4: Overcoming Anorexia: A Journey of Healing and Resilience with Joanne Greene

Jill Moellering (00:00) Welcome back to the Freedom and Flourish podcast. I'm your host, Jill Moellering And today on the podcast, we have Joanne Green who says she never bought the adage, little girls should be seen and not heard. She used her voice on San Francisco radio and television, webinars and podcasts to explore the issues of our time with playful reverence, candor and compassion. Now with many decades of seasoning, she's sharing what she learned about navigating family and career and moving through pain, including a struggle with anorexia and loss. Joanne, welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad that you kept on talking and that you're here to share with us. Joanne (00:26) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Jill. Talking is key to recovery. So I kept talking. Jill Moellering (00:46) It is, it definitely is. Especially with these type of issues, I think a lot of people are afraid to talk about them. They're kind of taboo. We don't talk about our low self -esteem or issues with our body or our food. So I'd love that you're here and gonna be vulnerable with us and share about your relationship with. Joanne (01:05) Absolutely. Well, like many people, I was focused on how I looked as a teenager. And I grew up in the era of Jill Moellering (01:13) and just what you believe kind of led you to this disordered eating habit. And then we'll talk a little bit about kind of your healing journey as well. Joanne (01:34) Twiggy, who was a model who was incredibly skinny. And this was the first time in history where a body that didn't even really look like a woman's body was being held up as the standard for how women should look. Twiggy was flat chested. She didn't have hips. She didn't have, I mean, she had hips, but she didn't have hips like many women have hips. And... I wasn't ever overweight, but my family called me pleasingly plump, which is a horrific thing to be told when you're coming of age and you're going through puberty and all of that, right? My breasts developed early, so I remember being very self -conscious about that. And at the end of high school, my girlfriends and I went on a diet together. And... I approached this like a competition that I could win. And they quit after some period of time and I did not. I doubled down. I went off to college by myself a thousand miles from home. Nobody took me there. I literally waved goodbye to my parents, got on a plane and, you know, flew to a new city where I knew no one. And the way that I coped was to attempt to exert control where I didn't think I had control. And it's quite metaphorical. We learn, those of us who have eating disorders, that there's a tremendous mind -body connection and that what's going on in our minds dictates our behavior, in this case around food. So this was 1971, Jill, and the phrase eating disorders was not coined yet. Anorexia nervosa was considered a very serious and often fatal disease at the time. And I don't know what the statistics are now, but at the time it was a 20 % death rate. There was no field in psychology for this. And so when I returned home, Christmas vacation, and I walked off the plane and my parents took one look at me, they burst into tears because at that point, I think I weighed about 80 pounds and I looked scary to them. And I was in pretty bad shape psychologically and emotionally. I was however, driving myself. So I was on the Dean's List. I had two jobs. I was taking exercise classes. I was living in a commune and I was doing everyone's job on the job wheel. because I was just a machine. And I was eating white chicken and I was drinking tab and I was chewing sugarless gum and I was eating lettuce and cantaloupe and that was about it. And I was very sick and very scared. And over the course of that vacation, it became evident how... in how much trouble I was. And I find it just dawned on me as as though an epiphany that I was slowly trying to kill myself. And that wasn't my intention, but that that's where this was headed if I continued with this behavior. So my parents took me to an internist who diagnosed me upon looking at me. I think you didn't need to, you know, you didn't need a special degree. You just took one look at me. It was pretty clear. Jill Moellering (05:15) Mm -hmm. Joanne (05:27) And then they sent me back to school because that was advised and I had to go find myself a therapist from a list. And I found a therapist and they put me in Forty and Psychoanalysis because that was what you did for seriously mentally ill people at the time. And I went first to the Student Health Center. This was at Northwestern University. I went there and I was told that I was severely psychoneurotic and they couldn't help me. I don't know what psychoneurotic is. Somewhere between psychotic and neurotic, I guess. So she gave me a list of names and I finally chose, I chose the first person who said he could see me because I couldn't tell the story one more time. And I saw him three times a week for two years and I lay on a couch and I spoke and he didn't say one word. Now, when I tell