Goals!

This week's video is all about goals. I give examples, explain what's manageable, achievable, and the issues with time limits. Check it out - it's the perfect time of year.

RELAPSE - How to Cope, Forgive, Move On

Very, very important topic this week: Relapse.

Recovery As a Process

Listen. Learn. Live.

Friends & Triggers

An important lesson.

Afraid to Slip Up and Disappoint

Here's my Wednesday video from this week. I think this is an important topic in regards to being able to truly move further in recovery.

How to Do Recovery When Just Living Is Too Hard

Extra video this week! How lucky are you? :)

This was a special request. And don't worry - I will get the Beauty Message Challenge video (which goes along with my BMC post) up this weekend. I have it ready!

How I Take Care of Myself

Last Wednesday's video - 'cause I forgot to post it!

Beating the "Eating Out" Dilemma

This is a question I received from a friend a couple of months ago. I responded to her and told her I planned to post that response on my blog so you could see it too. Hope it helps. :)

***"So my boyfriend LOVES food. Of course he knows about my eating disorder, but we are planning a bunch of trips... and he wants to eat out like all the time.. and I'm just not comfortable. You know what it's like... eating out is just a different ball game... I can eat out like once a day max, have whatever I want, without getting uncomfortable. And I mean I can eat out for lunch and dinner if I need to but I usually get crabby and uncomfortable about it... I was just wondering.. have you ever had that issue in recovery and what has helped you with it?"***

Yes, I definitely know what you mean about eating out. I used to really get antsy about it and it takes the joy out of being on trip.

1 - I found that knowing exactly what the plan was beforehand really helped any anxiety I had about it. So if there's any way you can sort of a) figure out where you two will head for the meals (or what kind of food you will be getting) the night before or first thing in the morning, that's ideal and b) if that's not gonna happen, YOU can at least plan what you will have for each meal. I know you won't have any menus in front of you, but you can set yourself a little generic plan for breakfast, lunch, dinner. That way when you get to the restaurant you already feel more secure and contained and know what to "look for" on the menu.

2 - Remember that if he knows about your ED you can be up front with him and make point 1 able to happen. Tell him it may help you to plan things out more before just doing, doing, doing so that you can enjoy yourself more. That at this point it's hard for you to just go with the flow, etc.

3 - Eating out doesn't necessarily mean you're eating unhealthily. If you can break your mind of that thinking, you'll feel better. Sure, one of the meals might feel heavier and more like "junk" than the others, but eating in a restaurant can honestly be every bit as FINE as eating a home cooked meal. So try to think of it in a different light.

4 - Make a deal with him that if you are going to eat 2-3 meals out per day, YOU and only you get to pick at least one of them. Then YOU pick the place. You'll feel more in control AND you'll be able to find a place that feels safe and healthy to you if you've had a day of eating a lot. And if you keep that "deal" up for the duration of your trips, you will feel lots better.

Food Rituals

This week's video is on Food Rituals.

Comparing Yourself to Others

When Your Distress Tolerance Plan Doesn't Work

Here's today's video, for this week on the ED recovery collaboration on YouTube. This week's topic:

"How do I continue with my distress tolerance plan when it doesn't seem to be working?"

In this video, I answer that question, as well as explain what a distress tolerance plan is. :)

As usual, click to view on YouTube, as embedding has been disabled.

Question # 12: Turning Away from Self-Hate AND Behaviors

Question # 12 comes from Stella. It’s one of two questions she posed, but the second one will come later, as this post is quite lengthy. She asks,

“How do you react when you feel hate for yourself and your body? What do you do when you feel overwhelmed, instead of hurting yourself or restricting?”

As a woman who loves her body now (or at least likes it most of the time!), trust me when I say that you can in fact learn to stop hating yourself AND your body. This is one of the main things people struggling with eating disorders (especially those who are women) think is impossible. What I hear a lot is, “It may be possible...but not for me.” Let me tell you, ladies (and men), cut that way of thinking right out of your brain. Carve it out of there and throw it away. It IS possible for you...if you LET it be possible. And if you realize that you may have to garner an extreme amount of patience in order to wait for this sort of self-hate to dissipate.

Are you with me?

The first thing you need to ask yourself is: What are the circumstances surrounding my feelings of hate for myself and/or my body?

-Did you just discover you’d been rejected in some way by a person, a program, etc?

-Were you unsuccessful in an endeavor you had hoped to master/finish/etc?

-Did you just eat (whether it was too much or too little)?

-Did you just weigh yourself and not like the number?

