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I am at mid-career level and work in a busy law firm. I can be quite hard on myself and know that I have perfectionist tendencies (exacerbated without social contact and banter with colleagues due to pandemic). I suffered from an eating disorder when I was younger but have noticed this re-emerging in the last few months and more intensely over the Christmas period. Is there anything I can do now to prevent a relapse? I don’t want to go back to that dark place.

Thanks for writing. There are a couple of things about what you have said that stand out, and the most important is the connection you make between how you are feeling, what’s going on in your life, and disordered eating behaviours. Isn’t that the crux of the whole thing. That an eating disorder, controlling your food and your body in whatever way, is a response to something that a person finds challenging – it is a coping mechanism. So, then for some reason, when some people feel a certain way, or face certain challenges in their life, they find comfort or strength, in controlling their food and their body. And it helps them feel a bit better in the moment

What is important to remember is that this way of coping doesn’t actually work to make things better. You know that because you write that you have had an eating disorder and have managed to get out of it. So, when a person lapses, or feels themselves falling back into old patterns of behaviours to cope, it’s worth remembering that while the feeling of coping may come momentarily, in the long run it doesn’t last, is destructive, and ends up making everything worse. This might seem easy to remember, but when we add a person’s fear of feeling out of control, fear of ‘what will happen’, and fear of not being ok/good enough, it can make this very hard to remember

But you have done a crucial thing – you have been able to acknowledge to yourself that destructive behaviours are re-emerging, and you have articulated that as well as your desire to stop this in its tracks. This is not easy, and maybe your perfectionism, as you put it, is paying off by helping you to acknowledge that you are not ok. Perfectionism can be a double edged sword. It can mean that a person works hard, strives for excellence and usually achieves great things, but there can also sometimes be a price to pay. When perfectionism does not allow room for compassion, then often the person can get lost in the effort

So, what can you do? Well, you have done the first step – you have acknowledged to yourself that this is happening. It can be important for a number of reasons to reframe a lapse/relapse in a positive way – this is an opportunity for you to learn more about yourself, about why you respond to certain challenges through food and your body, and how can you change that when it is destructive. Taking that stance then, it is important to think through what you are finding difficult right now that is causing old patterns of behaviours to re-emerge? If you are able to identify the triggers, then you will be better placed to think through both what is going on and also how might you respond and cope with these without using food and your body to cope? What other ways can you try coping? If things have become tangled up, and you feel yourself being tied up in old patterns of behaviour, it can always help to be able to talk things out with another person – that person could be a family member, a friend, a support service or a professional. See  for support services and information on professional help

I would encourage you to be kind to yourself. This may sound like a token ending, or it may feel cliché, but when a person is trying to counteract eating disorder thoughts, being kind is incredibly difficult. However, being able to look after yourself, being gentle and kind with yourself, is exactly what the eating disorder tries to rage against, so it is exactly what a person needs to try and do.

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This question and answer are hypothetical and written by Harriet Parsons, Training and Development Manager at . Any response or advice provided is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional, psychological, financial, medical, legal, or other professional advice.

LegalMind is an independent and confidential mental-health support available to solicitors and their dependants, 24 hours a day, and can be contacted at 1800 81 41 77.