Underneath the Eating Disorder ft. Kaitlyn Dinneh

me and Caitlin. But Lisa, if you're listening, Hey, why Lisa? We miss you. Caitlin is a personal trainer specializing in women's fitness, pre impost natal specialist, a birth doula, and an eating disorder survivor. And she did join us on season one of Outweigh. That was on my four Things podcast a year ago, on my year ago. So I'm glad to have you back and sitting down with us. And you know, we're going to get into a post that you put up on Instagram that I really loved.

And if people want to know your Instagram account, because Caitlin was Niak her name, but her Instagram account is a little bit different, so we're gonna put it in the show notes. But it's Caitlin Tonay Caitlyn today. It confuses everyone. Yeah, so this post that you put up was what my eating disorder couldn't show you. And then there was a list of things and I'll just rattle them off real quick and then you can speak to

the post. But it was loss of menstruation, osteopenia, dizziness in passing out, sharp pain and joints after sitting for stretches of time, memory decreases, mood swings, decreased body temperature, diminished energy, and excessive napping, supervised meals with the high school nurse, obsessive thoughts about food, self harm, chronic negative self talk, anxiety, strained relationships, g I issues. So yeah, what would someone that looked at you from outside, what

would they have seen during that time? But really this was going on on the inside at that time. Those side effects or red flags symptoms were appearing even though I wasn't at my lowest weight and I hadn't lost even the most significant amount of weight in my eating disorder, so I was seemingly at a normal weight, a healthy weight um on the lower end for probably my age and heighten whatever I roll at the b m I scale. But you know, just a glimpse at me from an outsider.

I don't think people were concerned about my health and well being. But meanwhile, I was already feeling the effects of my eating disorder, sinking in all the variety of ways you just read right old for you about this time. So when I started dieting, I was thirteen when I was introduced to diets, and it started as a low carb diet. Every adult that I knew, my mom, her friends, I had, aunts and uncles were all on the Atkins diet. And I started going through puberty around the same time,

and I got really uncomfortable in my body weight gain curves. Right, all those things that were just so foreign and new to me, we're also getting me a lot of male attention that made me very uncomfortable, and I wanted to shrink my body. So I asked my mom if she would help me diet, and she didn't know any better, right, She just gave me a rule book and helped me pack salads for lunch with dressing on the side and hundred calorie pack snacks, and I was fourteen when I

was formally diagnosed with my eating disorder. And so you wrote in this post you said, I remember going into treatment at Hopkins for the first time, looking around and telling my mom, I don't belong here. I'm not as sick as everyone else. So how old were you at that time? Okay, so that was at fourteen that you went and sought treatment as well. Yes, okay, Well that happened fast, fast, very fast. So a story that my mom often kind of recalls and I tell to people

that I mentor work with. At the time, around thirteen, I was competing in pageants, So I was competing for Miss Marylyn ten USA, and that fall so maybe like September roughly, I had bought my evening gown and it fit perfectly, and by November when I competed at the pageant, it was virtually falling off of me on stage. And my mom always says that was the first time she really noticed that I had a real problem, because up

until that point my weight seemed normal to her. But it was you know, you see someone every day all day and you kind of turn a blind eye to the behaviors because you don't want to face the truth sometimes, and that I think for her was a really staggering experience to say, my daughter has an issue and she's up there seemingly healthy and smiling and happy on a stage under lights and a beautiful evening gown with hair and makeup, but things were not good well, and when

you looked around and said, mom, I don't belong here,

like I'm not as sick as everyone else. Now, you were fourteen, but that could be someone's experience at five, right at forty five, at sixty, and so what would you say to people that might be thinking that or maybe outweighs where they get this content or they start following people on Instagram like y'all, and they that's the content they're receiving and they start to just think to themselves like, uh, I get what they're saying that I'm not that bad, So I don't I don't understand why

