Speaker 1: I won't let my body out outwell everything that I'm
Speaker 1: made do. Won't spend my life trying to change. I'm
Speaker 1: learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
Speaker 1: I feel free, I know who every part of me
Speaker 1: it's beautiful and then will always outwa if you feel
Speaker 1: it with you in there, she's some love to the
Speaker 1: boy there. Let's say good day and did you and
Speaker 1: die out? Hey, Outweigh fam, I've got Caitlin Wasniak joining
Speaker 1: me today. Amy here, Lisa's not with us, It's just
Speaker 1: me and Caitlin. But Lisa, if you're listening, Hey, why Lisa?
Speaker 1: We miss you. Caitlin is a personal trainer specializing in
Speaker 1: women's fitness, pre impost natal specialist, a birth doula, and
Speaker 1: an eating disorder survivor. And she did join us on
Speaker 1: season one of Outweigh. That was on my four Things
Speaker 1: podcast a year ago, on my year ago. So I'm
Speaker 1: glad to have you back and sitting down with us.
Speaker 1: And you know, we're going to get into a post
Speaker 1: that you put up on Instagram that I really loved.
Speaker 1: And if people want to know your Instagram account, because
Speaker 1: Caitlin was Niak her name, but her Instagram account is
Speaker 1: a little bit different, so we're gonna put it in
Speaker 1: the show notes. But it's Caitlin Tonay Caitlyn today. It
Speaker 1: confuses everyone. Yeah, so this post that you put up
Speaker 1: was what my eating disorder couldn't show you. And then
Speaker 1: there was a list of things and I'll just rattle
Speaker 1: them off real quick and then you can speak to
Speaker 1: the post. But it was loss of menstruation, osteopenia, dizziness
Speaker 1: in passing out, sharp pain and joints after sitting for
Speaker 1: stretches of time, memory decreases, mood swings, decreased body temperature,
Speaker 1: diminished energy, and excessive napping, supervised meals with the high
Speaker 1: school nurse, obsessive thoughts about food, self harm, chronic negative
Speaker 1: self talk, anxiety, strained relationships, g I issues. So yeah,
Speaker 1: what would someone that looked at you from outside, what
Speaker 1: would they have seen during that time? But really this
Speaker 1: was going on on the inside at that time. Those
Speaker 1: side effects or red flags symptoms were appearing even though
Speaker 1: I wasn't at my lowest weight and I hadn't lost
Speaker 1: even the most significant amount of weight in my eating disorder,
Speaker 1: so I was seemingly at a normal weight, a healthy
Speaker 1: weight um on the lower end for probably my age
Speaker 1: and heighten whatever I roll at the b m I scale.
Speaker 1: But you know, just a glimpse at me from an outsider.
Speaker 1: I don't think people were concerned about my health and
Speaker 1: well being. But meanwhile, I was already feeling the effects
Speaker 1: of my eating disorder, sinking in all the variety of
Speaker 1: ways you just read right old for you about this time.
Speaker 1: So when I started dieting, I was thirteen when I
Speaker 1: was introduced to diets, and it started as a low
Speaker 1: carb diet. Every adult that I knew, my mom, her friends,
Speaker 1: I had, aunts and uncles were all on the Atkins diet.