-Did you just attempt for a long time to choose clothing to wear and were still unsatisfied with the choice you made?

-Did you just endure a hurtful/stressful/uncomfortable time with your family or friends?

These are just a few of the circumstances that can play a part in how you are feeling about your body. They affect why you react the way you do (to yourself) and the way you look. You have to pose questions to yourself in order to analyze what you are feeling.

You know how people chart anything and everything these days? Their menstrual cycle, their meals, their ovulation, their money spent, etc? Well, chart your self-hate. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that you feel self-hate all the time, so how can you chart it? Well, look at this question above from Stella. It’s obvious that even if you generally don’t like yourself, you feel particular instances of self-hate or body hatred that make you want to restrict/binge/purge/cut/etc. It’s THESE times to which I’m referring.

You’re also probably thinking: Wow, Arielle just told me to chart my self-hate. What the hell? But think about it. If you keep a journal page or a chart specifically to record each time you feel the urge to restrict, purge, or self-harm in some way, you will begin to see the patterns. You will begin to realize what it’s all about. You learned about cause & effect in school and this is it, guys. You already KNOW the effect (your body hatred and behavior of choice)—it’s time to figure out the cause.

So mark it down. Mark down the date, the time, what you’re feeling, and what just happened in your day. You’ll begin to see a clearer picture of what’s going on. You may also begin to see that you tend to feel worse on a particular day of the week because of something, or during a particular time in your cycle, or on days you see a certain person. These are good things to discover because you will learn to be more aware, more prepared, and more ready to combat them.

You will know from the moment you wake up on a given day that it’s probably going to be a hard day for you (for whatever reason, based on your “chart”) and you can give yourself extra boosts of encouragement, have a plan already in place for what to do if you feel the urge to act on a behavior, and above all, not be caught off guard when that self-hate starts to rage inside you.

Another question you want to ask yourself is: Is jealousy/envy/comparison part of my feelings of this self-hate/body hatred?

For example,

-Did you just watch a TV show/movie/commercial that made you feel badly about yourself? That triggered you? That caused you to compare yourself to the person or people?

-Did you spend the day with a friend you envy? Does being with this friend make you feel badly about yourself?

-Do you feel “not sick enough” or “not thin enough” or “not pretty enough” based on something you saw or something someone said?

The last question you might want to ask yourself is: Does this time of year affect me more than others?

-Many people have seasonal depression or even just feel less comfortable during particular months of the year.

-Summer can be a trigger for people who constantly worry about being seen in less clothing, like tank tops or bathing suits, or because they continue to see other people in tank tops or bathing suits, which causes them to get down on themselves or wish they looked different.

-Certain months can be a trigger for people because of holidays, like an impending Thanksgiving with food and family...or the month of December because of Christmas, Hanukkah, etc...or even the New Year, because it often causes people to reflect, berate themselves, or make unhealthy resolutions.

Awareness is KEY.

So, what do you do when you feel overwhelmed instead of hurting yourself?

-You make a Plan B. You list a whole bunch of things you can do instead of the behavior when you have an urge (or make a Coping Bank, which is essentially the same idea). That way, when the urge happens, you have options at your fingertips and don’t have to rely on your overwhelmed mind.

-You find a support person. Tell somebody as soon as the urge hits you. Example: Eat your meal and then when you’re dying to go throw it up, text someone, call them, whatever. You can text to say, “I just ate and I’m having a really hard time not throwing it up.” Sometimes the act of just telling someone how hard you’re struggling in that moment helps a lot. You know someone else is rooting for you. You know someone else wants you to stay strong. When you know someone is on the other end, they’re holding you accountable. Maybe it’s something you need for now.

-You take your pain and anger out on something else, other than YOU. Punch a pillow relentlessly. Have a couple of notebooks on hand in which you can tear up whole handfuls of pages when you’re frustrated and have the urge to take it out on yourself in some way. Cry, if it helps. Scream. (Trust me, it’s a lot less silly than harming yourself.)

