#112 – Rachel Quast

Rachel Quast’s Story

Rachel Quast is a Master’s level counselor, author, national speaker, and counseling group leader. Surviving anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, and spiritual and family trauma paved the path for her career in counseling. Rachel specializes in eating disorders, emotional eating, relationship struggles, issues with faith and spirituality, and depression and anxiety. 

Because of her life experience, she has a heart to help others through their healing journey. She is the founder of SHED (Self-Healing through EDucation) where she offers individual counseling, health coaching, and group counseling.

Additional Information

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• Website | 9shed.com
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Episode Transcript

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Coming up on this episode of The Courage to Change.

Rachel Quast:

I am trying to say in so many different ways I’m literally starving in front of your eyes and you still can’t figure out how to parent me or to love me. And so in my heart, I’ll never forget the thought, it’s I want to die so that you suffer the way I’m suffering because I’m tired of carrying the load.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Hello, beautiful people. Welcome to The Courage to Change: A Recovery Podcast. My name is Ashley Loeb Blassingame and I am your host. Today we have Rachel Quast. Rachel is a master’s level counselor, author, national speaker and counseling group leader. Surviving anorexia, bulimia, binge eating and spiritual and family trauma paved the path for her career in counseling, where she specializes in eating disorders, emotional eating, relationships struggles, issues with faith and spirituality and depression and anxiety. Because of her life experience she has a heart to help others through their healing journey.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Man, this episode was so fun. So, so fun. I love talking about eating disorders. Of course that sounds super weird but I really do because it’s such an important topic for recovery and I think so many people can relate to it in and out of recovery having eating struggles. Rachel has used her experience to come up with a nine step recovery plan process and it’s really fascinating to hear about. Also fascinating to hear about how her childhood and the intergenerational trauma from her grandparents affected her and her life. So much great information and she’s just a wealth of knowledge. It was so great to have her on here and I know you guys will love listening. So episode 112, let’s do this.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You are listening to The Courage to Change: A Recovery Podcast. We’re a community of recovering people who have overcome the odds and found the courage to change. Each week we share stories of recovery from substance abuse, eating disorders, grief and loss, childhood trauma and other life-changing experiences. Come join us no matter where you are on your recovery journey.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Rachel, welcome to The Courage to Change. Thank you so much for being here.

Rachel Quast:

Absolutely. It’s just my absolute pleasure to join what you guys are doing and join the movement of making recovery more available to people and knowing that we have so many stories to share, yes.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Absolutely. Absolutely. And your story is one that I very much I’m passionate about because so many people… I struggle with eating disorder, disordered eating, however you want to name it. And I know so many people who get into substance use disorder recovery and they have suppressed this other demon thing below and lo and behold it arrives. So I’m really excited to hear your story and how you have gotten into recovery. So can you give us a little bit of background on your childhood, where you came from, where you grew up, what your home life was like?

Rachel Quast:

Sure. Sure. Yeah I grew up in Wisconsin in a smaller, not super small town but semi small town. But in general I think what’s really most important is just the family upbringing with that. So my family from the outside we looked like a perfect model family, which is always the most interesting. People assume that what it looks like on the outside is what’s going on in the inside and through recovery and now doing counseling with people I’m realizing, no, that is exactly not the case. But personally for me there were… It wasn’t any outright physical abuse or sexual abuse And I just want to put that out there because I feel like there’s some old stereotypes out there with eating disorders that there has to be some major abuse like that but trauma happens in so many different ways.

Rachel Quast:

And so for me it was that droplet of water day after day of wearing you down. So the family environment was very rigid. It was extremely critical. It was very, very strict. There were one ways to do things, even sweeping a floor. There was always a right way and as a kid I could never figure what the right way was. So there were a lot of those different things but on top of it both parents were extreme workaholics. So it always had this feel to me of I just really wasn’t wanted and I was pretty much invisible. Though I know that’s not the case now as an adult but as a kid I definitely felt like I had to figure my life out all by myself, like I was not really being parented.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

How many siblings do you have?

Rachel Quast:

I have one older sister by four years.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay. So there were two of you and what did your parents do for a living?

Rachel Quast:

My mom stayed at home and my dad was a businessman of whatever he could get his hands into. But for the longest period of time he owned five different organic fertilizer plants. And so for a good chunk of my life from what I say most important years, from eight on, he was gone which I think played a big part of it. He was gone five all through the week and he would come home on weekends and then leave again. And that was a constant. So it was this constant coming and going. So I felt like I was always losing my dad so that really got tough also.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. It sounds like he’s probably not the kind of guy who would think joking with him about being in the shit business was funny.

Rachel Quast:

No.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I would have had endless fun with that. Your mother you said she was a workaholic and what did that look like since she stayed home with you guys?

Rachel Quast:

Sure that’s a great question. She made the house. That was her obsession. So it was constant cleaning, constant cooking, constant doing gardening outside and there was always something. And that is just the way they’ve been and honestly that’s still the way that they are, is as long as the sun’s out and it’s not too cold they’ll find something to be working on. So it was that feeling as a kid of work was more important and I was like, when there was some spare time, “Hey, there you are. Hi.”

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. Right. Okay. Yeah, no downtime.

Rachel Quast:

Mm-mm (Negative)

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Interesting. Yeah. I think a lot of… There were a couple of things… Their parents were really loosey goosey opposite of yours, correct? Your grandparents were not strict.

Rachel Quast:

No. Yeah. No my dad’s parents, they were extremely abusive. They were also both alcoholics but they were pretty much let him run and do whatever he wanted. And so he turned the opposite because he thought love was being locked down because I care enough to force you what to do and hopefully you won’t get hurt but it ended up creating other issues. And same with my mom’s parents as well. They were very abusive but not a lot of… Even my dad said they didn’t even teach me how to brush my teeth so it was just he had the same issue of having to raise himself.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Interesting. Yeah. It’s interesting how we respond to trauma and then how we pass that down to our children and it’s why inter-generational trauma is such a big thing, right?

Rachel Quast:

Yes.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Where our parents experienced some abuse, they respond to it and then they respond within their parenting and now here we are. So you have generations of people responding to something that was going on a couple of generations ago.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You talked about, you’ve said that you felt like you were in an emotional prison and that you grew up in this extremely strict church. I had two questions. Could you tell me a little bit about the church? And then also you talked a little bit about emotional incest and I wanted to hear about that.

