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[0:00] Ruthie Fierberg: I'm Ruthie Fierberg, and this is Why We Theater.

[0:05] Ruthie Fierberg: The podcast that digs into the on-stage works we love to make the off-stage change we need.

[0:12] Ruthie Fierberg: After all, that is Why We Theater.

[0:17] Ruthie Fierberg: Today we welcome playwright and actor Domenica Feraud alongside experts Johanna Kandel and Dr. Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodriguez to discuss Domenica's beautiful play, Rinse, Repeat.

[0:29] Ruthie Fierberg: The play premiered off-Broadway in 2019 at the Signature Theater Center.

[0:34] Ruthie Fierberg: The story centers on Rachel, a Latinx college student battling an eating disorder, and her family, including her white architect father Peter, her adopted Latino brother, Teenage Brody, and her Latina lawyer mother, Joan, who also struggles with a less easily identified eating disorder of her own.

[0:56] Ruthie Fierberg: The play begins when Rachel comes home for a trial weekend with her family after having spent months at an inpatient treatment center for her eating disorder.

[1:06] Ruthie Fierberg: This episode does contain a lot of talk around eating disorders, their triggers, and their treatment, but we do our best to be gentle about all of it.

[1:15] Ruthie Fierberg: For anyone who is sensitive to this content, I hope you will listen and take breaks when you need to and have a grounding plan in place.

[1:23] Ruthie Fierberg: And now, rinse repeat.

[1:30] Ruthie Fierberg: Domenica, I am so excited to have you here.

[1:34] Ruthie Fierberg: As you know, when I first read the play in 2019, it really just hit me like a ton of bricks in a good way.

[1:43] Ruthie Fierberg: It was a story that I hadn't seen before.

[1:47] Ruthie Fierberg: Um, certainly not on stage, and certainly, you know, I find it so telling that in the script you say that the stage directions are important because it so much is happening nonverbally here.

[2:02] Ruthie Fierberg: Um, when we spoke in 2019, you told me that you had always intended to be an actor and only an actor, but that in studying acting, you were going to all these shows constantly.

[2:13] Ruthie Fierberg: You never saw a show about eating disorders, and that when we do see stories about eating disorders in film or television, they're often, you know, a blip in a storyline, or they're criticized for being irresponsible because they're kind of glorifying eating disorders, or they're triggering people who have it, or they're just being kind of cliché.

[2:35] Ruthie Fierberg: Um, how did you go about writing a story both responsibly and authentically?

[2:44] Domenica Feraud: Firstly, thank you so much for saying that. Um, I really enjoyed getting to talk in 2019, and um I'm so glad that you were able to have that experience watching the play. Um, and that is a really great question. Um, the story of Rinse, Repeat is not what happened to me, but it did start that way. It did start off as my life and then it morphed. Um, and I definitely have very personal experience with eating disorders on several fronts, and I don't claim to be completely recovered. I'm not. I'm work it's something that's a part of my life, and I work on it every day to the best of my ability. Um, and something I have known to be true is that, and I think this is the case with many addictions. Unfortunately, um, in society, we don't really consider an eating disorder as an addiction.

A lot of people see it as a choice, which is really frustrating. Um, and I've come to understand, you know, an addiction is never actually the problem. It's often like we think it's a solution to whatever's going on. There's something deeper, there's a lot of deeper stuff happening that the addiction is masking. Um, and for me that was the experience of, you know, okay, this eating disorder on the surface seems to be like that's what's really going on. If you just fix the eating disorder, everything's fine. But just fixing it is it's a lot more complicated. Um, because there's all of these things that have come to a head and cause this problem to occur in the first place. Um, and I felt like, okay, if I'm gonna look at this responsibly, I can't just take a superficial look.

What I really wanted to show with this particular play was that there's this family has an illness and it's landing in the body of this girl, which is a very common experience. And there is a lot, I wanted to really explore all of the triggers that are going on, not just for Rachel, the person who we think is suffering, the only person suffering from the eating disorder, but also for her mother Joan, and how this is a cycle, because that's been at least my experience and one I've seen often. Um, there is a cyclical nature to this.

[5:01] Domenica Feraud: Um, and I think I've struggled with looking at, you know, there's talk of an eating disorder as it's anorexia, it's bulimia, um, it's binge eating disorder. And I think there's this like glorification a little bit about of like clean eating because eating disorders are something that we profit off of as a society. I mean, I have thought a lot about why don't we want to talk about this? And it's like, well, how much money is made off the diet industry? Because it is the most successful failed industry in the world, and how much money is made off of making women hate themselves and, you know, really truly, yeah, the beauty industry, the fitness industry, diet culture, all of that percent. Absolutely.

And then also, like if we look at just film and television, the way that actresses look, what is representation? I mean, if the industry is really going to talk about eating disorders, well, then we'd have to look at the fact that probably a lot of women are having to go to crazy extremes to maintain a look that is just not achievable for the average person. And we're showing that as like the norm. So I've often thought about, okay, well, why don't we want to unpack this? Why don't we want to talk about this? Um, and because I felt like this wasn't happening often, I did want to do it in a way that felt safe for the audience, that they felt identified in some way, even if they themselves didn't suffer with an eating disorder, so that people also understand, because there is a lot of stigma surrounding this.

Like, okay, well, I may not know what it is to have an eating disorder, but I do know what it is to not be accepted by my parents, and I know what I would do to make that happen, be it if I'm struggling with my sexuality or if I'm struggling with another form of addiction, or if I'm, you know, like the character of Rachel wants to do something other than what her mother wants for her career-wise, like simple things that any person can identify with. Um, and with Rachel, it's because of all of the elements of her life, um, it caused this life-threatening thing to happen. You can't just isolate the thing and be like point the finger and say, You're sick, you're bad, you're doing something, you just need to eat.

It's that simple. That's something that I've heard too much in my life, and I've heard parrot it a lot. And it's just either that or you look amazing. Um, you've never looked better. I mean that's very common especially in Latin America I found, you know, when I went home it was just like oh my god you know I didn't have a period for six years and everyone was just like you look incredible. I thought you were gonna be fat forever. There's a lot of glorification and encouragement of this addiction. So um I wanted to be able to look at the nuance of this as deeply as I could in a 90-minute play and keep it dramatically interesting and all of those things. But yeah.

