Susan
Welcome to Who We Are Inside. Today we have Dev Hayostek, who earned a master's degree in social work with a mental health certificate from the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work, and a bachelor's degree in integrative arts from Penn State University. Before obtaining a graduate degree, Dev worked in the retail industry for 13 years. I feel like we could talk about that for a while. Mostly in leadership roles, with a strong focus on training, development, and talent life cycle. Dev's areas of expertise are emotional intelligence and leadership A-men, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, S-O-G-I-E, L-G-B-T-Q-I-A plus history and rights, psychiatric disabilities and mental health, fat justice and body inclusivity, and systemic racism. Dev currently serves as the lead prevention educator in the Office for Sexual Violence Prevention and Education, which is housed in the Office for Equity, one of our favorite people, and has already been on this podcast. In addition to sexual violence prevention work at the university, Dev is a developer and facilitator of the Racial Equity Consciousness Institute in the Center on Race and Social Problems at the university's School of Social Work. Dev self-identifies as, it is really hard for me to say this word, but I'm going to say it because you self-identify as it and then we can talk about it, as a fat, queer, agender activist who believes that every body deserves to have the resources, support, compassion, and care they need to thrive. I love that bio. Thank you for helping me through that, that sticky part. So Dev, thank you so much for being with us today. And you shared that you wanted to talk about your struggle with eating disorders and specifically Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, or ARFID. Can you start by explaining what is ARFID and how does it differ from other eating disorders?

Dev
Yeah, sure. So ARFID is, you know, what we call it, using the acronym, but Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. It often shows up as, for children as like a quote-unquote picky eating or selective eating. It usually has something to do with texture or taste or both. Sometimes it kind of can mirror almost like an OCD type like contamination. Like some people with ARFID can't eat foods that are touching or that have mixed. And it really, it's a really understudied eating disorder and not a lot of people talk about it. And, you know, I was in, I was 30 before I even realized like, oh, this is what I have going on. I have experience with other eating disorders that for a long time I thought were just like me being a member of society because we're so, you know, obsessed with thinness and, and, you know, thin as health that, you know, I was always kind of a chubby kid and in the kind of body that I have now until I went to college actually everybody else gained like freshman 15 and I lost the freshman 65 and, you know, just like lost weight really quick. I had, you know, I've had the 18 year old metabolism and just started going to the gym and, you know, running and that became a thing. And then, you know, once I lost the weight, it became like, well, I have to keep this off. So I would say for about nine years, I kept the weight off. But when I look back at those years now, I see clearly that, you know, there was some, some anorexia, some bulimia via exercise there, but the one that has given me the most issues, I would say throughout everything and made my, almost my relationship with anorexia even more complicated was the ARFID because I have such a limited palette to choose from that, you know, when I was quote unquote on a diet for some people, you know, having a salad for every meal, like that's feasible and, you know, you can get all your nutrients and all of those things where for me eating vegetables is like a big part now. So it's like really, really hard for me to get those nutrients in. So diets for me tend to be, you know, like a protein shake and as little calories as possible because I can't, you know, I couldn't for a long time feel like, oh, I can do like just veggies. Like I can just, you know, and I always say like, I wish I could be vegan. Like, I don't love them. I wish I could, you know, protect the animals more, but it's just really hard with a person with an eating disorder, especially ARFID to be able to navigate, you know, kind of having restricting yourself any more than you already are restricted by the disorder itself. So I would say that, you know, with ARFID, there is no quote unquote reason or reasoning behind it. Whereas, you know, if we look at some folks with anorexia bulimia, sometimes there's a more easier kind of trigger to point out. It differs for everybody. But, you know, one example is just the society that we live in, you know, tends, I argue as a social worker and as somebody who's studied mental health, that if we didn't have fatphobia and white supremacy beauty standards, that we probably wouldn't have eating disorders, I think, you know, or we wouldn't have as many, you know, it would be very much more, very rare. So yeah, there's a little bit about the background and my experience with it, I can, you know, get into more as we go.

Adriana
Thank you so much for sharing with us your personal struggles. So how did ARFID impact your daily life? Psychologically, emotionally, physically? What can you tell us about it?

Dev
Yeah, you know, so growing up, food was just so stressful. And I never really understood, you know, I thought that it was just because I was a nervous kid, I had a lot of anxiety. And I thought, you know, it was just because I was quote, unquote, picky. But now looking back on it, you know, it really was like, it shows up in such insidious, I guess is the word, or like, mysterious ways, like different things, like there are foods that I can eat from certain restaurants, but not others. Guacamole is like that, like, I very rarely can eat guacamole at a restaurant, I need to like make it myself. But like Mad Mex of all places, I'm like, their guacamole is good to me. I don't know what makes it different. It's just, you know, but when something gets ruined for me, like if I have a bad experience, I can't go back. So it's like, you know, one time, one of my favorite meals involves chicken, and the chicken just was too chickeny. I don't know, it was too, it was not good. So I haven't been able to eat that meal since because it's like burned in my brain that it's, you know, I tell people when I try to explain what's happening for me personally, because I, again, I want to emphasize that this does show up very, very differently for so many people. But for me, it's like when I see a food that's quote unquote, in the ARFID world, we often say like safe or unsafe foods. So for me, if I see an unsafe food, it's equivalent to seeing like raw chicken on a plate, like, you know, you can't eat that, like your brain knows, we know like, out of all the and that's like what, you know, like a plate full of vegetables looks like to like my that same kind of guttural reaction of no, this is dangerous. I can't put this in my mouth. So you know, when I was younger, food was dinner time and like meal times were super stressful, especially if I was going to be around people I didn't know. So like, even to this day, like being invited to someone's house is like my worst nightmare for dinner. Like I'm like anything other than dinner, like can we do like, do we have to eat because it's always like, I don't know how you're going to prepare the food. I don't know if, you know, even something simple as like a meal that I usually like, like, what if it's what if you have a different way that you cook it? And I don't know. And I would say that as a child, that really stressed me out too, because like, I couldn't quite understand the nuance there that I can now that like, well, why can I eat my grandma's spaghetti, but I don't like my mom's spaghetti? Why is that? You know, whereas now I see like, my grandma uses the sauce I like, my mom, I don't like the sauce my mom uses or vice versa. So it was incredibly challenging to navigate those situations. And then, you know, for folks that struggle with any kind of food issues, and we obviously need food to survive. It's one of the things we can't go without. It makes, you know, part of your survival, like stressful, just to like, navigate that. And it exacerbates like all the other kind of difficulties of just growing up, you know, I grew up in a very rural part of Pennsylvania. So as a queer person, you know, in a very, we'll say, like, conservative red area of the state, there was already enough going on that like, the act of eating was just like the last straw. So I, you know, I tell people that when I was in that, those, you know, almost 10 years of what I call now an eating disorder, you know, anorexia bulimia, like that was actually comforting for a lot of the time, because I wasn't eating a lot. And my food intake was so regimented, that I didn't have to worry about it. You know, it was just I ate the same thing all the time. But now where I'm at with it in my 30s, I can't do that anymore. Like there are foods that are just like, I say they're betraying me now, because like, I just, you know, can't eat the same thing. And I have I struggle now an adult with like, leftovers, that's a really hard thing, which is kills me because I really don't want to waste anything. But like, as a single person that lives alone, that's also very stressful. It's like the grocery store is incredibly stressful. I hate that's like my least favorite place to be. I don't know what it is about the grocery store. But I feel like at any given moment, I'm nearing a breakdown in the grocery store. It just Yeah, it's just so I don't know something about it. So it has definitely impacted everything, I would say, because I mean, what do you do? You have to eat like everywhere. And, you know, it some of the more like traumatic things of food in my childhood come up randomly at places and at times. So yeah, it's a hard thing to navigate out of all the things that I have going on for me, which is unfortunately, quite a bit. I feel like this is the most tricky because it's the thing that people understand the least. It's the thing that, you know, as a child, like nobody had compassion for it. You know, it was understandably to like, I grew up in a poor family. So like, not being able to eat the food that your parents are cooking, like it is frustrating. And I get that like, my parents are just trying to, you know, feed their, their kid. And like, if I, you know, didn't like it, like I would have to have something else. And, you know, I will say that my family was pretty good at supporting that, but it didn't come without it's like, comments and costs, you know, so I always knew of like, unfortunately, what a burden it would be to like, oh, we have to have something extra or we have to go to this place because you don't like that place. So yeah, that kind of sticks with you too, of just feeling like I don't want to, even in my personal life now, like making plans with people, I never want to like, when someone's like, where do you want to go to eat? I'm like, nowhere. Can I eat before I come? Because this is stressing me out. I'm already sweating.

