Today, I'd like to talk about ways we can recover on our own
I know for a lot of you, you've talked to me about
Not knowing if you can
Not having the financial ability to actually seek services
or, being too young and your parents won't take you seriously
So what can you do to recover on your own?
Today I'm going to offer five helpful tips
on ways you can start recovery on your own without actual professional help.
Now the first thing I want to mention in the first tip is see your doctor.
Your regular doctor, PCD (Primary Care Doctor) whatever the hell you want to call them.
Make sure you see them.
Now, I know I said this was going to be without professional help;
and by that I meant:
No dieticians, psychiatrists, therapist like myself
none of that.
But we all need to see our doctor first.
Get your blood work done
Ask for a full work-up
because one of the main things I worry about as a professional
is the actual medical care of my patient.
How are they doing physically?
There are a lot of things we cannot see:
and because we know eating disorders affect our hearts,
and for those of you who are not aware, when your body eats
itself it starts eating this muscle
and our heart is a muscle
and it can really be hard on your heart
and most of the people who have passed away from eating disorders
it is due to heart failure or heart attacks.
So, we want to make sure things are running smoothly.
Also, electrolytes balance, a lot of you are purging
and we know that can be thrown off and that can cause heart attacks
and that can cause a lot of issues.
Potassium levels, there are so many things that are important
so, before you even consider doing this on your own, or
working on recovery without a professional
you need to make sure you're medically safe.
My second tip is;
educating yourself about the disorder you think you have
and your process with it.
And I know this sound really odd and silly;
but I think it's important for us to understand the eating disorder relm
what different types of eating disorder are there?
What behaviours are we doing daily, weekly or whatever?
How severe is it?
And what's our relationship with an eating disorder?
How long do we think it's been going on?
Pretend you're a detective to your own eating disorder.
How long have these symptoms been around? They might be a lot longer than you ever thought.
How often are we using these behaviours?
What's the relationship with it, is it talking down to us?
Like "you deserve the punishment!"
Or is it something we help control, and we feel better and more in control of our lives.
I think that this step is honestly the most important
in our whole process of recovery.
In my eating disorder workbook, (the link will be in the description below)
I have you do a lot of work to figure this out
so, if you're struggling
to understand what I'm talking about
or know how to be a detective when it comes to your own eating disorder
Check out that workbook, it will really help you get started.
The third thing is, setting up a support team.
If we don't have professionals around to help support us;
what I have called in the past as your "treatment team"
we need to set up our support team.
This can be friends,
this can be family,
this can be your friends online.
I think this is really really important to have people who are available to you
24/7
This might be support groups,
this might be a hotline,
this might be the chat on katimorton.com.
Whatever you do, make sure you have people available to you
no matter what time of day it is;
and that's why online can be such a good resource
because there are people all over the world
Who, are available even if it 3 in the morning to you,
when it might be the middle of the day to them,
and knowing you have the support when you need it
is pivotal for recovery.
The fourth tip
is setting up a schedule and sticking to it.
The nice thing about having appointments with your treatment team
is that you have set times each week
where you see them, or once a month if it is your psychiatrist
or your doctor
and that time is set aside.
You have an appointment, you have to be there!
You know it's coming.
So how do we make that happen if we don't have those appointments?
I would encourage you each to set aside
30 minutes a day where it's journalling time,
or workbook time.
Or whatever you're working on your recovery,
because it is really difficult;
it's a struggle.
It's a process, it's bumpy; it's not a smooth sailing, smooth road situation
and we need to make sure we're setting aside time to work on it.
It takes a lot of work and make sure that you're doing it
at least 30 minutes a day.
And the fifth and final tip to recovery on your own
without professional help is investing in journals
and workbooks, things to help you support your recovery process.
I have heard from a lot of you that there are books that saved your life.
that journalling saved your life.
I know that from a professional standpoint,
that books, and workbooks
really help me understand what my clients are going through
and gives me more opportunities to offer up
helpful things to work on when we're not together,
and meeting in session.
And I've heard from many of you I think it's "Brain Over Binge"
has been really helpful; I really like "Eating In The Light Of The Moon"
it's a great book!
"My Free Eating Disorder Workbook" is a great place to start aswell
but I would encourage all of you
If you're new to to my channel click here to subscribe
and make sure your "like" this video
and join the conversation.
Let us know what helped you.
What's helped loved ones in your life?
What books and workbooks have been beneficial to your recovery?
because together we learn more, right?
There's so many books out there that I can't possibly read and use them all.
So I need their opinions on what worked for them.
Because together we are stronger!
And I encourage you to share this video, and the more we share
the more people are talking about it and the less stigma comes along with saying
I have an eating disorder.
So, lets work together,
as we keep working toward a health mind and a healthy body.