Speaker 1: And I started going through puberty around the same time,
Speaker 1: and I got really uncomfortable in my body weight gain curves. Right,
Speaker 1: all those things that were just so foreign and new
Speaker 1: to me, we're also getting me a lot of male
Speaker 1: attention that made me very uncomfortable, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: shrink my body. So I asked my mom if she
Speaker 1: would help me diet, and she didn't know any better, right,
Speaker 1: She just gave me a rule book and helped me
Speaker 1: pack salads for lunch with dressing on the side and
Speaker 1: hundred calorie pack snacks, and I was fourteen when I
Speaker 1: was formally diagnosed with my eating disorder. And so you
Speaker 1: wrote in this post you said, I remember going into
Speaker 1: treatment at Hopkins for the first time, looking around and
Speaker 1: telling my mom, I don't belong here. I'm not as
Speaker 1: sick as everyone else. So how old were you at
Speaker 1: that time? Okay, so that was at fourteen that you
Speaker 1: went and sought treatment as well. Yes, okay, Well that
Speaker 1: happened fast, fast, very fast. So a story that my
Speaker 1: mom often kind of recalls and I tell to people
Speaker 1: that I mentor work with. At the time, around thirteen,
Speaker 1: I was competing in pageants, So I was competing for
Speaker 1: Miss Marylyn ten USA, and that fall so maybe like
Speaker 1: September roughly, I had bought my evening gown and it
Speaker 1: fit perfectly, and by November when I competed at the pageant,
Speaker 1: it was virtually falling off of me on stage. And
Speaker 1: my mom always says that was the first time she
Speaker 1: really noticed that I had a real problem, because up
Speaker 1: until that point my weight seemed normal to her. But
Speaker 1: it was you know, you see someone every day all
Speaker 1: day and you kind of turn a blind eye to
Speaker 1: the behaviors because you don't want to face the truth sometimes,
Speaker 1: and that I think for her was a really staggering
Speaker 1: experience to say, my daughter has an issue and she's
Speaker 1: up there seemingly healthy and smiling and happy on a
Speaker 1: stage under lights and a beautiful evening gown with hair
Speaker 1: and makeup, but things were not good well, and when
Speaker 1: you looked around and said, mom, I don't belong here,
Speaker 1: like I'm not as sick as everyone else. Now, you
Speaker 1: were fourteen, but that could be someone's experience at five,
Speaker 1: right at forty five, at sixty, and so what would
Speaker 1: you say to people that might be thinking that or
Speaker 1: maybe outweighs where they get this content or they start
Speaker 1: following people on Instagram like y'all, and they that's the
Speaker 1: content they're receiving and they start to just think to
Speaker 1: themselves like, uh, I get what they're saying that I'm
Speaker 1: not that bad, So I don't I don't understand why
Speaker 1: I'm even trying to understand this. Yeah, I mean, first
Speaker 1: of all, we all say that. We all say that
Speaker 1: when we're sick and we're struggling, and at every stage
Speaker 1: of our journey with disordered eating a clinical diagnosis, whether
Speaker 1: we're in treatment or actively in recovery, none of us
Speaker 1: think that we're that sick because they're eating disorders are
Speaker 1: very manipulative, so it's important to kind of dig your
Speaker 1: heels in and kind of call ourselves out when that
Speaker 1: voice creeps in. But I would always say, like, it's
Speaker 1: not just about the physical body or the number on
Speaker 1: the scale, it's all these other things when we're the
Speaker 1: ones you list, like, that was a long list a lot,
Speaker 1: and so if you're if you are getting dizzy upon
Speaker 1: standing up because you're malnourished or dehydrated, or if your
Speaker 1: joints are aching, or if your periods stop, if you're isolating,
Speaker 1: and we kind of hit on this last time on
Speaker 1: the Four Things podcast. The tendency to isolate out of
Speaker 1: depression is big in its own right. But then they're
Speaker 1: also times when you might isolate or cancel plans to
Speaker 1: overly exercise, or because you're uncomfortable being out in a
Speaker 1: restaurant where you don't have control over food. So these
Speaker 1: are all things that interfere with our quality of life
Speaker 1: that may not be exclusive to our weight or what
Speaker 1: is happening externally, but internally it's freaking havoc on our
Speaker 1: bodies and our minds. Yeah, I think that that's a
Speaker 1: huge red flag is avoiding social events, choosing workouts over relationships,
Speaker 1: and being scared of food if you can't control what's
Speaker 1: in it. But for some reason, I lived that way
Speaker 1: for years and they weren't red flags to me, but
Speaker 1: they're so obvious right now. I thought, well, the healthy
Speaker 1: thing for me to do is to choose the workout
Speaker 1: right now. You know, probably was denial. I didn't see
Speaker 1: how that was actually me hurting and being really sad.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it breaks my heart to know that I
Speaker 1: chose so many nights alone over going to be with
Speaker 1: people because of those different reasons. And I think it's
Speaker 1: interesting because there's part of me that wonders back then,
Speaker 1: I didn't recognize them either. That's why I wrote that post,
Speaker 1: because back then, it just seems, well, this is my life, right,
Speaker 1: this is what it is, and this doesn't I'm not
Speaker 1: sick enough so these things aren't necessarily but you were
Speaker 1: still functioning, functioning. But I also wondered too if some
Speaker 1: of it now. Back then, there was no one talking
Speaker 1: about eating disorders when I was sick. It was still
Speaker 1: so stigmatized and still so taboo, and I knew very
Speaker 1: few people who shared their experiences. So part of me
Speaker 1: was just living in a secret, and so any red flags,
Speaker 1: even if they did, kind of strike me as concerning.
