IT WORKED!!!

Today is the 10-year anniversary of the publishing of No Period. Now What? It's been a wonderful journey for me, from researching and writing the book, to working with folks in my support groups and one-on-one, and getting to participate so directly in so many people's recovery journeys. It's been a fantastic ride, and I want to thank each and every one of you for the part you've played - whether it's buying the book, working with me, joining a support group, sharing the info you've gleaned, recommending me to a podcast, starting to work in this field too... it's all fantastic. I really appreciate it all!

Today I want to share a recovery story with you from Ora, in my Circle Support Group:

Start at the end...

AHHHH I can’t believe I’m writing this, but today I just woke up to my first recovery period!!! I’m still in so much shock, I can’t believe it!!!!

I’ve had really hard days. But I’ve also had really good days. And I can’t believe I’m writing this but I can accept now that when you go through recovery, you won’t just come out with a period in the end. You come out with so much resilience, so much experience, so much power. You come out with a better, fuller, richer life. 

It’s important to believe in yourself. WRITE yourself motivational notes, reminders of how great you are. There were days where I just wanted to quit, but then I’d look at my wall and see that there’s a version of myself that believes in me, believes I can do this. And if I once believed in myself, I’m going to keep believing. And I think this applies to all areas of life, not just here. Believing in yourself is hard and something I’m still working on, but it was a very essential part in my recovery and it’s what got me here today.

Adobe Stock photo, user rakslee, AI generated. Text added by NJS.

I’ll write my story here :)

The Beginning.

It all started at the start of 8th grade, when my family moved across the world. The move was VERY hard and I’m pretty sure that’s what triggered everything. I suddenly found myself in a new school, a new language, and my self confidence completely crumbled. I also suddenly became aware of my body - I had gone through puberty very early and was already fully developed by seventh grade. I would say I was on the larger side of kids my age.

I decided I wanted to start eating healthier, eating less chocolate and baked goods. It really started off as an innocent goal, but thanks to my perfectionist personality and my genetic distribution, it would quickly become much more than that. I also found exercise around that time, going on my first run and feeling SO accomplished with myself. I started going on a weekly run, and then I found the wonder of HOME workouts. Videos that promised me that I could get abs in two weeks. Slimmer thighs in seven days. Trashy diet culture that pulled me right in. I started to do these workouts, in secret in my bedroom. This addiction got worse over the summer. The rapid weight loss followed. I brushed the comments away, saying I was just being healthy. I didn’t have any problems. Then high school started. 

I just want to add in here that my period had stopped really early on, before I had lost noticeable weight. I was very concerned about this and dragged my parents to the doctor. He wasn’t concerned and put me on some sort of birth control pill for a few days to re-start stuff. It obviously didn’t work but he just said to give it time. This gave me further confirmation that I was totally fine and did not have a problem. 

[editorial note from Nicola - if you are a physician working with someone whose period has stopped, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take it seriously and do further investigation to figure out what's going on!]

High school was the final trigger that pushed my disordered eating into an eating disorder. Comparison of my self to those around me, and I was feeling like I wasn't meeting either the body standard or was eating "too much." Needless to say, this pushed me into full blown anorexia. 

It was VERY bad for around a month, I won’t say any numbers but I dropped a significant amount. My mom was terrified and took me to the doctor, who immediately told my mom I had anorexia while I was eavesdropping outside the door. I was in SUCH denial. I didn’t even know what an eating disorder was, but I knew that that’s not what I had. I wasn't underweight, and I was nowhere near the smallest person in my class. So to me those facts added up that I did not have an ED. 

Recovery work starts...

Long story short, I had to go to a nutritionist for a year. She was VERY traumatic and only focused on my weight. Previously I didn’t know how much I weighed, it never mattered to me, but now I was monitored every other week to see if I went up or down any grams. It’s totally normal to fluctuate, especially when you’re tracking by the gram, but her reaction when I would lose 0.2 of a kilo was just ridiculous. I honestly think that going to her did more harm than good. I was in tears after almost every visit, and she paid no attention to my mental health, which was crumbling more at every visit. The only good thing that came out of going to her was that I didn’t lose any weight - I stayed at the almost same exact number for a year.

[Another editorial note - if you are in a situation like Ora, try and ensure that you are working with a fully licensed Registered Dietitian with experience treating people with eating disorders. And if you're a dietitian or nutritionist, please know your limits and refer or look for mentorship if you're beyond them.]

Halfway through our time together, she convinced my mom to buy me Ensure Pro drinks which probably had a big part in why I didn’t lose more weight. 

I started eating more, but exercising more as well. I looked totally fine on the outside, but no one knew how bad I was inside. I had all the normal starvation symptoms - freezing cold all the time (a joke my friends would constantly make, since I was from canada so I should have been immune to the ‘cold’ weather in my new country). Hair falling out, feeling completely numb, SO much food stress, etc. I was still in denial about the ED. I told myself I just went too far with the weight loss and just had to gain a few kilos. 

After gaining approx 1 kilo my nutritionist said this was a fine weight and I didn’t need to gain more. Hilarious. I believed her at the time though, so I upped my exercise even more so the extra food I was eating wouldn’t go into weight gain. I want to add here that this whole time, I was only eating more to get my period back. It was my sole motivation and reason that I didn’t keep on starving myself. 

Ok so the ED denial went on for some time, there are plenty more stories to tell but lets get to the recovery part! 

Ora takes charge!

I eventually rebelled against going to the nutritionist (best decision ever) and decided to take matters into my own hands. I started eating a LOT more - the perfect, diet culture sort of meals. I went crazy with protein and made it the focus of my day. I stopped doing cardio and went all in with weights. I joined crossfit. I wouldn’t snack in between meals - AT ALL - but I was still eating very big, solid meals. 