Rachel Quast:

Sure. Sure. So the church that I grew up in, as I went on to do more work on counseling on that years later I found it quite ironic that my home life was like my church life. And so they both fed off each other. The church was also very strict. I know when I was young, women can wear makeup. No, women can’t wear makeup. Yeah now women can wear… It was these small things and where our skirts had to be. And though they’re not like that anymore from what I understand, nonetheless that was my experience. It was very fear-based which did not help because there was a lot of fear at home as far as disappointing or if one of the parents are upset there was hell to pay one way or the other, whether it’ll be punishment or just leaving the scene. They would just leave and abandon and that was the same environment with church too. It was just very fear-based, which really just breaks my heart to teach that God is a punishing God and a fear-based God. That’s not even…

Rachel Quast:

I don’t believe that at all anymore but nonetheless it had a huge impact. I think one of the big things that really sticks out for me is it was taught a lot that this is the true church. And so then therefore if you leave you’re then out of the kingdom. And that is terrifying for a little one to grow up in. Because when you have that mindset, you’re taught that mindset and on top of it here’s all these different things you have to do right and if not, then you could be kicked out of the church, which then leads to then kicked out of the kingdom. That is a heavyweight that a little brain cannot comprehend and like I was saying, when I went back to counseling myself for that I realized how much trauma and fear and how much that was linked to my own anxiety. Because it was this constant I’m not okay, I’m not doing enough.

Rachel Quast:

And so that was a really, really big one. We even had a marry within the church. It was one of those, we have all the information and others are missing out and if they can just get the great truth we have then they’ll be fine and if anything, I felt it’s the opposite now.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Was this a sect of Christianity?

Rachel Quast:

Yes. It was called… It was a non-denominational church but then when I look back it really was very similar to Messianic Jews because we kept all the holy days and we couldn’t do Christmas or Easter and those different types of holidays. But yet we believed in Jesus. So it was very different that way. Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. Rachel I can’t tell you how many people I talked to just on this podcast even who have the same experience that you have where, the way you described it, their little brains cannot absorb, cannot make sense of the information they get around burning in hell, being kicked out of the kingdom, family leaving, being ex-communicated, all the different things. And how many people I have personally spoken to who have your experience of just having that change their relationship with the whole world and having it be something they struggled with for years. And I find it so sad because I think that we’ve taken something that can be really beautiful and again, I’ll probably get canceled for saying this but we’ve added these things because of compliance. These things that try to keep you from sin.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

That’s the goal. The goal is please don’t do these things because that will take you outside of what we believe. That’s ultimately the idea and instead of positive reinforcement it’s this terror that’s created in small children and it’s-

Rachel Quast:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. It’s a lot. It’s a lot.

Rachel Quast:

It was. It was a lot. And the fascinating thing is you don’t realize it. It’s like you’re sitting in this pool and going, “What’s wrong with me? I need to keep up. I’m the one lacking here.” Instead of, “Hey some of this teaching actually could not be correct.” And again we can’t question that as kids but when we get older and honestly thanks be to God I got out. Because a lot of people don’t from what I understand, as far as those type of fear-based, people stick in it and try to just fight their way through. So it did do… What keeps coming to my mind is this feeling of not being comfortable in my own skin. Because how can I if I’m never meeting the mark? And how can I if I am in this big, scary world and I’m not figuring out the plan? So it just fed that, do hard, do more, be enough and that is a huge driver of anxiety. Just huge.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. If you’re never enough and you’re always trying to be enough, you’re always missing the mark. If every day you’re a failure, even when you’re trying you don’t get credit for trying those types of things, yeah, it’s huge, huge amounts of anxiety and feelings of lacking self-worth. So that makes total sense. You said there was anger, emotional abuse in the home and then emotional incest. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

Rachel Quast:

Sure. Yeah. The anger part is really, now I understand it as because of the abuse my dad grew up in, he had zero tolerance for feelings. And that was because any feeling reminded him of his mom and dad beating one another. And I understand it now and have compassion on it. However, growing up in it it was this feeling of I honestly couldn’t even have my feelings. I couldn’t be angry. I couldn’t be sad. I couldn’t even laugh too loud because the excalation brought up feelings for him at certain times, not always. But there were certain times I remember him yelling because we were too loud and something was going on for him. So there was this thing inside of him that he didn’t know what to deal with and so when anything got stimulated it was us that was the problem. It was the yelling, it was the anger, it was the leaving, it was you’re doing this, you need to stop this, knock that off or just him escaping the scene. So there was, I always say, this unpredictable anger and the unpredictability of it is one of the things that made it so hard and was just a beautiful place for the eating disorder to sit in because guess how predictable that is.

Rachel Quast:

I can control it and I say eat or don’t eat and when and I can kind of ignore the chaos of the gymnastic circus on the side. Yeah. So there was definitely that piece. And then as far as the emotional incest, that is like an adult using a child for their emotional needs. So that is one thing that did happen is I was sort of his counselor. I was his cheerleader. When someone else, mom or my sister, were upset he always came to me to console because, guess what, I’m the empathic sensitive one and guess who’s going to make him feel better, I am. It was my nature. It’s still how I am but it got unknowingly by him but I got used as a kid to be that person to make sure he felt okay and he felt good about himself. And if there was trouble with mom, well, then I would sit and listen to that.

Rachel Quast:

So that’s the concept of emotional incest as well. When he wanted a hug, he would hug me even if I didn’t want it. I just accepted it and just felt like the dead fish in there like [inaudible 00:17:27]. I energetically could just tell he’s hugging me because he needs it not because he loves me right now. And so those things, again, especially for a sensitive kid, we feel that. We start absorbing those things and then our worst becomes what we do for other people and we lose our own identity.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. You talk about the control factor, the eating disorder, the control of the eating did for you. When did that start? It sounded like it started pretty young.

Rachel Quast:

Oh my God very young. Yeah. The patterns of it started when I was eight. So I was already writing diet books. I started isolating a little bit already because… So I spend my alone time I would write exercise plans and eating plans. But it wasn’t anything that I forced myself to live by by this point. But then I also did… This just fascinates me looking at it as if it wasn’t me. I would put up charts on the wall like I wouldn’t disobey my parents, I wouldn’t lie, I would do my homework and every day I would go make a check mark on the list. And if I didn’t get more than three check marks I would allow myself to watch TV, which an eight year old doesn’t do. They just live or they should be living and playing. But I was doing a lot of this self-monitoring.

Rachel Quast:

If we look back on what I already talked about, it’s this feeling of, man, I got to get my shit together. I got to keep it straight and then maybe I’ll get a gold star. Maybe then I won’t feel so afraid or maybe I’ll get this affirmation from my parents I’m begging for all the time. And so I was going to try to make it happen myself since the environment, home or church wasn’t giving it to me.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. Yeah. I admire talking about smart goals and just really taking it down and putting it on the wall. She’s eight years old. It took me a long time to learn how to do that. And did your parents know that you were upstairs making charts and checking the list of what you’d done and giving yourself gold stars or punishments?