[7:44] Ruthie Fierberg: And I think that that's where perhaps you creating it responsibly is part and parcel of creating it authentically because it is so layered because it manifests differently in each of these four people within the family um and honestly as part of society right like the you know her father and the husband Peter and his expectations it's also that not that he's a bad guy right it's that society has taught him this is what's attractive or what I'm supposed to think is attractive therefore I'm going to mold my wife to this um you know to this structure and then my wife is going to mold my daughter to this structure it's really um it's all intertwined it's all intertwined.

[8:35] Domenica Feraud: Absolutely and I think you know that was something that was really pivotal for a long time like that it was uh the character of the mother um gets a lot of flack. A lot of people um get very angry and call her all sorts of names after the play. And I just was like, you know, that it was really struggling with like, well, this woman is she's sick too. She's got a lot going on too. And um, we need to really look at that. Um, I think a lot of it is also that we just expect so much from mothers in general, um, and we're a lot harder on them than on fathers. And I found that no matter how overt, I mean, there was a line, there's a line in the play where Peter directly says to Joan, is that what you wore to court today to work today?

And she says, Yeah, why? And it looks a little tight. And I remember being told, like, oh, that line's going too far. I was like, it's not, because the thing is, what's interesting is Joan does a tiny little misstep, and the audience is like, Oh my god. Peter can say some really, you know, he can actively like take food away from his wife, and the audience won't bat an eye because we are much more forgiving of fathers in general. And Rachel to a degree has that. She is very loving of her father. She doesn't really see the ways in which he um expects her to parent him, and um brings her into the middle of their marriage and crosses a lot of boundaries, um, which makes her a parentified child, and I think she really does trust and love her father, and it's this shock at the end of the play when she kind of comes full circle and realizes like, oh wait, um, you've been like you have you're so good with me, but you're in a huge part of the problem because you're enabling mom, and you also, as my father, and looking at you know what you find attractive, you're modeling for me what it means to be an attractive woman to men.

Men say this sometimes, you know, like some it won't certain things won't hit them until they think of, oh, well, I have a daughter. And you know, that's like something that comes off. And well, this person is someone's daughter, or this is it's like okay, but you know what? We're still human beings, and you cannot it it doesn't cut it anymore to treat your daughter and your wife differently because your daughter one day is gonna grow up and realize like and she's gonna be affected by the standards you hold your wife to.

[10:53] Domenica Feraud: The play really revolves around the mother-daughter relationship between Joan, the mother and Rachel the daughter, and it's interesting because we need to talk about them separately and together. Like Rachel could have anorexia without a model from her mom. Joan could be restrictive and have children without eating problems. Why was it important for you to show both and how they interact?

[11:24] Domenica Feraud: Once I decided that Rachel had anorexia, I knew that there had to be another I just couldn't write a play without looking at the complexities of you know, there's various kinds of eating disorders in the world. And I think the way we talk about clean eating, and I've seen it, you know, just discussed is like you have so much discipline. You it's this thing that is really like, oh, I wish I had your willpower. Um, and orthorexia, which a lot of people are not aware of. I mean, it's the obsession with clean eating to the point where you are afraid of eating anything that veers off of what you deem a safe food. Um, and this can be it can be really, really intense. And also the thing about it is easily hidden.

Um, especially in today's modern society, you could say you're allergic to gluten, you're vegan, you're dairy-free, whatever it is, we've kind of we we've normalized um this this illness when we were working on it as a cast, a lot of people did not know what the term orthorexia was, and I had to clarify it various times, and and people were learning about it. Um, and some people were, and then everyone has experience of like, oh wait, do I do I have this actually? Because um I there's certain foods that I'm pretty afraid of. Um, so I did really want to bring awareness to that in general. And the decision to have it be in this particular family, Joan could not have orthorexia, and Rachel pro most likely would still end up having an eating disorder just because of the there are so many things for this character that are going on.

Like the pressure, also being the daughter of a first-generation immigrant, like you there are a lot of pressures that are put on to succeed. Um, you know, Joan does talk about how she she did some writing in college, but it's not like you know, her parents did sacrifice everything to come here and give her this shot, and she had to really make something of herself. And she married a white man who was wealthy, and his family definitely gave him a hard time for marrying her, so she felt like she had to prove herself. And as a Latin woman growing up in this country, she knows that things are gonna be really hard for her daughter, and she understands that in a way that her husband does not. And so he doesn't understand why she put so much pressure on her daughter, but she fully does because she knows that Rachel's gonna experience reality in a very different way than Joan did.

And there's references in the play to, you know, Rachel feeling the sacrifice her mother made as a career woman to carry her to have this time that it you she lost out in her career. Um, that was something that was really important to me to acknowledge um in the identities of these characters.

[14:01] Ruthie Fierberg: Yeah, I mean, that's actually what's going to be my next question about like the way you blended this family so specifically of you know, the white father, the Latina mother, a biological daughter, and an adopted Latino son.

[14:19] Domenica Feraud: You made a lot of choices that all contribute to the telling of this story. Well, there's a combination of, you know, reading studies and learning a lot about, okay, what are the typical family models for eating disorders, which kind of ties back to like, okay, well, what's up with, um, you know, Joan and Joan didn't have to have an eating disorder. Um, but why was it important to include this? And I, I, I, there's actually a family friend who lives in Ecuador and is a therapist, and she was saying how she was working with children's schools, and there was a problem that was coming up where like mothers and fathers would come in and be like, our child isn't eating, you know, she won't eat rice, and the teacher was noticing this and is like, this is a big problem at lunches.

And the mothers will be like, well, I tell them, you know, to eat, like, please eat these foods. And then the teacher, the therapist, my mother's friend was like, okay, well, what do you eat? And then the mothers were like, oh, I would never touch that, you know. But that's, but I encourage them to. And it's like, and I remember when I heard that comment, and I was like, okay, I knew this was in my play for a reason. This comes up. This is something that is often, unfortunately, this is a thing, disorders can be very generational. Um, and it's in, it's genetics too. Like, I know that I've encountered my own mother blaming herself, and I'll just be like, you know what, mom, like there's just a certain, like it's in our blood, it's in our DNA, just like any, just like anxiety and depression is.

There's, it's just the way the cookie crumbles. Um, but back, which also society is very new at acknowledging how in our DNA anxiety and depression is like mental illness, it being treated as illness is still so new, and then you get into the subsets, like you said, um, of addiction disorders and eating disorders not being a choice. So everyone has to really reconceptualize the way we think about these. I mean, the DSM for a long time described anorexia as the refusal to eat food, which is like, okay, well interesting because you're literally just in, in this is mental health. You're saying that it's a choice. But back to the question of, you know, the family dynamics and the way they were, that it is, it is very specific in this play, and you know, one of the reasons is casting.

