Why we never feel 'enough' with Katriona O'Sullivan

Today I'm joined by the brilliant Katriona O'Sullivan - psychologist, bestselling author, and one of the most insightful voices on trauma, self-worth and our relationship with our bodies. We talk about her powerful new book, Hungry, and explore how our earliest experiences shape the way we see ourselves, why so many of us feel we're never enough, and what it really takes to heal. This is an honest, moving conversation about body image, eating disorders, trauma, self-compassion and finding freedom in your own skin. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

[00:00:00] You know, I often get asked what first led me to try therapy, and honestly, it was feeling overwhelmed. Like so many people, I hit a point where I was juggling so much, trying to keep it all together, but inside I just felt lost and needed help. That first experience of sitting down with someone who was really there to listen, no judgment, no fixing, just holding space for me, was life-changing.

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No matter what you do, like, you can jab and you can shrink, and you can pump your lips and get your face filled and do all the things, but, like, as you age, as a woman, your potency to men does change. It's not that you're less attractive, it's just a fact, though. And in some way for me, like, it feels like a bit of a gift.

Like, I al- I, I used to look at women walking around, like, with, like, football jerseys on and, like, mad shorts and their hair cut really [00:02:00] short in their 50s, I'm like, "My God, them women don't care about themselves." And now I'm like, "Fucking hell, they're liberated women." Hi, and welcome to Hurt to Healing. I'm your host, Pandora Morris.

This podcast is a space for honest conversations about mental health, where we share real stories, explore the messy middle, and remind each other that we're not alone. Each episode is a chance to listen, reflect, and connect with voices that bring insight, vulnerability, and hope. If anything you hear today resonates deeply or feels overwhelming, please know help is always available.

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Today, I'm joined by the brilliant Catriona O'Sullivan, psychologist, best-selling [00:03:00] author, and one of the most insightful voices on trauma, self-worth, and our relationship with our bodies. We talk about her powerful new book, Hungry, and explore how our earliest experiences shape the way we see ourselves, why so many of us feel that we're never enough, and what it really takes to heal.

This is an honest, moving conversation about body image, eating disorders, trauma, self-compassion, and finding freedom in your own skin. Before we get into today's episode, if you're new here, then welcome to Hurt to Healing. If you'd like to support the podcast, then please follow or subscribe, because it really helps us to grow.

We also read every comment and message, so please keep leaving them. Right, let's get into it Now I'm really keen to delve into your new book, Hungry, which is just such a riveting read. Would you mind telling us about your childhood and when you look back, what your relationship was like with your body as a little girl?

[00:04:00] Yeah, so my childhood, I describe it as the name of the book, which is Hungry. I grew up in Coventry, in Hillfields, a really poor community. Apparently, it was the poorest in the whole of England. But, uh, I grew up in a place called Hillfields wh- and I had two heroin addict parents. So my early childhood were memories of my, I suppose my home, was prostitution and criminality and my dad going to prison and witnessing, like, just gruesome things.

And I was hungry a lot as a child, not just physically hungry, but I was actually hungry for someone to tell me that I was valuable and that I was worth something and to teach me how to regulate my emotions. But in the middle of that mad childhood, there was loads of joy as well, and there was loads of freedom.

I think people kind of have this idea of poverty like it's this, like, "Please, sir, can I have some more?" And, like, there's a load of freedom when you grow up poor. Like, we-- I lived on the street, me and my brothers [00:05:00] and my friends, and my memories of my body, earliest memories are just having this joyful feeling of my being.

Being able to run as fast as the lads and being like, "Yeah, come on, I'll fucking take you." You know, like, I just felt-- I didn't even know I was a girl. I was just deadly and brilliant and, um- You know, so my book starts with that kind of memory of being like this free body and being able to cartwheel as girls and boys do and going on a tackle and just feeling deadly in my body.