Rachel Quast:

They didn’t about the diet book because I kept that hidden but the chart on the wall, it was on my bedroom wall so they obviously saw it. And I don’t remember them saying anything. As an adult that breaks my heart. If I saw my little girl do that I’d be like, “Honey, what is going on?” And there was almost nothing, no response to it. And so for me that was, well, obviously I’m not doing enough. So try harder and I remember even counting the number of days I would go without candy, again, as an eight year old. And I made 89 days and that’s the day I got a little smidgen of good for you. My mom was washing dishes and I tapped her to get her attention and I said, “Mom, I went 89 days without any candy.” And she turned and she’s like, “Good for you.” And then turned back and washed dishes.

Rachel Quast:

And I remember that heart sink of, “That’s it?” And so there was this, you got to do more. So that was a lot of foundation where it started. And had it been caught at that point, I’m positive it would not have turned it into an eating disorder but it was ignored and so it just kept going.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Maybe they thought you were just really into clean living. I’ll tell you, I have two little kids, two twin boys and if they put up a behavior chart for themselves I’d take them to the emergency room and call a priest for an exorcist. That would be beyond anything. I can’t even picture a young kid at eight doing something like that. So it is really interesting and telling about what you were thinking about what your goals were, what your perception was, what you were looking for and where you were headed. That’s [crosstalk 00:21:42]. So walk us through from this point through the eating disorder to your first treatment.

Rachel Quast:

Sure. So then the next age I remember being more prominent was 11. So I was in sixth grade and that’s when the disorder really took hold. I started making even yet more rules but this time I lived by them. So there was no sugar, no fat. I was eating literally plain disgusting plain yogurt, no sweetener with whole bland in it and that was my lunch. So it was very bland kind of a diet. But I was thriving off of these rules. It was this… And I hear a lot, the same clients just even yesterday someone saying it’s that same, I want to feel good enough. And this thing, these rules that I set up when I hit them it’s like the Pavlov’s dog bell like, “Good job. I did it.” And so I set up these expectations and instead of… I stopped looking for it from the outside.

Rachel Quast:

I made a rule literally at eight, a vow to myself of I’m done with these people and I will now do it myself. And so then it was, okay, here’s my rules. And then I will tell myself good job. And so then I kept going because it was giving me this feeling of being alive again and getting attention from myself. Even proceeded attention from others of things I could do that 11 year olds couldn’t do. Like what 11 year old cannot eat sugar? Wow! That’s amazing. And I would get it from strangers and people all over. So I loved it.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. It’s pretty significant that an 11 year old would be thinking about those things. Were you involved in any sports or any activities where that might have been part of the topic of conversation like what are you eating?

Rachel Quast:

A little bit. There was, I can’t remember the name of it now but the presidential fitness tests. I’m in that era. So I really-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I do remember that.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. And so I hooked onto that very much so. But it wasn’t that they talked about food a lot. My home environment actually, my mom was a sugar-free, only honey. So I picked it up from her like this is what’s valued. And so I grabbed onto the value hoping to get that. But it just isn’t enough. So it kept going and going and so I got to the point instead of eating bland food I just was restricting calories down to even a tiny amount. And just from what I know, I don’t want to give any numbers because I know that can trigger people of I want to do what she did. So I’ll just say it was an extremely low number and I was working out three hours a day with a very limited amount of [inaudible 00:24:38]. Escalated to this point, obviously, because what I was trying to get it wasn’t fixing because, well, let’s just be honest [inaudible 00:24:47] can’t fix the broken soul. It can’t. And so we feel like-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

[crosstalk 00:24:51]

Rachel Quast:

Yeah, I know. Dang! If anything, I gave it my all and tried.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. You really did. I give you a gold star. I’m thinking over here because I’m on the other end of this, a compulsive overeater and so I’m laughing and I’ve been diagnosed, I don’t know if this is real, but I was diagnosed as a teenager with oppositional defiance disorder. So I have the exact opposite reaction to rules and anything… When you’re talking about… I feel like rules give me… I am the complete… Just exactly mirror. And it’s just funny [inaudible 00:25:32]. I understand what you’re saying but it’s the other half of the eating disorder, right? Just the other response. You can’t control me. I won’t be controlled. I don’t need to have the rules but it’s the same thing, right?

Rachel Quast:

Absolutely.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

And I used to wish that I had the eating disorders that wanted the rules, that wanted the restriction, that was into that. I would go to meetings and say, “Look at them, they’re so disciplined. Why can’t I… They’re so…” And they would say to me, “Ashley, it’s a prison. It’s a discipline prison.” And I couldn’t understand because I couldn’t follow those things for myself.

Rachel Quast:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Well, eventually I did get there. I did get to the hating rules and fly the opposite so [crosstalk 00:26:19]-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You did. Okay. So you flew the other direction.

Rachel Quast:

It was part of my recovery. Yeah. Once I got into recovery I was like, “Yeah, this stuff is ridiculous.” But yeah, I do want to comment though for anyone listening that it is hell. I’ve heard those comments. I’ve even heard coworkers say I wish I had that and I’m like, “You don’t.” It is literally hell on earth. It literally is of this constant negative critical voice that’s never ever satisfied.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. What we see as the ability to make a plan and stick to it as discipline is a whole other world. That’s the small amounts that the rest of the world are seeing. But what’s going on in your head that’s a whole other ball game. And I think people like me are going, “I just want the discipline piece.” Just to be able to follow through and make the plan and that kind of thing. And it took me a while. Someone once said to me, going to [OAA 00:27:19] and I would say the same thing and just sometimes I’m like, “Why didn’t I get the the sexy disease. Overeating, really?” And she said maybe God knew that you weren’t strong enough for your recovery to be gaining weight.

Rachel Quast:

Wow! That’s powerful.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

And I was like, “Wow! Yeah that’s…” Because I never thought of it as it related to recovery, when you get into recovery from either thing, when you get into recovery from undereating, you’re gaining weight. And when you get into recovery from overeating, you’re losing weight, which is not an upsetting thing.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. It’s terrifying to go through that process.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. Because really I’d never thought of it that way, ever, ever, ever. You went to your first treatment, you landed at age 14 at 54 pounds.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. I was 14 at that time. Just being thankful for God’s grace that I did feel the physical ramifications. Otherwise because of my strong will I don’t know if I would’ve bent. My legs were physically collapsing. My energy was at null. For years people told me you’re going to die I’m like, “Yeah, whatever. I don’t think so.” And then my heart started beating really weird and it would be fast and then it would squeeze. And then those were things that actually terrified me enough to when my parents brought me into inpatient treatment I didn’t bucket. Otherwise I could have seen me go into treatment and be like, “Yeah, I’ll show you. I’m still not going to.” So I’m just really… That I feel like was just God’s goodness to let me experience the heart of the ramifications.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

How tall were you at the time or are you?