Um, you know, I am Hispanic and I initially wrote the play just sort of like I wanted colorblind casting the way Hamilton did. I think that's the way of the future, and I think it's a really great thing, and it was really exciting as a Latin actor to see like, oh wait, um, I could play like Eliza Hamilton. Like that's, that's pretty cool to know that that could happen. Um, but it may, it became very clear to me, you know, casting directors see five characters and they're gonna assume a certain ethnicity. So I was like, okay, well, now I really need to work this into my play. I am a first generation immigrant, so my parents are both born and raised in Ecuador, moved here. They were very young.

My mother was 19 when she got married, 22 when she had me. Um, and I do, I have definitely felt the pressures of assimilation in a lot of ways, and especially within the past year have been unpacking how assimilation in and of itself is a very strong form of racism. Um, it's not good growing up in America, and England, I also grew up in England, um, did for me in ways of like, okay, how can I blend in? How can I, can I hide from the sun? Can I do these things? And what is the fitting in? So that has been and something that is, there's a lot of pressure put on too, and a lot of praise. Um, if you are Latin, at least in my experiences, if you're gonna be with a, you know, white, blue-eyed man, you kind of have won the lottery.

[18:14] Ruthie Fierberg: My last question solely for you, Domenica, is that you played Rachel in that run. And I'm wondering, you know, as you said in the beginning, um, that this is something as a person in the world you deal with every single day. So how, uh, how did you cope with, um, with getting inside of that character, you know, every single performance over and over again? What, if anything, did you learn about your own eating disorder by playing her? Um, how did you keep yourself safe?

[18:52] Domenica Feraud: Hmm, thank you. That's a great question. One I haven't been asked, and I'm really grateful to be asked. Um, because it was definitely a process. Um, I learned a lot from Rachel that I was not expecting to. Something that Rachel really teaches me, um, and still honestly to this day inspires me in is the anger she expresses at her family at the end. Um, I think as is common of, uh, people who suffer with eating disorders, I am a very, um, repentant perfectionist and a people pleaser. Um, and I don't know that I've ever let it rip like that. I mean, Rachel goes into a rage blackout. She really, she figures things out and she just says every, she sees everything clearly and she knows she has to get out of here.

And that was really, I mean, I, when the play, the run of the play ended, and we got an extension, so that was a gift for me. But I thought as a writer, I was gonna be like, my baby, I don't know what, like what am I doing with myself. But actually, it was like my body was mourning getting to perform Rachel, getting to get that angry eight times a week and have that expression was so important and cathartic and healing for me. And then keeping myself safe as someone who has struggled with disordered eating, it was hard. I put a note in the play that's very important to me that says, you know, the actresses playing Joan and Rachel should never feel any pressure to maintain a certain weight to play these roles because I know for myself when I had amenorrhea and I was struggling to figure out what was going on and turning to doctors for every answer, I was not thin.

I weighed at least 20 pounds more than I do now. And doctors were just like, oh, you're probably stressed, you're fine. And I even told them my mother thinks I'm under eating, like this is what's going on. Like they had the key, and they just were like, no, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine. And it wasn't until I came because the thing is, weight loss is, you can have it, weight has nothing to do with an eating disorder. I mean, absolutely nothing. And doctors really need to catch up to that. Yes. I had such wonderful support from my cast. I have, I'm really lucky to have a very supportive family. And I think just really having a post-show thing for me, which was often people in the theater would come up to me, like audience members, be like, it's so good to see you eating.

Cause I always, the actress who played Joan and I would afterwards like go and eat food together and just have that ritual of doing that. And actually during the play, I made sure to eat more than I had in a long time because I would have was expending a lot of energy doing this performance and just trying to stay on top of things. Um, and knowing that if there was anything I feel internally that are my own insecurities, I can channel them into Rachel. I can let all of that go because of course I'm still, I still have that. It's still present in me. By having played Rachel and intentionally kind of milking those moments, I can notice them within myself and be like when they arise and be like, okay, that's an unhealthy part of myself talking.

Let me look at that. Let me journal about that. Let me talk to my therapist about that. Let me really be honest about this when it comes. Like, I think playing Rachel helped me notice when that was going on more. So it was really a healing experience.

[22:09] Ruthie Fierberg: Well, that's amazing. I mean, we've talked, I feel like rage is becoming a theme on this podcast, but we talk a lot about rage and the necessity of it to that it's not the same as anger, that it is, it is productive anger, it is anger focused at something. And I also, um, I, and we don't experience women, we don't let women experience rage nearly enough. We accept it from men, and we, there's a great podcast where I heard it was talk, you know, the Kavanaugh hearings, which were happening at the time that I did one of my first readings of Rinse for Pete, and they very much informed the play. Um, especially the ending, changing, shifting the blame, not blame, but just shifting responsibility from Joan to Peter.

I was like, wait, I can't write a play about eating disorders that blames women. Um, but it's interesting to look at those hearings and how like he got to be very angry and was rewarded, was really rewarded with the Salem Supreme Court as a result. And whereas Dr. Balsey Ford, who was the person who had actually, in my opinion, been wronged, um, could not be angry. She had to be calm and even tempered in order to be listened to. And that's the dichotomy. That's what happens. Women, we, if we are rageful, we are dismissed. We're too emotional. Whereas men are like strong and righteous when they express their rage. But the expression piece is so important. I've been doing some work. Um, I don't know if anyone out there has heard of the Hoffman Institute, but look it up.

Yes. My father went there. Okay, so the Hoffman Institute is amazing and kind of like it's a lot about internal investigation of patterns of behavior. And one of the things that they have you focus on, which I feel like in society we do not, is we focus on awareness and then we focus on changing it. Like, oh, now I know it's here, so now I can change it. But what we really need to do is that in between step of the expression, we are not expressing and getting it out. And so what you're describing is that you were able to express through the play, which is so powerful. And so now that we're all gonna express together, I want to welcome in our experts. Um, I want to welcome Dr. Maylin Reyes Rodriguez, who is an associate clinical professor at the Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

She is a licensed clinical psychologist with experience treating patients with eating disorders. Her research focuses on developing culturally appropriate interventions for Latinas with eating disorders, specifically methods that appropriately integrate family members. She's a columnist for La Noticia and the editor-in-chief of Puerto Rican Journal of Psychology. Welcome, Maylin.