this to therapists who either specialize in eating disorders or don't, they say, how did you possibly get well? And I think it was a combination of many things. It was, Jill Moellering (06:37) Yeah. Joanne (06:43) resilience, it was inner strength, it was choosing life, it was just talking and talking and talking and talking. And as you know, and many people who have any knowledge or experience with eating disorders know, it really doesn't have a whole lot to do with food. It has a lot to do with control and perfection and a distorted notion of what that is. Jill Moellering (07:10) Yeah, tell me a little bit more about that because I did want to talk to you about that. I see that a lot too is this, we want to use food and like our body as a way of have some sort of control because looking at the other stuff is uncomfortable. Is that kind of what you're talking about? And can you share us a little bit about your experience? Joanne (07:23) it. Absolutely think of it. I mean what helped me was to think of it as an anxiety disorder or an addiction It was very much addictive behavior, but instead of Being addicted to something that I could completely quit Right. So say you're addicted to alcohol. You can avoid alcohol you cannot go to places where alcohol is being consumed and You can completely refrain you can't do that with food. You're always around food. We use food to live and nurture ourselves, but we also use food to celebrate. Some of us, you know, compulsively eat when we're really anxious or when we're sad, like we're filling up a hole somewhere in our bodies. So absolutely it was about focusing on food obsessionally. Absolutely obsessionally. I would think about food from the moment I woke up. what I was going to eat, what I wasn't going to eat, what other people were eating. I would calculate calories. I would try to figure out how little I could eat. I felt empowered by my willpower. I had a mom who was... exceptionally wonderful person and probably a difficult mom for me because in many ways because she had tremendous willpower. She spoke about the fact that she always weighed exactly the same because she didn't have to have dessert and she had willpower. Willpower was this word in our home and my dad didn't have willpower and so she was always chiding him about that. So, And my sister, I had a much older sister who was a very picky eater and so I became someone who ate everything to please my mom. And it just kind of went in that direction. I think that, and I learned a lot about what all the issues were that I was choosing not to deal with and instead focusing obsessively on food. And it's, it's. So many things, it's insecurity, it's again, feeling like you're not okay and you have to be perfect and what does perfect look like? What does it feel like? How does it manifest itself? It has to do with family systems. It has to do with societal messages. And it has to do with emerging sexuality for many women because often eating disorders come on around puberty or around a life change, which in my case was leaving home, graduating from high school, going off to college. That was kind of standard time for eating disorders to come on. And I feel very fortunate because I have not had to grapple with this my whole life, but I am very well aware that many people never really get beyond it. And they revert to it in times of stress. Jill Moellering (10:44) Mm -hmm. I definitely related to what you shared about as far as like just the obsession around food and for you that manifested in controlling. For me, that was more of the binging where I would control for a period of time, but then I would binge. And I just, I wanted that freedom so bad. And, you know, I didn't see a therapist, but I did a lot of the internal work. And so I think that's very, Joanne (10:56) Thank you. Jill Moellering (11:13) empowering is that even though you did see the therapist, I think that what you're saying is like it came from kind of within. Joanne (11:21) yeah, given the kind of therapy it was, I don't even fully understand how it is supposed to work because when I tell you he said nothing, he said nothing once I caught him sleeping. So yeah, and it's a process and it has value but when I was done or thought I was done or needed to feel like I could be done, I told him that, I wanted to end and he said, you're not finished. You know, your life will not be okay until you complete this process. I transferred school so I could move away from Chicago because otherwise there wasn't, I didn't feel like I could move on. And yeah, it was, it was difficult and painful. And in some ways I've had many, many, many other things obviously happen to me in the course of my life. Some of which have been quite traumatic. And, but there are ways in which that period of my life, age 17 to 19 was the hardest. Jill Moellering (12:24) Hmm. With those other hard times during your life, did this come up or any other kind of manifestations of unhealthy, like soothing behaviors or had you healed enough when you were working through those periods? Joanne (12:40) Yes and no. That's the answer to that question. I don't feel like it's ever played