Rachel Quast:

I’m 5’1.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You’re 5’1. Okay. And so at 54 pounds that was very clear to your parents, that must’ve been very clear to your parents that there was a problem because it sounds like it was clear to other people saying you’re going to die.

Rachel Quast:

Yes. Yeah. In the time they did put me in outpatient and it was working and then some, I say it sarcastically, brilliant man… I was at the gym. I was already a gym rat by 11. So some guy said it looks like you’re putting on weight and after that I was like I could feel the inside of this is now my game and I will win. So I didn’t see it as, like a lot of people think people get into eating disorders because they just want to look thin. No, that is a rarity. When I actually work with people I don’t think I’ve ever found anyone saying that’s the only reason when we get down to it. For me it was, you just told me I lost control. You just told me that my identity is now being lost. For me it was, you just told me I lost control. You just told me that my identity is now being lost. You just told me that I now look weak. You told me that I’m not special anymore.

Rachel Quast:

So it always goes down to those wounds of… And this is how I love to work with people. Where was the wound? Where was that core belief? And what pattern did you do and are you doing to try to meet it instead of actually meeting the need of its own or going through and doing the trauma work before that? But obviously at that time I had zero recovery and I didn’t know. I just knew that I wanted to feel… I didn’t want to feel how I felt. I didn’t want shame anymore. I didn’t want it. I wanted it off and that’s all I knew how to do because I wasn’t taught anything else.

Rachel Quast:

So I just went in high gear and it literally just… It was to the point where I was like, “I want to die. You know what? I’m done.” Not because I didn’t want to live. It was because it was more directed toward my parents of, I don’t know how to get through to you people. I am trying to say in so many different ways I’m literally starving in front of your eyes and you still can’t figure out how to parent me or to love me. And so in my heart it was, I’ll never forget the thought, I want to die so that you suffer the way I’m suffering because I’m tired of carrying the load. Because that’s how I felt. I’m carrying the load of all this that you can’t figure out. So that’s where I was going into treatment is I want to die.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. It sounds… I was reflecting on 14 trying to remember, okay, how tall was I, what size, trying to picture what you’re talking about and I realized that I have very big four-year olds, but my four-year-old is 54 pounds.

Rachel Quast:

Wow.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

He’s a large kid. He’s more like a size of a seven year old. But still you were 14 years old. And then also I’ve worked with families where parents whose child is starving themselves and they’re terrified. They don’t know what to do. They’re trying to force them to eat. They don’t know what they did wrong. And you tell me what you think about this, what I find is whatever that wound was that you’re talking about, whatever that thing that happened that turned the switch, the amount of love that you start to impress upon the person when you’re scared that they’re going to die it doesn’t absorb anymore because they’re closed off.

Rachel Quast:

Yes.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Unfortunately and I felt this way with drugs and alcohol but what I’ve seen is at the point where the parents start to notice what’s going on as a result of the behavior, not the wound but the behavior, there’s already a wall up. And so parents they’re trying to love you. They’re trying to… And the things that they’re giving you had they given you before the behavior, you probably would have been able to absorb it but unfortunately after the fact it’s, I don’t want to say lost cause but it definitely doesn’t penetrate very well. And so parents are going, “I don’t know what to do.” Because you were saying they couldn’t figure out how to love me. They couldn’t figure out how to show me that I’m important. And what I was thinking to myself was I’ve worked with these parents who are saying, I’m showing her that I love her. I’m showing her that she’s important. I’m showing her…

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

And I don’t say this but I’m thinking, unfortunately you’re showing her too late. That’s not where we are right now. Trying to show her that, I’m not saying that there’s a negative effect of showing her but it doesn’t fill up the hole that was created before. It doesn’t undo it.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. Yeah. I see similar things too of there’s a certain stage where the person is receptive and then once the addiction takes over and is now the most important voice then your voice doesn’t matter anymore. So it’s saying the similar thing.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yes. Much better way of saying it.

Rachel Quast:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Much better way of saying it. Right. Once the addiction is there and has filled the void, that wall is up. And unfortunately we can’t hear all the things we wanted to hear from you in the first… I think that’s the saddest part watching it from the other side, watching parents from the other side is all the things that they wanted to hear they’re being told now and they can’t hear it now. It’s that-

Rachel Quast:

But the hope is though and what I say is the open door is going back and letting the wound speak from the age of which it got hurt. There’s the open door. So it’s never a hopeless cause but the voice of the little one has to be heard and it’s authenticity of that age. So oftentimes what we do is, so say for me that wound was at 6, 7, 8. So now my 6, 7, 8 year old needs to do the talking, not my 40 year old. Because we logicize it all. So for parents go in and let them scream about how it hurt and to let them tell you how it really sucked you didn’t even see it and they have to do that work. They have to and they have to be allowed. Then the love can come in and be heard.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yes. Yeah. It’s interesting having done that, you’re describing inner child work and having done that inner child work, it’s a whole process because you have to step back into that childhood place. That can be very difficult and painful and scary and then you feel those feelings. You express them however therapeutically makes sense. And I found that I had a period of time where I needed space from my family, my parents, I needed not to talk to them for not that long, but a short period of time before I could go back to the age mentality, brain place that I was. Because the act of really, really getting into that childhood place in order for me to feel that way I couldn’t just drop in and drop out in a session.

Rachel Quast:

Right.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I was angry. I had to feel the anger. I was hurt. And I had to feel it for longer than I intended, I guess. And once that… For me it was like that five to 10 year old could, once I was able to express that I had to transition. There was a transition period back to the logical adult self. And that I didn’t expect because it wasn’t my experience with other types of therapy I did.

Rachel Quast:

Sure. Sure.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So it was that powerful, I guess.

Rachel Quast:

Yes. It is. It’s a beautiful process. It’s fun to do. I still work on myself. Even though I’m a counselor, I still do my own work because I just love to. And I have things to work on until I die I am sure. Yeah. I totally would agree with that. Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Stay tuned to hear more in just a moment.

Christiana:

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Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So just to run through some of this stuff I want to touch on a couple of points but for timeline purposes, you went to treatment at 14 and you did okay for a year but then relapsed into bulimia and then transferred your addiction food control to exercise. I think we talked about that a little bit. And then from 15 to 18 you’re binging and purging.

Rachel Quast:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Age 18 to 20 you decided to stop purging and your exercise addiction was completely out of control. At 21 you transferred to a secular college so 18 to… So the first college you went to was associated with the church you grew up in.

Rachel Quast:

Yes.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Did that affect your eating disorder, where you were in your eating disorder did it increase it at all? Did you notice a difference being back in that environment or had you never really left?