[25:00] Dr. Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you for the invitation, Ruthie. And, uh, Domenica, I think that you did a great job presenting the struggle of eating disorders in Latina. I think that when I was reading through the play, I was like remembering some of my cases and, um, and identifying the stigma of having an eating disorder for Latinos. Um, we know about the stigma about having mental health issues in the Latino population. However, uh, what I found with Latinos is that the stigma of having an eating disorder is greater than having, for example, depression and anxiety. And it's because I think in some way that I am having an eating disorder and a disorder that is doesn't belong, belong to me because I am not a white.

So historically, we have been associated the eating disorder to white females. And then as a Latina struggling with an eating disorder, it's like I am suffering from something that is not part of my ethnicity. So that increased a lot the stigma of having an eating disorder. And the other piece that for me was amazing to see in the play was the integration of the families, is in some way the importance of engaging the family into the treatment because everybody is affected. It's not only the patient who is affected by the eating disorder, but this is something that the entire family is affected by the eating disorder. So if we wanted to provide an environment that can help the patient to heal, we have to integrate the family if it is possible.

Part of my research working with Latinas is when we can include a family member, help to engage the patient into treatment and also retain the patient into treatment because that is another issue that we have with Latinas. That it is hard to engage in treatment, but also they tend to abandon the treatment pretty quickly.

[27:22] Domenica Feraud: She has something, but it was so hard to put the name that was an eating disorder.

[27:27] Dr. Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodriguez: Right. I think the word anorexia actually only appears one time in the entire play.

[27:35] Domenica Feraud: Yes.

[27:33] Ruthie Fierberg: So yeah, that's very powerful. Well, Maylin, we're gonna get into all of that. I'm so excited to have you here. I want to introduce our listeners to our other expert, Johanna Kandel. Um, Joanna is the founder and CEO of the Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness, which was founded in the year 2000. She is the immediate past president of the board of directors for the Eating Disorders Coalition. And in addition to leading a support group and mentoring those with eating disorders, Joanna has met with members of Congress as a part of her advocacy and was part of the first ever eating disorders roundtable at the White House. She is also the author of a book about her own struggle with an eating disorder. Welcome, Joanna.

[28:15] Johanna Kandel: Thank you so much, Ruthie. And thank you all so much for this opportunity.

[28:20] Johanna Kandel: And you know, I definitely echo what was said. The play is exceptional. It's really wonderful whenever there's opportunities to create much needed conversations and smash the stigma surrounding mental illness. I think what was so beautiful that you said earlier is that there's so much misinformation surrounding eating disorders, that they're a disorder of choice, of vanity, where we know that they are serious mental illness. Actually, it's an incredible moment when Health and Human Services classified eating disorders as serious mental illness because like you and like many of us that have experienced eating disorders, you know, this is not something where I looked out the window and I said, you know, it's a beautiful day in South Florida, I think I'm gonna have anorexia nervosa now.

Like that was never part of my journey, nor anyone else's journey, I can say. You know, we know that there's this perfect storm that comes together of genetics. We know the genetics play a key role in the development of eating disorders. They run in families. We know that there's temperament traits, there's the coexisting of comorbid mental illness such as depression and anxiety. We know that anxiety is typically always present before the development of an eating disorder. And it's really interesting to see who eating disorders typically affect. They're, you know, as you said so beautifully before, it's individuals that are perfectionistic and people pleasers and type triple A personalities.

You know, I one of the things that is just like sort of echoes in my head a lot is, you know, I was the kid that my parents never had to be concerned about. Like I was the good kid, you know, and again, it was, you know, for me, it was really classifying it by saying, you know, that the quote, the path to hell is filled with good intentions. I thought that I was on this journey of bettering myself. I was a professional ballet dancer. You can add that into that perfect storm. Oh wow, yes. We know that there's that, you know, that negative energy balance that gears genetics that launches the development of the eating disorder. And before you know it, something that I thought, oh, you know, like I'm doing this to be a better dancer to get a part that I was engaged in a fight that nearly almost, you know, cost me my life and that affects 29 million Americans across the country.

That's 9% of the US population will experience some type of an eating disorder in their lifetime. Every 52 minutes someone dies as a direct result of their eating disorder in this country. It costs the US $64 billion a year in resources. It has huge economic burdens on our country. And yet what I find myself to be so passionate about is creating opportunities for education, for intervention and for access to care. Because unfortunately even though it has the second highest lethality rate of all psychiatric disorders, only one third of individuals that are experiencing eating disorders will ever get access to care.

[31:30] Johanna Kandel: Confident that there were people that came to see the show and hopefully will come and see the show again and or listen to this conversation that you know might have experienced their life, you know, experiencing orthorexic behaviors and in that guise of I'm doing this to be healthy and I'm doing this to be clean, and yet unfortunately what's happened is the diet industry has commandeered a lot of ways that people have to eat for medical conditions, for example, eating sugar-free because of their diabetes, eating gluten-free because of their celiac. Unfortunately, the diet industry has hijacked these ways and said, hey, this is a way to insert, you know, lose weight, do this. So right, and that there are certain legitimate medical conditions that require this, you know, it's the appropriation of it onto people without a diagnosis like that that becomes problematic.

I mean, Johanna, you fit right in on this podcast because you just whipped out all the statistics that I had turned my notes to. So thank you for that. Because I really do want to give some context as to how prevalent this is, how lethal it is, how important it is. And you know, in talking about the layers of everything that's going on in the play, one of the lines that really stuck with me was when Rachel is like yelling at herself and trying to get herself to eat, and she's going, it's just food. That's all it is, just food. But that clearly doesn't cover it, you know. It's like, so I want to go, I have different questions for each of you related to this. Domenica, what is food in Rachel's mind? Because it's clearly not just food.

[33:22] Domenica Feraud: No, it's not. And I think this is something that's been parroted at her or told to her, or something she knows that her mother feels, and something she, you know, and her mother has left her alone, and she has to prove that she can do this because in Joan's eyes, it's just food. Sit down and eat lunch. Why can't you just do that? But it's not about the food. It's really not. And that's something that doesn't make sense to a lot of people, but there is so much more going on, and it's all it's what the food represents. And I do think a big part of it is control. When you have to ex, you know, especially if you are Rachel, if you're someone who knows, and yeah, her mother did biologically carry her.

