On the Beanbag App, users have access to the stories of other users who have been generous enough to share them with us. This is Maya’s story; she has been in recovery for a long time and is pleased with the progress she's made since using the Beanbag.
Maya (31) is the head of marketing at a wholesaler in the West Midlands in the UK. She is also finishing a marketing degree. Working and studying at the same time has been really tough on her, so she’s happy to be finishing! She has a clever cat named Cleo, who has been a main focus and a helpful motivation during recovery.
Maya was formally diagnosed with an eating disorder when she was 21, although looking back, she feels there have been problems since her childhood. She didn't originally go to the doctor because she thought she had an eating disorder (she wasn’t familiar with eating disorders back then); she went because she was always cold and had trouble sleeping. She ended up getting referred to mental health services and has been working through recovery ever since.
Maya didn’t expect to still be in recovery in her 30s because usually the people depicted as having eating disorders are teenagers, but she is quite pleased with the progress she’s made. She feels that her life has improved a lot since 10 years ago when she began her recovery journey.
At first, she enjoyed logging into Beanbag to read the modules and familiarise herself with the app. However, after some recovery setbacks, she found herself eating less and felt like she had less of a reason to log in, as she usually read the modules in the same session she logged meals. After some time, she has come back to reading the modules, which has reignited her motivation to use the app more regularly.
Maya said the hardest thing about recovery is that it feels relentless; you get through one meal, but there's always another coming soon after. Food is something that's difficult to get away from, and there always seems to be someone who wants to grab a bite with you; sometimes you just want everyone to go away. However, she noted that the bits that seem the hardest also have the potential to make great memories. You gain so much from working through the hard parts.
The stability and support of her husband has meant the world to her. When he first found out about her eating disorder, he was unfazed and said something like, “It's not just your problem, it's our problem now.” Since then, he has prepared food for her when he's away for the weekend, listened to her rant about diet culture, and stayed by her side through the many ups and downs.
One of the things Maya takes pride in is that nobody new she meets would guess that she has an eating disorder. She felt like she missed so many years of enjoying herself, so she’s glad to have people invite her out without worrying that there might be an issue.
By sharing stories, we believe that we can empower each other’s voices and make each other feel less alone in the recovery journey. The best recovery stories are the ones that show we are trying our best, even if we are not quite there yet. We hope that hearing another person’s story makes you feel less lonely on your journey.
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Written by
Zoe Trevithick
Zoe is an intern at Beanbag Health. She is a sophomore at the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in Cognitive Science. Zoe is excited to be working at Beanbag Health and is passionate about its cause of making eating disorder and negative body image recovery easy and available. She is eager to see a world where mental health disorders are no longer stigmatized, and where anyone who needs care is be able to access it.
Clinically Reviewed By:
Iain Jordan
Iain is a consultant psychiatrist with postgraduate training in medicine, psychiatry, complexity science, and healthcare informatics. He's fascinated by the relationship between physical health and mental health and has extensive experience with eating disorder patients in inpatient settings. He's an honorary senior clinical lecturer at University of Oxford. His passion is making psychological strategies for recovery available to all.