Rachel Quast:

The way I see it is, it was just peeling the onion layers because even though I did go through these different relapses into bulimia and binge eating and exercise addiction I still was doing counseling. I still was working a program. I still wanted recovery more than anything. It was just these things that hadn’t been labeled yet that I didn’t understand. And just to say, the exercise addiction was there all along. It was-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

[crosstalk 00:40:53] 11 years old at the gym.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. That was my beginning of… Because I got the most praise there, you know?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right.

Rachel Quast:

So that was not going to be licked for a while because that was my back pocket. I can still live and beat myself up in the gym.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Just want to drop a pin right here which is, what is the difference between the person doing the iron man, the person who does extreme sports or the person who competes in some physical way where they are working out eight hours a day and the person who has an exercise addiction? Where’s the line?

Rachel Quast:

Good question. Yeah. It’s little inner things to ask yourself. Can I take breaks? If I have an injury, can I take time off and let it heal? Or am I just chomping at the bit or working out with the injury? Is it tied into self-worth? If I go on vacation, can I take time off? It’s listening to that. There’s this little inner buzz intensity that is speaking when it’s addiction related versus it’s a goal, I love the goal. It’s fun competition and then I take time off. So people doing those competitions I’m going to bet there’s a good bleed of those doing it and are balanced and those that are addicted. So hopefully that helps. But I know for me that I was working out through the flu, I would go throw up from the flu and go back and finish my sets. I had severe back injury and guess who was back in the gym five days later.

Rachel Quast:

It didn’t matter to me because my worst was dependent. And so that’s the look of an addiction is I’m not enough without this. Or I am not complete without this. Or I hear people say I get too anxious without this. I’m like, “Well, then we need to look at what it’s doing and feeding.” The other components would be the amount of times per week. Can you take days off? The amount of time. If you’re upwards in two, three hours, I understand iron man that’s a little bit different but in general that’s starting borderline addiction up in the two hours. So those are just some things that come to mind with that.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

My brain because I’m looking for all the exceptions. So I’m like, “I know an exception here and I know exception here.” And I think one thing you said, you said that you worked out through the flu, worked out through a back injury, I guess that sparks for me because I had a backbone [inaudible 00:43:41]. I couldn’t walk. How do you work out through a back… It’s unimaginable to me. I think [inaudible 00:43:49] know a lot of people who use exercise as a way to help their mental health. Though I can see people being… I know it helps my anxiety and depression significantly but there’s that… It’s like with anything where there’s something different.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I was talking to a girlfriend of mine and I was saying how I can see in a group of people who are all doing the same type of drinking and partying and three people could be doing cocaine and I can see the one where it’s different. There’s something about it. They’re all doing the same behavior, they’re all doing illicit drugs, they’re all… Whatever. I don’t know, there’s just… And I couldn’t… I’m sure you’re like this and you could probably walk into a gym and see this. There’s some difference that I can see about how they’re doing all of it that just makes me know that the voice, the itty bitty shitty committee in the head is just on blast.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. There’s this anxious intensity with it versus just doing it.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

We’re doing it. Yeah.

Rachel Quast:

Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That is true. I can spot.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I bet. I bet. I’d love to go to the gym with you and just be like, “Tell me everything.” Tell me everything. Yeah, exactly. Sherlock Holmes of the gym.

Rachel Quast:

Hi, here’s a card.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. I have literally wanted to do that to people at times and I stop myself but I’m like, “Oh God.” So you go to the college of the same church I’m assuming since it was a relatively small community that this was a relatively small university that you attended. What made you transfer out?

Rachel Quast:

At the time there was a church split and I didn’t know what to do with that. So I had some fear around that and what ends. And so then that made me leave to go… I felt led to leave and go somewhere else and I was grateful for that. But go ahead.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You were in the church this whole time though, is that…

Rachel Quast:

I was in a church till I was 39-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

[crosstalk 00:46:14]. Okay. So in my head we had left the church. Okay you’re [crosstalk 00:46:18]. Okay. So you’re still in the church this whole time.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. I left at 39. So I have only been out for eight years. Yeah. So it’s the way I say it and I don’t mean to step on toes of anyone in that church but 39 years of that programming it takes a lot to undo. So I had years where I just couldn’t read the Bible and certain sermons I’d be like [inaudible 00:46:49] I’d be thrown into panic attacks and it was tough. For a good two, three years it was brutal. Just brutal.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

After?

Rachel Quast:

After leaving. Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

After leaving [crosstalk 00:47:01].

Rachel Quast:

Because I wasn’t doing certain things and the voice would come back. I was like bad things are going to happen and God’s not going to help you because you’re not doing this. And I was just like [inaudible 00:47:11]. When I say my anxiety was linked, it was linked hard. But then the freedom of breaking out of that and eventually working through, I cannot say enough gratitude to where I am now and the relationship I have with God now and knowing that he’s so loving and he’s not there ready to punish. He’s just like, “How can I help? How can I pick you up?” This is about relationship. This isn’t about my rule stick. And I am so thankful. I’m so thankful when God shows me more and more of his love. It undoes me [inaudible 00:47:51].

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

It’s pretty cool that you were able to revamp, if you will, that relationship, redo the relationship because I think a lot of people there it’s black and white. It’s okay, I’m leaving. Throwing the baby out with the bath water, leaving it all behind. So it’s pretty cool that you were able to take things that worked for you and make them into something that’s really meaningful and powerful for you. So thank God that that happened.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. Me too because I can’t imagine living this life without him. I just can’t. I feel like God grabbed me early and there were some very personal, intimate experiences I had. And I think that’s what helped me is because I knew I had that with God and I, not through the church. So walking through the eating disorder and having to literally and I’m not joking or exaggerating, having to pray every single meal of God help me eat this, I don’t want to eat this. Getting in an argument with one of my parents and everything in me wanting to go fuck you through not eating it because I knew it would hurt them. And praying and just being like, “Yeah, this is my recovery. God, this is not in me. I know you can give me what I don’t have right now.” And that is where I built that intimacy with God, thankfully. So that I still through all the hell of that clung to him on the way out of the church, if that makes sense.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. My version of that is I will not eat at you.

Rachel Quast:

Wow!

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I will not eat at you. I want to eat at you but I will not eat at you.

Rachel Quast:

I have chills with that. That’s just beautiful phrase. I love that. Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So you married someone in the church. Was there any point from 14 when you went into treatment through these different binging, purging, exercise addiction, were you continuing to work on your recovery or were you out of recovery? What was the status, so to speak of your recovery up until then?