Susan
So when I saw this diagnosis yesterday, and thinking about today, I think back to a cousin of mine, who I believe would identify as having ARFID, if I had to ask them. And, you know, I think back to the fact that their mom was really supportive and made sure that they ate the foods that were comfortable and safe for them. But I do also remember, you know, the comments, like you said about not necessarily his immediate family, but like, uncles and aunts and grandparents, and you know, oh, we can't go to this restaurant because it doesn't have this and this and the frustration. And, you know, I think this is where awareness is so important, because I feel like awareness builds compassion. And it's like, and it takes away the responsibility and like onus on the person. It's like, this is not their fault. This is not like a choice. This is a disorder that is, you know, just as valid as anything else that we see in medicine or other things. And so I really appreciate, you know, the diagnosis, not to other, but to hopefully build awareness and compassion. So yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. And, you know, I will say, so I'm a mom of two young kids. And I wonder, and I need to do some research on this, how much of the philosophy around eating and helping kids eat has been influenced by research coming out about ARFID. So what I mean by that is, the sort of general recommendations, at least based on the groups that I follow, people like Feeding Littles, Yummy Toddler Food, is about the parent, big little feelings, I need to do all my shout outs. Like they know me, they don't, they'll never listen to this, but it's okay. You never know, right? They always say like the parent provides and the child decides. So the parent can put the food out there, but you have to have a no thank you or like unsafe food kind of receptacle. And it is absolutely the child's autonomy, what they choose to eat on that plate. And you always have to make sure there's a safe food. And, you know, that plate could be divided or not divided, whatever, you know. So I feel like there is more awareness of the harm that can happen when we aren't, when we don't believe our children in like what they're experiencing in their bodies when it comes to food.

Dev
Yeah. And like the emphasis on, you know, for folks that are listening to this, like there's a very big difference between like, you know, cause there are plenty of foods that I just don't like, like that I don't believe is the ARFID kind of shifting my perspective, but then there are things, there are situations where like it is a non-negotiable. Like I come back to that, like raw chicken, like it is such a visceral, like I cannot ingest this food or some, like, I don't even know if something bad will happen or I will be sick. So, like I said, for some folks, like, yeah, that fear, they often will say like ARFID is like a fear of food. Like you are afraid of certain foods because your body, you do, you react like in a very trauma response kind of way of like fight, flight, freeze. I don't think fawn would have, I don't know if you would be fawning with food, but maybe.

Adriana
Dev, so there are several theories for eating disorders, right? So it could be some brain imbalance, chemical imbalance, or even genetic factors. So just for curiosity, do you know anybody in your family who also experienced the same feelings about food like you?

Dev
No, no. I was the, I come from a family of eaters too. Like every, my parents were, both my parents, their parents are divorced. So I come from a lot of divorce. And so that meant I had a lot of grandparents, which was lovely growing up, but like everybody was such big foodies and such. That was like what our family would do is like, we would come together for, you know, whatever was happening and would eat. And no, no, my mom has a little bit of selective, like her and I both aren't really keen on things like fresh vegetables, lettuce, things like that. But my mom can eat like cooked vegetables and her palate's a little bit more expansive than mine, but she's about the closest that I've, you know, come to. My dad does not experience anything that I know of. And, you know, I don't think, I think I'm the only one.

Susan
I just think there's so much shame around food. And I, I think about, I feel like now it's really hard to answer that question. Like, you know, that's on every screening. Like, do you have a history of disordered eating? And it's like, well, like not technically from a diagnostic, like DM, DSM-5 criteria, but like, doesn't everyone who grew up in the eighties and nineties have some eating? And, and what I mean by that is like, you know, in so many cultures and I, I grew up, half of my family is Jewish. And, and I think this is probably true for a lot of cultures, but at least this was my experience with, with my Jewish family was like, not eating something was like a, you were like offending the person who made it. It was like, if you didn't finish your plate or at least like try it, you were saying not only like, I don't like this food, but like, I don't like you. I'm not appreciative of you. And, and, and I think that leads to this disordered eating of like, well, I'm going to eat this even though I don't want it, even though I'm not hungry, you know, because there's this expectation around food that is so much beyond actually just giving your body nutrients. What comes up for you when I talk about that?