Her mother who doesn't have a period, who has a pretty bad eating disorder, like what did it take for Joan to get pregnant? A lot, clearly, and she didn't choose when she had another child, she adopted that child because she was not going to get pregnant again. So add that to the pressure that was also put on Rachel, like be worth the sacrifice my body made, my body that really struggles to function hormonally, because I Domenica know what that is. When your body will function hormonally because of an eating disorder, it is really hard to get that period back. It took me six years. When there is that much pressure put on you, there's a part of you that's gonna be exploding inside. There's a part of you that's just gonna be like, I can't do this anymore.

And I think Rachel's way of saying that without saying it was her disease and was her illness, and like right with food, you're controlling everything, so it makes sense to then control the one thing that you can because so many other things are outside of her control. She's trying to control the fact that she wants to be a writer she can't she wants to be a writer it's still living inside there she can't squash that but she can not eat or eat she can do that if she doesn't eat the food she's disappointing everyone in her life and if she does eat the food she's disappointing herself because she's pretending that things are fine when they're really not so it's very very complicated.

[35:37] Johanna Kandel: Absolutely and so Malin knowing that it's really not it's about so many more things than the food than the act of eating and yet you know part of the treatment plan for people with eating disorders is getting you to eat is meeting with a dietitian is that how we should be treating things if it's so often about much bigger ideas?

[36:06] Dr. Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodriguez: Yeah and and it is true that it's not only about food I think that there are many layers when we are working with a patient especially with anorexia and bulimia. Yes, it is tricky because we have to help the patient to restore their weight because we have those concerns about how medically stable is the patient to do the treatment and also because it's affecting their cognitions and how they can receive and accept the treatment. So it is hard for the patient to go into the goal of weight restoration. So it's a combination of we know that it's hard and how we can provide the emotional support. And when I was reading that line specifically, I was reminded many parents asking the same to the patient, it's just food. You just need to eat. And how complicated is to explain to parents that it's more than that, and in how they can provide the support that they need during the treatment process.

[37:27] Johanna Kandel: Absolutely. Joanna, did you want to add about you know just the conception about is this about food? Is this not about food? Is it both?

[37:38] Johanna Kandel: So yeah, absolutely. So it it's definitely about both. It has to be about both because you need food to live. And you know, it's really difficult because you know, with recovery, you know, from for example, substance use disorder or a drug addiction, you can abstain from your drug of choice, quote unquote. When you're experiencing an eating disorder, recovering from an eating disorder, you cannot abstain from food. It's a different moderative, you know, recovery where you need it to survive. You know, we have to remember that eating disorders are maladaptive coping mechanisms. It's how people maladaptively cope with depression, anxiety, trauma, transgenerational trauma, other concurrent personality disorders.

That's how they live. And the mechanism is whether it's restricting, binging and purging, compulsively overeating, clean eating. And we also have to remember like the reason why it's so important to really normalize nutrition is because it doesn't matter what kind of eating disorder you're experiencing, whether you're restricting or actively binging, you still have a malnourished brain. And you really cannot do much work unless you have that amelioration of the malnutrition. Managed care companies are looking at straight vitals or looking at weights, which of course, like has been said many times, like okay, let's definitely look beyond the weight. They're looking at labs, and the things about eating disorders is you could be actually dying and have perfectly fine labs.

We have to remember that labs are gross measures, right? They're not specific. So again, we need to be looking beyond that. And someone needs to be, you know, like nourished, they need to have like you know, an active brain to start working on the underpinnings, the sort of the bottom of the iceberg because the eating disorder really just is the top. And so that's why I think for so much of this conversation, it's been this is not about the food. Well, yes, it is, and we need to be nourished in order to deal with everything that's underneath, because if you just focus on re-nourishing, you're just going to have that revolving door because it's not about that. But you also can't address the thing it is about without having the nourishment.

[40:00] Johanna Kandel: That makes perfect sense. I also want to just put out there for the record, you know, we've Domenica said it earlier, that there is a spectrum of eating disorders and a spectrum of what people look like who have and struggle with eating disorders. This is not just the 85-pound white woman going in, you know, having heart problems. And, you know, I remember when I was in school being taught what this is. You should be looking out for people who are always cold. You should be looking out for people who are tired. You should be looking out if your friend is growing more hair, you know, all of these things. And not that those are not symptoms. It's just that those aren't the only symptoms. That is not the only picture of this.

You can be what society considers fat and have an eating disorder. You can be what society considers fat and have anorexia as your eating disorder. It's not just that, oh, skinny people are anorexic and fat people are bingers. This affects and the research that I did and that the professionals have done, I'm sure Mae Lynn will echo this, that this affects people of all ages, of all ethnicities, of all genders. We are a bunch of women in this room talking about this, but this is by no means a women-only issue. It affects men, non-binary. And so I just want to put that out there and say that it might not look what you think it looks like. It is still a problem. And so knowing that, I am curious if whether you're thinking something might be wrong with yourself or whether you are concerned about someone you love, what are the signs that we should be looking for?

[42:00] Dr. Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodriguez: The other issue is how we can raise the awareness on providers because sometimes they just look into some specific stereotype and not asking or assessing the eating disorder or referring the patient for the further information because they don't fit into this stereotype. I remember doing an interview with a Latina, and she mentioned about having three different encounters with different providers and saying, I think that I have bulimia, and they didn't do anything.

[42:38] Johanna Kandel: No refer, no further question, and she was is struggling with bulimia. Um so I think that it's raising the awareness for patients, family, but also for providers. Yes, I learned that um in as of 2016, the Association of American Medical Colleges found out that only 74% of schools that are in that association cover eating disorders in any way. So that still leaves 26% who don't talk about it at all, and 74% who we don't really know to what degree they talk about it and the accuracy of that information. So I will tell you across the board it's actually less than 20% across the board. Wow. For all healthcare providers, nurses, doctors, dentists. Um they are not given access to that education. And you know, I've worked very closely with the American Medical Association, and I find myself getting very frustrated.

It's like, well, doctors should know. One of the things that we're doing at the Alliance is working with residency programs specifically around um residential, like doing um like testing, because we know unfortunately they teach for tests, and it's also making sure that the information that they're given is accurate, like what Maylin said is you know give our primary care providers these tools but also letting people know that there are places where you can get really great information like at the Alliance for example we have um the largest inclusive referral database for all levels of care for individuals seeking help for eating disorders from therapists to dietitians all the way up to acute medical stabilization.

