http://www.eatingdisorderocdtherapy.com/

Eating Disorder & OCD Therapy, 4036 3rd Avenue, San Diego, CA (2026)

04/21/2026

Elizabeth’s story is something we all need to hear. There are not enough stories of people going through recovery from an ED while food insecure- despite food insecurity being a top reason for eating disorder development.

Elizabeth shares her powerful story and how her experience led her to founding a virtual food pantry- grounded in dignity and choice.

About Elizabeth Ayiku:
Elizabeth is a filmmaker, food justice organizer, and founder of , a nonprofit advancing food equity and providing free, culturally competent support to historically marginalized communities. Based in Los Angeles, she works to dismantle systemic barriers to mental health and well being, with a focus on meeting basic needs first.

She founded the Me Little Me Foundation in response to her own lived experience with food insecurity, racial inequity, and a deep understanding of the gaps in support for marginalized communities.

Her personal journey fuels her unwavering commitment to social justice and community care.

✨Listen to our convo anywhere you get your podcasts! Link in bio for more info.

Disclaimer: please remember this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not meant for individual nutrition or therapeutic advice.

03/27/2026

The “perfect mother” isn’t real. But the pressure to be her is everywhere.

And if you’re navigating perinatal or postpartum OCD, that pressure becomes fuel for intrusive thoughts and compulsions.

Intrusive thoughts get mistaken for danger.
Everyday doubt turns into constant checking.
Love gets tangled up with fear and responsibility.

Add in social media, unrealistic expectations and a culture that tells mothers they should be able to do it all (intensive motherhood ideology) without help… and it makes sense so many parents are silently struggling.

You’re responding to an impossible standard and OCD is REALLY good at exploiting that.

There’s nothing wrong with needing support.

We SHOULD question the narratives we’ve been handed about what makes a “good” mother.

If this resonates, you’re not alone and this is something that can be treated with the right kind of care.

Visit www.eatingdisorderocdtherapy.com via the link in our bio to read the full blog or learn more about working with us. 🫶🏽

Tagging some of my fav motherhood creators!

eatingdisorderrecovery

03/20/2026

Absolutely loved this convo with ✨ I so admire the counter narrative Deb puts out into the world in her book, Unapologetic Aging. Listen now on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts! We unpack the ways ageism and diet culture collide- and what an alternative to the anti-aging hype can look like.

Thank you Deb for sharing your wisdom with us!

02/27/2026

Episode 80 of Body Justice out now! I’m so grateful for Natalie (founder of ) for sharing her lived experience with unlearning and divesting from Zionism. Natalie is a Jewish eating disorder dietitian and a dear friend of mine. I have learned so much from her.

In this episode we cover:

✨What Zionism is and how it connects to colonialism and other forms of oppression
✨The historical context of Zionism within the Jewish and other religious communities
✨An exploration of how Zionism hijacks the core values of Judaism
✨Natalie’s journey to developing critical consciousness outside of Zionism-led propaganda
✨The connection between Zionism and the rise of anti-Jewish hatred
✨Systemic oppression and scapegoating of Jewish people
✨Why all of this matters for eating disorders

Tune in and let me know what stood out to you. Available on all podcasting platforms- and via the link in my bio.

Disclaimer: this is for educational purposes only and is not meant for individual therapeutic, medical or nutritional advice.

02/26/2026

Something that has been on my mind lately is the parallel between emotional loneliness and cultural loneliness. And how eating disorders are common in both of these experiences.

In families shaped by emotional immaturity, children often learn that their inner world is inconvenient. They adapt by becoming self-sufficient, minimizing their feelings and suppressing their needs.

Relational-Cultural Theory teaches us that humans grow through connection. Chronic disconnection produces shame and survival strategies- the opposite of what helps us thrive.

And when we zoom out- what happens when the disconnection isn’t just familial but also cultural?

-When assimilation demands we deny parts of ourselves to be more palatable for the dominant culture.
-When your language isn’t passed down due to fear, ethnocentrism and embarrassment.
-When you feel “not enough” of any identity.

That too creates loneliness and cut off.

For many of us, especially mixed race folx, immigrants, first-gen kids, neurodivergent and q***r folks- eating disorders can function as a substitute attachment in the face of both familial and cultural disconnection. When we don’t have safe attachments, we discover brilliant ways of surviving, even if they hurt us in the long run.

Recovery, then, must look way beyond “just eating” or throwing out the old clothes.

It’s relational trauma repair, reclaiming identity and culture, finding spaces where your full self is welcome.

This has been my journey, and I know I can’t be alone in this. ❤️‍🩹

Of course everyone’s ED story is different, this won’t be everyone’s experience.

Tell me what you think below.⬇️

If you’re looking for a culturally competent ED or OCD therapist- feel free to reach out via the link in my bio. We work with therapy seekers in CA, WA, UT, MD, TN & FL. We also provide recovery coaching worldwide 🫶🏽

02/19/2026

Grateful for this space last week & ✨

Not just because I got to connect with other Latine therapists in SD, but because it felt like part of me could exhale, like part of me was home.

A vulnerable share:

As a mixed race AsianLatine person, I’ve never fully felt like I belonged in either space. Growing up, I felt like a chronic outsider. A fraud (maybe that’s why I’m so big on inclusivity now?).

My grandparents didn’t pass Spanish down to protect us from discrimination. And they weren’t wrong- it’s 2025 and look at how the dominant culture still reacts to cultural visibility (thank you we love you).