I'm even trying to understand this. Yeah, I mean, first of all, we all say that. We all say that when we're sick and we're struggling, and at every stage of our journey with disordered eating a clinical diagnosis, whether we're in treatment or actively in recovery, none of us think that we're that sick because they're eating disorders are very manipulative, so it's important to kind of dig your heels in and kind of call ourselves out when that

voice creeps in. But I would always say, like, it's not just about the physical body or the number on the scale, it's all these other things when we're the ones you list, like, that was a long list a lot, and so if you're if you are getting dizzy upon standing up because you're malnourished or dehydrated, or if your joints are aching, or if your periods stop, if you're isolating, and we kind of hit on this last time on the Four Things podcast. The tendency to isolate out of

depression is big in its own right. But then they're also times when you might isolate or cancel plans to overly exercise, or because you're uncomfortable being out in a restaurant where you don't have control over food. So these are all things that interfere with our quality of life that may not be exclusive to our weight or what is happening externally, but internally it's freaking havoc on our

bodies and our minds. Yeah, I think that that's a huge red flag is avoiding social events, choosing workouts over relationships, and being scared of food if you can't control what's in it. But for some reason, I lived that way for years and they weren't red flags to me, but they're so obvious right now. I thought, well, the healthy thing for me to do is to choose the workout right now. You know, probably was denial. I didn't see how that was actually me hurting and being really sad.

And yeah, it breaks my heart to know that I chose so many nights alone over going to be with people because of those different reasons. And I think it's interesting because there's part of me that wonders back then, I didn't recognize them either. That's why I wrote that post, because back then, it just seems, well, this is my life, right, this is what it is, and this doesn't I'm not sick enough so these things aren't necessarily but you were

still functioning, functioning. But I also wondered too if some of it now. Back then, there was no one talking about eating disorders when I was sick. It was still so stigmatized and still so taboo, and I knew very few people who shared their experiences. So part of me was just living in a secret, and so any red flags, even if they did, kind of strike me as concerning. I didn't have anyone leading the charge in front of me to say it's okay to say like you need help.

And I hope for people that there is a little bit of a shift right even this podcast, Like, it's beautiful to see so many people be really open about their struggles in whatever capacity and at whatever level that is for them. Maybe they'd share their story with just one person or maybe their own podcasts. Disclosing stories so that we can empower other people is really such a beautiful gift. That's the only reason why I think I share her half the more than half the stuff, well, no, everything,

what am I talking about? I feel like even on the Bobby Bone, Joe or four things are here on that way, it's like, okay, if I can use my experience for good now so that somebody else doesn't feel alone, then I didn't just go through that for no reason. And it doesn't mean that everybody has that calling to put their story out there so that others don't feel alone.

It may not, and you know, may not mean that you have to share your story publicly, but maybe just speaking to a best friend or a family member about it or a therapist and making sure that you're you're voicing it. It doesn't mean, you know, you have to proclaim to the world like this is what's going on with me right now, But if you eventually feel led to do that, then by all means your story will

come in handy at some point. And you know, we were talking a little bit before we were recording, because when I was in high school, I remember taking these pills that were exercise pills. I guess I got them from this gym that I was doing kickboxing at, and I took them. My mom let me take them. The woman that works at the gym, who was an adult,

sold them to me. And then, you know, for my mom, you talk about how yours saw you on stage and thought, okay, I'm seeing some things up and then at four team was able to take you somewhere to get help. Like I love my mom, love her to death, but I feel like it was a lot of times I was shooting up all kinds of red flags, but she wasn't saying we just weren't seeing them. And I think that's a common thing for some of my listeners that are mom's is like, how can I know what's going on

with my kid and if something's up for me. I remember there's a day when I got off those pills. My mom came to wake me up from school, and I was begging her to let me just please stay home because I didn't have my pills and I didn't

want to go, and I felt pretty sure. I told her I feel so fat and gross, and I don't have the pills anymore, and that getting off the pills was honestly my decision, probably because they were too expensive and I was a teenager, um and my mom maybe said you're going to buy these for yourself, But also probably I had some wisdom going on inside of me that made me think this might not be a good idea because my heart is racing all of the time. So I'm thankful that I did get off of them.