Um we also have free weekly virtual support groups that are led by clinicians that are attended by people in all 50 states around the country and 43 different countries around the world. Um you don't have to go through this alone and the one thing that I'm so grateful for this play and so grateful for you um Domenica is that there's people out there that have walked the walk and that are on the other side and you know whether you describe the if you prescribe to the word recovered that's that's where I landed and it's a personal choice or in recovery or recovering or in remission whatever word works for you if you are sitting there listening to this podcast and I'm so this is why I'm so damn grateful for the awareness that this play has brought is that please know that you are not alone.

[45:10] Johanna Kandel: Please know that there is help that there is hope that people live beyond their eating disorders and specifically if you are a loved one I think that you know unfortunately we're given this misnomer that once you have an eating disorder you will be struggling at that level for the rest of your life that is not the case. Now I will tell you intervention is necessary, access to care is important. This is not something that you can just will away. Like you can't will away a broken bone. You cannot will away your eating disorder. You deserve access to care. In my opinion, treatment cannot be a luxury. It's a necessity. Because just like you can't stabilize your blood sugars if you have diabetes, you cannot just fix the eating disorder.

Like you can't fix anxiety and depression. I am really grateful that you said that, Joanna, because I know for myself, like my mother had an eating disorder for um for at least a decade of my life. And she would say honestly longer, because there was a period where she thought she was recovered, but she was just in that clean eating little bucket of just doing lots of cleanses and things. Um, but now my mother has this incredible relationship with food.

[46:17] Johanna Kandel: And it's so beautiful to see, and it inspires me so much to know that it really is, it is really possible to get to that place and to believe in that and to also have compassion for yourself if you're not there yet. If you're not there yet, like that doesn't mean that you're bad. That doesn't mean like it, you're doing the best that you can, and you deserve love and you deserve all of these things. It is a journey, it can be a lifelong journey, but it's one that is worth taking and not giving up. I can't agree more. Like I say this all the time to people is that you don't recover to utopia, you recover to life, and life has good moments and they have bad moments. And I will tell you recovery is absolutely not sunshine butties and rainbows, you know.

And I think that for so long, I avoided recovery because it was the complete opposite from the hell that I was in, you know. And so know that, you know, that yeah, it's you're you're going to, you know, are you gonna have bad body image days? Yeah, because you're human and humans have that. But the difference is like now, which I'm sure you can relate to, is there's there's moments where you know I wake up in the morning and I look in the mirror and I'm like, oh wow.

[47:27] Johanna Kandel: And the difference is is that I'll just put on more comfortable clothes and I'll get on with my life. As when I was in the grips of my eating disorder, I would punish myself, I would go back to bed, I couldn't do life, and so it's not gonna be perfect, it's gonna be messy and it's gonna be unbelievable. But no matter where you are, know that there that does get better. Something that you mentioned, Joanna about access to treatment, that's where the real discrepancy lies. The discrepancy doesn't lie in the rates of eating disorders between populations and demographics. The discrepancy lies within access. Um I did want to rewind a little bit though, because as we're saying that like labs can be you know not a great picture, the number on the scale is not a great indicator.

Is just the self-reporting of the behavior, is that what we should be looking at in ourselves and the people we love as the indicator that there is a problem? What is what is the criterion that is accurate and up to date?

[48:34] Dr. Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodriguez: I think that always I look into the extreme, right? When we are moving into any kind of extreme, there is there is a problem. I think the having a balance. And uh, if you don't feel comfortable with your eating pattern or with your self-esteem with your body image, that is a sign that you can seek help. We don't have to wait until having a full diagnostic of eating disorder to seek professional help. Uh I have had in the past uh parents uh reaching me to provide some kind of preventing treatment for their daughter because she was like struggling with some kind of body image issue. And I think that just by having that approach from the beginning, uh, when we can see adolescent having issues with the body image issue, uh, we can prevent to develop an eating disorder.

So I think that any time that you don't feel comfortable uh with whatever is is going on in your life, or you don't feel good about uh your emotions, uh your feelings, your behavior, that is the time that you can seek uh professional help.

[49:49] Dr. Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodriguez: I know that for it specifically for the Latino population is hard because there is the stigma. Uh they don't want to feel that they are crazy, right? It's like I am not local, loco. So I think that we need to do more in terms of education that um we all can have emotional issues, and it is okay to seek professional help. I think something that's also important is you, you know, uh Maylin, you talked about that woman who who was bulimic and and you know, and yet nobody intervened. Um I think listening to people in our lives is really important. When I was in school second year, I went to uh to Tish and we had to do these poetry projects where we chose a topic and we came up with like three pieces that focus on the topic, and I did mine on eating disorders, and it was like absolutely a cry for help.

Like it was complete, I mean, I was I was not doing well. I that's when finally doctors started running real tests because I met their criteria of what an eating disorder looked like a year after I'd gone to them for help.

[50:54] Domenica Feraud: So at this point, it wasn't very helpful because I was deep in it, um, and I had the hormones of a woman going through menopause and I was 19 years old. And I did this performance, um, and I did it in front of everyone, and it was basically me saying, I need help. And you know, my teachers were just very praiseworthy of the acting. And I remember in my panel afterwards, one of the movement teachers was like, I'm concerned. I I'm concerned, and I think you need to get help. Um, and I remember one of my other acting teachers literally saying, like, you know, I don't really know about that, but your performance was really great. There was just this complete like sidestepping. And I know that the high school I went to in England, it was like an all-girls school, and there were eating disorders everywhere. I mean, we were this it was the second best private girls' school. I mean, talk about privilege. It was it was a great great school.

[52:44] Domenica Feraud: Um, and we were performing at just absurd this the standards were ridiculous. Um, 95% of grades were all A's for students. And the school never, I mean, there were eating disorders everywhere in the school, just they didn't care because as long as we were performing well, what are their energy levels? I think would be something that's really important. Like I know that when my eating disorder was really bad, I was falling asleep all the time. I was really struggling to stay awake um and also struggling to fall asleep. Like just you know, as Joanna said so powerfully, like the brain neurons aren't working. There are a lot of signs that you know can show you beyond how somebody looks like and you can still have somebody achieving surface level, but they may be just not themselves. I think when someone is just completely withdrawn from life, um, there's that's a sign that they're not fully there.

[52:59] Johanna Kandel: When you hear that, what is the thing to say? What is the helpful way to help someone get support?

[53:08] Dr. Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodriguez: Yeah, I think um such a great question. I think something to remember is when you're talking to someone that you have concerns over or concerns um with is using um I statements, you know, I'm concerned, I've noticed, I care, I love you, um, I can help whatever you need. The more that you attack, the more that the walls are gonna go up. And I mean, that was definitely my experience of be people, you know, out of love, caring, and compassion, you know, saying, like, you're so insert word, you're so this, you're so that my eating disorder like through that wall up faster than I than you know, then that I could blink. And we have to remember that, you know, the person that's experiencing the eating disorder probably has this love-hate relationship with their eating disorder.

