On the Road to Recovered: Voices from the Eating Disorder Recovery Community
By Annie Robinson
Eating disorders are some of the most misunderstood, stigmatized, yet pervasive struggles in our contemporary culture. People of all genders, ages, and backgrounds are affected – nearly 30 million individuals in the United States alone, according to the National Eating Disorders Association. Yet even the labels that situate those who struggle into a diagnostic categories – most commonly anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, or eating disorder not otherwise specified – are themselves stigmatic, ill-defined, and misleading, because they fail to capture the nuances in people’s unique experiences.
For this series, I have gathered the inspiring stories of individuals who are traveling the recovery road, to help in their own healing by dissipating the shame about their experiences through sharing, and to encourage others who are struggling with eating disorders to step out of the shadows and into the light.