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. I definitely continued. Once I left treatment I did a lot of counseling. I had three to four hours a week of dietician group, individual and family counseling for three years.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

That’s serious. Good job.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. I wanted out of it so bad. Yeah, I was like this [crosstalk 00:50:30]-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You were like, “Yeah, great. Can we end this now?”

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. Yeah. I was done with it. Yeah. So I did have that year of abstinence but then it returned into bulimia because it’s this figuring out how to eat again. My plan was don’t and so-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

[crosstalk 00:50:47] this is the next phase of okay. [crosstalk 00:50:51] makes sense to me like you have to iterate on this.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. And just so you know since you have experience with the drug and alcohol piece, we in the eating disorder world are jealous of your abstinence plan because it’s nothing. Your plan is don’t do it and ours is you have to live, here, good luck. How do you do that three to six times a day and do it in a balanced way?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

But it’s different. What I found was that it’s different for people who have… Who restrict anorexia bulimia typically. There’s some similarities with bulimia but anorexia… So for me, I have to eat three times a day but I don’t have to eat alcoholic foods three times a day. So I don’t have to drink alcohol but I do have to drink. I do have to drink water and other fluids. So I do have to eat but I don’t need to eat alcoholic foods. Anorexia, I think is a bit of a different thing because it’s, no, no, you have to eat. [inaudible 00:52:00] any food at all, whatsoever. Whereas a binge food or a triggering food we can eliminate those. And that was what I had to tell myself because a lot of the time I would say to myself, well, it’s not fair because I have to interact with my addiction three times a day.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

In my head I do a lot of, it’s not fair, that’s not fair. You don’t understand [inaudible 00:52:24]. I don’t want to deal with this. And what was helpful for me as it relates to trigger foods, binge foods, that kind of thing was, no, I don’t have to interact with my addiction three times a day. I just have to eliminate the things. So it comes back to that. And I think anorexia is that, that’s the real, you have to interact with your addiction three times a day.

Rachel Quast:

But same for bulimia though because that’s the same exact thing is any food can be triggering for someone experiencing bulimia.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Got it. Okay.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. So it’s that you’re eating and now I just don’t want to stop because something subconscious is going on that they haven’t yet identified and it’s this way to [inaudible 00:53:12] or not deal with the shame or the trauma that they keep trying to keep at bay. So it’s very similar for bulimia, absolutely. And I still would say there’s a lot of struggle for binge-eating as well or emotional eating because even though you just don’t have to not eat that food, it’s still very accessible. No one’s going to pull you over for having doughnuts. Ma’am you got six doughnuts in your car, we’re taking [crosstalk 00:53:41].

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh God I wish they would. Totally. That piece of it is so different but I gave myself a lot of outs because I gave myself a lot of excuses like, “It’s not fair. This is so much harder.” I really put my… And it was that thing, maybe you’re not strong enough for your recovery to have to be to gain weight or whatever. It was one of those things where it’s, well, you still have to drink, you just don’t have to drink alcohol. You still have to eat, you just don’t have to eat these foods. But yeah, accessibility, it’s a whole… I mean, it’s part of… Food is… It’s a whole other beast.

Rachel Quast:

It is.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

It really is. It’s terrifying.

Rachel Quast:

And gives you all the lovely dopamine and serotonin releases just as drugs and I don’t think a lot of people realize that. It’s not that you just really like food. You actually are getting the chemicals that you may not be producing enough of.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Totally. Totally. So you ended up marrying someone in the church. Did that affect your eating disorder recovery or addiction?

Rachel Quast:

No. It was short-lived because it became emotionally abusive literally two hours after the ceremony. So it affected my stress. I still was eating probably not as much but not because I was restricting. It’s just my stomach was just so upset. Yeah. So that did not, no.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So you were good before the… So you guys when you were dating it was fine and then two hours after the ceremony he’s a new person.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. I saw different little bits of anger but it was never at me and it wasn’t a lot. But two hours after, yeah, that’s when I started to get yelled at literally like, “Stop you’re [inaudible 00:55:42] around. You’re taking pictures too slow.” And I was like, “Okay. What just happened?” And then I was being yelled at for talking to a relative because I should be getting food. And there were threats at the reception table of, I should just leave before I say something I regret. And I’m like, “What the heck happened?” Then I was, again, living in terror of if he can do this here in front of everybody, what’s going to happen when we’re home alone?

Rachel Quast:

So it was just a lot of tear from the get-go and the honeymoon was the same, lots of yelling and fighting. And I literally called my dad and said can you pull the papers, I can’t do this. Well, I was married within that church and my dad was like, “I can’t do that.” And I called the minister and asked the same. And I don’t even know if I… It was just disgraceful what he said. It was completely disgraceful. For me to be able to tell him of all of the pain and all that’s going on and ask me one question and say based on that, no, you can’t. I have no words for that. I have no words.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Are you able to tell us what the question was?

Rachel Quast:

Did you have sex? And based on the fact that we had sex it was not able to be nullified. I’m still dumbfounded at that. It breaks my heart, just breaks my heart because it was nine months of pure hell.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You stayed?

Rachel Quast:

Yeah because I was terrified of divorce. I did everything in my power that I knew to do to stay in it because I kept saying to myself I do not want that on my head. I do not want that to be my choice. I will fight because I know that’s what I’m expected of but it was really just heartbreaking.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

How did you get out after nine months?

Rachel Quast:

God answered my prayer. I begged him and begged him to go to counseling and I tried and I went to the minister and that was hopeless. And I kept asking, going this is what I know to do. This isn’t the only thing I know that can fix this. Anyway, in the meantime, I kept praying. I kept saying, God, please make him change or make him leave because I can’t deal with this. And one day he up and left. It was because I told him he couldn’t drive my car anymore because of the way he road raged with it and that was enough to break him and so he left. Nine months to the day, which I cannot tell you how grateful I was because I literally dropped to the floor sobbing when he walked out the door. It was sobbing of honest relief of it wasn’t on my head and it’s over. I don’t have to suffer through this.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. And it sounds like, and forgive me for my corny metaphor but nine months you burst a new person after that.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. I love it. I don’t think that’s corny. I love those things. And actually if you want to go numbers corny, the day he walked out was nine months exactly to the day we got married and I love number so I looked up numbers and in the Bible nine means time of testing is over. And so I felt like God said you’re released from this. Yeah. There was another just gut-wrenching [inaudible 00:59:11] walkthrough because here I thought that he was the answer because we had to marry in the church and that was the only plausible person. And by that time I was 38. So I was like, “Oh my God, it’s either this guy or be single forever.” And so that’s what those kinds of rules do to people. You pick people that aren’t yours. So then I went through that and I saw how the church dealt with it, that I was in and I kept seeing people turn against me. I saw people that used to be my friends not talk to me. I saw people say, “Yeah, yeah, we’ll get together.” And not come through.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Because you got left by your husband.