That didn't stop me from taking other things throughout the years. But I just thought, looking back now, it's crazy to think that adults were surrounding me at that time and they were okay with me doing this stuff. So I feel like that's a red flag if you're a mom listening and your child doesn't want to get up for school for some reason, and it's just feeling super down and tired. That could be a red flog for multiple things. Obviously had some underlying depression stuff going on, but I

think it was stemmed around my obsession with body and food. Yeah, And I think that there are a lot of generational ties there, these messages that have started decades ago, and we see a play out in the media. We see the projected image of what's beautiful and what it means to be a woman, and the expectations are just kind

of passed down and passed down. So I almost feel like my mom's dieting and her friends and my aunts and uncles who were dieting, it wasn't even their fault, right, I think they were like the front line, Like those were the people who were hurting, just like they were hurting in their own way then and just passing down the message because they didn't know any better. And so it got to us, and now we're here trying to

break generational patterns of body hatred and self harm. And it goes even deeper than just food and body, right, like even emotional and mental like other mental health illnesses that we're trying to destigmatize and hold space for and share experiences to uplift each other and to normalize them so that people know that they're not alone and that

we can like end the cycle. There there many times I've had to like forgive people who were the adults in my life who kind of introduced me to the road of dieting and set me on that spiral to my eating disorder because they didn't know any better. I haven't thought about going that route of maybe the forgiveness peace and maybe how important that might be for me to let that go, because now I'm all bitter towards

people that sold me the pills um. But that could be an important step because it does us with us for a very long time. But then we have a choice of where do we want to end it. And you and I are both moms and we don't want to pass that down to our daughters. And again, my mom didn't mean any harm, but yeah, she was fine. If I wanted to do a diet, she was fine. If I wanted to work out twice a day, she

was fine. If we did diets together like it was totally fine, but yeah, there was no conversation that this wasn't normal. But here we are. However, many years later that was six or something. What year were you born? Okay, so we're ten years apart, we who still had moms that were probably really similar. I wasn't seeing this type of rhetoric that we have now until the last few years.

So there's a lot of undoing, Like even me for a mom, I've been a mom for three years and I've had to undo stuff I was doing the first year for sure. So for moms that may not be dialed in with what they eating, disorder can't show maybe even in their own life or their child's life, like what you recommend moms do, is there a conversation? How do you pick up on some of these things that

aren't visible. I think the very first piece of that is creating a guilt free, judge free, healthy conversation or community like expectation for communication within your family, and just allowing your kids to feel safe coming to you if they are struggling in their bodies or they are feeling uncomfortable in their own skin. I see clients as young as thirteen who feel as if their parent doesn't welcome

the dialogue that they don't understand. Sometimes not all of the time, but sometimes and and so I think they get really resistant to talking to mom or dad. And sometimes I think that could be changed if there's right off the bat, just like a welcoming judgment, free you can come to me about anything, expectation for communication within the family dynamic. That kind of sets the tone moving forward for your child to say, hey, you know, i've been struggling with this or I've been feeling this and

I'm really confused. And I think that also plays into normalizing discussing bodies. You know, like I have a little boy and I let him run around naked after his bath because like he's a little kid and he's fine, but there are people who think that's weird. And I'm like,

he's only almost two. But I want to create an environment in my family where like talking about your body isn't shameful or weird, and just normalizing having differences among us, right, And I think just that open, honest, sensitive, safe communication um and setting that tone early on in life is really valuable for parents to pass on to their children.

