I grew up in Lima, Peru where the predominant spoken language is Spanish. I was lucky to receive a decent education and be exposed to learning new languages. There were three classes that I disliked at school: Religion class, Spanish class, and English class. I wasn’t a great student for most of my school years, and I never thought I would speak a foreign language appropriately. But life has its unexpected turns: I met my husband in a work and travel program in the US, started a long-distance relationship, married him, and, because we communicated in English, my capacity to speak English improved rapidly over the years. In 2011, we moved together to New York, and I was able to complete an MBA with honors and get a job as a consumer research manager. The girl who once hated learning languages had become bilingual and was working and living in a foreign country.

While living abroad brought some self-esteem challenges and my eating disorder got worse for a while due to all the pressure that I felt to “succeed”, living abroad greatly benefited me in recovering from an eating disorder. Becoming exposed to different types of people, body types, and eating customs allowed me to question some beliefs I had learned in Latin America. For example, in Peru is acceptable to comment on people’s bodies, while in the US is not. In the US is acceptable to eat sandwiches and chips for lunch, while in Peru, that’s not considered a meal. Noticing that what was correct or true in one place, but was incorrect or untrue in another, helped me realize that there is no right or wrong, and it was up to me to decide what was true, which helped me questioned everything I had learned about diet culture.

Living in New York city and knowing English also exposed me to relevant information and education that I didn’t have access in Peru and that helped me recover from an eating disorder. I was able to participate in some life coaching classes that armed me with cognitive skills that helped me challenge ED beliefs as well as changing behaviors. I was also able to read books in English that gave me information and tools that prepared me to live a life without an eating disorder, some of those books are: Radical Acceptance and Brain over Binge.  

Becoming bilingual and living abroad was part of my personal growth and eating disorder recovery journey. I’m grateful for that life experience and what it helped me accomplish. This experience allows me to help my clients challenge their own beliefs and navigate their self-discovery process that occurs during ED recovery. Imagine traveling to a different country, seeing people look and eat differently. You don’t need to travel to change your mindset and recover from an eating disorder, but you are capable of challenging the current beliefs and behaviors that keep your eating disorder active. You can change! You are #notarock.