If you've ever found yourself stuck between needing people and wanting to prove you don't, between wanting things and immediately judging yourself for it, or between wanting to be seen and wanting to disappear entirely… this episode might feel a little too familiar.

In this episode of Understanding Disordered Eating, I'm stepping away from behaviors, diagnoses, and symptom checklists, and talking about what's actually happening underneath the eating disorder. Not pathology. Not "what's wrong with you." But the very human, very uncomfortable internal conflicts that most of us are trying to manage just to get through our lives.

Tweetable Quotes

"Underneath behaviors, there are psychological… I'm going to say problems, but then it's not exactly problems that the person is trying to solve." - Rachelle Heinemann

"When we have this kind of conflict where one is louder than the other, the eating disorder tries to come in as almost a negotiator or a moderator of the conflict. Conflict is way too intolerable to experience in our bodies. And that's how food or body control might become almost proof of independence." - Rachelle Heinemann

"Desire ultimately feels to some people like a loss of control or a moral failure." - Rachelle Heinemann

" Visibility is so fraught. It's not just, I wanna be seen or I don't wanna be seen. It's this real negotiation happening internally and there's so much attached to it." - Rachelle Heinemann

"The symptoms aren't random, they're very structured responses to conflicts." - Rachelle Heinemann

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*Note: The podcast will be off for a couple weeks. We will be back April 14th with an all new episode!*