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As someone who had anorexia, I still don't class myself as fully 'recovered' even 4-5 years on because whilst I am weight restored and eat a lot more variety than Holly (not hard lol), I still get intrusive thoughts around food, body image and exercise...
I suppose the 'final' stage of recovery is subjective but Holly definitely is not it - in fact it's damaging to her audience with disordered eating / eating disorders to suggest she is - she seems to think that just because she's got her period that she is recovered, when in reality she never went 'all in' on recovery, faced any of her food fears (her diet is exactly the same as 3 years ago) or stopped exercising which is highly recommended by most, if not all, eating disorder specialists.
I can't think helping she will either fully relapse at some point, especially if she experiences a triggering or stressful event in her life, or she will continue to live in this quasi-recovered state into her late adulthood and potentially suffer health consequences such as osteoporosis etc. because of her low weight and the stress she has put her body under for *years* and combined with her excessive exercise. Also how will she ever lead a normal life with her normal job if she always feels the need to exercise for hours everyday with no flexibility...?
Sorry for the long post, just my 2 cents on this.
Her excessive exercise (even while on the overnight train) and highly restrictive diet are very obvious signs her ED is still rife.
Maybe in a few years she’ll realise that in this time she thought she was recovered she was far from it… but that would require some genuine self awareness that she lacks
Maybe in a few years she’ll realise that in this time she thought she was recovered she was far from it… but that would require some genuine self awareness that she lacks
Thanks for picking up on the post, you all! As someone who has formerly dealt with a very mild ED (and still wouldn't dare to say they are completely recovered) and someone who has some professional training concerning EDs this just send me to another dimension. I'm so furious! I get it: EDs are tit, they mess with your mind in terrible, unimaginable ways and they screw family dynamics. So I don't blame her for not recovering or any family member for not 'curing her' (a narrative I often see on these threads I actually don't agree with; even for a 'functional' family, intervening in case of an ED can be hard or impossible, so I wouldn't expect this tit show of a family to manage). But how on earth can't somebody stop her from upholding this damaging online presence? It is so bleeping harmful!
Edit: Thinking about it I realized that in my 'Ed-days' (no belittling intended, just sounds so granny-like) the internet only really offered more or less 'hidden' spaces for this kind of harmful content (e.g., pro-ana forums, Tumblr...). Not to say that they weren't harmful, but I think that's why it baffles me so much that this content is so 'out in the open'. That wasn't the dynamic I experienced. For me, sharing my ED was a very reclusive, hidden experience, very isolating. For Holly it is so open and combined with open admiration and validation. How comes that we have no systems in place that can use this fact (i.e., the publicity) to approach and avoid this kind of content?
Edit: Thinking about it I realized that in my 'Ed-days' (no belittling intended, just sounds so granny-like) the internet only really offered more or less 'hidden' spaces for this kind of harmful content (e.g., pro-ana forums, Tumblr...). Not to say that they weren't harmful, but I think that's why it baffles me so much that this content is so 'out in the open'. That wasn't the dynamic I experienced. For me, sharing my ED was a very reclusive, hidden experience, very isolating. For Holly it is so open and combined with open admiration and validation. How comes that we have no systems in place that can use this fact (i.e., the publicity) to approach and avoid this kind of content?
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Yeah and the scary thing is that Holly genuinely believes that she is some kind of recovery vlogger who helps other people to recover from their EDs by talking about her own "recovery" online. I mean, she even gave a TED talk about how she overcame her ED! I think she either has very little self-awareness or else she just can't admit to herself that she is not, in fact, 100% recovered. Because that would mean admitting that she can't do it alone and needs help with it, and I think asking for help is a big no no in the Holly mindset. :/
Sorry for intruding again, but in her recent picture, I don't see a person who is underweight. Her legs are full, arms are a bit skinny, stomach looks surprisingly wide. Her diet is for sure bs, but compared to old photos or Ruby Granger's state.. Holly looks a lot better.