But like poor kids are really vulnerable to abuse, particularly the most poor, which is what I talk about in the book, poor, poor families like my own. And so like my book kinda takes you on a journey, the reader, of like what it's like to lose your body, not just through hunger, which I talk about and what that did to me as in like just physical hunger, but then also experiencing abuse in my home and outside of my home and how like my- I [00:06:00] lost my body.

It became like this unsafe place or this place that I judged and felt really c- disconnected from. So my earliest memories of my body are kind of mixed, uh, that there's this brilliant phase of love and then this just phase of like that it's not a safe place to live in. What was your parents' relationship like with their bodies, and what messaging did you absorb when you were young?

So my mom had this complex relationship with her body, as most women I know do. So my mom knew she was attractive, but she also hated herself at the same time, which is a really strange thing to witness as a young girl. But I think we all witness our own mothers like that, and we all experience that feeling ourselves.

So I, I have these memories of her like swaying to the music, being attractive for my dad, and I saw this confidence in her, in her physicality, and I knew she was sexual and whatever, you know. But I, I used to see this confidence in her body, and then [00:07:00] the next breath she'd be s- in front of the mirror like pulling out of her belly or pulling out of her boobs or criticizing her face.

So like the template in which I learned about how women, their relationship with, with their body came from observing my mom, I think, in her own relationship with her body. And in, in a more extreme example for me, 'cause this doesn't happen to everybody, but I also witnessed my mom selling her body and it becoming a commodity for men and witnessing men paying for her body despite the fact that she couldn't really consent to that Because she was so psychologically unavailable because of her heroin addiction.

So I also watched that, and I learnt something about women's bodies through that as well, that our bodies are like a sexual vessel for men, and that men are willing to pay for that or ignore your status. Now, them [00:08:00] words weren't in my mind. Obviously, I'm, I'm, like, seven or eight. Mm. But that's the messages that I learnt, so from my mom, so which was really complicated.

And, and not all women experience that. Like, it- my story's very extreme, but I actually think the themes are quite common. Women not liking themselves but also knowing that they're attractive, and also men seeing women as sexual objects over actually being humans. Mm. I think that's common. And then switch to my dad, you know?

And, like, I loved my dad and in some ways my dad really loved me, but my dad, my dad's love for me was conditional on me being a good girl, like, behaving and being, like, supportive of him. So, like, this relationship that I have with my father was, was quite loving as long as I didn't challenge him or say anything about his bad behavior, and there was a lot of bad behavior because obviously they were drug addicts.

But my dad also-- So I also witnessed my dad, um, sexualizing women and cheating on my mom, and [00:09:00] talking to me about women's bodies. Like, we'd be in the car and he'd go, "Oh, look at the legs on her. Look at the ass, the tits on her." And I'm, like, eight in the car, a little girl. And so I learn again this lesson that- your body is a sexual, for sexual pleasure for men.

And like what my dad did there is actual abuse. You know, I've learnt that through therapy. As, as a child, I just felt this creeping, icky feeling by that. But I also f- knew that I had to shut up and behave because if I didn't do that, then he wouldn't love me. So like I learnt these really complicated things about how men and women relate to each other, how I relate to men, and like that became like the framework through which I understood relationships with men as well.

So it's really complicated, but I think some of the things are very common. Mm. You know, we learn as young girls quite young that like what we look like matters. Yeah. And it is currency within the world. And sexually what we're like to men matters as well, and that [00:10:00] we are objectified a lot by men, and by women, but particularly by men.

I think it is ironic how so many women feel that in order to be valued and to feel that sense of self-worth, they have to be desired and desirable, whereas once you've been on the journey that you have or you're on the journey as I am, I mean, essentially we're all still on the journey, you realize that actually no amount of desirability or validation from someone else is actually gonna fix the internal brokenness.

No. But I think the really important thing about what you just said and what, what we all have to realize is that in some ways we're not responsible for that thought pattern. That's what Hungry's about in some ways. It's using my story to highlight the fact that we actually live in the world that benefits from women thinking that what they feel like desirability will fix them, that that's the solution.