[53:55] Dr. Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodriguez: It's the thing that's keeping them afloat, and yet it's the thing that's probably making them sink at the same time. And so if you approach a loved one, and and this is something that I I so you know, because I work with parents across the country, and they'll ask me loved ones, and they'll say, you know, what would what was something that someone could have said to you, your parents, your loved ones, your you know, spouse, insert, whatever. And I I always come to this is you know, say, I love you and I'm really concerned, and I'm really sorry that you're going through this, because that again puts the onus on the fact that this is not a disorder of choice. An eating disorder happens to you, it's not you it's not the opposite.

[54:37] Dr. Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodriguez: And so, you know, by by turning around and saying, and imagining, if you will, we have an amazing member of our of our organization who equates eating disorders to brain cancer because it actually has a whole lot of similarities between us. Yes, and they would if someone was going through cancer, you wouldn't be like, You're crazy, like you need to do this, it's and if they were in remission and the cancer came back, you wouldn't say, Oh, it's all your fault, you didn't XYZ. I think that because it's above the neck, there's this assumption that we should be able to control it. And if you are a friend of someone that has a child with an eating disorder, support them in the same way that you would if their child had cancer. Because I will tell you, in some instances, the journey to recovery from an eating disorder is that there's no one-way, right way, direct way.

[55:30] Johanna Kandel: So oftentimes I will hear in loved ones' support group is that I sometimes wish that they had a physical, a physical only disorder, because then I would know that I would do X amount of like chemo, X amount of radiation, or this medicine, and then it would hopefully be done. And with eating disorders, you have no idea.

[55:51] Johanna Kandel: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we've already talked about so much, and I feel like the last two things I want to wrap up on, we could talk about for an hour each, but we will give them a little bit of attention. And the first thing is just about diet culture in general. Um, because as we've been talking, you know, we've touched on anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and orthorexia. And I say this because those are four distinct labeled conditions. There is a spectrum between all of it. The biggest environmental factor is this socio-cultural aggrandizement of thinness. And is there any I guess the first question is clinical, and maybe it's just a yes or no answer.

[56:44] Dr. Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodriguez: May Lynn, is there any type of disciplined eating, restrictive eating, watching what you're eating that is healthy, or is it all just symptomatic and related to unhealthy eating?

[57:02] Dr. Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodriguez: Yeah, usually we don't recommend any kind of diet. I think that we need to learn how to eat in a balanced way. Food is just food, and you can eat whatever you wanted to eat if it is in moderation with the fragrancy, food portion. Uh, but food is is is a nevic thing for our body. So I think that um diet is a risk factor for eating disorder. We need to stay away from dieting behavior. And I know that is so hard in this society that codify the diet behavior. Uh, but I think that that is the message. Uh, don't engage in any kind of diet behavior.

[57:49] Johanna Kandel: Yeah, and I also think, you know, it's interesting. I we talked about beauty ideals in the very first episode of this podcast ever. And I did a paper on this in college about how you know when we were less um technologically linked globally, there were different beauty ideals all over the world. And certainly, particularly in Latinx countries, the voluptuous and curvy body was really coveted. And now we've gone, you know, it's converged to a single ideal body type, and that single ideal body type is thinner and thinner and thinner. Um, so it also relates, you know, to media and to beauty ideals. And I guess, you know, how is the way that we can challenge diet culture. First and foremost, one of the things that that I know that that we've seen even at the Alliance specifically over the last decade is the influence of social media specifically as compared to like the mass media.

We know factually through research that um social media has even more negative implications on body image, on the effects of the development of an eating disorder, because number one, you're surrounded by it all the time. I mean, I can fully share that I am the person that the first thing that I do when I wake up in the morning is check my phone. The last thing that I do before I go to bed is check my phone. You know, also we also believe that since so much of so many of the people that that we follow on on the social channels are people that we know, um, we view that as more more credible sources. But also at the same time, we're not taking into play how many filters have been put in, how many pictures were taken to post that one picture.

You take 40 pictures to show one. And in a sense, we are comparing our everyday to the highlight reel of someone else, right? That's that that that's there. So what I like to say to people all the time is, you know, be very mindful of your feed. Curate your feed. Watch who you watch who you follow, you know, you're allowed to mute people. You're allowed to disengage from people. You're allowed to be very mindful. See how you feel after you've been on on those social channels. If you're feeling crappy about yourself, then maybe you need to be taking a look at who you're following, what messages you're you're you're consuming. And yeah, I mean going back to your question about about the diet industry, I mean, it's not a you know $60 billion industry for no, for no reason.

And unfortunately, you know, our world is dripping in diet culture, in weight stigma, in fat phobia, because realistically there is no such thing as good food or bad foods. Food doesn't have value. It's food. I come from a health and every size perspective that all foods fit, you know. And when when we start to put restrictions, that's when we allow this idea of like binge behavior to come in. The number one behavior that leads to binging is restricting. We know that. And when you tell someone that they can't have it, it's it starts to put the narrative in their in their in their mind that they need to have it. I'm just like when you tell the kid not to do something it's the number one thing that they will do.

You know, and so I would say be very mindful of of the media you consume. Also when you see something that's not right that doesn't align with your values use use your voice. And on the flip side when you find something that works really well also utilize your voice. We do a I think a much better job at at when things are not good at using our voice but we don't necessarily lift up the things that are working. You know like I there's this really great I know that um the the um Dove campaign has done a beautiful job over the years they have a really great selfie video that just came out recently and I you know I was like I'm so happy that that that's there and so I I sent a message to Dove like I googled like the people and I sent and I said thank you and I got an email back saying it means a lot to hear.

So when you see things that are you know that that are going well when you see people that are in all shapes and sizes that that are you know that that are out there using their voice praise them you know curating your feed watching what you consume as far as like media and messaging and and follow people that fill your cup lift you up that's beautiful advice.

[1:02:12] Johanna Kandel: Use your tweets positively um there's a study from 2011 that said by age six girls start to express concern about their own weight or shape and 40 to 60% of girls age six to 12 are concerned about their weight of American elementary school girls who read magazines 69% say that pictures influence their concept of the ideal body weight and 47% say that pictures make them want to lose weight. I'm about to give people two things to not do on the other side of this um I I have to say like it's very very very simple and it's so important like please don't comment on the way that anybody looks just please stop like it it's just it's so easy to do we have no idea what that means. Um, if you tell someone like, oh my god, you've lost weight, you look great, you you don't know what that's gonna do to them.

