05/09/2026
New Episode of 'Inside Door2' out now on Spotify - The Messy Middle of Eating Disorder Recovery:
Recovery is often talked about as though wanting to recover should be enough. But what happens when you desperately want your life back — and yet another part of you is screaming just as loudly to stay exactly where you are?
In this episode 18-year-old Lucy finds herself deep in the messy middle of eating disorder recovery. With the final weeks of secondary school approaching and so much of life waiting on the other side, surely now should be the time to be motivated to recover… right?
Except recovery isn't that simple.
Lucy can see the life she wants. She can feel frustrated by being stuck. She can desperately want to move forward. And yet she describes another part of herself — her Negative Mind demanding attention.
So how do you trust yourself when your own voice can so easily be overwhelmed by the voice of the NM?
And how do you make decisions about recovery when different parts of you want completely different things?
Alongside Lucy is her mum, Alison, who has made an enormous shift in the way she supports her daughter. Moving away from the anxiety-driven certainty of FBT approaches and the belief that she needed to make recovery happen, Alison has learned to **meet Lucy where she is**.
Together, Lucy and Alison explore what it means to stay connected through uncertainty rather than trying to force an outcome.
This is a conversation about being stuck without being hopeless, wanting recovery without yet being ready for every part of it, learning to distinguish the Self from the NM, and discovering that sometimes the most powerful thing a carer can do is stop trying to win the battle and start helping their loved one hear their own voice again.
Because the messy middle isn't necessarily a failure of recovery.
Sometimes, it is where the real work of finding yourself begins.