So we live in a world that encourages us to actually feel like if I buy the next [00:11:00] potion, if my skin is smoother, if my hair is blonder, if my tits are bigger, then I will be wanted, then I will feel better. And there is a whole market driven in the world to make us feel like that. And so I think we can be quite judgmental of ourselves and of other women who are pursuing attractiveness for the opposite sex- Mm-hmm

or for, for whatever reason. But the truth is, like, that stuff exists in us because of the world that we live in at the end of the day. Like, it's not necessarily our responsibility, the messages that we receive. I think we're always gonna have them. I still get up in the morning and go, "Am I, am I sexy today?

Will he want me today?" But the reality is, what we do with the messages then is our responsibility, and how we, you know, what we do to try to, like, fight against it or else go with it is our responsibility. But it is a really complex thing. And one of the gifts of, like, I'm nearly 50 now, 50 in April, and, like, you, [00:12:00] you just become less attractive anyway, no matter what you do.

Like, you can jab and you can shrink, and you can pump your lips and get your face filled, and do all the things, but, like, as you age as a woman, your potency to men does change. It's not that you're less attractive, it's just a fact though. And in some way for me, like, it feels like a bit of a gift. Like, I al- I, I used to look at women walking around, like, with, like, football jerseys on and, like, mad shorts, and their hair cut really short in their 50s.

I'm like, "My God, them women don't care about themselves." And now I'm like, "Fucking hell, they're liberated women." Absolutely liberated. But so aging does actually remove that anyway in some ways for some of us, but then we have to deal with the complication of that. It's like I'm getting older now, I am actually losing this thing that I had, was currency for me.

But yeah, it's, it, that's an important journey I think that, that we should go on. And Hungry is about how some women are so hurt by the messages- And so hurt by trauma and so hurt by poverty that they can't even [00:13:00] think them thoughts, that they're continuing to try to shrink, to change their bodies, to fix their faces in ways that are quite harmful for them.

And Hunger is about trying to advocate for that and just have conversations about that. And then, you know, the thing about hunger, in my case, and I still now struggle with never feeling like I have enough, physically never feeling like I have enough. And even when I have a meal, I'm, I'm like, "It's, y- you've had enough."

It's, uh, "No one's gonna take your plate. It's fine. Like, you're not gonna go back to the sugar sandwiches." But there is some piece of me, some deep, deep part of me that worries that I'm never gonna have enough. But the idea, like, it was never about attractiveness in some ways. It was always about, it was about the obsession, but it wasn't about also being unattractive.

In my case, it wasn't that. And I know that's the case sometimes with some women who are, who have obesity or overeating, that they don't want to be looked at at all. That wasn't conscious in my mind. It was more just I was in the, the [00:14:00] obsession all the time. And I really liked the obsession actually, even though I hated it at the same time.

When you're out of your body, it feels great. Being in your body when you don't like your body is the worst place to be. Like, telling people to do meditation when they have really bad anxiety is the worst thing you can do. I actually had panic attacks. Like, I literally started having panic attacks after doing a meditation course because I wasn't able to be in my body.

And so the goal of my obsessive relationship with food and the bingeing, eating, starving, gastric band, all these things was about being in, in an obsession. Mm. And, but I didn't know that You know, for me, my disordered eating was about escaping my, my feelings about my body and shame and all these other things.

But the irony, and I don't know if you feel like this as well, the irony is that, like, my actual behaviors created more shame. And some Freudian people will say, "Well, the, you know, the, the, that was a s- the drive that was, it was coming out. We were creating it 'cause [00:15:00] we needed to heal it." I don't know if I believe that.

