Mental health advocate opens up about her own healing

Genevieve Mora has moved past shame to publicly share her own story of anxiety, OCD and anorexia in the new book Bite Back.

Genevieve tells Jesse Mulligan that during her years-long recovery from an eating disorder, she found it helpful learning how other people "fought battles with their mind".

"It's what I needed when I was unwell and I want to continue advocating in the eating disorder space because there's so much more that needs to be done." 

Knowing how eating disorders work, Genevieve says it was important to tell her story in a really safe and careful way that wouldn't be triggering or unhelpful to other people navigating them.

"If I was feeling shame and embarrassment [about my mental health struggles] then other people probably would be too and I felt like I needed to be that voice and I guess lead the way." 

Her own eating disorder wasn't borne from a desire to look different but had its origins in childhood anxiety that morphed into obsessive-compulsive disorder. 

"Anorexia gave me what I now know was a perceived sense of control when everything else felt like it was out of control. So it really was a coping tool or mechanism, a very unhealthy one."

She recalls catching a glimpse of a child who'd been hurt in a graphic TV news story was one moment that seemed to "spark" her anxiety.

"I instantly had this fear come over me that I was going to be that child that was hurt. There was no sort of reason or justification for that. But it was just this overwhelming fear that it could happen to me. And that was enough to spark perhaps the underlying issues or anxiety that was already bubbling under the surface."

At 11, Genevieve saw her first psychologist and was prescribed a "treat" system in which she was awarded a chocolate bar every night that she managed to sleep alone.

"And I love chocolate so I started, I guess, playing the system and saying that I was sleeping alone when I wasn't. And I think whether I knew it or not, at that moment, lying felt easier than actually facing the truth and having to go against my mind, which became a huge part of my recovery journey - learning that the only way to overcome fear was to face it head-on and that the only way out is through."

Genevieve's anxiety developed and in the first year of high school she recalls turning against food in the form of her teacher's baking.

"At the beginning of the year, I was keen to get involved. And as the year went on, my desire to eat the baking that came into class with my teacher, which everyone else was happily doing, decreased and I stopped doing that.

"Looking back, I was so consumed in it that it's hard to sort of pinpoint when it started because it wasn't a decision to restrict my food intake. It was just a progression of events and, and seemed to take over my life pretty quickly."

Just as OCD rituals gave Genevieve a temporary release from anxiety, she learned that rejecting food did the same.

"I just became terrified of something that's so basic and crucial for human survival. And it wasn't necessarily the act of eating always, it was the associated feelings of guilt and concern and worry that my eating disorder would give me after I'd consumed the food."

At the end of Year 9, Genevieve was examined by a specialist eating disorder service. With a low heart rate, blood pressure and temperature, the doctor deemed her medically unstable.

For years after, she would be in and out of hospitals battling anorexia.

"I think hospital became a place that I felt really safe to be completely transparent, I became quite institutionalised, the fear of living out of hospital was quite intense for me. I became used to sort of the structure and the daily routine of being on the ward."

Living in a hospital ward made focusing on eating disorder recovery somewhat easier, too, Genevieve says.

"When I had less involvement in what was happening, I was being told what I had to do … there was less room for my eating disorder to interfere."

The mental experience of anorexia, for Genevieve, was "like having 100 radios on your head at once and you're not sure which station you should be listening to because they're all going at the same time".

"There were definitely moments where my healthy self, which was the well Genevieve, knew she needed to nourish herself and do certain things to be well, but the eating disorder was so much more powerful.

"There were more times throughout the recovery process where that eating disorder voice just latched on and was really sort of in charge. So it was just constant conflict.

"It's like having an angel and a devil on one shoulder and you're not sure who to listen to and they're both telling you completely different things. So, yeah, it was a real struggle and I never ever could imagine a life free of those sorts of thoughts."

The idea that eating disorders are food disorders is a common misconception, Genevieve says.

"Obviously, food is part of everyone's experience with an eating disorder but I think it's so much more than that. Saying they're about food really minimises the experience of those that face them. It's so much more than that - they manifest in so many different ways. And a lot of it's around the thoughts and the feelings and different things that are associated with it."

Over the years, Genevieve says her recovery has helped by "a huge amount of things" including a lot of therapy and a lot of support from a dietician.

Medication is another tool she used but not a "miracle cure", she says: "You've still got to work blooming hard".

Having goals, dreams and things to fight for was really important for Genevieve, too.

In the words of her friend fellow mental health advocate Jazz Thornton: 'If you don't know what you're fighting for, it makes fighting a heck of a lot harder'.

Deep down, too, Genevieve believed she had the power to recover within herself.

"I wanted to live, I wanted to be free. And so I held on to that in the moments where it felt really difficult to hold on. And yeah, I managed to get out the other side, which I still have moments of being like, wow, that's just incredible."

Now, although she still has "bad body-image days" and takes steps to manage anxiety, Genevieve is no longer in treatment for anorexia. 

This February, she realised a long-held dream and got married. In the future, she hopes to become a parent and continue working with the mental health charity Voices of Hope

"I know how powerful it is to hear stories of people that have fought battles with their minds. It's what I needed when I was unwell. And I want to continue advocating in the eating disorder space because there is so much more that needs to be done.

When supporting someone with an eating disorder, one of the "ground rules", Genevieve says, is not commenting on their appearance.

"Role-modeling healthy behaviour is really important - being really aware of how you talk about your body and yourself."

She also encourages people to model that it's a healthy thing to speak up when you're struggling: "I think open dialogue is really, really important."

Considering herself very lucky to have received the love and support that got her to the other side of anorexia, Genevieve is frustrated many New Zealanders don't have the same access.

"That's a big part of why I do the work I do now because I want everyone to get to experience what life free from an eating disorder is like and I believe everyone deserves to. So I won't stop fighting until there's more help available for people out there."

Where to get help:

• Need to Talk? Free call or text 1737 any time to speak to a trained counsellor, for any reason.

• Lifeline: 0800 543 354 or text HELP to 4357

• Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 / 0508 TAUTOKO (24/7). This is a service for people who may be thinking about suicide, or those who are concerned about family or friends.

• Depression Helpline: 0800 111 757 (24/7) or text 4202

• Samaritans: 0800 726 666 (24/7)

• Youthline: 0800 376 633 (24/7) or free text 234 (8am-12am), or email talk@youthline.co.nz

• What's Up: online chat (3pm-10pm) or 0800 WHATSUP / 0800 9428 787 helpline (12pm-10pm weekdays, 3pm-11pm weekends)

• Kidsline (ages 5-18): 0800 543 754 (24/7)

• Rural Support Trust Helpline: 0800 787 254

• Healthline: 0800 611 116

• Rainbow Youth: (09) 376 4155