You guys problems that you are to be concerned with, you don't know how you're supposed to earn it or what to do with it or how to keep it.

You're a freak with a dark shame, both secret but you're not the only one.

Teach your hidden financial fears to the blessed sun. Now your healing has begun. It's bad with money with Gabby.

Done.

Hi, I'm Gabby Dunn and this is my podcast, Bad with Money, a show about finances and feelings.

This episode will be about the economics of eating disorders. If this topic is sensitive for you, please don't listen or take care while listening.

On June 2nd, 2021, I received this email. Hi, Gabby. I've been a long time fan of yours since the Buzzfeed days and love the inclusive approach to money and finances you take on your podcast.

I've recently begun treatment for an eating disorder and as I've started recovery, I am realizing how much my eating disorder has taken from me.

A lot of times people talk about the physical health risks of eating disorders or the emotional mental trauma, but if I'm being honest with myself, financial stability is one of the things that my eating disorder has impacted the most.

Between dropping extreme amounts of money during binging episodes, eating and drinking, and having to constantly buy new clothes because my size fluctuates multiple times a year, major fluctuations like size 8 to size 16 and back,

or because my body dysmorphia makes me too afraid to return clothes that don't fit because what if the salesperson knows I have an eating disorder?

I was wondering if it would be possible for you to discuss this on your show, as I haven't heard anyone, even in the eating disorder spaces, talk about the financial burden eating disorders can cause, and how to gain control over finances while in recovery.

I hope all is well with you, and I truly cannot tell you how important your podcast and the advice in it has been to me in the last couple months.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, smiley face. Sincerely anonymous, I couldn't think of a clever name.

I had truly never even considered this as a topic until I got this email, and then suddenly it seemed so obvious.

That's what's so insidious about money issues. They can show up in the cracks of basically every aspect of a person's life, especially mental health in ways someone outside of that experience would never consider.

My relationship to eating and to my own body are not what I'd call good. I have a very distinct physical memory of rolling onto my side in bed in the fifth grade, and suddenly noticing that my stomach protruded.

I was appalled. I pressed my hand into it and tried to push it back in. Nope, that was just my stomach.

Bad news.

Sometimes soon after that, I shoplifted diet pills from the drugstore. They were green tea flavored.

One, I couldn't afford them otherwise. Two, I didn't want the cashier to look at me askew. And three, I didn't want my parents to find out. I kept them in my backpack.

I'm not going to get into much more because I think it's already too relatable of a topic and too prevalent and too misrepresented.

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