SLP 540: From Existing to Living : Millie Thomas’ Journey with Anorexia

In this powerful conversation, Kim Morrison sits down with Millie Thomas, an eating disorder recovery coach, to share Millie’s raw and deeply personal story of surviving and fully recovering from a 15 year battle with anorexia nervosa. Millie takes us back to her teenage years in Auckland, where perfectionism, control, and pressure became fertile ground for the illness. Despite academic achievement and outward success, she describes the inner torment, the escalating compulsions, and the heartbreaking moment at 27 when her doctor asked her to decide whether she wanted to live or die. A turning point came through unconventional but deeply human support including work with Silky, an NLP practitioner, who helped Millie reframe the disorder as a set of changeable behaviours and begin the courageous climb back to life. Kim and Millie explore the reality that eating disorders are biopsychosocial illnesses that infiltrate every corner of a person’s world and profoundly affect families too. Millie speaks candidly about the impact on her parents and brother, the role of hope, and why recovery requires compassion and boundaries. Together they unpack how the eating disorder “voice” distorts language and meaning, why “just eat” is not only unhelpful but misunderstands the terror response, and how the recovery journey can feel chaotic while actually being a reclaiming of control. Millie also shares how her lived experience fuelled her mission: moving to the Sunshine Coast, contributing to broader support pathways (including involvement in residential recovery approaches), and building her private practice HealED, supporting clients worldwide. The episode closes with practical insight for carers and loved ones, and introduces Millie’s Hope & Healing Affirmation Cards. A purpose built resource designed specifically to support eating disorder recovery with grounded, relevant language. About Millie: Millie Thomas is a Carolyn Costin Institute Certified Eating Disorder Recovery Coach and a Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner. She battled Anorexia Nervosa for 15 years and very nearly lost her life to the illness. She was given up on by her treatment team and told to consider palliative care options. Her miraculous recovery was a catalyst for a complete career change. She left her hometown of Auckland, New Zealand and moved to her ‘happy place’ – the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. Where she became determined to use her lived experience to help bring eating disorders out of the shadows and into the light. She dedicates her time to eating disorder advocacy and eating disorder recovery coaching. She helps clients around the world to gain freedom from their eating disorders and reclaim their lives. Millie has her private practice HealED and for several years she also worked with Sunshine Coast based charity endED where she was involved in numerous projects including the establishment of Australia’s first residential eating disorders facility ‘Wandi Nerida’. She believes that no matter how long or how hard someone’s journey with an eating disorder has been full recovery is always possible; she is living proof of that. Her definition of Self Love is: Self-love, for me, is giving myself grace while holding hope. Never giving up on myself and choosing to live, not just exist. Her favourite quote is from: Ralph Waldo Emerson- To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. Real success in life is being the kind of person who makes others feel safe enough to be themselves — exactly as they are. Links to follow: Millie Thomas HealED Founder Eating Disorder Recovery Coach Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner [phone] Website: www.healed.net.au Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/healedrecoverycoach Instagram: www.instagram.com/healedrecoverycoach Quotes: I had a beautiful childhood with a wonderful, beautiful, and loving family. Up until then I had no conception about my body other than what it allowed me to do. I had all personality characteristics that predisposed someone to anorexia. I still had all the thoughts, I had the same brain but different body. I felt I had to pretend that I was doing well. I was existing but not truly living. You might be weight restored but you actually need to be heart restored. Perfectionism can look like an asset, but at that point in my life it was a liability. It was toxic. The need to always do better, it is never enough. I looked happy in all the photos from Ibiza and France, but I was miserable. I was living with a demon in my head. My GP looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, ‘I need you to decide whether you want to live or you want to die because I need to know how to proceed with how we care for you. There was no peace, every single thing that I did I was punished or tortured for. The only way I could I see myself being at peace was being above the world looking down and up from a...