Partial Recovery with ft. @Jennifer_rollin

back on today. It's just me Amy had to step out, but we're doing a part two to our original episode with Jennifer where we learn all about her new amazing book which is called The Inside Scoop on Eating Disorder Recovery, written by herself and a colleague, Colleen Reichman. And this

is an awesome book. If you miss our first episode, we go into depth as to why these two amazing eating disorder therapists chose to write it, why they share their personal stories in it, and the amazing tools within it. So we're going to dive a little bit deeper into that today. Thanks for being back, Jennifer. Thank you for having me. So we we left off with Amy asking how to give this book to somebody without offending them,

And I love what you said. You said that a person doesn't have to have an eating disorder to benefit from this book. Yeah. No, absolutely, they definitely don't. And one of the reasons I feel like that's so powerful is because you are not just speaking to specific things that people with eating disorders or disordered eating go through, but you're covering some pretty heavy, hard topics like fat phobia in general. Yeah, we've talked about it on the podcast,

but we never know who's listened to what episode. So what is fat phobia and why is that something that you and Colleen decided to tackle in this book specifically. Yeah, So we talked about fat phobia also called wait stigma in the book because basically, fat phobia or wheat stigma is attitudes of prejudice, stereotypes, or bias towards people in larger bodies, and often it's not even recognized as like a form of discrimination in our society, and it's incredibly pervasive.

We thought it was important because it's one of the environmental factors that can contribute to eating disorders and like we talked about in the other episode, there's a whole bunch of factors. So it's not that fat phobia alone can cause it. However, it can be the environmental trigger for some people who have that underlying genetic and temperamental component. I've personally really started to understand fat phobia only in the last year or two. I'd say that wasn't a

phrase I knew. Um. You know, obviously I live in a smaller body, so I've never experienced fat phobia, although I have experienced fat phobia with my own beliefs because so much of what we have been told about bigger bodies, we just believe as true unless we break that down, especially in the healthcare point of view, where we really need to actually go back and look at the research about b m I about health conditions and recognize that every individual is entitled to the same level of care

and should not be discriminated on based on our own stigmas about weight. So I think that was so awesome for you guys to tackle, because it's still the elephant in the room, I think, and I have found with my own clients by kind of beginning to talk about fat phobia, they're able to also reckon a bit more with their own body changes. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean we won't get into everything that can lead to body image distress because there's a whole bunch of factors. But one

thing is fat phobia, right, societal fat phobia. So, for instance, if we're conditioned to believe that fatness is bad or weighting is bad, then we might start to see things like, oh, it looks like where I do have a double chin in that photo. Well that is bad because being fat is bad. You know, gaining weight in certain places is seen as bad. So in unpacking fat phob yet helps everyone, but the people who are the most harmed by it are people in larger bodies. As you mentioned, one of

the topics in your book is about partial recovery. We've recently had on a woman who's studying to get her PhD. Her name is Tara Kemp, come on and speak about her own partial recovery. And I've actually never heard this phrase, or I've never had a word to describe it, and then I saw it in your book and I thought, Wow, this must be a lot more common than I've ever realized. So what is partial recovery? Partial recovery is the middle stages of recovery. It's where some people will actually stop

in their recovery and some people move forward. But basically it's where you've let go of a lot of the eating diswitter behaviors, but you're still kind of holding on to some of them. So it looks different for everyone, but basically it means you're not fully free from the thoughts and from the behaviors, but you are better than you were in early recovery. When you're in partial recovery, do you know you're in partial recovery or do are a lot of people in a stage of denial? I

would say it's a little bit of both. Some people definitely know that they're in it, but I know for myself. For instance, in my own recovery journey, mine started out as being in denial where I was like, I'm good, I feel like I don't have a problem anymore, and instead I was very obsessed with exercise and like eating clean foods. Right, So I was better than what I was in the depths of the interrexia, but I was

still having a socially acceptable eating disorder. And what about the people who have made peace with some things, but they are continuously gaining weight. So I hear from a lot of people is I've started to eat intuitively and I'm gaining weight. When will it stop? And then they'll often beat this. We often be on Instagram, so they'll

send the emoji that's kind of like gasping. But even though it's a silly emoji, it really is showing the level of despair and fear and that place where it's like you're eating disorders on the left and then freedoms on the right, and the person so badly wants to run to freedom, but they're really being pulled towards the left.