out with food, but I became a person who was in constant motion. Achieve, achieve, achieve. So that's one way it manifested itself post food. If you keep moving and you keep busy, you don't have to be still and you don't have to feel. So it's different, but it has a lot of similarities. Also, I think I played out this scenario with money. It's like a scarcity mentality, right? So if you're going to deny yourself food, or in your case, binge, it's a similar kind of thing. You're using food as a way to either care of yourself, even if you know it's not really taking care of yourself, at the moment it feels like it is, you can do that with other things. So for instance, if you try to spend as absolutely little money as possible, because that's what you deserve, right? I didn't deserve to shop at a retail store. I could only buy things that were on sale. I could only shop at places like Marshall's and TJ Maxx because that's what I was worth. So it's these kinds of behaviors and these kinds of insecurities often will come out in other ways. My prayer, if I can be so bold as to say prayer or my wish, my greatest wish when I had anorexia was that I would not, that I would be able to be okay with food. Jill Moellering (14:20) Mm -hmm. Prayer is great. Joanne (14:36) And I'm okay with food. So that's, I accomplished that. But we know our issues and the longer we live, pretty much our issues are our issues. We have opportunities all throughout our life, particularly during the challenging times to confront our issues. And at age 58, something happened to me that enabled me to, for the first time in my life, Jill Moellering (14:40) Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Joanne (15:07) I couldn't give up control because I had no choice. And I was hit by a car as a pedestrian and I was severely injured. I could do nothing for myself. I couldn't feed myself. I couldn't get up to go to the bathroom. I had four pelvic fractures. The whole right side of my body was crushed. Spoiler alert, I'm totally fine. I completely healed. I have no residual damage. But it was the one thing for the first time in my life that forced me to not only slow down, but stop. and just be still. And what does that mean to really be still and try to get comfortable and find your power in stillness? Jill Moellering (15:47) So that must've been such a hard time for you because going from being very, very busy trying to avoid the uncomfortable stuff inside of us to being able to do nothing. How was that? I mean, that did not just happen overnight. Joanne (16:03) Well, first of all, I wasn't necessarily trying to avoid uncomfortable stuff. By that time, it was so many decades into my life that I have an enormous amount of energy. I'm 70 years old. I go a million miles an hour still. And so part of it was just my nature. And part of it was a pattern that I'd grown very accustomed to. And... Jill Moellering (16:25) Mm -hmm. Joanne (16:31) Part of it, I think, was feeling that I was only as good as my output, you know. I was only as good as my performance or as how much I got accomplished in a day. So the universe often gives us the lessons we need if we're listening. And in this case, I had already gone through a period of 10 years that was hellacious. My mother, my sister, and my brother had all passed away in a... very short amount of time, in four years. And it really brought me to my knees. I went from being the baby of the family to being the matriarch of a pretty sizable family. My brother had five kids and grandchildren and my sister's children. So I was really just getting back fully up to speed from my grief when the accident happened. And I... I couldn't believe it. As soon as I realized what was happening, that I was literally flying through the air because a car had hit me and I was thrown up onto the hood of her car, I was like, what more? I need to have more pain. I need to have more trauma. And then that thing inside me that got me well from anorexia kicked into gear. And I said, okay, let's do this. Jill Moellering (17:56) Mm -hmm. Joanne (17:56) And it was like, I was going to survive this no matter what it took. So the car that hit me, that a car, a car had stopped for me. I was in a crosswalk. I was just getting in front of the car that had stopped for me when a truck came at full speed, like 50 miles an hour and slammed into the car that had stopped for me. So she hit me. She was then catapulted 50 feet down the street. I fell off onto the street. I never lost consciousness, but I was in shock and very, very broken. I was hospitalized for five days and then my full recovery took a year and a half. So what was it like? Well, first of all, I was traumatized. So I had, I kept reliving the accident and having nightmares and I was terrified of everything and I was in extreme pain. So I was on painkillers. And that is horrible. I mean, when you need them, you need them, but they are no fun. And I had to rely on others. So I think often people who have eating disorders are also fiercely independent or think that they're fiercely independent or try to believe that they're really independent. So yeah, I had to give all that up. Like, Jill Moellering (19:15) Mm -hmm. Yes. Joanne (19:24) No choice. And there were a variety of skills that I developed over time, coping mechanisms that turn out to be the same coping mechanisms that can get you through any challenge, be it despair, depression, grief from loss, failure when you get fired from a job or a relationship blows up, same skills. One skill is to remember to focus on what is good. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. It is enormously helpful. So everything around you may be crumbling, but at least dot, dot, dot. And so that's what I would say. I have a husband who loves me. I am. my house, we are still going to be able to buy food to eat. I don't have a major head injury. I can speak. You know, all these kinds of things. So, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. You can't feel sorry for yourself and feel gratitude at the same time. And the gratitude will always win out. Secondly, it became really clear to me that we give ourselves messages. We talk to ourselves all the time. Jill Moellering (20:21) Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Joanne (20:47) Certainly a person who's experienced eating disorders knows what that negative self -talk is. You have no control. You're just gonna do this. Damn it, I'm just gonna eat all of this. I'm gonna eat this three bags of potato chips because I can, and all this kind of talk. So if in fact we can talk to ourselves, we have control over what we say. We may think we don't, but we absolutely do. So if you can say to yourself, Jill Moellering (20:53) Mm -hmm. Joanne (21:18) Who do you think you are? You're not, you know, all of those kind of things. You can flip a switch and you can say, I've got this. I can do this. I can handle this. And even if you don't believe yourself at the beginning, you keep saying it because eventually the message will sink in. It will. I learned this from experience. So I kept saying, Jill Moellering (21:29) Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Joanne (21:47) I can do this, I can do this, I can move through this. Even when I didn't get better each day or even each week, there were setbacks. I had new problems that would come up because when you're immobilized, other parts of your body react. I'm not gonna go into detail, it's all in my book, but it's... How to keep a positive attitude in the face of absolutely dire reality? I mean, look, people survive war, right? Some people don't. And what's the difference between the people who do and the people who didn't? In some ways, when you are going through challenges, it's like you're fighting a war. And what is it that you need to do? Jill Moellering (22:26) Mm -hmm. Joanne (22:42) to keep yourself in control and doing the thing that's gonna serve you. So that's another piece. What serves me? Does eating six bags of potato chips serve me right now? Am I gonna feel better when I finish that or am I gonna feel worse? If I don't eat my salad because it has dressing on it, am I gonna feel good? Jill Moellering (22:46) Yeah. Mm -hmm. Joanne (23:10) Or am I going to feel worse afterward? I might feel good temporarily because I say, I had control. I was able to resist temptation. But in the end, I'm not going to have nourished myself. So I'm not going to feel good physically. So what you tell yourself and evaluating whether it serves you or not, then you extend that to everything else. Relationships. I bet you have relationships that don't serve you. They're in your life because they were grandfathered in or because they were at some point you thought that person was good for you. But maybe every time you're with her or him, you feel lousy. That person makes you feel badly about yourself. Evaluate whether it's serving you and if it isn't serving you, stop. You don't have to continue with behaviors that are harming yourself. I often say to myself when I, Give myself a message. Here's an example. They thought something might be cancer. Well, you can sit there and go, it's definitely cancer. It's cancer. I'm going to have cancer. I'm going to die of this. I'm going to have to have chemo. I'm going to be vomiting all day, every day. My hair is going to fall out. And now I'm going to imagine myself bald and on and on and on. Or can I say, They think I might have cancer, I might not have cancer. They're gonna do a test. What do I know and what can I tell myself that's real versus spinning out? Monkey mind, I call it, that thing in your head that just goes shh. And it doesn't help, it never helps. I say to myself, if this were your best friend, what would you say? Would you say, you're gonna lose all your hair? Jill Moellering (24:52) Yes. Mm -mm. Mm -hmm. Joanne (25:04) You're probably gonna have chemo. You're probably, no, you would say, let's take this one step at a time. You're gonna have a biopsy and then you're gonna know there's a really good chance that it's gonna be negative and you're gonna be fine. There's a really good chance that nothing's wrong and isn't it great that these doctors are being so proactive? So that's the kind of thing I learned. Another thing I learned was that this moment will