I just know that what I used to save myself, which was obsession and, uh, disordered eating, actually broke me more and created more shame in the long run. No, it's so true. I think the shame i- is what kind of eventually eats you up, and then there's that saying where, you know, when the pain is staying the same, outweighs the pain of actually facing the fear- Mm

and stepping into the new version of you. That's the point of Hungry. It's no, like, so my first book is called Poor, and Poor has a perfect arc. It's my journey from poverty at my mom and dad's addiction, teenage pregnancy. I was homeless at 15, living in a hostel, ended up addiction myself. There's a perfect arc in that story.

There's no perfect arc in Hungry, like there's n- the end of my story isn't that I don't still engage in behaviors that harm me around food, around the hunger. Like I, I do. But the point of Hungry isn't that there isn't a-- honestly, I think recovery is possible from eating disorders. I [00:16:00] know it's possible 'cause I've seen it and I've experienced it myself.

But I think also recovery, what that looks like, it isn't, "Oh, well, I'm at normal body size and I never have these thoughts again." It is a moment of reflection There would've been a time in my life where I'd have never thought maybe you shouldn't run. Mm-hmm. Maybe that's not healthy. There would've been a n- never a moment of that.

So I think recovery isn't just that perfect beginning. You're not well, and then you're well. Mm-hmm. But my therapist has said to me, "You know, the, the length of recovery time gets longer." And in my case, it has got longer. You know, that I am freer for much longer, and then I might have a blip, and then I'm back again.

Mm-hmm. And I think that's an important message for people to know, that we don't ... And we don't escape from a world that tells us that certain body size or a certain shape or a certain face isn't perfect, isn't the, the goal. So I don't think any of us are ever gonna fully escape the desire to change ourselves while we live in a world that makes money from that.

Yeah, exactly. And the wellness [00:17:00] industry, you know, Sarah MacLean writes, you know, it's gonna be worth, I think 3.2 trillion- I know ... in, by 2028. And you just think, you know, of course people are plugging a load of nonsense because we're falling for it. I know. And I, I talk about in th- uh, this, in the book about the wellness industry.

You know, I use this ... B- 'cause my book is about social class as well, and about what certain groups of women are doing to shrink their bodies, and how harmful the idea of a body, a certain body shape or a perfect body shape is to different groups of women. Like, women that I work with, I'm in academia, most of them are middle class.

You know, they're in wellness. You know what I mean? They're over yoga-ing. They're Ashtanga-ing themselves to fucking minutiae size. That's not wellness, though. Like, if you're really tired And your body's wrecked, and your family's, like, needs you. Getting up at 5:00 every day and doing something for two hours is not wellness at the end of the day.

Mm. And then similarly, but what I'm trying to draw [00:18:00] attention to as well is that some women are willing to die to be smaller. And I'm not just talking about with an eating disorder. I'm talking about, like, my friends who are flying to Turkey week in, week out to get their bums bigger, their bums smaller, their tits done, gastric sleeves.

Like, literally, like, I know 15 women at least who have gone over to an unregulated hospital in, in a different country and had their stomach cut out to meet a standard of beauty that's ever-changing. Like, you know, it was a waif, and then it was Kim Kardashian. And so we need to think also about how women who are not necessarily educated in the similar way are being negatively affected by them.

That trillion-dollar business in the beauty industry particularly is really responsible, I think, for making women like me, who come from poorer communities, do things that are extremely harmful to themselves. And how do you think we get that messaging out there? How do you think we can really just alert women to the fact that [00:19:00] this wellness industry is genuinely making people ill?

I think firstly is, I call it privilege, and what I mean by privilege is not being rich, but if you have the ability to critically reflect. I have that ability now because I was given the op-- at 23, I went to Trinity College because I got, um, a widening participation program was available in Ireland, and it was free, and it, there was childcare for my little boy.

I was a lone parent. I'd never met anyone who went to university. I went to university, and I got the gift of critical thinking. It wasn't even the job or, or that stuff. I'm a professor in a university. I've had great life. But it was, I was able to think critically, and I think privileged people can think critically about the world.

