I'm Mora Aronsmeli, and this is the anxious achiever.

Each episode, we look at stories from business leaders who have dealt with anxiety, depression,

or other mental health challenges, how they fell down, how they pick themselves up,

and how they hope workplaces can change in the future.

When my producer, Mary, and I were discussing ideas for an episode that brought to life how people cope with uncomfortable feelings and anxiety, we asked ourselves the question, what story would we want to hear? We were sitting in a Starbucks, like on a Tuesday

morning, and we both sort of just said at the same time, we want to hear about someone's

struggle with an eating disorder. We want to know about

eating disorders. Why? Well, that might take hours to unpack, but let me just say this. I defy

anyone, women and men, living in a society with plenty of food, to tell me they eat only when they're hungry, that they

always listen to their body, stop when they're full, never think about how they look or dieting,

etc. I'm an American, cisgendered white woman in her 40s. I have been on a diet quite literally

since I was 12. When I was younger,

my eating was more about the desire to fit in because I was 6'1 in seventh grade and I was

large and I felt very unfeminine. And I felt for many years unworthy of love. I'm still working on

that one. When I got older, though, eating became about control, soothing, all the feelings.

Eat less, you're in control. You're fierce. You've got this.

Binge or reward yourself with food? Oh, that means you're letting go. Either to smother bad feelings or

feel a release of sorts. Of course, then you wake up with guilt and you have to regain the

control. Fast that day, exercise a lot. Now I do that a little bit with alcohol, which I'll talk about

in a bit. I don't think I have a

full-blown eating disorder anymore, but I have disordered eating. I probably think about my weight,

my food intake, my time spent working out for cumulative hours each day. And if I have a scary work

...