Rachel Quast:

Because we were getting divorced.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. But he left you.

Rachel Quast:

That’s-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

That’s not relevant. Okay.

Rachel Quast:

Not relevant. Not when whose story do you believe is [crosstalk 01:00:06]-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. Okay. Okay.Got it.

Rachel Quast:

So I saw all of those things and at this point I was starting to have a major faith crisis because I thought this guy was from God and [inaudible 01:00:20]. So I went to the minister and I said I really need to talk to you because I literally said I’m having a faith crisis. Well, at this time I had my severe back injury and he said, “When your back gets better, we’ll talk.” I was floored. Absolutely. Like I just went to you in pain and now I have to wait how many months because who knows how long it’s going to take for my back to get better. I can barely walk.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

What do those two things do have to do with each?

Rachel Quast:

Nothing. And that’s when I saw-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay. Just making sure [crosstalk 01:00:56] missing something.

Rachel Quast:

You aren’t missing anything. Thank you.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

[crosstalk 01:00:59] I was like…

Rachel Quast:

Thank you. That was my response. Dumb founded.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Is there a link to God and back pain because if there is I need to know?

Rachel Quast:

Right. Right. A lot of us would. No in my estimation, it was a way to put me off and not deal with the issue. And so those things kept weighing on me and I literally feel like the spirit said to me, the scripture of like, you will know them for the love they have for one another. And I literally went, when I heard that in my head, I was like, “This isn’t it, this isn’t the place.” And it started to free me from the, this is the true church because I would see different fruits from their behavior and I didn’t see it. And so that was the catalyst of me leaving, was the divorce.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

How did your parents take that?

Rachel Quast:

Which, the divorce or leaving the church?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Good question. Let’s go leaving church.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah, the divorce they supported because they knew what I was living through. So they were like, “We support you get out.” Thankfully.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Good.

Rachel Quast:

Leaving the church. Wow. I had to set some really strong boundaries for two years because there were things getting thrown in that just kept triggering me and they did come to. They did eventually get the point of, that’s not my home and bless you if it’s yours, I don’t want to be in the place of judgment of anybody. And if it works for others, great, I can’t. Different places work for different people and I just know it was not my place that God had for me.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. Yeah. So and how did all of this… You actually wrote a book that has, that relates to the nine you created, using that number nine.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

A book where there are nine steps for eating disorder recovery. What did your eating disorder recovery look like in this period of time after the divorce, after leaving the church?

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. My recovery was a lot of leaning on other people. I had some really good solid friends that were in my corner through all of this. So it was setting up time with others literally of like let’s split 30 minutes. And they would get time but I also needed that time to… Being that with a friend it was this ability to discharge all the gunk. I didn’t have to package it and I didn’t have to just, “Oh it was so hard.” I could scream how hard it was. I could just go on the floor and sob with them. I needed that because I’m a very emotional, I feel a lot of things in my body person. And so that process had to… Worked a grand for me. God was a huge piece going back to counseling, huge in stabilizing me and I’m not crazy here. I’m doing the right thing.

Rachel Quast:

Those rules were not okay. Those rules are not what God is asking you to do. It was a lot of undoing. That was a big piece as well of stabilizing me, lots of journaling, lots of boundaries. Wow. Just what was not okay behavior, people that were not okay for me. Cutting connections with old church people, which I’ll say even to this day there’s one that still keeps somehow trying to contact me to this day. And I may need to set some boundaries there as well because for me I just don’t want any connection because I know the thought process that goes on of I’m the one that strayed. I’ve heard it, I’ve heard the rhetoric all the years I was there of people that go and what’s said about them. And so for me boundaries with that is super important.

Rachel Quast:

Doing a lot of trauma work is huge for me, just getting to the bottom of what trauma is and how it landed in my body. Doing some somatic energy release work has been another big piece. And I would say also just using my voice, like my voice matters and I get to say it I still… With my upbringing, my voice, not mattering and not being heard or being fought against, it’s still a struggle. I’ll be honest at my age I still have to say things shaking in my boots to people that I’m scared of.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. But you do it anyway, that’s how you recover.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah [crosstalk 01:05:34] just to say it because it’s hard, it’s hard. People think it’s easy because of the work I do but shoot that doesn’t mean that I don’t have my own things to work through. Like I’m human. I love helping other people. It’s my… I love it. It’s God blessed me with it but it doesn’t mean that I still don’t have my own traumas that bite at me and that I need to do the same work they’re doing.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Absolutely.

Rachel Quast:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

When you talk about boundaries, you’ve mentioned boundaries, just [inaudible 01:06:08] curiosity I think of boundaries get a bad rap because they… I think people sometimes use them I think incorrectly or use the term incorrectly, wondering how, what, some of the examples of boundaries for people who I think I’ve heard a lot of people in your situation, what kind of boundaries did you set that were very helpful? One you described was the church, people from the church but were there other things with people that related to religion that you needed to set a boundary? And what types of boundaries did you set that were super helpful?

Rachel Quast:

Are you saying strictly around religion or in general?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I guess I’m thinking after leaving the church, what types of boundaries someone might set when they leave a group of a group that is really valuable to them? Like what did it look like?

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s a great question. So unfortunately for me it was taking the people that were triggering. So like, unfortunately it was my parents even though they… They’re lovely people they just… We’ve been through hard stuff but they’re beautiful people but I had to [inaudible 01:07:29]. I barely talked to them for two years only because I knew topics that would get dropped in, you know?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right.

Rachel Quast:

Hey I’m telling you about a new bicycle I bought in somehow a scripture is read to me and I’m like, “Yeah, I was just telling you about my bike.” So okay. So I just knew with that happening over and over, right now I need to heal. So right now it’s going to be very brief infrequent conversations with them. It looked like God, certain sermons I knew of people like not to listen to.

Rachel Quast:

I went to people that spoke a lot about God’s love because that’s what I needed. I stopped reading the Bible. That was a boundary for me because everything was triggering. So why am I going to throw myself in the fire right?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right.

Rachel Quast:

Like it’s supposed to be helpful not… So I needed a break. So it was just taking a break from those type of things that kept pushing the fear button so I could heal. And then guess what? I’m back to the Bible. Like I’m back to things I can do now that I couldn’t before. But if we don’t let the wound heal where, people think, I hear this so much like, “I should be strong enough to tolerate that.” Uh-uh (negative). I’m like, no, no, no, no. It’s not strength. It’s living. It’s trauma looping in your nervous system. Like that’s zero to do with strength. It’s just simply physiological stuff we got to heal, emotional stuff.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

It’s actually a lot like an actual wound, right? Our skin is our greatest protector between our internal organs and the rest of the world. And when we have a wound, if we have a large wound, whatever, we don’t expect that open wound to be strong enough to handle X, Y, Z. We know that it’s in a weakened state, it needs to heal at which point the scar tissue will be strong enough to handle X, Y, Z right?