Dev
Yeah. Ooh, that is definitely like a big anxiety of my childhood, especially going into other people's spaces of like, oh my God, if I don't finish this plate, I definitely grew up in a family of like, you finish your plate, you finish what's on your plate. Again, we were very low, lower class, like not a lot of money to go around. So you did not waste what you had. And yeah, I mean, I would argue that anybody who grew up, you know, 80s, 90s, or with a mom in the 80s and 90s, because women, oof, the tabloids and just like the, the culture of what was expected of, you know, women in all time. I mean, we could trace back body standards for a very far time, but in our recent history, I would say that, you know, especially the 90s and early 2000s, that was really, really devastating to watch, you know, just like tabloid after tabloid after tabloid. And, you know, growing up, like my mom was my primary caretaker and my parents were divorced. So, um, you know, I spent most of my time with just like navigating, like, I just knew early on from a very young age that like being in a fat body was bad. And if you're fat, that means there's something wrong with you. You're lazy. You're not doing enough work to be thin. Um, you're, you know, you're, there's something morally wrong. Like I just, I, that's one of my earliest memories of like growing up. So I agree with you that I think that everybody in our country, especially, you know, living in the in Europe, because that's where we got these beauty standards from. Um, but I know in the United States, especially with like our celebrity culture that we, you know, we worship celebrities here that, um, yeah, everybody has a really interesting relationship with food. Um, because how could you not when, you know, up in even now, uh, depending on who you get when you go to the doctor, like it is still a common practice that like, you know, I mean, we see it now, like obesity as like an epidemic, um, which, you know, causation versus correlation there is not a discussion that we often have. Um, and we don't look at the fact that, you know, fat people do not get good healthcare because it's con they're constantly looked at as like, well, first you need to lose the weight before we're going to diagnose. So, and you know, fat people don't want to go to the doctor. So there's a lot of systemic things that play into, uh, people, you know, struggling to maintain a certain body that they think they have to. Um, there's a lot of celebration of shrinking, which is like so ironic that we would never celebrate somebody for making themselves smaller in any other way. Like I would never, you know, like if we were in a meeting together and you didn't say anything, even though I know you have tons of great ideas, I would never be like, congratulations on staying small and quiet in that meeting. You know what I mean? But like, when it's our body, when it's the thing that carries us through our entire lives, like it's such a, the hardest thing about kind of having a fluctuating body is you can never forget what people said when you lost weight. And that is like, the hardest thing is like, you can't ever get rid of those thoughts of people saying like, Oh my God, you look great. You look so good. And it's like, well, what did I look like before? Like, okay, clearly, you know, I look better to now. I should keep this. So yeah, it's, we live, it's tough for everybody. And then adding in something like, you know, an actual diagnosed eating disorder, just really complicates it even more. But I wish we talked more about disordered eating, especially because I mean, there's, everybody's on a diet. Like so many people are trying to do this, trying to do this, trying to watch their sugar, trying to, and like, those things are all great for an individual person, what they need. But things get warped so quickly into like a blanket of like, you know, this is what I have to do. I saw an article about this, and now I need to try this, you know, so it, it's tough. It is, you know, it makes food and body and just, you know, navigating just very difficult for sure.

Adriana
You mentioned before your diagnosis that you struggled a little bit with bulimia and anorexia. And then you mentioned exercise, right, that you were so focused on the exercise that it was kind of pathological for you. Can you expand a little bit on that? And how do you think we could balance the need to exercise versus the being obsessed about it?

Dev
Right. Yeah, for me, you know, and again, for years, I thought, like, I'm just doing a great day like this. But that's how it was, like, I had to go to the gym every day. When I was eating, I was constantly thinking about, okay, this is like three hours in the gym to counteract. Okay, like, it truly was like, I have to earn my food type thing. And if I had a very kind of black and white mindset about like, this is good, this is bad. And again, when your palate is very limited, a lot of my foods were bad foods, which meant I had to work. And I'm using air quotes for the because there are no such thing as bad or good food, especially in a country where you're not we could get into that we could have a whole podcast. Yes, we could. But for me, you know, I was very much like, I have to work this off. I can't skip a day because God forbid I skip a day, then that will turn into two days, which will turn into three days. And then the next thing I know, I'm never going to go to the gym again. I mean, they gain all this weight back, which is like partially true, because I also believe that, like, for most of us, our bodies are just where they are. And they're gonna return to that at some point, like, in my experience of, you know, I don't think I was ever meant to be in a thin body. I think that the body I have now is like the body I was supposed to be in, because it's the body that I keep coming back to whenever I'm not dieting or not super, you know, working out super hard, like this is what I look like. So yeah, I struggled a lot with kind of like the obsessive exercising. But the other thing about it, that's tricky is exercising does make you feel good. So there is a level of like, yes, I'm doing this because I want to stay thin. But also, I'm like addicted to the endorphins. And I really, you know, that there's something about, you know, doing a really good workout that makes you feel not only like good because of the chemicals in your brain, but good because you just did something really hard. And we're so celebrated in our in our culture about like, doing things hard, especially physical. Again, thank you patriarchy for making it like, so like, we all have to be like lifting weights all the time. So, you know, I argue a lot with people. I like to poke the bear on, you know, food and exercise topics a lot when people are like, but I feel so good when I lose weight. And I always challenge people that I'm like, are you feeling good because you lost 10 pounds and your body needed to release that 10 pounds and you're feeling relief in your knees, you're feeling relief in your back or whatever that looks like? Or are you feeling good because now you're 10 pounds closer to a version of yourself that you think is more acceptable to other people? Which one is that? Because I've experienced both of those things. And I can tell you, I've experienced more of the part of I'm closer to the body that people are going to celebrate than I have, you know, oh, this 10 pounds relieved my knee pain, my back pain, you know, and I don't want to discount that for anybody. Because of course, like they're our body's age. And, you know, we, we need to tune up here and there. And, you know, for some people, weight loss is a viable solution for other issues that are going on. And I never want to discount that. But I do think it becomes a catchall for a lot of providers that, you know, in an overworked medical system that, you know, when you see your doctor for 20 minutes, like, of course, they're going to look at you and say, Okay, well, the only thing I can really change right now is if you just lose some weight for a little bit, and we see how that works. And then we'll run more tests. So yeah, it's these, these systems at play are also so tricky. Like this is an issue that, you know, is not just about the food and the exercise. It's also about the way that we view bodies and whose body needs to be a certain type, you know, women versus men. And something that I wish we talked so much more about is men and disordered eating, because it's happening. And it happens to so many men, it's the opposite side of it, though, it's the I need to gain, I need to be muscular, I need to be big, I need to put on all this extra muscle and weight. And it's interesting, because the same standards that were kind of set by the patriarchy are harming the patriarchy, because we see, you know, men all the time doing wild things to their bodies to try to achieve, and we're celebrated for it, you know, even like, I'm a big Marvel fan, but like all of those men that go through, like, every single person that's played a superhero has come out and said, like, never do what we do for this, like, do not do this. It is not healthy. I'm not well, I don't feel good. I may look quote, unquote, good to you. But like, I can barely make it through the scenes that we're filming, because this is not good. So yeah, I wish we would talk more about those things. I think in terms of balancing, I wish that I had better advice. I think it's like, I think really, it comes down to like, checking the motive and kind of really asking yourself, like, what is this? And why? And you know, like, even now, my relationship with the gym is really kind of fraught. I like to go to the gym. I like to have a dedicated place where quote, unquote, fitness is happening. Or else I feel like I can't enjoy like, people are like, just go for a walk. But I'm like, if I'm going for a walk, because I need to go for a walk, I'm gonna like, walk really fast. Like, I just can't get out of that mindset. Like, I'm not gonna be strolling and looking at the birds. I'm gonna be power walking through the streets of Pittsburgh, and probably tripping on an uneven sidewalk. I don't want to do that. But yeah, I think it's hard to find that balance. And I would argue like, you know, anytime that weight loss has something to do with changing the way that your body looks for other people, we should we should look into it. I'm never, ever, ever, ever, ever going to judge a fat person for doing what they need to do to survive in a very fat phobic world. And I really get upset when I see, you know, kind of fat activists shame other people for intentionally losing weight. Because I mean, it's hard. And it's it, I'm never going to fault somebody for trying to make their life less hard. Because it's our world is not created for fat people. It's not created. Our society is not our society is about like bleeding as much as we can from every resource that we have, including human beings. And unfortunately, you know, for people in fat bodies, that's it's just not as easy to squeeze resources out of them. They're, you know, they there's accommodations that are needed, much like we see with any disability, even like, we see we're in a very ableist kind of world as well. So I think all of these things are so interconnected. And to unpack your relationship with food, fitness, body size, all of that, I think requires a lot of looking at, you know, there's a book called, My Body is, or The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor that like changed my life. It's one of my favorite books. But she talks about in that book, naming the system, like when you're having thoughts about your body or your weight, or the way you present yourself to the world, like what system does that come from? Because it's not coming from you. She talks about how we're all born, like with love, like we are only born with love. And then the world around us is what teaches us the opposite of that. And it makes me really sad to think that, you know, as children, like, my friends are now in the age where they're all having babies and like, all of their babies are so fat and chubby and cute. And I'm like, when do we grow out of that where we're like, literally about to take a bite out of someone's thigh because it's they're just so cute, like that you can't resist it. And then you grow up and it becomes something repulsive to so many people. It's so interesting. One other thing I'll say about that is my best friend had her son very premature, super premature. And, you know, it was very touch and go for a we didn't know what was going to happen. And every ounce that he gained, we just celebrated because it was like every ounce that he gained, he was closer to being healthy and being, you know, living. And I just I thought I think about that a lot of like, truly, like we would get a daily report and the tiniest ounce, we would just relish in that. And now as adults, we're talking about losing ounces always like that's such a priority. It makes me so sad. Mm hmm.