How can we encourage them to keep going. Yeah, so that's such a common place to be because recovery, again, you're going to come upon some common speed bumps for most people, especially like weight gain can be tough for a lot of people in our society. So ultimately I think it's about like reminding them what motivated them to start recovery in the first place, like trying to build

on their hope of motivation. And then I also like to play out the tape with people, which is similar to what people do in addiction recovery, where it's like, okay, so you're having yoururages to go back to your eating disorders. Let's play out the tapes. Let's say you decided to go on that diet that you're eating disorders telling you to do, Like where would that eventually end up? Because eating disorders promise these like short term highs, but they

lead to like long term destruction. So that's just like two short strategies I might use with somebody who's feeling kind of stuck and wanting to go back, And those are strateg gs in your book as well, that people can begin to kind of digest, even if they're not working with you one on one. I think even just talking about it, you know, even just saying there's this murky place that is yes, you've come so far, but there's a little level of stuckness and a choice point

here that you need to make. Which way are you going to go? I've read a lot of eating disorder books, and I don't know if I've ever seen it called out or a reference. So I think really recognizing the struggle that happens after somebody makes progress, recognizing that it's not linear, that they might go back a bit before they go forward is really great. I think just to hear from a therapist that, hey, we see this all the time, you're not broken from being stuck at this

hard point. You know, freedom is not just eating a certain food that you didn't need before. There's so many thoughts and behaviors that need to be broken down. So again, it's just like to therapists sharing such interesting advice from the people who hear about it the most. Yeah, And I think you're right that even just having the awareness would have helped me so much when I was stuck in that trap. And I think that's like the first

step here. Well, I feel like I I've met a lot of people online that have made Instagram accounts, They've become influencer by way of sharing their own recovery, and I think I see it chopped up a lot as like good days and bad days, And I don't believe in that in general when it comes to anything, I think everything is kind of can be gray. But I think to recognize for anybody when you do have a setback doesn't mean that you're all the way back to

square one, you know, is just a helpful understanding. Like there's this thing called partial recovery, that is where I'm at right now. Can help us really say this is where I am right now And it doesn't mean that just because I feel scared and shaken and thinking about

going back, that I will go back. I feel like that's just super helpful to really expand the thinking and help people not feel like failures when that eating disorder voices get in loud already as it is, Yeah, a hundred percent, And like Olive recovery, it's finding that gray and that middle path of both acknowledging Wow, like I have come far. I'm not doing those things I used to do. I'm not back to square one, and like there's still room for me to grow in my recovery

to be truly free. And your book is so not typical, from the cover photo to the colors, to all of it, to the tone which is super inviting and relatable and almost humorous. You also include the top five regrets of people who are dying towards the end of your book, and I found that interesting in a lighthearted book, yet at the same time I found it grounding. Can you share what the top five regrets are and why you decided to include something a little bit darker in a

book that is supposed to be about life. So the top five regrets are, I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. I wish I had it work so hard. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. And I wish I'd let myself be happier. And we put out in the book. Nowhere does it say I wish I had six pack abs and I

wish I had eaten super clean. Right. The reason why I included it is because I think one important element of recovery is trying to find a meaning or purpose that's greater than the eating disorder. And I think this just helps people to get back to what are my values versus what are the eating disorders values? If that makes sense, because this is just more of a reflection of somebody is like authentic like self values and what actually is going to matter at the end of life?

And you're eating disorder is going to tell you that, you know, what is the most important thing is the donut you ate this afternoon, right, But that's not an alignment with like your true values. Again, it's so helpful to get that zoomed out perspective of this is what really matters. Thinking back to my own disorder days too, when I ate the doughnut, like you said, like my mind became the donut, Like there was nothing else of importance.

