Dear Diary Blog

What are the top unanswered questions or “uncertainties” in the eating disorders field that are not being addressed by current research? To find out, the Patient/Carer Committee (PCC)  of the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED) invites your help. The PCC has organised a project to locate the most pressing needs, or gaps,...

What are the top unanswered questions or “uncertainties” in the eating disorders field that are not being addressed by current research? To find out, the Patient/Carer Committee (PCC)  of the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED) invites your help. The PCC has organised a project to locate the most pressing needs, or gaps,...

‘You look lovely in that dress – it highlights your tiny waist.’ Do you respond: ‘Thank you, this dress is one of my favorites. As for my waist, I can thank my genes for that.’ And think nothing more of it. Hopefully. But if you have an eating disorder, the...

Six years into freedom, I remain gob-smacked at the ability of an eating disorder to twist and turn words. Not only the spoken word but also the silent words that for decades raced incessantly, like champion dodgem cars, around in my mind. Say one word and my eating disorder would grab...

An eating disorder can be confusing for not only the person with the illness, but for their family and friends. If unaware, family members can get caught up in the eating disorder behaviours, and inadvertently support the eating disorder rather than their loved one. Knowledge is power, for often the...

This story begins in 1962 when I developed Anorexia Nervosa. Back then there was no Eating Disorder Awareness Week,  or anything at all, to help my family understand the illness that had developed in my mind. For more than 40 years, the bully eating disorder kept me prisoner, destroyed relationships,...

by June Alexander Each New Year’s Day for many years I created a list of resolutions. The lead resolution always was: “Eat three meals and three snacks daily.” Sounds good and easy, but I always shattered this resolution within hours. Making an annual resolution about food when you have an...

We grasp our lives in a narrative.  In order to have a sense of who we are, we have to have a notion of how we have become, and of where we are going.”    Charles Taylor (1989) June Alexander I am sitting in a coffee shop with an elderly life-writing...