Rachel Quast:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So if we think about it in terms of, our physical being, our skin and how we affect… How we treat wounds, we actually treat wounds with… As delicate and things that need time to heal. And they need different environments and maybe even different selves or medicate. Whatever it is we actually give them a lot of attention and then when they heal we go back to being able to withstand.

Rachel Quast:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). It’s exactly like that. Yeah. I think we’re getting there as a society, where we are giving more credence to emotional health and trauma to… As we do physical just because we can’t see it but we’re learning to validate that pain which I think is just beautiful. Which is a lot of what we need is that validation of, you’re not crazy. What you went through really was that bad.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. Right.

Rachel Quast:

It really did hurt like that and your feelings matter. It’s yeah someone may have had it worse but you’re drowning and so are they, does it matter how deep the water is you’re driving?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right.

Rachel Quast:

No, it doesn’t. You’re drowning.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

No. You’re both drowning. Yes that’s so true. You wrote this book with nine steps for eating disorder recovery. What are the nine steps? Or how did you come up with the nine steps?

Rachel Quast:

Sure. I came up with the nine steps and I mean no harm to the 12 step. And I really do not want to step on toes but I just knew in my early recovery it didn’t work for me because-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You’re a three hater.

Rachel Quast:

What’s that mean? [inaudible 01:11:03].

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

No, I’m saying the three steps you… The left off instead of the 12, the nine. I’m just [crosstalk 01:11:09].

Rachel Quast:

Sure. Sure. Sure. That’s funny. I got it now. It takes me a bit. So, well, my upbringing was so strict and my church was so strict and now you’re going to put me on 12 steps I have to do. I was like, everything in me was like, no, no, no, no more, no more [inaudible 01:11:28].

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

But what about nine steps? How is nine steps different?

Rachel Quast:

Good question. Yeah. So it wasn’t that I was eliminating steps I was trying to make it more specific to the eating disorders. So I wanted the language to sound… Because I do believe it’s a little different, a substance addiction versus an eating disorder is a little different. So I wanted to take the concepts that I think are extremely valuable in 12 step but make them pertinent to the eating disorder. And what I say, the eating disorder has a voice. It’s a different entity and it speaks and I wanted to incorporate that in some of the demons that go along with it. And so that’s why I did, I just felt led to do it. So I did. I came up with the nine steps again that just spoke directly to it.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

And in the steps, if you could describe the steps to someone, would they be, are they process-oriented in terms of like do this, these three things? Pray about… Or are they think about this and think about that or?-

Rachel Quast:

Yeah, it’s a combination of like, some CBT cognitive behavioral stuff as far as thinking and then doing but there’s also I incorporate processing in there as well. Like the early core beliefs that I mentioned of X, Y, Z happened I made this decision and now I’m living out of this decision. It’s taking the emotional needs, control and independence esteem those safety, those different needs and how does the disorder function to meet those needs? And then it… So there’s some processing as well, because I feel like, forgive me for this black and white statement, I personally don’t believe a person can fully recover just doing [CBD 01:13:24]. I don’t, because what I’ve seen is people come into my office saying I went through a CBD program and I relapsed.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

[crosstalk 01:13:33].

Rachel Quast:

CBT. Yes, yes. Sorry-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay. Okay. It’s okay.

Rachel Quast:

And so it’s just a band-aid to the behavior. And so I did put processing in there on purpose so that people do go to early wounds and work on those to heal like what set it up. With inner child work as well, doing some of that, like interpretations of this is what the voice says and therefore what’s the need in that and what can I do different? And it’s just a grand mix of all of that.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I love it. I love it. Where can people find your book and your nine steps and more about the stuff that you’re doing to offer help with eating disorder recovery?

Rachel Quast:

Sure. The website would probably be the best on at www.nine, the number, and then S-H-E-D.com. So nineshed.com. Ironic how nine keeps coming up isn’t it? I just [crosstalk 01:14:32] that I’m like, “Hey.” Nine is the number of power. That is another reason why I picked nine because I’m like, it has many meanings that number. So on the website, nineshed.com there’s information there about counseling, about groups, both. And as well as the books and different resources there as well.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You offer group therapy weekly, do I get that right?

Rachel Quast:

Yes. Uh-huh (affirmative).

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Awesome. So that’s all, it’s all on the website.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. It’s all on the website. Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Awesome. Rachel, thank you so much for being here and sharing your recovery story. I really, really appreciate it. And I felt like related to a lot and also learned a lot.

Rachel Quast:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, it truly is just an honor and I mean that from the depths of my heart. This is a work that I feel like I was called to do in treatment. Like I literally heard God’s voice saying that you’re going to do that one day. And so at 14 I grabbed onto it and it literally makes my heart sing. Like I do not do this… I do this out of love, like purely out of love because I just want people well. I really just, I want people to have burdens lifted that’s… And people heal because life is so much better when we’re not carrying a lug of stuff around our necks right?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Absolutely. And life is for me really an amazing experience when I can use the things that I experienced, that in the moments of the pain and the depths of those pain, I’m going, “Why me, why, why, what have I done in my past present or future lives to deserve this pain?” And I think to myself, this is pointless, meaningless. And then it is the thing that moves someone’s recovery one direction or another. And you just look back and now when I go through really painful things or when I watch my husband or children, I think this is the thing that’s going to help someone later down the line go through that same thing. I have a very different perspective on it but helping people is really a beautiful part of what we’ve been able to do and I totally get it, makes your heart sing and it’s just such a cool experience.

Rachel Quast:

Yeah. I back that up a hundred percent. Yes there’s different health challenges that I went through experiencing cancer and such and trust me there was a lot of processing before I got to this can help others.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Totally.

Rachel Quast:

I wasn’t like, “Oh, this is wonderful I can now help people with [crosstalk 01:17:14].”

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

Rachel Quast:

Lots and lots of grieving and then God, how are you going to use this too? So I echo that and I love other hearts that are bent toward recovery and loving on people. They’re my people. They’re my be beautiful people that I love.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I Love it too. Well, I’m grateful for you and the work that you do and I really, really appreciate you being here. Thank you.

Rachel Quast:

Thank you. And you as well, like continued blessings on your podcast and your work.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Thank you. Thank you.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

This podcast is sponsored by lionrock.life. Lionrock.life is a recovery community offering free online support group meetings, useful recovery information and entertainment. Visit www.lionrock.life to view the meeting schedule and find additional resources. Find the joy in recovery at lionrock.life.