Welcome to the Season 4 premier of the Love Food Podcast! I am so glad you are here. Let's dive into exploring a history of complicated family dynamics, genetic ties to eating disorders, trauma, and feeling stuck in binge cycles. Subscribe and leave a review here in just seconds. Looking want more Food Peace? Want to help support the Love Food Podcast? Check out my new After the Letters Projecton Patreon. I have exclusive weekly mini-episodes for $29/month and other freebies. Find more at Patreon.com/LoveFoodPodcast This episode is brought to you by my courses: PCOS and Food Peaceand Dietitians PCOS and Food Peace. You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how. This episode's Dear Food letter: {CW: trauma, ED behaviors} Dear Food,   I don't really know exactly when my relationship became complicated with you, or quite how it came to control my life. I remember when I was in my early teens, being the one to say diets are bullshit, and not thinking about what I ate. Being anti-diet culture was practically a part of my identity, and such is where my values sit today, but I live in complete contradiction. At some point in my teens, I started restricted and using my vegetarianism to always choose the salad option at school. But it wasn't controlling, it wasn't overwhelming; it felt more like a natural reaction to being at an all girls school in the society that we live in - an image-based thing. Sometimes, it was reactionary, in spite of my (well-meaning) mother who would always tell me that 'soup is a starter not a meal', and check if I was eating enough despite her smaller portions. (I later learned she had a struggled with anorexia for years, and would still struggle to eat in times of stress.) I developed anxiety and depression by age 16, which ruled and ruined my sixth-form life. Perhaps it was the exam stress, the family troubles - growing up with a drug abusing brother who was in and out of school, in and out of home, in and out of hospital (not that I was always told straight away). We had a complex relationship with my father, who always vied for my brother's attention and allegiance against my mother. I tried to be always neutral, always loving of all parties - because I was, and couldn't not be. But with this came a lot of pain, a lot of confusion, and the earnest desire to always tread this precarious, and often punishing line.  Of course, when I couldn't - and can't today - there is guilt. I was a straight A* student until the slump during my sixth form years, when my energy broke, and I scraped my way through the last 2 years. I used to be, and still feel like I should be, the person who was able to succeed at anything and everything without dropping the ball - but suddenly I could do nothing, and have struggled ever since. Around this time I realised there was probably something wrong - a cause. Through an explosive conversation with my mother, I was pushed to a consultation with a therapist and given the diagnosis - anxiety and depression - but didn't receive further help.   In my first year of uni I tried to access help myself, but was turned away by the uni counselling services after a few sessions, saying they didn't know how to help me as I had already thought everything through so much myself. It was in this year I had a few episodes of bingeing and purging. This continued around occasional periods of stress, such as exams, but not as a regular method of coping.   In second year, my mental health worsened. Restricting, binging and purging became a secret indulgence, but never something I saw as a problem as it was so sporadic. I had difficult relationships with my flatmates, though I had stronger friendships elsewhere, I felt alone. I became so ill I had to defer my exams. I worked towards the summer session, hoping I could somehow manage. But two weeks before I was due to take them, I was raped.  Utterly broken, I moved back in with my parents for a few months, during which time I trie