Speaker 1: I didn't have anyone leading the charge in front of
Speaker 1: me to say it's okay to say like you need help.
Speaker 1: And I hope for people that there is a little
Speaker 1: bit of a shift right even this podcast, Like, it's
Speaker 1: beautiful to see so many people be really open about
Speaker 1: their struggles in whatever capacity and at whatever level that
Speaker 1: is for them. Maybe they'd share their story with just
Speaker 1: one person or maybe their own podcasts. Disclosing stories so
Speaker 1: that we can empower other people is really such a
Speaker 1: beautiful gift. That's the only reason why I think I
Speaker 1: share her half the more than half the stuff, well, no, everything,
Speaker 1: what am I talking about? I feel like even on
Speaker 1: the Bobby Bone, Joe or four things are here on
Speaker 1: that way, it's like, okay, if I can use my
Speaker 1: experience for good now so that somebody else doesn't feel alone,
Speaker 1: then I didn't just go through that for no reason.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't mean that everybody has that calling to
Speaker 1: put their story out there so that others don't feel alone.
Speaker 1: It may not, and you know, may not mean that
Speaker 1: you have to share your story publicly, but maybe just
Speaker 1: speaking to a best friend or a family member about
Speaker 1: it or a therapist and making sure that you're you're
Speaker 1: voicing it. It doesn't mean, you know, you have to
Speaker 1: proclaim to the world like this is what's going on
Speaker 1: with me right now, But if you eventually feel led
Speaker 1: to do that, then by all means your story will
Speaker 1: come in handy at some point. And you know, we
Speaker 1: were talking a little bit before we were recording, because
Speaker 1: when I was in high school, I remember taking these
Speaker 1: pills that were exercise pills. I guess I got them
Speaker 1: from this gym that I was doing kickboxing at, and
Speaker 1: I took them. My mom let me take them. The
Speaker 1: woman that works at the gym, who was an adult,
Speaker 1: sold them to me. And then, you know, for my mom,
Speaker 1: you talk about how yours saw you on stage and thought, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing some things up and then at four team
Speaker 1: was able to take you somewhere to get help. Like
Speaker 1: I love my mom, love her to death, but I
Speaker 1: feel like it was a lot of times I was
Speaker 1: shooting up all kinds of red flags, but she wasn't
Speaker 1: saying we just weren't seeing them. And I think that's
Speaker 1: a common thing for some of my listeners that are
Speaker 1: mom's is like, how can I know what's going on
Speaker 1: with my kid and if something's up for me. I
Speaker 1: remember there's a day when I got off those pills.
Speaker 1: My mom came to wake me up from school, and
Speaker 1: I was begging her to let me just please stay
Speaker 1: home because I didn't have my pills and I didn't
Speaker 1: want to go, and I felt pretty sure. I told
Speaker 1: her I feel so fat and gross, and I don't
Speaker 1: have the pills anymore, and that getting off the pills
Speaker 1: was honestly my decision, probably because they were too expensive
Speaker 1: and I was a teenager, um and my mom maybe
Speaker 1: said you're going to buy these for yourself, But also
Speaker 1: probably I had some wisdom going on inside of me
Speaker 1: that made me think this might not be a good
Speaker 1: idea because my heart is racing all of the time.
Speaker 1: So I'm thankful that I did get off of them.
Speaker 1: That didn't stop me from taking other things throughout the years.
Speaker 1: But I just thought, looking back now, it's crazy to
Speaker 1: think that adults were surrounding me at that time and
Speaker 1: they were okay with me doing this stuff. So I
Speaker 1: feel like that's a red flag if you're a mom
Speaker 1: listening and your child doesn't want to get up for
Speaker 1: school for some reason, and it's just feeling super down
Speaker 1: and tired. That could be a red flog for multiple things.