The other thing that I see is like parents being kind of hands off with social media and thinking that almost this naive approach to social media, like forgetting that kids have these fake accounts. It's becoming really common for young girls to create these fake Instagram accounts and hide behind them posting things that are kind of encouraged or following accounts that are encouraging behaviors. So just being aware as parents that things like this exist, because again, disordered

eating and eating disorders are manipulative, they're secretive. So just being aware and being tuned in and having really open communication with your children, I think is one of the best things we could do. Are you saying they're following accounts that encourage behavior on how to look a certain way? What I've seen with some of my clients is that, you know, maybe their parents has access to their normal Instagram account, but then they have these fake Instagram accounts

that might be following people that perpetuate toxic behaviors. Gotcha, Okay, No, that's that's definitely helpful information because, yeah, you want to protect your kids from that, and if you have the open, honest communication, if you've got step one of that, you kind of went over two things there. So the first thing I love because now I'm just reflecting back again on my relationship with my mother. We didn't even talk about my period when I got it. I had to

figure out on my own what to do. I think one day she realized I was on it, and she went to the grocery store and she's stuff. Stuff just started showing up in my bathroom cabinet. There was no conversation. My mom was a great mom. There was not an open door policy on me just talking to her about anything. Although ironically, when I was bulieming in high school, one of the first people she is, the first person I

went to was my mom because I was scared. But then I don't think she knew what to do with it. So she heard me and she listened, but she was just kind of like, oh gosh, almost for her, she was overwhelmed. She was a single mom, she worked full time, I had an older sister. She was heavily involved in all kinds of other things on the board of like everything.

So she's very busy, and I'll fall her for that, but part of me wonders if she kept herself busy to avoid, you know, and my mom's passed away, so I I will never know because I can't ask her this. But now that's just me probably trying to break down why she did what she did. And I don't think she meant any harm, but she definitely didn't create that safe space for me. I think I was crying for it in a way, going to her, making her the first person of like, hey, this is what you can't

see that's going on with me. You would never know right now that I've been throwing up my food, but I'm trying to tell you it's a cry for help. And I think she lined me up with a therapist, but then was pretty disengaged after that. And then you just kind of like, all right, I'll handle this on my own. But yeah, it starts with other things of like let's talk about your body. Be comfortable in your skin,

you can run around, nake it. We'll talk about vaginas and penises and little and not be ashamed of any of that. So I work as a personal trainer exclusively with women, and a lot of my clients are prenatal or postpartum, but I also work with women who don't have children, and I try to educate them on their pelvic floor because it's really important A part of our anatomy. And I see so many women like slink away in shame, like I don't know what my pelvic floor is or

why are you asking me about my pelvic floor? And I try to just like be super cool and casual about it because this is my job. To me, it's not weird. I'm also a birth doulist, so like with most of my clients, I've seen them raw as vulnerable as it gets. But I sometimes I am caught off guard and then have to bring myself back to the fact that my mom didn't teach me about my pelvic floor.

My mom didn't teach me how to like embrace my body just by fostering conversation about healthy sexuality, or it's easier to build shame around our bodies, and it's a lot of Yeah, it's a lot harder to have healthy conversation about our bodies and to make it normal. I think it's harder because we've made it harder. But then if you make that the normal, and you do it like you're trying do from the get go, then it

it will come with ease as they get older. And you know, I touched on the first thing thinking back on having the conversation about bodies and being comfortable and open. But then the second thing you mentioned about the social media accounts and kids looking elsewhere for information instead of coming to you for that information or maybe even looking

elsewhere for validation and worth. And I mean, that's the whole, another rabbit whole we could go down, But I think it's super important to remind pearance to be involved in their kids social media and try your hardest to educate yourself and not be naive. And I get it, it's it's an extra thing you have to add to your list that is very daunting that other generations didn't have to deal with. But each generation is going to have their new challenges, and social media is one that we

have to manage that better. We have responsibility for ourselves and what accounts were following and who are what are what? What are we following? What information are we trying to receive from the accounts that we follow? But then gosh, that our kids might be sneaking around to have these other accounts for some of that scary makes me think of I used to look to places I think for

that too. I don't even remember remember really what it was if it was certain movies or got a VHS tape or something, or maybe when YouTube came out, I would look for that sometimes as a young adult, just hoping that someone would be posting up something that would be beneficial to feed my behaviors. When I was in high school, at my sickest, there were holidays when my entire family would be at my grandparents house and I would lock myself in the compute like the room with

the computer and look at pro anorexia sites. So what I did, I just scoured the internet looking for solace. It became like a game almost for me, like I had rules that I could follow, and I had goals to strive toward. And I think these webs sites have been predominantly shut down now. Oh, I hope so. And

