. Your feelings you should accept and feel them, but how to challenge your thoughts. Key five is sort of the come back to key three, because key five is it is too about the food, and that's all about how you can deal with all kinds of underlying issues, but if you don't deal with your relationship with food, if you don't heal your relationship with food, um, you don't get better. And there's the my whole philosophy of conscious eating, which I think we'll do a whole podcast on. Um, key six is you have to change behaviors, and we talk about not only the big extreme behaviors like restricting and purging and binging the overt diagnostic behaviors, but little behaviors you do, you know, counting calories or um measuring yourself or um certain, you know, things with exercise. So we talk about recovery sabotaging behaviors there as well. And we go through steps teaching people how to how to change their behaviors. Key seven, you have to learn how to reach out to people rather than your eating disorder. Um, that's a big one, and it may start with a therapist. Um now it's happening with coaches, you know. You feel like doing that binge or restricting your lunch and reach out to um someone, reach out to a a friend or someone rather than the eating disorder. And then key aid is the soul part. Key aid is finding meaning and purpose in a different way. It's it's the we talk about how coaches work on the how of eating disorders and not the why. But this is not the why you got sick, but it's why do you want to get better and stay better? And a connection to a bigger meaning in life and a more soldered life, I I think helps with that. So, you know, these keys are woven throughout this podcast. Um, and we'll be coming back to them time and again in this series. And uh you want to say what the publisher said, or should I this is yeah, this is super cool.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

The publisher of uh Carolyn's book, Eight Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder, has offered 20% off to any of our listeners or watchers. So we will have a link to be able to get that and free shipping, actually. 20% off and free shipping if you're purchasing the eight keys to recovery. And we'll put that link to be able to claim that if you want to buy the book and read it in the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

So if you want to do a deeper dive with us and and learn more about becoming recovered, body and soul, click on, become a subscriber, and and uh we're looking forward to having you with us. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for listening. I know how difficult and scary it is to understand, treat, and recover from eating disorder and body image issues. And I'm here because becoming recovered is possible and worth it. And I know that hearing from others who've been there really helps. So if you like this episode, please subscribe to the podcast where you'll receive updates regarding future conversations on becoming recovered body and soul. And if you're interested in working with an eating disorder recovery coach or training to become one, contact us at CarolynCustin.com, where you're gonna find information about coaching at the Caroline Questin Institute. Take good care of your body and soul, and I'll see you next time.