And I think what we need to do is the women and the men who can think critically need to really think about the decisions they're making and the messages they're giving out about beauty, about the standards of beauty, about what we should look like, whether it's okay to be a size 14 or not, before and after [00:20:00] pictures.

Like, there's a lot of women and men, but wom- women who, it's our choices in some ways, I think. As individuals, we need to make, take responsibility for what we choose to do. Like, I, I don't get Botox. I just choose not to do that because I, I don't wanna tell old women that's not okay, that they're not beautiful.

I'm not shrinking my body. I'm trying not to shrink my body for aesthetic reasons, and I'm not promoting that as well online 'cause that's my bit. I'm trying to do my bit. I'm telling my story. Mm. I'm trying to do my bit. So I think as individuals, we can think about the choices that we're making, but also the conversations that we're having.

Like, I was away at the weekend with a lovely friend of mine and, you know, she was like, one minute she says, "I have the menopause apron." And I was like, "What the fuck is that?" And she was pulling out her belly, and I was like, "I think that's there so you can store pens." Like, you know, I was trying to, like, turn it around.

But one of the conversations that we had was, like, how negatively we speak about ourselves- Mm ... as women. You know, like, I [00:21:00] regularly say I'm amazing, and I say it publicly. And a lot of people go, "Oh my God, you really like yourself." And I'm like, "Yeah, but I'm also challenging myself in them conversations." And I think, you know, we need to talk about ourselves in much more positive ways than each other.

But as individuals, we need to be, I suppose, take cognizant of what we do to our bodies. There are certain women that won't be able to afford them things that may do s- things in a less regulated way because they can't afford to do it the way you're doing it, and I think that's a really important thing to be considering.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, I'm trying to really stand firm in the sort of anti-Botox camp because I just, I think injecting your body with a whole lot of poison that ultimately we don't know what it does long term. I think as well, though, I need to be clear, like women who get Botox, I'm not judging them.

They are a victim of the industry as much as we are. They might not see themselves as that. They might call themselves empowered women, but to me, I look at them and think they've been taught their aging face [00:22:00] is not okay. Mm. And that they must stay smooth in order to be beautiful or relevant, and especially women in, in the media, they're very, very prone to that.

But I actually think when a woman gets Botox, that she's telling me she doesn't like herself. And I, I'm actually, I actually look at her and think, "Oh my God, you're, you're publicly saying that you actually don't like your face the way it is." And I find that quite interesting as a way of looking at it because I wouldn't look at it as being like a beauty regime.

I'd look at it as being a woman saying, "I'm not okay with my natural face. I'm not okay with the natural process that's happened to me." And I think that's ... I, I would be like, "Oh, God, I, I wanna give you a hug." Mm. "I'm really sorry that you feel like you have to put something in your face 'cause I, I think you're beautiful the way you are at the end of the day."

And I also worry that the message it gives to women who are choosing to age, you know, what we're saying is that they're not beautiful, like wrinkly faces are not beautiful. I think my face is beautiful. And the other thing is this, you know, for me [00:23:00] personally, my mom, my mom died, uh, she bled to death at the age of 59 from addiction, and when I look in the mirror, I see my mom.

I see the generations of women that's gone before me. I don't wanna disrespect them either. I think it's an act of love to allow myself age in a, in a way that's appropriate for me and my family, and I think when I look in the mirror, I see my mom's face and it's the only time I'm probably ever gonna be able to see her face.

So I'm kinda glad to leave it the way it is. But I'm not judging them women. It might sound like I am, but I'm not. I actually think that they are the bigger victim of the beauty industry. I know this can be triggering for listeners, but one of the reasons I wrote Hungry as well was because one in four adults worldwide experience sexual trauma in childhood.

One in three women have experienced sexual assault worldwide. And when you have had a, an experience of having your body taken from you through sexual trauma, the desire to fix that [00:24:00] can become pathological in women, and that's not necessarily a conscious thing. But the dislike of your body or the disconnection with your body, when we kinda sell the idea of a perfect body or a perfect, a destination, we're actually selling that to women who've been very hurt, who really wanna fix their bodies because their bodies have been very hurt.