Adriana
Are there support groups for this kind of disorder that you could talk about for our listeners in case somebody really wants to get some word out there?

Dev
Yeah, you know, unfortunately, for the ARFID community, this is such an under resourced community. So there, in my experience, you know, there are eating disorder support groups out there for all different types. They tend to be a mixture of, you know, different flavors. I have found a lot of support in the 12 step community for eating disorders. There is EDA, which is Eating Disorder Anonymous, which tends to be a very kind of mixed group of various and what I like about EDA versus like an OA, because OA is Overeaters Anonymous, and that tends to be a little bit more regimented. To me, it feels like, you know, I'm not judging the program for the people that it works for, but for me, it feels too controlling. It reminds me of those days where, because there's things like sometimes you do like a food plan and like, I can't do any of those things. So for me, EDA has been a great place and, you know, there's tons of meetings online. In fact, EDA is mostly an online forum. So that's kind of nice because you kind of have to be very intentional about building your community because for folks that go to maybe like an AA meeting or where you're like physically going to a place, like you can meet community. So like I have, you know, some support people. I'm in a WhatsApp group that, you know, I just kind of come and go from as I need to. But, you know, there are resources, as I shared at the beginning. There's an Instagram person, a young girl named Hannah, and her Instagram handle, I think, is @myARFIDlife. And her mom runs the account. I think she's eight and she is just like the bravest soul that like so much bravery and an eight-year-old, so much understanding of like her own, like what she has going on and like her anxieties. And she's, you know, working really hard in therapy and she just, you know, gets on screen and like tries food and talks about some of the things that she's working on in therapy. And, you know, that helps a lot too, to see like, okay, like if this eight-year-old can do it, like I can definitely try to eat this food too. But it's, yeah, it's, I wish there was more. I've had to educate providers about, you know, what ARFID is, which is super frustrating. You know, in the treatment world, it's not, it's just underdeveloped and understudied. You know, even when I have sought out treatment for eating disorders in the past, when I say, you know, ARFID, they are usually looking at me a like, okay, but what else, what else is going on here? So I would say there are resources. Google would be the best place to find them, but there are not enough. And they're certainly not tailored to the individual ways in which ARFID can show up for folks, because it is such a vast thing. And the other thing I'll say is there's a lot of, you know, the reason why I found out about ARFID was actually from a friend of mine who was neurodivergent and was like, oh yeah, I have ARFID. And, you know, it's quite common in the neurodivergent world for ARFID to show up. So there's an opportunity to also, you know, research so much more about the overlaps of, you know, these different diagnoses and these different ways in which our brains are kind of different and how we experience things like food and food intake that I think we need more of so that we can learn how we can better support, because there's just not a lot, there really isn't.

Susan
Yeah. Sorry, I've got all the things going on in my brain. So I'm thinking about, this is the thing that's coming to the forefront for me right now. I'm thinking about neurodiversity, and I'm thinking about building community, and I'm thinking about how we typically and historically and traditionally have shown hospitality, which is through the offering of food. And so I'm curious for folks with ARFID, how do you show hospitality? Like what is another way that we can, you know, metaphorically invite folks with ARFID into our home and share our hospitality without creating a situation that is just steeped in anxiety and dread.

Dev
Yeah, I would say, you know, my childhood best friend that we've been friends for, I guess, 23 years now, I guess. Her name is Lacey, and she does a very, very good job of when she invites me over to her house, like, she'll ask me, like, where are we at right now? What kind of foods feel safe? Like, we'll order that or we don't have to eat, like, and she has kids. So she's like, I have to feed my kids. But like, I don't expect you to eat if you don't want to. So I think, you know, really being intentional about asking what that person, you know, needs or wants, or would enjoy. I think decentralizing food talk has been really helpful for me. So when I am with people, the people that I'm close to in my life know that like, we don't talk about food as good or bad. We don't talk about, I need to go to the gym after this, or I'm so bad for eating two cupcakes, like we don't do any of those things. Because that also can be very triggering and just be very shameful of like, well, what do you mean? Like, I can't have another cupcake if I want. So I would say that's probably how, you know, I would navigate if I had, you know, another friend with ARFID, I would just probably be checking in a lot of like, what is your safe food right now? Can I have that ready for you? And then also the offer of like, you can bring your own stuff, if you would rather prepare your own meal, like I'm not going to be offended if, because for some folks, like, you know, the preparation is really important. So if it's, you know, it may even be the same thing, like you, everybody may be eating spaghetti, but like, maybe I just have to bring my own because I just need to prepare it myself. So I think open dialogue, you know, much like with everything else, with disabilities in general, you know, making that accommodation can go the longest way and can really, it doesn't take too, too much to like, be inclusive, you know, just like an extra step. But yeah, I think it's the most supportive whenever it's just like the pressure is off. The other thing that I love about my friend Lacey is that she, when I am at her house, like, she makes it known every time that I'm there, that I am allowed to try anything that I want. And that's it's okay if I don't like it. And she's not going to be upset, like, no food's going to be wasted. Like, she's like, somebody in this house will eat it. We're all families. Somebody will eat it, the dogs will eat it, the kids will eat it, like somebody's going to eat this food. And I think that's helpful too, you know, so much of as an adult with this eating disorder, and so much of it is kind of also steeped and intertwined in my childhood stuff that I, it really does kind of feel, I feel like a little kid sometimes, like it feels like it really touches on that, uh, ouchy spot. Um, so having people that just like are constantly reminding that, like, it's not the expectation that we're physically eating together. It's the, it's the being here together that matters. It's not the what's on our plates.

Susan
I love that. It's the idea that hospitality is coming to the table, not necessarily that the table is set with anything other than our presence. Yes. I love that. So I'm wondering, it sounds like your relationship with food has evolved a lot between childhood and then those, those nine years. And now how can you kind of help us understand that journey of sort of where you started, where you were, and now where you've ended up, um, was a lot of that through, um, EDA or, um, you know, other like friendships or resources or, or how's that been? How has your relationship with food really changed and evolved to where it is currently?