pass. Jill Moellering (25:20) Mm -hmm. Joanne (25:34) Every moment passes and when you are in the depths of despair, when you're beating yourself up for binging or whatever it is that you're doing with food or anything else, it's this moment. It's not forever. And certainly when you're 17 and you're going through something like this, every moment feels like it's forever. But the longer you live, the more you learn about change. Jill Moellering (25:51) Mm -hmm. Yeah. Mm -hmm. Joanne (26:03) and how everything passes. And that's very comforting to know that you can cry right now and eventually you will stop crying. You feel like it will never end, but it will. And you can move on and find the comforting, soothing things that are actually good for you. So what are those things for me taking a bath? Well, sometimes you can't do that. So cuddling up with the pillow and a soft fluffy thing, that's really soothing and harmless. During the time post accident, I learned to meditate. I could never meditate before. I had tried so many times and I thought that's not for me. Well, it turns out it is for me now because I've practiced and practiced and practiced and now I can do it. Jill Moellering (26:41) Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Joanne (26:59) And now it serves me really well so that when I start to get panicky or anxious, I know that that's a tool I have in my tool chest that I can excuse myself, go into a room, shut the door, sit down, close my eyes, and pay attention to my breath. And in 10 minutes or even maybe five minutes, I will have calmed myself without resorting to you fill in the blank. Jill Moellering (27:24) Mm -hmm. Joanne (27:28) What do we grab for in this society? We grab for a cigarette, we grab for a drink, we grab for a drug. You know, all things that ultimately don't serve us. Jill Moellering (27:41) All right. Yeah, one of my newest things that I've been doing is I liked meditating, but I heard about the emotional freedom technique, the tapping. And when I first heard about it, I was also like, this isn't for me. This is not for me. But what did work for me is just kind of tapping right under my collarbone. And typically I do this in the car as I pay attention to my breath on the seatbelt. And that can just really calm my nerves. Joanne (27:45) Thank you. Okay. Jill Moellering (28:10) So I think it's kind of taking what works for you and adapting it. Yeah. Joanne (28:11) Absolutely and and and it's a matter of trial and error. Try something if it works great if it doesn't. I now get a massage every month. Now that would have been unheard of for me at an earlier point in my life not because I couldn't afford it but because I thought that was way too self -indulgent and now I say no you know what it is really it's health maintenance. Jill Moellering (28:35) Mm -hmm. Joanne (28:40) I don't have aches and pains where most people my age do. Why? Because I get aligned every month. And she gives me exercises to do. And I stretch every day. And I do X, Y, and Z because that's what serves me. Jill Moellering (29:00) If there is, because I know this is very hard. So if there is a woman out there right now that is really struggling with the negative self -talk, are there any tips that you could give her to help her change her self -talk if she's just really struggling to believe it? Joanne (29:18) So the first thing I would do is make sure you notice and name it. So when you're doing it, don't just do it, but as soon as you realize you're doing it, say, that's whatever you want to say, you can say that's negative self -talk or again, would I tell this to my best friend? Treat yourself as well, if not better than you would treat your best friend or your sister or your child or your mother. So that's number one and what would I say? So then that what that does is it forces you to flip the narrative if you ask what would I say and Then you say that to yourself It's gonna sound very weird at the beginning because you're so used to the negative self -talk But keep at it keep at it. Say it again. Say it again and when you, your reaction might be, yeah, that's baloney, I don't believe that. You know, but it's like, no, but it's true. Because say for instance, the negative self -talk is you're not good enough. Good enough for what? Under whose standard? Who told me that? Where am I getting that message? You know, unravel the negative self -talk. Ask yourself a series of questions. Jill Moellering (30:46) Yeah. Joanne (30:46) Journaling. Journaling is hugely helpful. If you're somebody who can't write, speak into your phone and record yourself and then listen back to it. Say out loud what you're saying inside of your head or write it out. And then you'll read it and you'll say, my goodness, look what I'm saying to myself. This is terrible. And that'll help you to flip the switch. Jill Moellering (30:49) Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Joanne (31:16) And know that it doesn't happen all at once. You don't go from being all the way here to all the way there. There are setbacks. I catch myself all the time, but I go easy on myself when I catch myself engaging in