The Woman I Never Imagined I Could Become: Julia’s Recovery Q&A
This episode of Fly to Freedom – The Anorexia Recovery Podcast is a little different. Instead of answering questions about the struggles you may be facing in recovery, I’m answering your questions about me: the woman I was, how I recovered after living with anorexia for forty years, and what my life looks and feels like now.
I share why eating more, resting and restoring my weight were essential foundations of recovery, but were not enough to give me complete freedom. Although my body was healing, I still carried the beliefs that had fuelled the eating disorder for decades: that I was not good enough, that love had to be earned and that my worth depended upon staying small, being productive and keeping everybody else happy.
Full recovery required me to look beneath the food, exercise and body obsession. It meant replacing judgement with curiosity, separating facts from the painful stories I had attached to them, and gradually building a relationship with myself based on compassion rather than punishment.
In this episode, I explore:
How I moved from forty years of anorexia to complete freedom
Why weight restoration was essential but was not the end of my recovery
How I knew I was fully recovered
Why my experience led me to become an eating disorder recovery coach
How and why I created the Eating Disorder Recovery Circle
Why I stopped exercise completely and how I eventually returned to movement
The difference between choosing to exercise and feeling compelled to exercise
How I respond to diet culture and difficult body-image days
What recovery has changed within my marriage, family and everyday life
How recovery helped me remain present through grief, fear and Dave’s stroke
Why authenticity, simplicity and self-confidence have been some of recovery’s greatest gifts
How I became the woman I could never have imagined becoming
Recovery has not made life perfect or removed sadness, fear, insecurity and loss. It has given me the ability to experience all of life without abandoning myself or returning to restriction, compulsive exercise and control.
I can have a difficult day in my body and continue treating her with care. I can feel grief without needing to numb it, experience fear without imagining every possible disaster and make mistakes without believing they say something terrible about me. I can ask for help, express an opinion, create boundaries and allow myself to be fully present with the people I love.
When I began anorexia recovery, I thought I was fighting for freedom from food rules, exercise and body obsession. I did not realise I was finding my way home to myself.
If you are somewhere in the difficult, uncertain middle of eating disorder recovery, the life ahead may be much bigger than you can currently imagine. The person you are today cannot yet know everything the version of you who keeps going will discover.
If you want to live a life of freedom from an eating disorder, I can help you. You can learn more about working with me and the recovery support available at juliatrehane.com.