Tenth grade started, and with it so did two very important changes - I started going to a therapist, and I accepted my ED. I was dealing with it for more than a year but was in just total denial. Hell, it took SO MUCH courage to just admit it to myself. I wouldn’t even say the word, think the word, but I now finally knew what I was dealing with. 

I wouldn’t admit it to anyone else, so I decided I would just need to heal on my own. It was too shameful to tell anyone, too shameful to even say out loud. I have kept a journal this entire time and this is from an entry of a few days after I accepted my ED:

Dec 28 - I realized something : Shame is the feeling you have when you feel bad and guilty for doing something wrong . I don’t feel shame when I eat, but I FEEL SHAME for even just having an eating disorder- because I feel like I did something wrong. That’s why I don’t want to tell anyone and that’s why I barely even admit it to myself.

I wouldn’t go to anyone for help,  so I found these things online and slowly started working on myself. On letting go of food rules. Of eating the feared foods (in my case, anything ‘unhealthy’). I took big baby steps in. Over a month, I re-introduced carbs, started eating in between meals (!!!!!!), and finally stopped using the ensure drinks as a crutch. (I used to use them for breakfast. So instead of adding the *** calories into my food intake, I just substituted it for real food. Oops 🙂)

I also started listening to SO MANY podcasts about recovering from eating disorders. I probably listened to over 100 hours. These podcasts TOTALLY changed the way I viewed life. Food. The world. Just listening to them changed the way I interacted with food and exercise. If anyone is in this place, I really recommend the podcasts “Recover to Flourish” and “the Eating Disorder Therapist”. They both are pure gold.

My food was going great, but it was still SO hard to give up exercise. By this point I had given everything up except for crossfit and hip hop. I quit hiphop for different reasons, and then I was just doing crossfit once a week. God had different plans though, because I broke my arm doing a tiktok with my friends on my birthday (I know, I know, lamest arm breaking story ever, that was literally my first tiktok I’ve ever done and we didn’t even catch the fall on video!) Bad bone density probably had something to do with the break. So I took a break from crossfit for a month, and then I WENT BACK. Crazy how addicted I was, I wouldn't even give myself a break for more than a month. So two more weeks of being back in crossfit, the teen time slot I was in got cancelled. I took this as another sign to stop and went cold turkey with exercising. 

Except that I still walked half an hour to school every morning. This stopped when I found myself leaving the bus stop in the pouring rain to go and walk instead of taking the bus that went straight to school. I literally had to stop myself after five minutes and say out loud “Ora, what the hell are you doing, go take a bus”. Since then I forced myself to take the bus for two weeks instead of walking, and the “need” to go on a walk completely vanished. 

After seeing a lot of recommendations online I decided to buy the book No Period. Now What? and read it. I found it hilarious that I was doing everything it said to do before I had even read it. The book gave me the confidence to keep going as I was. I also found this amazing group, and chatting with people who understand all this gave me so much hope.

I was feeling so great about life, about doing good in recovery, and then the weight gain started showing. This part is really hard for me. It still is. This past month I’ve had the craziest emotions, hating my body and then being ok with it and hating it again all in the same day (hormones maybe?) I also haven't had school for over a month for political reasons (war 😬) and not seeing people was VERY hard on me. (add to that bombs and missiles 24/7 - probably had something to do with the really hard month) . Anddd also I’ve had strep this entire time. Basically it has been the craziest month of my life and my emotions have been ALL OVER the place.

It all comes together...

Adobe Stock photo, user emon, AI generated

Then I woke up this morning - AND MY PERIOD WAS HERE!!!!!!!!! I am in so much shock. I am so excited. I am so grateful. I’ve been “all in” for three and a half months, but for me I was really eating for my period for over a year. The motivation to get my period is what has pushed me to get over the ED. It really saved my life. Thanks to all in, I have gotten to a place of NO food rules, NO restrictions, and almost NO stress with food. I am eating all the foods I love, whenever I want, and I NEVER thought I could get myself to a place like this.

Recovery is SO HARD. I wrote this a few months ago:

January 15, 2026: I just opened up and told mom everything. I think it’s absolutely crazy that I got to this point where I admitted to myself, I admitted it to the therapist, and I admitted it to my mom. This is absolutely massive and I’m so proud of myself. Recovery is so damn hard. It’s hard physically. You feel gross and bloated and full and then hungry the second after and then full again and your hunger cues are just everywhere. It’s hard emotionally because you’re going against your coping mechanism. You’re going against a huge part of your brain that you have relied on for so long. It’s just so draining. I feel like crying all the time because I’m doing something so hard.  and I do cry. I cry a lot. I don’t think I’ve cried so much in a month in my whole entire life. I cry when I wake up. I cry on the bus home from school. I cry in my bed.  I cried in the bathroom at school. And you know what? It’s ok. I’m going through something so hard and it’s OK to feel emotional and to cry about it. Emotions means that my body has enough energy and food to actually feel emotions which I haven’t felt for so long. Butttt through hardship in pain - a lot of pain you grow I really see now what it means that your grow from challenges and that life is gonna be hard. But it’s also very important to celebrate the wins! Today a friend gave me a chocolate bar and I actually ATE it in class. And I had the opportunity to walk to my bus stop to get home and instead, I took the bus. I’ve even had mornings this week when I start my walk in the morning and I turn around because I can now  acknowledge and respect the fact that I don’t have the energy to do this walk in the morning. So yah, I’m struggling. But I’m also freaking amazing and strong and beautiful and I got this!!!

Wowww this took SO LONG to write. So grateful for everyone here!!!!!!

[Last editorial note - Ten years ago, I wrote this book to provide the answers I couldn't find. Today, stories like Ora's remind me that while the science is the foundation, the community is the heart.]