And I think we need to be really mindful of that, that there are a group of women in this world who've actually been sexually traumatized, probably in childhood, maybe in adulthood as well, who are very vulnerable to the idea that there's something that they can do that's really quick and easy to

make them feel better about who they are, make them feel better in their own skin. And that's my story. Mm. You know, that's the beginnings of my own disordered eating and my own hunger and drive to be smaller. And part of my story and part of Hungry is about trying to highlight that and say, "What are we doing to protect them women in this messaging, in this world that we live in?"

Like, are we all thinking about how society is kinda hurting them [00:25:00] women who've already been really hurt? Hurt to Healing has partnered with Brown Advisory to bring you this podcast. Brown Advisory is a global investment management firm that is passionate about raising awareness of mental health challenges.

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When we hear this idea, like women need to learn to love their bodies, do you think that's the wrong goal? Yeah. I think it's a great idea to say women need to learn to love their bodies, but even when we say need to learn, we're already saying that they don't love their bodies at the end of the day. So my body, first things first, is not an ornament.

Like, it's not meant to be for, like anyone else's visual pleasure at the end of the day, or my own. I think [00:26:00] we need to kind of reframe that sentence. It's like we need to appreciate our bodies, or not even learn to appreciate, we just recognize what our bodies are for and what they're not for. I think that would be a better way to frame that conversation.

It would be ideal if we all walked around and loved our bodies. But when we say words like women need to love their bodies, what that leaves space for is the patriarchy, is the beauty industry and go, "Here's the answer. Here's the answer." So I think we've gotta be careful with language. I'm trying to return To the place that I know all of us were, which is where there was freedom, where I had freedom.

It's not love, it's freedom that I think we should aspire to or go back to a place where we had freedom. What that means is remembering that first. Most little children are free in their bodies. We don't even know we have a body when we're born. Like, we literally don't. We don't learn a value either of our body until someone gives us that.

[00:27:00] Like, w- it doesn't matter what shape, size you are, we're taught that small or tall is right or wrong, or big or small. So for me, it's about remembering the freedom and trying to find my way back to that. Yeah. I think the freedom and the self-respect, because I think you acknowledging that your body is your home.

Yeah. Like, this is a vessel that you have, you're gonna live in for the rest of your life. Yeah. I, I also think as well, part of loving our body is also forgiving ourselves and having understanding and compassion for ourselves, not even just our body, like our total being, is a really important piece of that.

'Cause sometimes we get into the judgment of how we've treated our body and- Mm ... the things that we've done and what we've strived for, and you know. So the idea of loving our body should really start with loving our, our, who we are our- ourselves, warts and all, the things that we've done. A lot of us, you know, and most importantly I think for me, I've never, ever felt any joy or any [00:28:00] freedom from trying to shrink myself or trying to change my body.

Like, so I think m- really important lesson for most women is, like, trying to change yourself does not align with loving your body. Mm. Like, it's an anomaly in itself really, because sometimes we're like, "If I get smaller, if I'm healthier, if I do this thing, if I practice this thing, then I will like myself or I will love myself."

But the reality is, I think actual, the love is, comes first, and then the action of whatever that is comes into play. And so the work isn't about doing something, shrinking yourself, being some way. It's about knowing yourself, forgiving yourself, recognizing what your body's for, like, going inwards. Mm. And s- you know, for me, I'm regularly going, "God, like, like, I survived, like, the worst things.

This beautiful body- Kept me [00:29:00] alive. It kept me alive through the darkest moments of a childhood that you just couldn't have imagined, like where bad men really, really stole everything from me, and it kept me going, kept me breathing, kept me hoping, kept me dreaming, kept me trying. So like part of, I think, loving myself is not about looking outwards, not about establishing a practice, not about getting in the gym, going on the walk.