Dev
Yeah, that's a, that is a heavy question or not heavy, but like there's a lot of to share. Um, let me get my thoughts together. Um, I would say this, this whole kind of discovery process started with actually sobriety. Um, when I was younger in my early twenties, you know, I definitely liked to hit the sauce and I liked to party like everybody else. Um, but I really was kind of haunted by this like constant, like, I just am not happy ever. And I feel like I'm chasing something when I'm, you know, out of the bar, out of the, the club or whatever I'm doing that is just like not attainable, which is, you know, often in, you know, recovery spaces, that's what we describe as like the disease of addiction or, you know, if you believe in like the medical model. Um, so I, you know, there was a series of events that happened that led me to want to be sober. And I was like, I'm gonna, you know, the only thing I was able to do was like to go to AA cause that's what they say, like go to AA. Um, so I did. And, you know, I, I for a long time dedicated a lot of my energy to being a sober person and, um, within that kind of opened the doors, you know, the, the, the good thing about 12 step there's, you know, things I don't agree with anymore, but is that it does really invite you to look inward. Um, and even if you're kind of focused on the, you know, if, if it's alcohol or drugs or both, you're focusing on the substances and kind of what was behind that. But it also, you know, if you're somebody who really enjoys being introspective and intellectual, like I do, um, I really started digging, you know, I was, I was hunting for like, what else can I learn about myself? Um, and it was, you know, probably about four, one, two, three, three years or so after now, maybe it was like, I don't know, two years. Um, it was like 2019 and 2017 is when I started kind of like flirting with sobriety, um, that I realized that like, Oh, food is also a really big part of this. And I kind of put two and two together that like these years that I was heavily drinking my early twenties were the years that I was the thinnest. And then I started to realize like, Oh, how can you be hungry if you're drunk all the time or most of the time, or if you're drunk at times where you would be eating, which was like, for me, I wasn't like a daily all day, everyday drinker, but I definitely was like, if I'm going somewhere, we will be drinking because I had all this anxiety and just like, you know, it was helpful to self-medicate. So I think once I kind of made that connection, I started exploring like, okay, well, what, what else can I learn? And I started really kind of digging into therapy a little bit more. And really when things shifted was during the pandemic. Um, I am one of those people that as much as I don't ever want us to have another pandemic, I would love for another temporary shutdown of our country. Um, I don't want people to die or be sick, but, um, I thrived in that period. I loved being laid off for four months and no expectations on me. I got paid to stay home. Um, I also didn't have to see people. So I started gaining the weight back and, and, you know, that's when you recover from an eating disorder and that's, what's going to happen, you know, um, you have deprived your body for so long that your body is going to, you know, I read a book, um, that I won't say the reason is I don't agree with the person who wrote it mostly now. So I don't want to endorse the book, but one helpful thing that I learned from the book was that our bodies have kind of like a set, uh, uh, point that is like where our body is. And, you know, you can fluctuate within that, you know, maybe 20, 30 pounds one way or the other, but when you expand that, it expands both ways. So, you know, I went from, you know, like a 220 pound body to a 165 pound body, which meant I stretched this way too. Um, so when I gained the weight back, not only did I gain that 65 pounds back, but then I gained 60 more because I had expanded my kind of limit of where I'm at. Um, and that's what really started to show me like, Oh, Oh. So when I stopped doing all of this really, really hard work doing, I do gain the weight back, but it's not because there's something wrong with me or because I'm lazy or, you know, it it's because I was forcing myself into a body that I was not supposed to be in. And once I started thinking about it that way, you know, and in, and I was given the grace of, cause I was a, somebody who I took the pandemic very seriously. I was very, very COVID conscious probably until, you know, like midway through 2022, I finally stopped masking obsessively and was like able to sort of let go of some of that. But I just, you know, I had lost some people early on in COVID because of no masking. And I didn't like that. And, you know, so I, I had the, the kind of grace of, I didn't go anywhere. And when I did go places, like I wasn't seeing many people because I was very mindful of like, who am I seeing? Um, so at the same time that I'm like gaining all of this weight and kind of allowing myself litter, quite literally feeding myself for the first time in a long time, letting myself just like eat. Um, and I was very thankful that I lived with, um, a friend of mine at the time who was also very kind about food and, um, you know, made it very clear that like, I could try whatever I wanted and like nothing was ever going to go to waste. Like, thank God she would eat pretty much anything. So she was like, I don't care. I will, I will clean the fridge out. It'll be fine. Um, so that really helped me kind of, you know, start experimenting with different foods and start, you know, learning how to cook for myself. Cooking was really, really difficult. Um, so that was, you know, when I started kind of trying new things, cooking new things, that was really helpful. Um, and then I went to graduate school and like, which is for anybody who's ever been in a grad program is like, don't do that to yourself. You know how it is. It's, it really derails a lot of the self-care. Um, and that was my experience was that like, Ooh, because I'm, it's like the perfect storm. I've gained all this weight. I'm in this body that I don't know what to do with. And now I have to see people all the time. Like I'm in graduate school and not only am I in graduate school, I'm in a social work program, which is like all interacting with people. Um, so, you know, right around the cusp of 30 is when I had like another kind of wave of set, I don't want to say setback, but like experiencing some more extremes. Um, there's also this, you know, lovely thing called the prefrontal cortex that develops in your late twenties. Uh, for folks with trauma, it takes a little bit longer in my experience. I think it took a little longer because also while in grad school, I started having all of these like memories of, Oh, I've been through trauma. There's trauma in my life. I'm, this is why I am the way that I am. Okay. So it was kind of like all of these things have shifted me and helped me kind of learn little bits and pieces of myself, but also give so much grace to myself because there's a lot going on. And, um, you know, food being at the center of all of that stuff is really, really tricky. Um, so I'm at a place now where, you know, I'm very, very honest about what I need with food. It's very day to day. I'm also unfortunately on medication for my mental health that really triggers my appetite, but it is like, it suppresses it quite a bit. And it, but it's the only medication that really helps with the symptoms that I experienced with my mental health. So I have to work very, very hard right now to like, my mindset is like getting calories in, like I need to get calories in. I'm not very judgy of where those calories are coming from. Um, because you know, the medication, if I let the medication just take over, like I just won't eat because I'm just not hungry. And, and when I try to eat food, it can be really stressful. Um, so yeah, it's, it's, it's a process that I'm still very much in, like I said, you know, I've had, I've had all these other diagnoses except for ARFID, you know, and, and to this day, like I, you know, my current therapist has given me the diagnosis now officially, but like I had to self-diagnose myself because to get somebody to diagnose it was, you know, next to impossible because there's still so little known about it. Um, and you know, to be honest, I feel like perhaps like folks aren't quite sure how to treat it if they don't, you know, I mean, if you don't know what it is, you probably don't know what to do with it. Um, so I think there's very, you know, few providers that really focus in on, um, that. And also it's tricky in the eating disorder world because there's a lot of, there's a lot of correcting we need to do in that space of ridding our treatment processes from that kind of fat phobic lens. And remembering that like what works for one person as quote unquote, a treatment plan could be so detrimental for another person and, and honoring that people in fat bodies do get eating disorders and can suffer the consequences of them. And it looks different, you know, than someone that isn't in a fat body. Um, but certainly we should be taking them seriously. Cause that's been my experience too, is that, you know, in the professional treatment world, it's harder to get treatment when you're not quote unquote, um, physically at a low baseline where, you know, like, cause oftentimes eating disorder treatment, that's what it is. It's let's get you fed as best that we can and up to a healthy functioning level where your body's getting the nutrients that it needs. And then you spend the rest of your time in outpatient kind of working through some of this other but when we talk about inpatient treatment, it's really like it's feeding it's let's, let's get them re-fed. Let's get them, you know, to a stable baseline and then let's get them out. Whereas I wish that there was more of, you know, some inpatient programs where I'm like, I always say like, I need somebody to reteach me how to eat. Like how do I, and how do I do that alone? Most of the time, only seeing a therapist, you know, maybe once or twice a week where I'm meeting them or something. So yeah, it's, it's been a process of, you know, unpacking, um, really understanding fatness as a relation to white supremacy and, you know, systemic racism has been really interesting for me to chew on because I can see very clearly how these two, you know, things really kind of dance with each other and work really well with one another. Um, you know, the book Fearing the Black Body was a good book for me to read. Um, reading, um, The Body's Not an Apology, that was really helpful. And just like embracing, you know, I, when I talk to people with eating disorders or that are trying to work on body image, like you have to, much like everything else, like we are taught to be repulsed by this thing, by this, by fatness, by someone in a fat body. Like we are quite literally demanded to, um, and our country and our, the way we work as a society does not accommodate for that. So you have to be very intentional about exposing yourself. Like I, I tell people, especially, um, that are really trying to work on like self-image. I'm like, you have to start looking at pictures of fat people. Like you have to follow fat people on Instagram. You have to engage with fatness as something other than the least thing, the thing I want to be the least. It needs to be something that you're engaging with and understanding that, like, you have to reprogram your brain to not see a fat body and like want to recoil from it. So I've done a lot of that work too, of like, you know, making sure that my, you know, I am reading books by fat authors, you know, and I'm consuming quote unquote fat media, just like we talk about with everything else, queer media, you know, BIPOC media, like those are things that, you know, if you're not in that group that you have to explore or else you're only going to get so far. Like, you know, knowing, I always say like knowing what microaggressions are or knowing, you know, kind of like the definitions of these social justice terms is only like step 0.01. And the rest of the work is really learning about what the person's experience is beyond just how they present first in the world, you know, beyond what our initial skin color is or our body type or our gender expression or sexuality or things like that. It's learning about the complexity and how, you know, fat people have been in history for all of time. They're going to continue to exist after this. Like, we're not going anywhere. And it comes in a spectrum just like everything else. You know, there's not one way to be in this body. I think we have a ton of work to do as a society, as people that, you know, that's, I think where the change comes is like, because the hardest things is like the New Year's, I dread New Year's when everybody's like, Oh, God, I was so bad over the holidays. And like, what is wrong with like, winter is sad. We haven't seen the sun in five months. What is wrong with eating a couple extra cookies and like indulging in some yummy food, depending on whatever holiday you celebrate around the, you know, holiday time. It drives me nuts. And but that's like the insidious stuff that like, that sits with you. It's not as you know, as much the overt thing. Sometimes it's the ways in which like, you know, I'm mortified when people are like, yeah, my office is doing the biggest loser. I'm like, what? What? Your office is doing what? No, we can't do that. Not in 2024. No, no, like, no, no, no. Because yeah, fatness is not an example of someone's full health picture. As I said before, and we know that marginalized people of all kinds get poorer care, you know, the more marginalized you get, the worse your care gets. So the same as is for fat people as well.