Speaker 1: Obviously had some underlying depression stuff going on, but I
Speaker 1: think it was stemmed around my obsession with body and food. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that there are a lot of generational
Speaker 1: ties there, these messages that have started decades ago, and
Speaker 1: we see a play out in the media. We see
Speaker 1: the projected image of what's beautiful and what it means
Speaker 1: to be a woman, and the expectations are just kind
Speaker 1: of passed down and passed down. So I almost feel
Speaker 1: like my mom's dieting and her friends and my aunts
Speaker 1: and uncles who were dieting, it wasn't even their fault, right,
Speaker 1: I think they were like the front line, Like those
Speaker 1: were the people who were hurting, just like they were
Speaker 1: hurting in their own way then and just passing down
Speaker 1: the message because they didn't know any better. And so
Speaker 1: it got to us, and now we're here trying to
Speaker 1: break generational patterns of body hatred and self harm. And
Speaker 1: it goes even deeper than just food and body, right,
Speaker 1: like even emotional and mental like other mental health illnesses
Speaker 1: that we're trying to destigmatize and hold space for and
Speaker 1: share experiences to uplift each other and to normalize them
Speaker 1: so that people know that they're not alone and that
Speaker 1: we can like end the cycle. There there many times
Speaker 1: I've had to like forgive people who were the adults
Speaker 1: in my life who kind of introduced me to the
Speaker 1: road of dieting and set me on that spiral to
Speaker 1: my eating disorder because they didn't know any better. I
Speaker 1: haven't thought about going that route of maybe the forgiveness
Speaker 1: peace and maybe how important that might be for me
Speaker 1: to let that go, because now I'm all bitter towards
Speaker 1: people that sold me the pills um. But that could
Speaker 1: be an important step because it does us with us
Speaker 1: for a very long time. But then we have a
Speaker 1: choice of where do we want to end it. And
Speaker 1: you and I are both moms and we don't want
Speaker 1: to pass that down to our daughters. And again, my
Speaker 1: mom didn't mean any harm, but yeah, she was fine.
Speaker 1: If I wanted to do a diet, she was fine.
Speaker 1: If I wanted to work out twice a day, she
Speaker 1: was fine. If we did diets together like it was
Speaker 1: totally fine, but yeah, there was no conversation that this
Speaker 1: wasn't normal. But here we are. However, many years later
Speaker 1: that was six or something. What year were you born? Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're ten years apart, we who still had moms
Speaker 1: that were probably really similar. I wasn't seeing this type
Speaker 1: of rhetoric that we have now until the last few years.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of undoing, Like even me for
Speaker 1: a mom, I've been a mom for three years and
Speaker 1: I've had to undo stuff I was doing the first
Speaker 1: year for sure. So for moms that may not be
Speaker 1: dialed in with what they eating, disorder can't show maybe
Speaker 1: even in their own life or their child's life, like
Speaker 1: what you recommend moms do, is there a conversation? How
Speaker 1: do you pick up on some of these things that
Speaker 1: aren't visible. I think the very first piece of that
Speaker 1: is creating a guilt free, judge free, healthy conversation or
Speaker 1: community like expectation for communication within your family, and just
Speaker 1: allowing your kids to feel safe coming to you if
Speaker 1: they are struggling in their bodies or they are feeling
Speaker 1: uncomfortable in their own skin. I see clients as young
Speaker 1: as thirteen who feel as if their parent doesn't welcome
Speaker 1: the dialogue that they don't understand. Sometimes not all of
Speaker 1: the time, but sometimes and and so I think they
Speaker 1: get really resistant to talking to mom or dad. And
Speaker 1: sometimes I think that could be changed if there's right
Speaker 1: off the bat, just like a welcoming judgment, free you
Speaker 1: can come to me about anything, expectation for communication within
Speaker 1: the family dynamic. That kind of sets the tone moving
Speaker 1: forward for your child to say, hey, you know, i've
Speaker 1: been struggling with this or I've been feeling this and
Speaker 1: I'm really confused. And I think that also plays into
Speaker 1: normalizing discussing bodies. You know, like I have a little
Speaker 1: boy and I let him run around naked after his
Speaker 1: bath because like he's a little kid and he's fine,
Speaker 1: but there are people who think that's weird. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: he's only almost two. But I want to create an
Speaker 1: environment in my family where like talking about your body
Speaker 1: isn't shameful or weird, and just normalizing having differences among us, right,
Speaker 1: And I think just that open, honest, sensitive, safe communication
Speaker 1: um and setting that tone early on in life is
Speaker 1: really valuable for parents to pass on to their children.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I see is like parents being
Speaker 1: kind of hands off with social media and thinking that
Speaker 1: almost this naive approach to social media, like forgetting that
Speaker 1: kids have these fake accounts. It's becoming really common for
Speaker 1: young girls to create these fake Instagram accounts and hide
Speaker 1: behind them posting things that are kind of encouraged or
Speaker 1: following accounts that are encouraging behaviors. So just being aware
Speaker 1: as parents that things like this exist, because again, disordered
Speaker 1: eating and eating disorders are manipulative, they're secretive. So just
Speaker 1: being aware and being tuned in and having really open
Speaker 1: communication with your children, I think is one of the
Speaker 1: best things we could do. Are you saying they're following
Speaker 1: accounts that encourage behavior on how to look a certain way?