You could not stop me from, you know, exercising it off or finding a way to compensate the next day. And if somebody would have just like shaken me and been like are you going to care about this in a week, let alone when you're dying, I think could have just been so helpful. So it's almost like it is. It's not dark because we're talking about dying. I don't think dying is necessarily dark, but when we are talking

about regrets and stuff, it really is. It stops you in your tracks and can get you out of that fear brain that the eating disorder takes you to and into your real life. What do you want in this life? What matters in this moment, even though my body is shaken with fear and my mind is clouded with how

real this and scary this all feels? So I thought that was just super interesting to see it in parallel to really anything, right, Like I mean, as a therapist, I'm sure you help people really work through little things all day that feel so big all the time. To really put it in perspective of life helps us gain some clarity and not feel so scared. Yeah, a hundred percent.

And you know this is something I even used today, Right, if I'm stressed about some minor wedding detail or something, I think to myself, you know, is this going to matter at the end of my life? And it's just a way to circle back to like my true values and helping people live their most authentic life at the end of the day. I love that you're bringing it to that too, because I was there and everything just feel so important in that moment. So in your book,

you break down a lot of myths. I really love to see that, and I thought it would be helpful if we could just finish off with you sharing what your favorite myth to break down is with your clients and how that impacts them. Yeah. So I really like the not sick enough myth, but we act about that

a little bit before. I think. Another myth that I love to break down is this idea that you can't look at somebody and know what their relationship to food is like, or even what kind of eating disorder they struggle with, and that you can be actually quite ill and in eating disorder and not be considered like quote unquote underweight by b M I because the vast majority of people with eating disorders do not appear like physically

emaciated or gaunt. But I think the media has this glorification withinness and showing people with intorexia who look like they're on desk store, and so people think I can't have an eating disorder. I don't look like that. My problem is not that serious. So helping people to realize that it is a serious, life threatening mental illness, and you don't have to have gone to the hospital, you don't have to have gone to a higher level of care, you don't have to be severely emaciated, and you can

still be really unwell and really deserving of treatment. I love that. And when you're you're science like, when you work through that myth, I assume they already know because they're at your door, or I would think they know. Maybe their family put them in. What's the first myth for somebody who's super resistant to working with you, but

they're there anyway. Yeah, so that's a great question. I think for people who are super resistant, honestly, I would say I start more by building that relationship and gradually like not even hitting them with like, hey you have this problem, like it's a super resistant team, but building that relationship to where they trust me, and then they're like, yeah,

so I feel a little anxious around food. But I think I will debunk the myth I just talked about with people who are brought in by loved ones or people who show up at my door but are like, you know, I don't really know that my problem is that serious, because that's an eating disorder. Trick to keep you sick, right is to continually tell you, actually, you're not that bad, you don't need to recover, you can diet,

everything's fine. I feel like they're just some people that that struggle forever because they can never break free from that idea of this is fine, this is how I like to eat, this is how I like to live. What is the most powerful wake up call for somebody listening that thinks I like the foods I eat. I like working out, however much I work out. At many points I think I look good even though other people

tell me I don't. What would you tell somebody who just there's signs all around them that something's not right, but they really don't believe it themselves. Yeah, I mean, first off, I want to ask about the quality of their life, like, just because your life appears great on the outside, like how are you feeling? Like? Are you happy? Like do you enjoy the way your life is going?

And secondly, if they have a child, or if they have a niece or nephew or someone they really love, like if that person was doing these behaviors, what would you say to them and how would you feel? And why is it okay for you but not okay for your niece or nephew that you love to be doing this? Yeah. I think when you bring that into perspective, it kind of always shifts and shatters you a little bit. It

shakes you really to think about things differently. And then once you see it that way, you can't unsee your own behavior. And then you have to start thinking, Okay, well, where can I budge because this isn't the life that I truly want And something's got to give because I'm I'm missing out on something here. Well, thank you for joining us for two episodes. If you missed their first one,

you want to check that out. Amy hit you with some really good questions all about how eating disorders are formed, what it means to act as if, which I think is probably the most helpful tool for somebody who's trying to recover, but it just feels too scared. And we're going to link your new book below and all of your information as always, and thank you for being an amazing guest and amazing resource on Instagram. We'll put your instant below and we just adore you. Thank you, Jennifer awesome.

Thank you guys so much for having me