Konheim Mandras - Seeing Your Loved One Suffer

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Sad. Frustrated.  Helpless. Painful. The common answers I was given when asking my loved ones how they felt when I was struggling with an eating disorder. The scary thing… I have been on the other side. Where I’ve watched first-hand someone battle this disease. The feedback I received was consistent in the way I felt when I tried helping someone I loved.  I tried to do everything to help. I was willing to do anything. To open their eyes, and yell at them to, “Snap out of it!” I wrote letters, sent emails, called incessantly, begged them to change, pleaded for them to take stepsRead More →

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Be kind… For everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. My mom’s ongoing words my entire upbringing were, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” I never truly appreciated or understood the consequences words may have on someone until I battled and overcame anorexia. She played for Indiana University. She had matched up against me each time we had played, and this particular time was no different. I would like to give her the benefit of the doubt, and believe she was a nice person who just used the wrong language to talk smack. But,Read More →

How To Be A Friend To Someone Battling An Eating Disorder

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She lives in Detroit. I live in Baltimore. She is a physician. I am home with my kids. She has two girls. I have two boys. Her kids are mild-mannered. Mine are not so much. She is Catholic. I am Jewish. She is calm and laid back. I am hyper and impulsive. The saying holds true… Opposites do attract. There has not been a time I have come to Detroit to visit my family that I have not seen her. She has made the trip to Baltimore to spend time with us, and to see my new life there. She was a matron of honorRead More →

Erin Konheim Mandras

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It’s like signing up for a race, not really preparing or training for it, and setting out and finishing with an unbelievable time. If you don’t beat that time the next race, do you feel as accomplished? Or, it’s like setting a personal record in collections in one week’s time. The following week, if not matched or beaten, do you feel like a failure? For me, I have a tendency to set a goal, and once reached, anything less feels unfulfilling. According to Entrepreneur and Online Marketing Expert, Neil Patel, in Entrepreneur, “When we don’t get fulfillment, our psychological response is anxiety or tension.” Based on myRead More →

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I recently had the opportunity to e-meet Stacey Rosenfeld, PhD, who is the author of “Does Every Woman Have an Eating Disorder: Challenging Our Nation’s Fixation with Food and Weight.” She is a clinical psychologist who specializes in eating disorders and body image issues. Dr. Rosenfeld was formerly a staff psychologist at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City and at the UCLA Counseling Center in Los Angeles. She was excited to interview me to learn more regarding a patient’s perspective on recovery. In addition, she published the interview on her blog, Every Woman has an Eating Disorder, which has just been named a top eating disorder blog ofRead More →

My First Visit to the Shrink

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Monday at 3:00pm. A day and time I so horribly dreaded. If it weren’t for my scholarship potentially being revoked had I not complied with their protocol, I without doubt would never have showed up. I was so bitter and irate about being accused of having an eating disorder. Because of my resistance to seek therapy, my roommate was asked by the sports medicine staff to personally drop me off and pick me up. I couldn’t look at her. It was a car ride of mere embarrassment, mortification, and fear. As she navigated through the campus of Michigan State University looking for the unknown Fee Hall, she explainedRead More →

Feminine and muscular?

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As I sit and reflect on this touching article published by FOX Sports and written by Justin Ching, I think about what may have altered, prevented, or limited my struggles with not only anxiety and depression, but anorexia in college. An article about mental health issues being a challenge for the NCAA in regard to student-athletes, it highlights different interviews with current student-athletes. A key finding from the interviews revealed that the majority of women pointed to eating disorders related to their sport as the top issue. According to the American Psychiatric Association, women are “nearly twice as likely” as men to develop depression, anxiety and eating disorders. Add in the stress of sports related pressures and stressors andRead More →