Speaker 1: What I've seen with some of my clients is that,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe their parents has access to their normal
Speaker 1: Instagram account, but then they have these fake Instagram accounts
Speaker 1: that might be following people that perpetuate toxic behaviors. Gotcha, Okay, No,
Speaker 1: that's that's definitely helpful information because, yeah, you want to
Speaker 1: protect your kids from that, and if you have the open,
Speaker 1: honest communication, if you've got step one of that, you
Speaker 1: kind of went over two things there. So the first
Speaker 1: thing I love because now I'm just reflecting back again
Speaker 1: on my relationship with my mother. We didn't even talk
Speaker 1: about my period when I got it. I had to
Speaker 1: figure out on my own what to do. I think
Speaker 1: one day she realized I was on it, and she
Speaker 1: went to the grocery store and she's stuff. Stuff just
Speaker 1: started showing up in my bathroom cabinet. There was no conversation.
Speaker 1: My mom was a great mom. There was not an
Speaker 1: open door policy on me just talking to her about anything.
Speaker 1: Although ironically, when I was bulieming in high school, one
Speaker 1: of the first people she is, the first person I
Speaker 1: went to was my mom because I was scared. But
Speaker 1: then I don't think she knew what to do with it.
Speaker 1: So she heard me and she listened, but she was
Speaker 1: just kind of like, oh gosh, almost for her, she
Speaker 1: was overwhelmed. She was a single mom, she worked full time,
Speaker 1: I had an older sister. She was heavily involved in
Speaker 1: all kinds of other things on the board of like everything.
Speaker 1: So she's very busy, and I'll fall her for that,
Speaker 1: but part of me wonders if she kept herself busy
Speaker 1: to avoid, you know, and my mom's passed away, so
Speaker 1: I I will never know because I can't ask her this.
Speaker 1: But now that's just me probably trying to break down
Speaker 1: why she did what she did. And I don't think
Speaker 1: she meant any harm, but she definitely didn't create that
Speaker 1: safe space for me. I think I was crying for
Speaker 1: it in a way, going to her, making her the
Speaker 1: first person of like, hey, this is what you can't
Speaker 1: see that's going on with me. You would never know
Speaker 1: right now that I've been throwing up my food, but
Speaker 1: I'm trying to tell you it's a cry for help.
Speaker 1: And I think she lined me up with a therapist,
Speaker 1: but then was pretty disengaged after that. And then you
Speaker 1: just kind of like, all right, I'll handle this on
Speaker 1: my own. But yeah, it starts with other things of
Speaker 1: like let's talk about your body. Be comfortable in your skin,
Speaker 1: you can run around, nake it. We'll talk about vaginas
Speaker 1: and penises and little and not be ashamed of any
Speaker 1: of that. So I work as a personal trainer exclusively
Speaker 1: with women, and a lot of my clients are prenatal
Speaker 1: or postpartum, but I also work with women who don't
Speaker 1: have children, and I try to educate them on their
Speaker 1: pelvic floor because it's really important A part of our anatomy.