Susan
I am. So you asked us when this podcast was going to get was going to be published. And, you know, I said, in around the new year, and I was very intentional to say that people are interested in self growth at that time, as opposed to this, like, new year, new you, as in like, usually, like, new body, right? It's not like new you, it's now's the time to get that new body that you either had when you were 16, or before you had kids or never, but you're constantly being told that you should. And so yeah, thank you for mentioning the new year, because I do think that there are lots of things that we can, like, focus on in terms of growth in a new year, but it doesn't have to be about making our bodies smaller.

Adriana
When you're talking about the process of getting to the point where you are now, can you share with us some, I don't want to call successes, because it's, there's no bad food, there is no good food, but something that changed, let's say you gave the example of guacamole, but something that like you definitely couldn't tolerate, and for some reason, for some strategy, you used this changed. Do you have any stories like that?

Dev
You know, it's kind of inconsistent. guacamole is one thing that like, I really was like, I don't like that for the longest time. And now, you know, like, I can make it myself, which is really cool. There are definitely certain things that, like, I've learned over the years to really like salsa, and it used it evolved from like, it had to be basically all liquid, like, just like the juice of the salsa, I would not want any. But now like, again, Mad Mex has some pretty chunky salsa.

Susan
And in my fridge, I'm sorry to interrupt you. But I truly I, I have Mad Max guacamole and their mango salsa in my fridge.

Dev
So I, you know, I have grown to be able to now pretty much any salsa. I'm like, Okay, you know, I'm kind of a wimp with with spice level. So if it's too hot, I need a piece of bread. But so yeah, things like tomatoes in, you know, I used to when I was younger, like my tomato sauce had to be like, well, shout out Del Grosso's from Altoona, Pennsylvania, because that's the kind that we used. But it was very much like, so pureed, like there was not a chunk in there. I needed it to be that way. Whereas now like I've grown to be able to really enjoy mostly all tomatoes, except for just raw tomatoes. I still haven't gotten there yet. It has to be cut up small. I've evolved with like vegetables in things if they're, you know, chopped in large chunks. So like soups, things like that really work well for me. But I also feel like, you know, some of the quote unquote, like successes that I've had have come from like, understanding that part of this for my experience is also like things are temporary. Sometimes like, you know, I had a pretty bad bout of ARFID, like a wave of it come up at the really struggling to eat. And I lost a lot of weight very, very quickly. And, you know, I was worried like, oh, I'm never going to be able to like, it was my medication was kind of triggering that. And I, you know, so I went off the medication and immediately got better. But then like going back on that medication, because it's, it's, you know, the only thing that seems to be working for me, I've had to learn like, okay, like some days are worse than others. Also, I've learned that I can, and I'm not giving any medical advice, but I can skip a dose. Like yesterday, I was eating like all day long. I was like, why am I so hungry? Like, what is happening? And then this morning, when I went to take my medicine, I was like, oh, it's because I forgot to take my medicine yesterday. So I was fine yesterday. So I've learned that like, okay, I can, I can miss a dose or like, I can take my dose a little bit later in the day if I know I'm going to like go out for breakfast or something. Because the beginning of the day and the middle of the day are the hardest. Like by the evening, my appetite has come back. And you know, the, so I've learned to navigate with like kind of the, the complexities of my medication regimen. But I've also learned that like, as I said, like calories in. So there was, you know, a solid two weeks where the only thing I was eating every single day was cheese sticks from Papa John's because I could eat it. I was like, I'm getting some carbs. There's some cheese on there. I'm dipping it in sauce. That's enough. Like I'm getting something. And I, yeah, I just, I didn't judge myself. And I was just like, this will ride this out until I'm sick of it. And then I got sick of it and I tried something else. So environment matters a lot. You know, when I'm in a safe environment where I can try things like it feels, you know, better. I just did a training over the weekend and we ordered food from an Indian restaurant. And I was like, I don't know what this is going to be like. But I just like put a bunch of stuff on my plate and was like, whatever. And I was having a conversation with my coworker and just like eating as we were talking. And the next thing I know, I was like, oh, I ate this. It was good. And I didn't have, I didn't struggle. This is great. So, you know, it's, it's a process of like figuring out what's what works for me. I will say that like, I really do think of Hannah on Instagram a lot whenever I'm faced with a situation where I need to like try food or I'm trying to like cook for myself of just like, if she can do it, I can. I will try. But it is difficult. And I wish that, I wish that I had more of a like success story of like, I, this is completely behind me now. But unfortunately for me, it just, it hasn't, it hasn't shown up for me. I think my palate has just kind of expanded a little bit, like by being able to tolerate, you know, I mean, when I was younger, there was, I couldn't even have like parsley on things like as a garnish because I'd be like, I can't eat that now. So now things like that don't bother me. I used to like, if I ordered something without something, so like I want that burger without mustard or mayonnaise or something, like I wouldn't be able to eat it if it was there, but now like I can scrape it off and I'm like, that's fine. So it's evolved. I've gotten better with, you know, some of that more like kind of contamination type stuff. But then, you know, like everything with mental health, like you have your good days and your bad days. And I also know how important it is for me to take care of myself in every other way. Like, I need to be sleeping. I can't, like, I learned the hard way that like stress exacerbates this for me so much to the point where like, I took a leave at the beginning of this year because I was like, I have to take a step away. Like I'm too, I'm not eating. I'm too stressed out. I need to reset. So I've learned now that like, I have to, you know, nothing is more important than my wellbeing, like especially, you know, in the world we exist in sometimes academia and like, it can feel like this email you have to send is the end of the world if you don't do it. And it's like, it's not, it's not, it's not worth it. Like nothing, nothing that we're doing most of the time, like, you know, unless if we're like someone's life is in our hands, you know, it's not as important as, you know, the world makes it seem like it is.