old patterns or old behaviors. I lovingly say, there you go again. You don't need to do that. Jill Moellering (31:37) Mm -hmm. Yeah, I like that. I like that you said, I lovingly do it, you know, because we don't need to be beating ourselves up that we're beating ourselves up. But it is like a muscle. It is something that we have to train. And over time, it does become a lot more natural for us. Joanne (31:59) Absolutely. You know, giving to others is another big one because part of this is a self -absorption. Eating disorders in general, you're just totally absorbed and obsessed with yourself. So get out of yourself. Who can you help? What can you do that contributes instead of just being in this ridiculous downward spiral? Jill Moellering (32:19) Yep. Yep. Yep. And it could be the smallest thing. Call them, pray for them. But yeah, getting out of ourselves can really help the situation. So you mentioned your book. Tell us a little bit about your book. Joanne (32:41) Here's my book, it's called By Accident, a Memoir of Letting Go. So I'll just read you the little thing it says on the back. It says, small in stature, large in presence, and always in charge, Joanne Green anchored the news and hosted talk shows on San Francisco radio while totally devoted to her family until a traumatic accident suddenly removed her ability to control anything. By Accident is a story of resilience and perseverance. Will and pluck and of positivity and gratitude for lessons learned even as the personal hits just keep on coming Because that's life That's gonna happen. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can control How you respond? So stuff will happen people will die People you love will die and it's part of life and it's awful Jill Moellering (33:19) Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. I love that. Mm -hmm. Joanne (33:40) and you are entitled to feel that grief and really get inside of it because there are no shortcuts. It sucks, it's lousy, it's awful, and there's life after loss. Because at some point, you will have cried enough tears, not all of them, but enough tears to then dust yourself off, pick yourself up, and go back to living life. And that's our job. Jill Moellering (33:53) Hmm. Mm -hmm. Joanne (34:08) Our job is to live life and to appreciate all the beautiful things in life. Notice things. You know, the whole idea of mindfulness meditation is being aware. So now when I walk my dog, I make it a point to notice every flower that's in bloom that wasn't in bloom yesterday and appreciate it for that moment. Whatever I see that reflects beauty. Just appreciate, appreciate. And yeah. Jill Moellering (34:43) I love that you wrote this book and put yourself out there. I just feel like I can't get enough of this type of honesty and listening to how people get through life and process things and just connecting with that person, even through a book or a podcast. It's like, I'm not alone. I'm not different. Everyone goes through these struggles. And the tools are pretty much the same and we just use them slightly different. So I love that you shared that in your book. I'm going to read your book. And I love that you came on the podcast to share that. And you also have your own podcast, which I listen to, which is neat. Joanne (35:18) Before we leave the topic of the book, let me just say that it's an audio book. It's an ebook and it's in paperback. So choose your adventure. Any bookstore can order it, but the easiest, although I definitely advocate supporting your local independent bookstore, but the easiest for an audience that's global like this is Amazon and it's available there. My podcast, I've... Jill Moellering (35:23) Nice. Mm -hmm. Joanne (35:45) because I'm an old radio gal, podcasts are natural. I've had a number of them, but the one that I'm doing right now is very short. So it's for people who only have five minutes to spare. It's called In This Story with Joanne Green, and they are my micro essays. So they are memoir style essays set to music. And some of them are really funny. Some of them are nostalgic. Some of them are about growing older. and how I'm approaching it. And they're just a lot of fun and they're free. So they're available on all podcast platforms, Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, all of them. And it's called In This Story with Joanne Green. And also I have a website. If people are interested in following what I'm doing and signing up for my newsletter, it's joanne, J -O -A -N -N -E hyphen green. g -r -e -e -n -e dot com and hopefully it's in your show notes and Great Jill Moellering (36:48) Yeah, we'll definitely put that in the show notes. And I will say, yeah, the podcast is very easy to digest. Just quick four or five minute clips and you have the music and your voice. I mean, you just really kind of get into it. So I'd encourage listeners to go over there and listen to some of these life topics that you're talking about in kind of a fun, creative way. I like that. Joanne (37:08) Thank you. I appreciate that, Jill. Thanks so much for having me on your show today. Jill Moellering (37:12) Thanks so much for coming. I appreciate it.