49: Body Image and Mental Health (Specifically Bi-Polar) with Katie Rickson

What happens when life-saving medication changes your weight, but the medical system keeps focusing on it?Katie Rickson lives with bipolar. She has been hospitalised. She has been through the years of misdiagnosis - depression, anxiety, ADHD - before finally getting an answer that made sense of her life. And having been to the doctor, seriously unwell, a psychiatrist noted in a report that she was a "slim young woman."So we talk about it. Katie is now, by her own account, the heaviest she has ever been. She is also the most mentally well. In this episode, we talk about what it actually takes to get there — and what the medical system, and diet culture, gets wrong along the way.In this episode we coverWhat bipolar disorder actually is — and why it takes an average of 9.5 years to diagnoseWhy Katie's mental health is better now in a bigger body than it ever was when she was slimThe real reason bipolar medications cause weight gain — and why that is not a side effect to simply fixBeing offered weight loss injections by a doctor who was not asking the right questionsHow Katie learned to separate nutrition from body size — and what she asked her dietician to focus on insteadThe Spoon Theory — a practical tool for understanding your energy capacity on any given dayThe "grand bargain" Katie has with the people close to her, and why it mattersEmotional literacy — what it is, why most of us were never taught it, and how to startHow changes in appetite can be an early signal that something needs attentionWhy food belongs in the coping toolkit — and how to use it consciously rather than shamefullyPractical ways to protect yourself in medical appointments when you know weight will come upThe self-compassion practice Katie credits with changing her relationship with food and her body — including the work of Dr Kristin NeffFind KatieKatie's websiteBusiness in the BathLinkedInInstagram: @katie.writes.edits / @businessinthebathFind EmmaEmma's website  ·  Follow on LinkedInIf this episode resonated with you, please share it with a woman you love. The more we talk about leaving diet culture, the more women get to stop fighting themselves and start living the way they want to.