Susan
I'm laughing because, and I'm, I'm sure, you know, they're other than I can agree. Like there are emergencies that we have been a part of that are truly, you know, life threatening. Like I, I'm a physician assistant. I used to work in the ICU. I literally would save lives. And I remember when I first came to academia, I was like, what is all the fuss about? No one is dying. And then, you know, four years later, I'm exactly that. Like I was up last night and I was like, I forgot to send this one thing. And it's like, because you just, you can like fall into that trap. Yeah. And I think I love what, I think that, you know, for so many of us, the, there is this connection between stress and food and, and stress and eating and what that looks like. And, you know, one thing you said that really, that really stuck with me was that there was just, you know, a span of time where you just were, you, the only thing you could eat were Papa John's cheese sticks. And there is another population for whom something like that would be often said and nobody would judge them. And that's pregnant people, right? Like if you're pregnant, you get a full pass on not eating on, you know, eating only one thing on eating quote unquote bad foods, because it is, it's just, we need, you need calories. And I think it's so interesting that we consider that acceptable when you are growing another life inside of you, but we don't consider that acceptable when you are just trying to nourish your own life. And what does that say about our society? Because I think that it's just, I love this conversation because there's so many moments where you can just point out the weaknesses in our socialized norms and how silly they are.

Dev
Right. Right. And that double standard of like, you're allowed to do whatever you want when you're pregnant, but you must snap back as soon as that child is out of your body, like the pressure to, like, we don't care what happens when you're pregnant, but you must be back to normal. And it's like pregnancy, like, I mean, I do not have the capacity for pregnancy, so I can only speak from my experience of having pregnant people in my life, but like watching my friends like get pregnant and give birth, like what a wild thing. And to expect people who have given birth to just like shrink their body immediately. Like, it's just, it's so wild to me, especially like now that I'm older and have just like a really up-close view of what postpartum really looks like. I'm like, I don't want to see another like post-pregnancy baby bounce back picture because I'm like, who cares? Like, what were you, what were you doing that you got to like have that moment? Because my friends that are at home with their kids are not have like, they don't have time to worry about what they look like. Like they have babies to keep alive. Like, so yeah, it's, it's a frustrating thing. I think that's also why we need more visibility and representation in the kind of eating disorder world, fitness, anti like fat phobia world. Because there's also these like weird double standards that exist where you will have people that really support the body positive movement, but yet when it comes to like pregnancy, it's specifically in the way your body changes that that becomes the sticking point. I also sometimes feel very jealous of people with the capacity for pregnancy. Cause I'm like, oh, well at least you have like an excuse. You got to say like I birthed a child and my body looks this way because I, you know, had a baby and look, now my baby's grown. Like, whereas, you know, I'm just like, well, no, this is just what, this is just what my body looks like. No excuse. Just me.

Susan
Well, but again, I think it's this idea and I can't remember the quote precisely. But I, I, I have read and reread this book, Circe, probably like 10 times. It was given to me by a really good friend when my son was in the NICU and we had a 72 hour stint where he was going to nurse and we were going to see if he gained enough weight to be able to come home. Right. That like every ounce counts. And so I read the book the first time and when I was in the hospital with him and I've read it and it seems like a million times since. But what the, the theme that I pull out of that book, and there are many, is this idea that to be unchanging as in like a God or whatever the word for immortal is actually to be dead because you don't change. And so if we are truly living, then we cannot expect ourselves to stay the same. We must change. And therefore, even though you've not birthed a child, your, you and your body has lived for 30 plus years. And so of course you will change and your body will change. And, you know, I think that I'm experiencing that now going into my late thirties and Adriana, I imagine, you know, you experienced it too. It's, it's there, you don't need an excuse because you're living and therefore by definition you are changing.

Dev
Yeah. When I was going through kind of the beginning of this year, which was probably the hardest time I've ever had mental health wise, just because there is something very scary about being unable to feed yourself. And if people take nothing away from this podcast episode, other than that, like understanding how terrifying it is when you physically cannot get food in your body and you know, you need to, like, this is not a situation where I'm like, Ooh, I'm so thin and I'm hungry, but it means I'm thin. Like, no, it's like, I'm terrified and I'm dropping weight like crazy. And my, after I kind of got to the other side of it, my, my best friend Lacey again was like, you know, we are very, very lucky that you had a lot of weight to lose because if you would have started this out in a thin body, you would be dead. There's no way you could have survived through three months of like barely consuming food. So I do have a lot of gratitude for my body. In the form that it's in, because like, it is true. Like, if I went through what I went through at the beginning of this year, with, you know, the body that I, you know, had in March after months of starving now, but there's no way I could have made it through. So yeah, I think about that too, of like, we don't know what our future holds. And I, I joke sometimes and I'm like, well, I will survive the end times because I have more fat to live off of. But like, seriously, like, that is one thing about, you know, being in a larger body that you do have, your body has some wiggle room there that if something, if you do get sick with some other, you know, condition or disorder, like you have some weight to work with, like you aren't immediately going to become malnourished or in a space. So that's, that's something that I'm grateful for, of like, obviously, I never want that to happen again. And I wouldn't wish that on anybody, but my body did, you know, keep me going and has gotten me through many situations of just, you know, me trying to do the best I can to care for myself, but not knowing what I'm doing. So there is gratitude that I forget often because we focus so heavily on, you know, appearance and aesthetics and the way that we, but like, yeah, you are right. Like my body has been through a lot. It's very resilient. The human body in general is resilient. And yeah, we don't need an excuse or a reason. We're just who we are.