For me the image was concerning because of the caption and the body checking. I wouldn't judge her recovery status by her body per se. What's problematic is the content she puts out, her habits combined with the blatant lie that she is now totally recovered. And that this kind of pictures combined with her own judgement that the state of her body is in at the moment needs courage to show in a bikini considering the age of her audience. In short: she doesn't need to be a sceleton for this post to be problematic af.
Another thing I have to mention, is that everyone has a different body structure, I have friends, whose chest bones peek a bit too much, but they are healthy eating and not ed. Nobody can choose where to gain weight or lose.
Weight isn’t always a deciding factor for an earring disorder. Someone could be larger and still be anorexic/have an eating disorder. Someone could be smaller and have a good relationship with food.
You can say she “looks a lot better” sure but that is compared to Holly when she was literally eating a banana for breakfast, oats for lunch and raw veg for dinner (or not eating at all). Comparing her at this stage of her ‘recovery’ journey to when she was completely emaciated shows some improvement sure, but I don’t think we have ever truly seen Holly in a healthy place. Food relationship wise or mentally.
100% agree. And then it used to be oats 3 times a day! My personal opinion is that she is trying to eat various foods which is good but then she is realising she is eating more calories so she exercises a lot. So I don’t think her recovery is complete.
The oat thing is so confusing to me, she said she used to binge eat oats at night, but in recent videos, still shows making them at this time...
I just saw the all nighter which consists of her shopping for a meal which she cooks eats and then spends several hours exercising to burn it off.. disgustingly toxic
ahhh so she did watch supersize vs superskinny
that's an ED rite of passage lol
Did she just apologize to her mom for going on a motorbike...
It's a condition named Brachydactyly , just googled, Ruby has the same. You are born with it.
Guessing 5:42 was the blanking on stage Holly was referring to then! I genuinely feel for her there, I certainly wouldn't ever do public speaking like that so props for not having a complete meltdown.
In terms of a TED talk it was pretty cliché and leaving the audience with the 'when there's no-one else you'll always have yourself' quote was uninspiring tbh. Definitely think Holly was over-rehearsed though her movements were very scripted and didn't seem natural at all.
I think her speech was a concoction of popular therapy talk and quotes and while none of it is wrong what she's saying and how she's actually living don't align much.
In the end I hope she gets real therapy as she is imo overall a good person who struggles with something that could be helped.
In the end I hope she gets real therapy as she is imo overall a good person who struggles with something that could be helped.
Yeah this - to me that whole talk just seems very stilted and unauthentic, both in terms of content and in terms of delivery. You can really tell she's just reciting an essay that she wrote and that essay is not even good. It sounds like something a teenager would write for a writing assignment, full of boring clichés and try-hard attempts at humorous phrases in place of genuine insights or emotion. There's also a few minor slip ups in the writing/delivery, like when she makes it sound like she had two cats named Emily and Matthew growing up xD
Now, if this was a talk by Ruby or someone like that I wouldn't be surprised, but from Holly I would've expected something more - because she's talked about her eating disorder issues many many times on her channel and each of those videos was more genuine and nuanced than this supposedly oh-so-personal TED talk.
Honestly, that talk is so shallow that someone who doesn't already know about Holly and her ED history would probably be left confused rather than inspired. Because what do we learn about her from that talk, really? That she had the best, most amazing parents in the whole world, had the most wonderful childhood of all times and was extremely happy 24/7 up until the age of 14. Then, she heard the word "calorie" mentioned in the changing room at dance and she started watching "Supersize vs superskinny" and bam! Eating disorder! She doesn't really mention any details about that disorder though. Then later she went travelling Australia and did a master's at UCL and was cured through the power of solo-travelling and with the help of her supportive family. Now she found herself again and loves herself and you should too. The end.
I'm sorry, but that's just banal and surface-level and I don't think anyone who suffers from an ED will come away particularly inspired hearing about how Holly being able to run the London Marathon and taking herself on a date marked the endpoint of her fantastic self-directed recovery. There are other TED talks by ED survivors out there that do a much, much better job at tackling the topic, in my opinion (I particularly remember one called "Life's too short to count cornflakes" that was very good, imho).
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