Living My Next Chapter

Even after my book was published, I thought maybe only my family and friends would humor me and read it. I was still anxious, because at this point, I had let so few people in.

I was both surprised and thrilled when I started receiving emails from women around the world who were struggling with eating disorders, especially women in midlife who could easily relate to my experiences. My story is hardly extraordinary, but rather ordinary, and many women can relate to my experiences. I hear from women who thought they were the only ones struggling at their age and that recovery was not possible. Many expressed feeling alone and isolated. I have been told that my story gives readers hope; hope that recovery is possible at any age. They feel less alone. I respond to every email I receive and even offer to set up a time to chat and share resources and encouragement. I am so grateful that writing my memoir and sharing it publicly has both helped me heal on a deeper level and has given hope to those who are struggling and inspires them to seek help, feel less alone, and believe that just maybe recovery is in fact possible.

My eating disorder developed as a maladaptive way of coping with emotional trauma, anxiety, profound grief, and chronic illness. Fortunately, with professional treatment, my anorexia diagnosis in my 40’s, the culmination of many challenges, became the catalyst for healing and it is my healing and recovery that has brought freedom and transformation.

I am still “me” and have been shaped by all the experiences in my life, the good and the bad, the joy and the sorrow. I am human and there is room for it all. I am grateful for the people in my life with whom I can be my authentic self. “It’s never too late to be a work in progress,” the last line in my memoir means there is no finish line as we can all continue to grow as well as embrace the twists and turns along life’s journey.

I was a peer support mentor and co-facilitated support groups before my memoir was published. But now, it has become my passion and purpose to help those who are struggling to navigate their recovery journey through all the ups and downs, twists and turns.

In 2023, I founded Gifts of Recovery, LLC, “sharing my lived experience through mentorship and group support.” The people I work with must be medically stable and under the care of a licensed clinician. I offer peer support. I’m the one who “gets it,” and is the support that is there in between professional appointments. I mentor individuals and facilitate support groups, both virtually and in person in Providence, Rhode Island.

Everything I do is a gift of my own recovery. I have had the privilege and opportunity during my “next chapter” to travel throughout the United States and Canada, sharing my story and presenting at major eating disorder conferences and at treatment centers at all levels of care. I speak from my heart with no notes other than quotes I share from my book. I’ve come a long way from the shy girl who was scared to speak up in class for fear I would be wrong, even when I knew the answer. I have come a long way from being terrified in law school that I would be called on and not well-enough prepared, even though I thoroughly read the materials. As a hospital attorney, I presented on medical-legal topics to the medical and nursing staff at the hospital where I worked, always with an overly detailed outline, and I was tremendously relieved when it finished and went well.

If you had told me that one day I would love public speaking, I would have never believed it. I am very grateful for this next chapter and the opportunities that have come my way. I love my road trips and exploring new places. I have met so many wonderful people in the eating disorder professional community and have dear friends among them. When I speak at treatment centers, it is my hope that each patient takes one thing from my story and the lessons I have learned that help them move forward, even baby steps, in their own recovery journey. The virtual world is here to stay, and, with it, unprecedented accessibility. I have appreciated the opportunity to present through webinars and be interviewed on many podcasts. My virtual support groups provide connection and support in a safe, virtual space where people, separated physically by miles and miles, can form deep connections through the zoom screen.

Though most of my work centers around women in midlife, I am doing more and more in the athlete mental health space. As a former Division 1 college athlete and long time high school coach, I have a lot to offer to former and current athletes who too often have not embraced that they too are human and are a whole person beyond sport. My own tennis career gave me so many gifts but also became entangled in developing an eating disorder in midlife