Adriana
Do you have any message for our listeners who may be struggling with an eating disorder?

Dev
Hmm. Yeah. I would say so many things. One that, you know, I feel for you. I know that it's, I think everything brings its own challenges, but truly like my heart breaks for folks with eating disorders. I just wish that they didn't exist out of all the mental illnesses. I like being able to feed yourself is just like something I wish everybody could do without struggle and without any kind of complications. So I think for folks with an eating disorder of any kind, you know, there is support. I want to emphasize that eating disorders are deadly. They are, I believe the second most deadly mental health diagnosis behind opioid use disorder. I believe, don't quote me, but I know it's high up there. So this isn't something to take lightly. This is not something that you can let get out of control. And, you know, for younger people, like it's hard to see that there's more than just, you know, this moment, you know, I can remember being young, younger and thinking like, Oh my God, like I'm wasting away my high school years, being fat or I'm wasting away. And it's like, no, like there's so many other things. And like, if I could tell my younger self anything, it's like, do not waste your time and your energy and your memories trying to be in a thin body. Like you're missing, you're quite literally missing out on precious time. But get support. I would say there are ways to get support, find your people. And when you are in recovery, be very protective of your recovery. For folks that don't have an eating disorder that have a loved one or have, you know, someone in their life that they care about that has an eating disorder, I would say like so much of the triggers for eating disorders come from people that don't have them. You know, so like not talking about food as good or bad or right or wrong. Food does not have morals, like it's food. Really emphasizing that like, there are so many people across the world, but in, you know, in our backyard where we can control that don't get to have food every day or have to fight to get food or don't have choices. And I think living in this kind of world, like none of us should be our food. And none of us should be talking about food as if it's, you know, it affects your worth in any sort of way. I would encourage a lot of people to work on their relationship with fatness because it is one of the isms that is still widely accepted. Most people would not stand up someone who was fat and had a joke made about them. Most people, if they really get honest with themselves, probably have a fear of fatness. I've had to have those conversations with people in my life of like, I need you to understand that when, like, it's like that subconscious thing with all of the isms, like, you know, you can learn all you want about race or gender, but if you don’t heal that part of you that has been taught that that person across from you that presents themselves differently than you is wrong because of that, like, you can only go so far and we can pick up on that. And that's when we, you know, when you get that feeling when you're around someone, you're like, I don't know what it was, but I know they didn't like me, like that subconscious kind of. So like, that's what I mean by like, you have to engage with fatness, you need to view fatness and see it in different forms. You know, not just as the butt of the joke, you know, not just as the fat funny friend in the just, yeah, there's a lot of work to be done. And, you know, I would encourage anybody that listens to this podcast to seek out some materials on fat phobia, because it is killing people. It is very serious. It's, you know, people do not get the health care that they need, they do not get opportunities, you know, it's, it's pretty acceptable to discriminate against fat people in our country. And nobody really looks the other way, we will lie and make it into something that it's not. But really, what it comes down to is we don't respect fat people. We don't respect people that, you know, are in larger bodies or that have bodies that don't, you know, reflect the patriarchal kind of white supremacist, patriarchy view that we are kind of taught to be the standard. So I think there's a lot of solidarity that we could build within our communities of this is all connected. So you know, fat phobia is connected to ableism, connected to racism, connected to sexism, like it's all a web, and it's all the same thing, just with a different face. And I think that, you know, I would encourage everybody to start unpacking their relationships. And finding other ways to like you said, like the way to build community doesn't necessarily have to be about what's on the plate. It's about coming to the table. So, you know, for me, when I hear a lot of diet culture kind of talk, I do get sad because I'm like, well, food is such a lovely thing. Like, it tastes really good. And like, you know, that's one thing of like, when you get people together from different cultures, and even like, even just different areas of the country of the state, like, you find different versions of things. And like, it's just so fun to share food with one another. And I have my grandmother is Korean, my step grandmother. And when I was little, like she would stress me out so much because she was always trying to feed me. And I'd always be like, why is she like, just shoving food at me all the time. And it wasn't until I read the book, Crying in H Mart, which is a lovely book about a Korean woman and her mother. And she talks about that, too, of like, oh, my mom is loving me through food. That's how she loves me. And I read that book. And I was like, that's what that was about. Grandma Tae was loving on me with the food. Okay, I get it. So like, food doesn't have to be, you know, and for folks even struggling with an eating disorder, like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And, you know, some things are just going to look different for you. But like, there is hope that like, you will be able to, you know, engage with something and just going, you know, being patient, taking it one day at a time, one like bite at a time, you know, how do you eat a whale, one bite at a time is important because and not being upset or hard on yourself when you fluctuate, because this is a battle and for, you know, especially for certain age groups and gender identities, you know, it, it's so, so hard, you know, for little girls and folks that identify as, you know, more femme presenting, there's this expectation place on women to be small to as small as possible. And, and I also just encourage people to really think about what you're asking of people when you're demanding with your view of the world that somebody be small for you. Like, that's just, that is no, like, we should not want less of ourselves ever, we should always be wanting more, you know, and not in a kind of over consumption way, but just like in a celebratory, like, it would be a very boring place if we all looked the exact same and all ate the same way. And, and that's what I view, you know, on the other side of now that I'm in a place where I am somebody who brushes up directly against diet culture, that's what I see when I see like, a lot of people talking about being on a certain diet, like, you know, my whole family's doing keto right now, we're doing great. Like, I'm never going to judge again, anybody for being on a diet. But when I see that, I feel kind of sad of like, it's almost like that melting pot metaphor where like, we use melting pot as like a strength for our country. But in reality, when you think about it, like the melting pot is quite literally people melting themselves down so they can become a one person. We're losing pieces of ourself. And that makes me really sad. Like, I don't want anyone to have to lose pieces of themselves to like, feel like they need to be a part of or that they need to be acceptable, because it's just not. And if we all stopped caring about what our bodies look like for other people, like we really would start healing. But it's such a hard, you know, it takes all of us, it truly takes everybody to like, end this fatphobia epidemic.

Susan
I've been meaning to read, the body is not an apology, or your body is not an apology for quite some time. And you have re-inspired me that like, I need to order it from my local bookstore. And I think that it's important for folks to know that you have your own podcast, that maybe this podcast has inspired you to restart. Maybe this will be the moment where you're like, I can definitely add something else to my metaphorical plate. But it is connectdev, all one word on Spotify. And that's where people can hear more.

Adriana
Thank you. Thank you so much. This was so lovely that you spend your time with us and shared your unique perspective about eating disorders and everything you have been through mental health progress. And thank you.

Dev
Thanks for having me. I love this. This was fun.

Susan
This was super fun. And we will have to have you back. I would love to.

Music
♪ I still have stories to tell ♪ ♪ I feel ♪ ♪ I still have stories to tell ♪