I think that's why too. Even here on the podcast, where we're careful with what content we say, and we'll give trigger warnings if someone might be trying to use our podcast as a way to learn tricks and tips, and hopefully we do a good job of not giving them that. But we're not perfect, and people are sharing their stories and we want people to be raw and vulnerable and real and give certain details and not have

to edit themselves. But the reality is that sometimes that's what people are on the prow for, right And I think to Instagram for a while. I think that started a few years ago they started putting up trigger warning notifications on any posts that had anything to do with eating disorders, which I thought was a really cool step

in the right direction. It's still very new, right, Like I mean, we're talking about again, decades of these behaviors just kind of going swept under the rug or kept like his tidy little secrets, And now I think it just goes to show the power of sharing our voices and reducing stigma and shame. It can lead to really

big things. It seems like a really small step when you open up and talk about something that's scary and vulnerable, but looking at little steps like that, like getting these toxic websites shut down and getting these trigger warning protocols in place on major apps, that started somewhere. It started with someone speaking up and sharing their story and having

this trickling effect of advocacy. Circling back to the post you put up in the caption, part of what you wrote was, I think it's so important to also acknowledge the many emotional, physical, and psychological effects these illnesses can have on our lives. For me, so many of these side effects were crippling, yet no one could ever really know. And then scrolling down, you wrote that, fortunately, our bodies

are incredible things. They heal given the chance. The majority of the things on this list have been resolved, and my body is strong, healthy and capable. If they things I once wasn't sure it could ever do, I e becoming pregnant, So I love like closing this out with that there's hope and that while this is a list of things that you're eating disort of, could it show you but we're definitely all you at the time, They're not you anymore. And so you were able to get pregnant.

So that loss of innistrution that came back, Um, you know you're you're just know like, how gosh the mood swings that was me that day. I didn't want to have school. My poor mom. I was awful to her. And then you wrote, no matter who you are, where are you on your journey, you deserve recovery. Your body deserves recovery. If you're struggling, your weight isn't what makes you sick enough, it's the behaviors, it's the fear, it's the thoughts, it's the isolation, it's the pain, it's the risks,

it's all of it. It all makes you worthy of support and care. And then you encourage people to seek help. And you listed some of your favorite therapists and registered dieticians to follow. So yeah, we'll put your Instagram in the show notes and people can go check out that post. But I appreciate you. I appreciate you sharing and then the content that you give us, and I really feel

like it's a huge takeaway from this conversation. Today was for me as a mom, I need to make sure that I'm making everything comfortable for my kids so they can come to me no matter what, because the topic may not be eating disorders, but if I go ahead and just make everything comfortable, she may be able to come to me about a boy thing or some other thing that she might be struggling with, or my son down the line when he's a little older he might

be struggling with. I love that advice. So Caitlin, thank you so much for joining us, and make sure that yes, you'll definitely check out the show notes so you can get all of Caitlin's info. And we were talking before we came on too about how Instagram is just so weird the day algorithm, Like sometimes posts are getting missed

and it's so horrible. I know my friend that runs the shop for she's having it, like I don't understand sometimes why they put their stup for all the world to see, and then other times like I don't even see some of my friends posts at all. So I would just encourage you to make sure if you like

someone's account, to like on their posts to comment. I heard too, if you send a d M to certain accounts, then Instagram will see like, oh, this person must really like their content, so I'm gonna start throwing it back into the feed. There's a little trick if you feel like you're missing certain people's things on Instagram. Engagement is so huge, so make sure you engage all right. Um, I hope you'll have a great rest of your day. I