29 Aug 2025

Beneath the Surface: How Discovering My Eating Disorder Origin Story Helped Me Recover

In this blog, Lived Experience Advocate Emma Hagan shares her lived experience navigating an eating disorder, and what she found helpful in her recovery journey.

For so long, I saw my eating disorder as a response to the body – specifically, to the way my body looked and how others reacted to it.

The ‘origin story’ went like this: Girl had body, girl was bullied for body, girl was taught how to make body smaller. Then, girl was diagnosed with an eating disorder.

Cause, effect, nothing more.

I was stuck at this surface level understanding of my illness for over a decade, because I didn’t have capacity to unpack it beyond surface level at the time. My eating disorder gave me safety in numbers; kilojoules consumed, kilograms weighed, hours between morning and night. I counted to control my body and the feelings I had towards each of its parts. My eating disorder had convinced me that my body was a problem that it was fixing. That if I somehow consumed less, lost more, and used the hours bookended by sleep more effectively, my eating disorder would shake my hand and exit stage left.

This, of course, never happened. For over a decade, my eating disorder remained centre stage and the not-sick-enough cycle kept turning, covering the underlying issues in layers of dust. At the time, all I could focus on was whether I was sick enough to deserve treatment and start getting better, so there was no space for me to work on actually getting better. There was no time for me to look beneath the surface, even when my treatment team kept trying to wipe it clean for inspection.

So, I stuck to the cycle, until I realised cycling was akin to standing still; if I didn’t start moving forward, I would never find out what was on the other side of recovery. I just could not wait to feel sick enough to start. And this is where I must add a slightly tangential but necessary reminder to anyone fighting:

You will never feel sick enough to get better, but you can get sick of being sick. And that is not to say that you will never be sick enough, because you already are. A symptom of the sickness is to doubt its severity every time – so we cannot wait to feel ready. We cannot wait for a disordered false promise to eventuate. We must act before wanting to and, ultimately, acknowledge what has been lurking underneath.

In 2019, I got sick of being sick and, after some sustained nutrition, therapy and an astute second opinion that felt like a personal attack (at first), I looked beneath the surface to the real origin story. It goes like this:

Girl with perfectionism and family history of anorexia nervosa had big feelings, grew up in a bigger body, was bullied for body, was taught how to make body smaller and, in turn, how to control big feelings. Then, girl was diagnosed with an eating disorder.

Far less succinct, far more accurate.

Before an eating disorder anaesthetised my world, my emotions seemed insurmountable, messy, and uncontainable. I was a big feeler in a ‘too big’ body, and my illness gave me the ability to shrink both. It therefore made sense that I wanted to cycle around in distracted numbness, especially when adolescence and early adulthood felt like a cacophony of social anxiety and existential ambiguity.

‘What is my weight?’ was far easier to ask than ‘what am I feeling?’ was to answer, but asking the same question merely served the same master. To recover, I had to learn how to feel, process and manage emotions. Only then could I finally answer that other question, which is infinitely more important than the one I spent so much time asking.

It has been six years since I started feeling and, really, living. I am a big feeler, and I am okay with that. I would rather feel everything than nothing at all, and feeling is all about learning – just as learning about my eating disorder origin story allowed me to recover from it. This is the lesson I want to highlight for Body Image and Eating Disorder Awareness Week (BIEDAW), as well as the following emotion-specific ones that I found helpful in my own recovery – maybe they will help you too.

Feeling deeply is a privilege, even when it is painful, because feeling is about connecting and connection is often an antidote to disorder.
Emotions are not inherently ‘good versus bad’. They can be neutral messages and are often indicative of what you may need (comfort, safety, belonging, validation).
Poor body image is more emotional than physical, so changing the body to fit an arbitrary societal ideal is never the answer. Instead, we must shift the way we think about bodies and prioritise caring for our own as the unique vessels they are.
Disordered distress does not need to dictate the day. Procrastinate, push back distressed urges and seek support to ride out the wave until it breaks. With time and repetition, surfing gets easier.
Feeling is human, vulnerability encourages vulnerability, and seeking support from others is essential. You are not a burden for struggling, so reach out to your supports and available services when you need.

About the Author

Emma is a lawyer who works in the community legal sector. She is also a cafe enthusiast, reader and dutiful dog mum. When Emma is not scuttling to court, spending too much money on lattes or serving her Chihuahua masters with her partner, she is probably catching up with loved ones or sharing her lived experience with the Butterfly Foundation and Eating Disorders Victoria.

Get Support

No matter how the eating disorder developed, recovery is possible, and Butterfly is here to help.

For confidential and free counselling, call the Butterfly National Helpline on 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673) or chat online or email, 7 days a week, 8am-midnight (AEDT).

Find an eating disorder professional – search Butterfly’s National Referral Database to find eating disorder practitioners closest to you.