You also don't know what's going on. They might have really bad anxiety, they might have an eating disorder that you are unknowingly encouraging, they may have be dealing with grief, they may be going through whatever it is. Um, and if somebody has gained or whatever it is, just just keep it to yourself. Um please, um, I think that if everyone practice that, like it really is just it's none of our business, frankly, at the end of the day. Um, again, unless you're a therapist treating someone and you've noticed something, like in your professional, like otherwise, just there's no need. Like Maidlen said so beautifully, like finding ways to eat everything in moderation is really great and demonizing any food group, just like there are some people who need less sugar to thrive mentally, you don't know how Oreos are gonna affect someone if they negatively affect you, that's cool, that's fine. They might affect that other person really well. So just don't label foods a certain way.

[1:04:00] Dr. Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodriguez: What do you want to see happen?

[1:04:03] Dr. Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodriguez: I want to see more awareness about um eating disorder across ethnicity race groups. Uh I wanted to see quicker-sensitive treatment um for Latino population, and I wanted to see access to treatment. Uh eating disorder treatment are very expensive, and especially when we are uh talking about Latino population, sometimes they don't have health insurance, and because of that, that is a huge barrier to get access to treatment. So I think that we need to do more to provide more access to treatment.

[1:04:42] Johanna Kandel: Yeah. And then Joanna, to kind of round out that argument, what what are the policies that we should be supporting to increase access to get health insurance to change? What are the uh what is the legislation that is perhaps up in Washington that we should be paying attention to?

[1:05:02] Johanna Kandel: Sure, absolutely. So we have two pieces of legislation currently on the hill. One is the Nutrition CARE Act. So unfortunately medical nutrition therapy is not covered by insurance in the care of eating disorders. They cover it for diabetes and end stage renal failure. And trying to recover from an eating disorder without access to a dietitian that specialized in the treatment of eating disorders is like trying to drive a car with three tires and not the fourth. And so what we see all the time is that is that you know people will do this revolving door of treatment because they don't have access to a dietitian. So what um the Nutrition CARE Act, which is a completely bipartisan piece of legislation does is it mandates medical nutrition therapy and the treatment of eating disorders and Medicare B individuals.

And the reason why we started with Medicare is because not only we're seeing eating disorders like in in individuals that are over a certain age, also if they're SSDI, if they're social security dependent um and tip and I will tell you one fourth of individuals that experience eating disorders will end up on disability just to give you an idea but also because Medicare is the gold standard of of payers of insurance. So once Medicare passes it then Tri-Care ERISA plans which is what um most businesses have and then private insurance we need to have medical nutrition therapy and in the treatment of eating disorders. The other important piece of legislation that we have is the CERB Act, which would mandate um TRICARE to pay for the treatment of eating disorders.

Because currently the way that TRICARE and TRICARE is the insurance for dependence of our loved ones in the armed services. So we're talking about people that give their life for us to have freedom. Currently, the way that that TRICARE is written, you can only get access to residential care if you're under the age of 21 years old and experience anorexia nervosa, which is such a small part of who experiences. Really, really tiny slice. For any information about current legislation, if you go to the Eating Disorders Coalition website, which is eating disorderscoalition.org, there's this really great phone-to-action mechanism on the home page. And all you have to do is just put in your website, uh, your your email, excuse me, and and cell phone number, and you'll get text and emails when all you have to do is just add your name to a piece of legislation.

[1:07:23] Johanna Kandel: Yes. Um, you know, which is so so important. And we'll put that in the show notes as well.

[1:07:28] Ruthie Fierberg: Excellent. And if you are experiencing an eating disorder or have a loved one that has an eating disorder, please know that there is help, that there is hope. Um, call the Alliance, reach out to the Alliance. Like I said, we have so many, we have the largest network of providers across the country, and we can we can find um clinicians that maybe take your insurance, take Medicare, take Medicaid, that do siding scale if you don't have insurance. Um, and we also have our free weekly clinician-led support groups. We have five currently. We have two for individuals that are 18 and older that are experiencing all types of eating disorders. We have one that's uh for the LGBTQ plus pro-recovery community. Um, we have one for loved ones, all loved ones of individuals, and one just for moms of individuals that that are experiencing with eating disorders. So please know that you don't have to walk this journey alone, that there are resources out there.

[1:08:22] Ruthie Fierberg: Um, but I just really, before we wrap up, I just really want to thank um you, Ruthie, for having this conversation about eating disorders. Um, to you, um, Domenico, just for writing such an important piece of art. Um, I'm so excited for people to know more about it. By conversations like this and by work that you're doing, more conversations are happening. And so the the me's and you's of the world can know that they're not alone. Um, and that despite how terrible it is, and despite how daunting recovery can be, that it absolutely does get better.

[1:08:58] Domenica Feraud: Yeah. Well, you took the words right out of my mouth. If I can be of any service and contribution, this is it. So we will put resources um in the show notes. We will put how you can order and read Domenica's. It's getting published soon, actually. So there this will be because this will be very timely and well done, and representation matters exactly. That's why I wrote this play and why the family is Latina family. Um, it's really important for us to see ourselves and why one of the characters suffering from disorder is a woman who's 50 plus. Like that, it's just important for us to know that it affects so many groups of people. And Ruthie, thank you so much for doing this.

[1:09:38] Ruthie Fierberg: Thank you so much, Joanna, Maylin, Domenica for being here.

[1:09:41] Johanna Kandel: Thank you.

[1:09:46] Domenica Feraud: Thank you.

[1:09:47] Dr. Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodriguez: Thank you.

[1:09:51] Ruthie Fierberg: Why We Theater is a product of the Broadway Podcast Network. It's edited and mixed by Derek Gunther. If you like the show, subscribe at bpn.fm slash W W T or Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to leave a review and tell your friends. Our theme music is by Benjamin Velez. Why We Theater is recorded in part on the traditional lands of the Wapinger and Lenape peoples. I acknowledge this land was unjustly taken from them and pay my respect to elders both past and present. Special thanks to Dory Berenstein, Alan Seals, Lee Silverman, Patrick Taylor, Tony Montaneri, Wesley Birdsall, Elena Mayer, and Suzanne Chipkin. For more resources for change, info about our guests, and more, visit us at Yweetheater.com.