Speaker 1: And I see so many women like slink away in shame,
Speaker 1: like I don't know what my pelvic floor is or
Speaker 1: why are you asking me about my pelvic floor? And
Speaker 1: I try to just like be super cool and casual
Speaker 1: about it because this is my job. To me, it's
Speaker 1: not weird. I'm also a birth doulist, so like with
Speaker 1: most of my clients, I've seen them raw as vulnerable
Speaker 1: as it gets. But I sometimes I am caught off
Speaker 1: guard and then have to bring myself back to the
Speaker 1: fact that my mom didn't teach me about my pelvic floor.
Speaker 1: My mom didn't teach me how to like embrace my
Speaker 1: body just by fostering conversation about healthy sexuality, or it's
Speaker 1: easier to build shame around our bodies, and it's a
Speaker 1: lot of Yeah, it's a lot harder to have healthy
Speaker 1: conversation about our bodies and to make it normal. I
Speaker 1: think it's harder because we've made it harder. But then
Speaker 1: if you make that the normal, and you do it
Speaker 1: like you're trying do from the get go, then it
Speaker 1: it will come with ease as they get older. And
Speaker 1: you know, I touched on the first thing thinking back
Speaker 1: on having the conversation about bodies and being comfortable and open.
Speaker 1: But then the second thing you mentioned about the social
Speaker 1: media accounts and kids looking elsewhere for information instead of
Speaker 1: coming to you for that information or maybe even looking
Speaker 1: elsewhere for validation and worth. And I mean, that's the whole,
Speaker 1: another rabbit whole we could go down, But I think
Speaker 1: it's super important to remind pearance to be involved in
Speaker 1: their kids social media and try your hardest to educate
Speaker 1: yourself and not be naive. And I get it, it's
Speaker 1: it's an extra thing you have to add to your
Speaker 1: list that is very daunting that other generations didn't have
Speaker 1: to deal with. But each generation is going to have
Speaker 1: their new challenges, and social media is one that we
Speaker 1: have to manage that better. We have responsibility for ourselves
Speaker 1: and what accounts were following and who are what are what?
Speaker 1: What are we following? What information are we trying to
Speaker 1: receive from the accounts that we follow? But then gosh,
Speaker 1: that our kids might be sneaking around to have these
Speaker 1: other accounts for some of that scary makes me think
Speaker 1: of I used to look to places I think for
Speaker 1: that too. I don't even remember remember really what it
Speaker 1: was if it was certain movies or got a VHS
Speaker 1: tape or something, or maybe when YouTube came out, I
Speaker 1: would look for that sometimes as a young adult, just
Speaker 1: hoping that someone would be posting up something that would
Speaker 1: be beneficial to feed my behaviors. When I was in
Speaker 1: high school, at my sickest, there were holidays when my
Speaker 1: entire family would be at my grandparents house and I
Speaker 1: would lock myself in the compute like the room with
Speaker 1: the computer and look at pro anorexia sites. So what
Speaker 1: I did, I just scoured the internet looking for solace.
Speaker 1: It became like a game almost for me, like I
Speaker 1: had rules that I could follow, and I had goals
Speaker 1: to strive toward. And I think these webs sites have
Speaker 1: been predominantly shut down now. Oh, I hope so. And
Speaker 1: I think that's why too. Even here on the podcast,
Speaker 1: where we're careful with what content we say, and we'll
Speaker 1: give trigger warnings if someone might be trying to use
Speaker 1: our podcast as a way to learn tricks and tips,
Speaker 1: and hopefully we do a good job of not giving
Speaker 1: them that. But we're not perfect, and people are sharing
Speaker 1: their stories and we want people to be raw and
Speaker 1: vulnerable and real and give certain details and not have
Speaker 1: to edit themselves. But the reality is that sometimes that's
Speaker 1: what people are on the prow for, right And I
Speaker 1: think to Instagram for a while. I think that started
Speaker 1: a few years ago they started putting up trigger warning
Speaker 1: notifications on any posts that had anything to do with
Speaker 1: eating disorders, which I thought was a really cool step
Speaker 1: in the right direction. It's still very new, right, Like
Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about again, decades of these behaviors
Speaker 1: just kind of going swept under the rug or kept
Speaker 1: like his tidy little secrets, And now I think it
Speaker 1: just goes to show the power of sharing our voices
Speaker 1: and reducing stigma and shame. It can lead to really
Speaker 1: big things. It seems like a really small step when
Speaker 1: you open up and talk about something that's scary and vulnerable,
Speaker 1: but looking at little steps like that, like getting these
Speaker 1: toxic websites shut down and getting these trigger warning protocols
Speaker 1: in place on major apps, that started somewhere. It started
Speaker 1: with someone speaking up and sharing their story and having
Speaker 1: this trickling effect of advocacy. Circling back to the post
Speaker 1: you put up in the caption, part of what you
Speaker 1: wrote was, I think it's so important to also acknowledge
Speaker 1: the many emotional, physical, and psychological effects these illnesses can
Speaker 1: have on our lives. For me, so many of these
Speaker 1: side effects were crippling, yet no one could ever really know.