I know movement is important. All of them things are important, but it's about going in and saying, "What's my body for? What's it done for me? How can I appreciate them things? How can I keep reminding myself that I'm enough? You know, how can I think differently about myself?" So a lot of the answers are, are internal, but we're taught that they're external, you know, over yoga- Mm.

I know ... Ashtanga, whatever it is. And all them things are wonderful and important. They can help. But if you have a dysfunctional relationship with your body- It's the same if you have a dysfunctional relationship with an- [00:30:00] another human being. How you talk to them, how you relate to them is the thing that needs to change.

It's not actually getting something else in. It's sometimes about how you relate to it. And the other thing is about me and my body, like, my body's deadly as well. Like, orgasms are amazing. Like, I, I d- we- I talk about this in the book, you know? Mm. You know, I, I know that's so random just to say that out of nowhere, but, like, my body's, like, built for pleasure as well.

Mm. Like dancing and music and all these things that, like, really make me feel. Like, I'm not even a body, I'm just, like, alive. Or there, you know, there's things to discover about yourself as well that are really joyful in your body. I sound really hippy-dippy now. No, you don't at all, and I think this is- we're so disconnected from pleasure.

Mm. And actually just embodying that and just feeling that sense of, yeah, wow, I can have fun. I can experience freedom and pleasure. Exactly, and in Hungry, so it's a kind of a play on words. So I talk about, obviously, the disordered eating that I had and the levels that I went to be [00:31:00] smaller, you know, gastric surgeries, extreme diets, slimming worlds, slimming clubs.

But I also talk about the loss of my body in terms of having had sexual trauma and grew up in a world where I was taught as a young woman, I don't know if it's the same today 'cause I'm not- I'm a bit older, but I was taught that a man's pleasure sexually was much more important than a woman's pleasure sexually.

This idea that, like, once he was hard, he had to, or else he'd die or explode or something. Or, like, and I was responsible for it somehow. Like, these lessons were, like, implicit in society, you know? And that his pleasure, like men's pleasure, was much more important than ours, and that we could push ours down.

And so, like, in my own life, in my relationships, particularly sexually, like, I spent a long time, like, not having pleasure. I liked connection, and I liked being connected to men sexually, but I never had actual pleasure during, during sex, like. And I thought, well, that's normal, like, because that's what, [00:32:00] that's what, you know, he has to, and I don't really have to.

And went my first in, in therapy, I had this, like, real epiphany, like, a year into the therapy. I was like, "I am never, ever Going to have sex again without ha- I had an orgasm by accident actually, in the shower. I hope Triton sponsor me one day. Ta. And then I was like, "Oh my God, that's what this is. That's what..."

And then, so anyway, a few years later I'm in therapy and I'm like, "I'm never gonna sacrifice my, my pleasure for another person." The journey of, like, loving my own body was about g- being, allowing myself to have pleasure and not prioritizing someone else over mine, unless I wanted to do that. Mm-hmm. And so that was a, that's a really important story of the book as well.

It's like that journey of my body around respecting it sexually, and deciding that I'm gonna be m- I'm as important as my partner in this experience, and I'm never gonna, uh, put myself second. 'Cause when I put myself second, I'm actually saying [00:33:00] to myself that I'm not as valuable as him or her, and that doesn't bode for a loving relationship with my body, and a loving relationship with my, well, my being.

And so part of my story is, it's quite funny, you know, because I met my husband, poor Dave. He was the first guy that I met straight after I made that decision, and, uh, we're in bed and it was very passionate, but, uh, he wasn't very talented in that area. Geez. You know, as I say this in the story, it's fine.

And I had to make the decision, am I gonna say it to him? You know, am I gonna tell him, or am I gonna push myself down? And I think having pleasure as a woman in, with your body, either on your own or with someone else, not only is it healthy, it's healing. It helps your immune system, like, y- your skin glows.

