Eating Disorders
"After years of NHS therapy and 'recovery' programmes, I had almost given up. I'd begun to accept that maybe life wasn't all that. However even from the first session with Renee I felt like there would be hope - hope for not a life of extravagance and perfection, but a life of contentment, love and fulfilment. I have been shown how not to try and change myself or adapt to fit others, but to be happy and healthy just as myself. Thanks to Renee I am now living the life I had always wished to lead"
I am a co-founder of B-eat and an experienced eating disorders Consultant Psychologist and Psychotherapist. I consider eating disorders convey a much deeper anxiety, for whilst your mind is in turmoil what you may be trying to avoid thinking about is how unhappy you feel.
Whilst your mind can be full of thoughts about what you do eat, or don't, or when to exercise or how to avoid people, getting to some ‘magical’ weight or being some perfect shape you 'sort of know' won’t make your life better. These eating disordered thoughts have a function, they stop you from thinking about how chaotic and lonely your life feels; they are your desperate attempt to feel ‘in control’ when everything else in your life feels out of control.
Loneliness, guilt and fear
There may be some kind of comfort in your eating disorder, you know the ‘rules’, you may wonder what on earth your life would be like without it? The flip side is you are desperately unhappy; what notionally was your armour, something that kept you ‘safe’ is now like a monster that you can’t rid yourself of.
With all the strategies you put in place I suspect your life remains overwhelmingly lonely. You push people away for fear of them interfering with your eating disorder only to feel guilty about how you are hurting those close to you.
Working together
I view our working together as supporting you as you navigate your way to a life where you have a different sense of being in control; a quality of life that opens your world to new possibilities. It is about finding a better way to relate to yourself and others without using your body to speak for you.
Finding yourself, your self esteem & self worth
Eating disorder symptoms may be similar but your history and how you have attempted to make sense of your life are unique to you. My role is to support you in a number of ways, rather like a jigsaw puzzle we look at all the pieces on the table to see what may fit and what perhaps doesn't belong to this picture any more. By stepping back it allows for a different kind of nourishment, one that is not so perfectionistic and punishing.
Eating disorders is a label but it doesn’t sum up who you are