-Try to do something to distract you WHILE you are eating. For example, watch TV while eating dinner so you’re not looking down at a plate and only focusing on what you’re eating. If you do something really engrossing, you may find that you’ve eaten your dinner and haven’t had the urge to purge. You could also talk with someone on the phone while eating (if that doesn’t make you too uncomfortable) to take your mind off what you’re doing and allow you to eat a healthy amount without stopping and denying yourself...and keep the conversation going after you’re done so that you can’t go throw up, if that’s a behavior you’re trying to avoid. Hopefully the feeling will pass before the conversation is over. Read a book while eating. Or do some kind of hobby while you’re eating. Might take you a little longer, but it’s helpful. One bite at a time is still a meal if you do it long it enough. :)

-I’ve also found that eating very small amounts multiple times (opposed to eating one regular sized meal) can help you feel like you are not eating a lot and therefore feel less likely to want to throw up or stop before you’ve actually had enough (i.e. restrict). You could eat a very small something, then half an hour later, eat the next bit, then a half hour later eat the next bit. It’s a little bit of a pain in the ass, but if it helps curb the feeling of wanting to throw up or helps you to get more nutrients because you're not restricting, it’s worth doing for a little while. It’s less scary than eating a whole dinner-sized portion at one time if that’s something that bothers you.

-For those who purge: You can put a picture of your child or your best friend or even YOURSELF as a child (very effective) on the underside of the toilet seat, so that when you go to purge, you see it. It’ll make you stop and think a second before going through with it. Even if it doesn’t stop you entirely, it will make you pause and hopefully the longer it is there, the more likely you will be to second guess what you’re doing and stop before it happens. The key is to put up a picture of something really meaningful, something that is reason not to purge. But just putting it up on a mirror won’t do. And just looking at that person or that photo throughout the day won’t do either. You have to strategically put it where it’s going to hit you the most. Where it’s going to make you feel sad about what you’re doing to yourself. It can be motivation in the right direction.

Really good question, Stella.

Q & A

So, I realize I've been bombarding you with video after video lately. My blog used to be primarily words, words, words, with a link or two thrown in... and then, since March of '09, I've begun pushing my YouTube videos into the posts... as they say what I want to say... audibly.

Much of the time I figure, why type out what I've already said (hopefully) so well?

I do a weekly video for a popular recovery collaboration on YouTube, but I do think there is much value in the written word. Sometimes it speaks to us on a deeper level. Sometimes we like to print out certain things as a reminder. Sometimes we need to see the words on a page to really get them.

I get a ton of questions on my YouTube videos, but I get my best thoughts out on paper (or let's face it, by tapping the keyboard and watching my words appear on a computer screen). So... I'm inviting you to ask me...whatever you'd like.

I get emails on a regular basis, but what I'm proposing is that you drop me a line here, in my comments section (of this post)... and I'll answer every single one, going down the line.

You can post the comment under anonymous or you can use your username or real name. It doesn't matter to me... I just want to give you what you are really looking for when you hop on this site, hoping for some advice, understanding, and inspiration.

You can ask me general questions, specific questions, even personal questions. They can be directly related to eating disorders or they can not be. I'll answer each one to the best of my ability.

Hope you're all doing well... ask away!

Lack of Confidence - Why?

All right, so...as many of you are aware, in addition to my own channel, I am part of an ED recovery collaboration on YouTube. My day is Wednesday, which means I make a weekly video that's posted every Wednesday. We have 500 subscribers and counting. :) It is something I'm very passionate about and that is where many of the videos I post here come from. We get a lot of viewer questions and seek to answer them as best we can.

We've just implemented a new 28 day program. The topic of the program is CONFIDENCE, SELF-ESTEEM, and ASSERTIVENESS. Everyone (14 of us) in the collab sticks with their day (2 of us per day), but we are set to answer a specific question regarding this topic each time. Check it out at if you're interested. So I'm still doing my weekly Wednesday video, but the format's a bit different.

This week, I responded to the question:
"How do I and others knock my confidence and why do I spend time with people who do that to me?"

Video to follow below. In keeping with the CONFIDENCE, SELF-ESTEEM, and ASSERTIVENESS program, next week I'm set to respond to "What do I do to be assertive?" so stay tuned!

Healthy Ways to Cope

Here's my latest video for the ED recovery collaboration on YouTube. I thought it might be helpful. This is my response to a viewer question/comment:

"A topic for the channel could be about appropriate and healthy ways to deal with changes in your life. The changes in my life are pushing me to destructive behaviors, eg. starving and cutting, I suppose that's my control."

Finding the Root

A video I did for the eating disorder recovery collaboration I'm a part of on YouTube. Hope you find it encouraging and helpful. I am responding to a question from a viewer: "How do I begin figuring out what is at the root of my eating disorder and how I deal with that?"



I have several thoughts, all of which I discuss in my video. 1) Talk as much as you can. 2) Journal. 3) Remember. 4) Let go of fear. 5) Don't LOOK FOR something. 6) Finding the root is important, but so is what you do with your NOW. 7) Don't underestimate your own ability. 8) You won't always like what you find, but facing things will help you move on.