If you are visiting this page, chances are you or someone you care about is struggling with an eating disorder and is thinking about getting help. If someone had told me 13 years ago that I would make it through my darkest hour to a place of being fully recovered, I wouldn't have believed them. I remember this moment like it was yesterday as I was sitting in my Berkeley apartment, my sophomore year in college. I was so scared and overwhelmed. I didn't think there was any hope for me. But I did recover and so can you.
Hi, I'm Jenny Mullaney. Growing up, I was a competitive dancer and conscientious student. I was the epitome of a perfectionist and Ihad super anxious tendencies along with negative thoughts and feelings about my body. I felt ashamed that my belly was bigger than my friends' and that dance costumes would fit in every place besides my waist. This insecurity was further reinforced by my mom who encouraged me to cutback on my food intake, took away my favorite 2-piece, and even asked the doctor why I was fat. My needs and body felt inherently wrong, bad and shameful, but I'm not sure anyone really noticed what was happening.
I started yo-yo dieting around adolescence and adopted other unnatural behaviors with food. Despite the diets, debilitating anxiety, as well as depression, I managed to graduate valedictorian of my high school class. I decided to attend UC Berkeley; however, this wasn't my first choice and I dealt with the rejection by my dream school, UCLA, by further obsessing over my food and exercise.
It wasn't enough that I was dancing 20-30 hours a week, I started running. One mile turned into two, three, four, five, and so on. I stated counting every calorie I ate and started purging when I felt the immense shame and guilt of eating what I thought was too much. I can remember sitting in dance rehearsal literally counting goldfish crackers and writing it down in my journal.
This was the tipping point when my disordered eating went into full blown binge/purge anorexia. While so much of my life felt out of control; however, I COULD control the number I saw on the scale. As it turned out, I was really good at making it go lower. It felt like a contest I could win.
My eating disorder had completely overtaken the healthy part of my mind and body. Despite my best efforts to continue dancing, keep up with my studies, and make a life in Berkeley, I couldn't escape the gnawing feelings of deep-seated inadequacy and my eating disorder spiraled out of control.
During my sophomore year in college, my dear friend and roommate confronted me about my eating disorder. She noticed my frequent trips to the bathroom and significant weight loss. "Jen, you are wasting away and you don't even see it. I don't know what to do!" While my parents were still turning a blind eye, she asserted a boundary-- she would no longer live with me until I got treatment I desperately needed. It was her courage that helped me make the hard and necessary decision to leave UC Berkeley and look into residential treatment.
While back at home, I ended up in the hospital due to complications from my eating disorder, but even that didn't really shake me. I was in such a deep depression that I didn't care if I died. In my mind, I'd rather die than gain a pound.
For years, I wasn't sure how I allowed myself to surrender and seek residential treatment. In hindsight, it must have been that small, little part of me--the "healthy self"-- that wanted to get better. The same part of you that brings you here to this page. I learned that the battle wasn't between others and my eating disorder; it was between my eating disorder and my healthy self. I was lucky that I had a treatment team that knew how to strengthen my healthy self rather than duke it out with my eating disorder. This is now the same approach I take with my own clients.
I started Recovered is Possible to give back to the same community that forever changed the course of my life which is why I enrolled in the Carolyn Costin Institute to become a Certified Eating Disorder Coach. Being trained and supervised by the same woman who treated me has made everything come full circle. I made meaning out of one of my darkest hours and my heart couldn't feel more full. I feel so excited and passionate about sharing the lessons I learned in recovery, and from certification, with my clients. I subscribe to the philosophy that one can be fully recovered from an eating disorder, as I myself am recovered. I take an individualized approach to coaching and believe in meeting each client where he/she is in order find a path of healing. Being recovered is possible and I am here to help you.