Like, there's so much value to actually, like, having pleasure, and not just sexually, but in general. Katrina, what would you say to a woman who's listening or a man who's listening who just hates their body and they're in a cycle of binging, restricting, [00:34:00] over-exercising, and they just can't seem to step out of it?

I would say that there's always hope, never to stop trying, and sometimes small gains. Like, it, it's totally, it, there's so many people in, like, one in three people have disordered eating. That's what the stats say at this stage. One in three girls by the age of 16 still. So it's very common, and I would say first things first, you're not alone.

I've been in that. I'd say there's a few things that you can do for yourself. First thing is get access to books, podcasts. You listen to this podcast, amazing. Keep surrounding yourself as much as you can with information around healing from these types of things. The second thing I'd say is, like, it's, it is possible to heal.

The one thing I will say, I met a therapist many years ago before I actually engaged in therapy properly around my body and food, and I said to her, we were just chatting. We, it wasn't a therapy session. She was actually a trainee psychologist, and I was friendly with her, and she was, her focus was [00:35:00] eating disorder recovery.

And I just said to her, "Look, I, I've accepted the fact that I'm always gonna have disordered eating and I'm always gonna have to live with this." And I looked her in the face and tears propped in her, in her eyes, 'cause I told her my whole story by this stage. And she said, "That's the saddest thing that you've ever said, sadder than you telling me that you were sexually abused as a child, that your mom and dad were addicts, that you've, you know, you felt alone.

Like, recovery is possible." She's like, "You don't have to live with disordered eating for your whole life And that was shocking to me, 'cause I had accepted that I was always gonna have this negative relationship with my body. I was always gonna have disordered eating. And so for anyone who's listening, recovery is possible, and however low you are, just keep hanging on in there.

You know, I don't wanna be bringing it down, but like, you know, I was very suicidal at one point in my life. I had it all planned. I told my husband. It was really... I was lucky that I got medical help at that particular point, so if someone is [00:36:00] feeling really low, I would be reaching out for help as much as you can, whether it's a doctor, whether it's a friend.

And just that there i- it is possible. But I definitely think talking about things has been really helpful to me, asking friends to help me, asking family to help me, being able to name it publicly as much as possible. Like, we all know what's happening. Like, if you're in, in a state of disordered eating and you have friends and family, they know.

Mm. Even if they're not saying it, they know. So sometimes it's best to get it out and say it. That's the other thing, is talk about it as much as you can. If you can't talk about it with friends, try and get a therapist, go to a GP. But there is-- recovery is possible. When in your life have you felt truly seen?

Wow. That's a really good question. You know, I'm gonna be really cheesy here. This happens most days in my house. The biggest loss of my life and my childhood wasn't actually my body. It wasn't access to education or em- or good employment. The loss of my childhood was the ability to love, [00:37:00] to feel safe enough to love, and to allow someone to love me, but also to feel that I was lovable or, and to love another person consistently.

This morning, you know, my-- Dave's my husband of 25 years now, and we're not perfect in any way, but most mornings he gets up at half six in the morning, and he goes down and makes us a nice coffee on our fancy coffee machine every day, 'cause we're not poor anymore, by the way. And he comes back to bed, and we, we do Word all together, 'cause we're intellectual now, by the way.

And on days like today where I'm, I'm nervous, like I'm meeting a stranger, I, I don't know what to wear. Like, are you gonna be nice? I'm gonna meet a room full of people sometimes, and I'm like, "Oh, Dave, like, what if they don't like me?" And Dave will say, "Babe, it doesn't matter what they think about you. I, I love you."

And, um, I feel seen by him, and I feel seen in our marriage. And, um, it's not perfect and-- but I, I genuinely feel in our moments together when I'm sharing with him about, like, my fears and my doubts and my [00:38:00] insecurities or my dreams, and he's sharing with me, that's when I feel really seen. Katrina, thank you so much.

Thank you so much for listening to Hurt to Healing.

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