Speaker 1: And then scrolling down, you wrote that, fortunately, our bodies
Speaker 1: are incredible things. They heal given the chance. The majority
Speaker 1: of the things on this list have been resolved, and
Speaker 1: my body is strong, healthy and capable. If they things
Speaker 1: I once wasn't sure it could ever do, I e
Speaker 1: becoming pregnant, So I love like closing this out with
Speaker 1: that there's hope and that while this is a list
Speaker 1: of things that you're eating disort of, could it show
Speaker 1: you but we're definitely all you at the time, They're
Speaker 1: not you anymore. And so you were able to get pregnant.
Speaker 1: So that loss of innistrution that came back, Um, you
Speaker 1: know you're you're just know like, how gosh the mood
Speaker 1: swings that was me that day. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: have school. My poor mom. I was awful to her.
Speaker 1: And then you wrote, no matter who you are, where
Speaker 1: are you on your journey, you deserve recovery. Your body
Speaker 1: deserves recovery. If you're struggling, your weight isn't what makes
Speaker 1: you sick enough, it's the behaviors, it's the fear, it's
Speaker 1: the thoughts, it's the isolation, it's the pain, it's the risks,
Speaker 1: it's all of it. It all makes you worthy of
Speaker 1: support and care. And then you encourage people to seek help.
Speaker 1: And you listed some of your favorite therapists and registered
Speaker 1: dieticians to follow. So yeah, we'll put your Instagram in
Speaker 1: the show notes and people can go check out that post.
Speaker 1: But I appreciate you. I appreciate you sharing and then
Speaker 1: the content that you give us, and I really feel
Speaker 1: like it's a huge takeaway from this conversation. Today was
Speaker 1: for me as a mom, I need to make sure
Speaker 1: that I'm making everything comfortable for my kids so they
Speaker 1: can come to me no matter what, because the topic
Speaker 1: may not be eating disorders, but if I go ahead
Speaker 1: and just make everything comfortable, she may be able to
Speaker 1: come to me about a boy thing or some other
Speaker 1: thing that she might be struggling with, or my son
Speaker 1: down the line when he's a little older he might
Speaker 1: be struggling with. I love that advice. So Caitlin, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us, and make sure that yes,
Speaker 1: you'll definitely check out the show notes so you can
Speaker 1: get all of Caitlin's info. And we were talking before
Speaker 1: we came on too about how Instagram is just so
Speaker 1: weird the day algorithm, Like sometimes posts are getting missed
Speaker 1: and it's so horrible. I know my friend that runs
Speaker 1: the shop for she's having it, like I don't understand
Speaker 1: sometimes why they put their stup for all the world
Speaker 1: to see, and then other times like I don't even
Speaker 1: see some of my friends posts at all. So I
Speaker 1: would just encourage you to make sure if you like
Speaker 1: someone's account, to like on their posts to comment. I
Speaker 1: heard too, if you send a d M to certain accounts,
Speaker 1: then Instagram will see like, oh, this person must really
Speaker 1: like their content, so I'm gonna start throwing it back
Speaker 1: into the feed. There's a little trick if you feel
Speaker 1: like you're missing certain people's things on Instagram. Engagement is
Speaker 1: so huge, so make sure you engage all right. Um,
Speaker 1: I hope you'll have a great rest of your day.
Speaker 1: I