Eating disorders are often misunderstood, yet they have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. Here, Rebecca Papprill, the founder of WithLoveED – an NZ voluntary platform that is designed to support families impacted by eating disorders – writes very openly and honestly about her own heartbreaking experiences. Through her writing, Rebecca hopes to break the silence and raise awareness about the realities of ED recovery. Whether you have lived experience, work in mental health, advocacy, or policy, her goal is to keep the spotlight on eating disorders and ensure they receive the attention they deserve.
TW: This story discusses eating disorders
I didn’t expect an eating disorder in my family to hold a mirror up to my own life.
The world slowed down when COVID hit, but something else was accelerating inside our home. At first, I didn’t notice. My daughter had never been interested in cooking, so it surprised me when she suddenly started spending hours in the kitchen, watching recipes, measuring ingredients, and plating delicious meals for others. But when it came time to eat, she hesitated, picking at her food, rearranging it on the plate, taking the smallest bites, or sometimes none.
One day, she told me something didn’t feel right. I blamed it on stress.
Stress from COVID. From isolation. From shifting friendships, school disruptions, and uncertainty.
Then came the tears at the dinner table, spilling over something as small as a single bite of food. I tried to rationalise it. Maybe my daughter was just tired. Maybe anxious. Maybe overwhelmed.
No one knew it was an eating disorder. Not yet.
But as the months passed, with doctor’s visits, therapists who didn’t see it, and more months of being pushed around the health system, I was at my wits’ end. I knew something was wrong, but no one could answer.
Then, one day, the school nurse called. I think it’s an eating disorder, she said. You need to get urgent care.
At last, someone had put a name to it. But that didn’t mean help was within reach. Instead, she faced long waitlists, no clear guidance, no roadmap, just waiting, powerless, as she grew sicker.
And then came the words that left me stunned.
Not sick enough for public care.
Not sick enough.
I watched her push food around her plate, meals turning into battlegrounds, her body shrinking before my eyes. And something inside me began to stir.
While urging her to eat, nourish herself, and see her worth, I realised I had never truly learnt how to do those things for myself.
And before you assume this is about parenting, it is not about blaming mothers, dissecting every decision, or searching for where we went wrong. If it were that simple, we would have solved this by now.
But this is bigger than us.
It is about the world we live in. A culture so sick that it convinces us to shrink, smooth, and sculpt ourselves into something “better” with diets, fillers, and surgeries.
But for me, diet culture’s impact ran even deeper. It was woven into ballet. From the time I was three until my late twenties, dance was my world.
The mirror was always there, not just reflecting me but shaping me. Dance class after dance class, I stood before it, checking my posture, adjusting my arms, and trying hard to move gracefully across the old school hall. It was not just about technique. It was about control. And though we never said it out loud, we were constantly comparing. Who had the longest legs? The smallest waist? Who looked the part?
The rules crept in. Subtle, quiet, so ingrained that I did not even question them.
Fast forward to now. Watching my daughter struggle with eating made my insecurities with food impossible to ignore. I realised I had been unknowingly entrenched in diet culture, convinced that my restrictive habits were normal.
Two microwaved scrambled eggs for breakfast. Then, nothing until lunch. No hot chocolate, no chai, just plain heated oat milk.
How bland was that? But at the time, I thought it was discipline. I thought it was healthy.
And now, as I sat across from her, watching her fight to find herself again, I realised I was still fighting to find me. The real me, buried under years of diet culture, media images, and whispered comments from other women about being good or being naughty with food.
I stood beside her as she fought for her life and realised I had to show her how to fight for it. Not just with words but with my actions. Not because I was at death’s door but because I needed to show her what it truly meant to live.
I do not want to keep living by these rules. I do not want to shrink myself to fit into a world that insists we must be smaller, quieter, and more perfect.
I want to unravel those layers and reclaim the parts of myself buried under quiet restrictions, shame, and fear.
I know I am not alone. Other women, mothers, daughters, and sisters have spent years shrinking, hiding, and second-guessing their worth.
And maybe, like me, you are ready to stop.
For her. For myself. For every woman who has ever questioned her worth.
This is a journey I have been on for a long time. One I am still learning from every day.
And I wonder:
How many of us have lived by these unspoken rules without realising it?
WHERE TO FIND OUT MORE AND GET HELP
*eatingdisorders.org.nz/category/where-to-get-help
*FEAST: Global network for those with eating disorders and their families.
* EDANZ: advice for family members
*mentalhealth.org.nz/conditions/condition/eating-disorders
*ed.org.nz/getting-help/eating-disorder-services (this offers support to people with loved ones who have an eating disorder
