WIDLIMS podcast ep #19 – Approaching anorexia with Best of Bettina
In this week's episode, host and final year medical student Linda is joined by Bettina from Best of Bettina, who blogs and podcasts about mental health and eating disorder recovery. This episode covers...
- Bettina’s own story: anorexia, diagnosis and treatment
- Her current attitudes and ways of coping
- Tips for healthcare professionals: what should they and what shouldn’t they do?
As always: this is a podcast for educational and entertainment purposes only and is not intended as individual medical advice.
Above is my episode. Below, is the episode where Bettina interviewed me (cool right? I felt cool).
Find Bettina on her socials HERE
Instagram – Best of Bettina
Podcast – Best of Bettina
Mentioned in the episode
- Bettina’s own story: click HERE to listen on Spotify
- My interview on Bettina’s show – Eating disorders don’t have a look: click HERE to listen on Spotify
- Previous WIDLIMS episodes
- Anorexia is the mental disorder with the highest mortality
Background
No proper article this week, but rather a reflection.
Eating disorders are psychiatric diseases, and they wreck lives. I write a lot about disordered eating, and I have several posts about it on my blog already. Check them out in the eating and mental health categories and tags.
I am not writing an article this time, because I would rather like to highlight some further listening you can do to Bettina’s experience, and to my experience. It is all well and good to learn signs and diagnostic criteria for conditions, but we must also listen to first hand accounts and illness narratives. At the core of it all, there is a patient. A patient – a PERSON. And we must listen and learn based on what they have to say. If they are suffering, if they are unwell: that is what a doctor must grasp onto and try to help with. Not just focus on numbers and values.
There is help to be found. I know that it can be very difficult to access, and for the underprivileged it might be impossible. There is a lot of online self-help available, on YouTube and from charities such as NEDA and Beat. Read my earlier blog post with lots of tips and resources linked HERE.
My friend Marion also wrote a beautiful blog post about her recovery journey. Read it HERE.
Reach out to someone, anyone, if you need to! If you are thinking of doing it, you already are sick “enough”. You are worthy of help and of living a fuller life. Do not let anyone dismiss you.
With love,
Linda