But that protection came at a cost, it estranged me from part of myself, my culture & left a void.

Moving to SoCal in my early 20s changed things. I was finally surrounded by other mixed folks. I explored my Southeast Asian roots, visited Indonesia, learned my maternal grandparents’ stories. But lately, I’ve felt an ache to deepen my connection to my Latine roots too.

Especially now, I have a mixed Latine child. My partner’s first language is Spanish. And I just lost my paternal grandmother, Silvia. She was a Mexican immigrant with no papers who risked everything to build a life here. Life was brutal to her, alcohol helped her cope but it also destroyed her. She cut off contact with all of us years ago and we found out she died a couple of weeks ago- and I’ll never know her stories now. But something in my bones feels so outraged on her behalf, likely intensified by the escalation of 🧊 raids.

It’s a strange grief, feels like another door closing on my cultural identity.

But I know that’s what white supremacy wants- disconnection, erasure.

So instead, I’m taking Spanish classes, I’m pushing past racial imposter syndrome, I’m reclaiming what was interrupted.

Connecting with other Latine therapists reminded me: I’m not an imposter. I belong to this heritage & I am enough. Colonization just wants me to believe otherwise.

If you made it this far, thank you for seeing me. ❤️‍🩹

May this be your reminder to reclaim the parts of yourself you were taught to shrink, disguise or disconnect from. ✨

Xoxoxo

02/10/2026

Social change isn’t driven by one person, like raising a child, it truly takes a village.

Deepa’s framework reminds us of the variety and complexity of each role. You might see parts of yourself in several and it might change in different life seasons. So, I made some journal prompts to help you explore where you’re being called to in this moment.

I hope this brings clarity, intentionality and grounding as we continue showing up as the tender and justice seeking humans that we are.

Liberation needs all of us✨

Journal prompts inspired by Deepa Iyer - go check out her work!

02/03/2026

Eating related harm is rampant in immigration prisons/detention centers.

Studies and survivor memoirs consistently document food insecurity, malnutrition, appetite disruption, unsanitary conditions, food refusal and hunger strikes among detained migrants. At the same time, PTSD rates commonly range from ~30–70%, with symptoms worsening the longer detention lasts.

These issues are interconnected survival responses to captivity, deprivation and chronic threat.

When eating disorders aren’t named, they’re not treated. And when systems go unnamed, harm is allowed to continue.

Eating disorder providers- take action with me. Take a stand. Donate, call senators, protest, eduction and amplify grassroots efforts fighting for justice.

The link in bio has a great list of immigrant justice mutual aid networks.

I also recommend looking into:

01/27/2026

Anyone who knows the pain of being the scapegoat in a dysfunctional family can feel the pain, rage and deep sense of injustice that comes with witnessing what is happening (what has *been* happening) to immigrants in the U.S. right now. I’m sharing this parallel with conflicting emotions/thoughts: I don’t like the feeling of theorizing about people’s deepest horrors, happening in real time. And at the very same time, I’m desperate to get more people to understand how messed up this is, to unlearn the lies we’ve been sold and why, and ultimately so that more collective action can be taken as a result of new awareness.

I hope this reaches the people it needs to. And please, please take action with me. I feel like a broken record but I won’t stop speaking up. It’s never too late to take action- see the last slide for ideas!

*This is IG, not therapy. This is for educational purposes only.

01/20/2026

New episode out now! I’m soooo thrilled about this one- I learned so much. In this episode of Body Justice Podcast, I talk with Monika Orstroff Executive Director of for an honest and deeply informed conversation about dissociative identity disorder (DID) and eating disorders.

Monika shares her lived experience of being diagnosed with DID in 1993 (when it was still called ‘multiple personalities disorder’), breaks down what DID actually is (and what it is not), and explains why dissociative systems are often misunderstood, misdiagnosed, and stigmatized.

Together, we explore how DID can shape eating disorder recovery, why treatment often fails when clinicians ignore or pathologize parts and what it looks like to support safety, collaboration, and internal communication, without fear-based demands and expectations of neuronormativity.

Learn more about Monika’s work at healingmyparts.org. You can also find her other resources through Healing My Parts, including her podcast, Substack and IG

Thank you Monika!!

Episode available on Apple, Spotify or anywhere you get your podcasts. Stay tuned for part two!

01/17/2026

Liberatory hope is not toxic positivity! It is essential for taking action and it is defiance in a system that tells us how to think, feel, behave.

So many of us are feeling dread, fear, helplessness- all valid responses to what is going on. Know that hope comes from these places too.

When you don’t know what to do, remember. Remember the civil rights movements that have led to change before. Remember movements that have led to justice. Remember how one persons actions can change the lives on many- and you can be that person too. Your voice matters. Keep using it, keep speaking up, keeping donating, keep checking on your people, keep believing a different world is possible and coming.

01/13/2026

Absolutely sickened at what this is coming to, what it’s been coming to. I have beloved friends in MN confirming that the door to door checks are truly happening. I feel so sick I barely have words. So I’m going to share some resources and poems that articulate how this better than I can in this moment. Please don’t look away. Please wake up. Take action. Speak out. Stand up when and where you can.

Wishing each and every one of you safety and care.

Eating Disorder & OCD Therapy

04/21/2026

03/27/2026

03/20/2026

02/27/2026

02/26/2026

02/19/2026

02/10/2026

02/03/2026

01/27/2026

01/20/2026

01/17/2026

01/13/2026

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Practice

Shortcuts

Featured

Share

Category