Sometimes, we meet in real life someone who has been a quiet companion for years. Someone who, without even knowing it, has had a profound impact on our journey. Through her podcast Fly to Freedom, Specialist Anorexia Recovery Coach Julia Trehane offers daily inspiration to those seeking healing and peace, while also helping their loved ones better understand what they’re going through.

I had the privilege of speaking with her about sex and intimacy, topics so often neglected in the context of recovery. Julia responded with her trademark generosity, with powerful, honest words drawn from her own personal experience, along with heartfelt advice delivered with the sensitivity that defines her.

As it happens, this episode of Fly to Freedom explores these very themes, offering a continuation of the conversation we began together. For My Goddess Complex, Julia shares her testimony and experience.

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Julia: My name is Julia Trehane. I developed an eating disorder when I was about 8 years old, primarily because I didn’t feel safe to be seen, and my child brain worked out that being small kept me safe. So that’s the start. And I kind of existed in this eating disorder until I was 48. 

It had better times and worse times right through until I was 48, when it got really, really bad. I kind of hit rock bottom and decided to recover. And at that point I was deep in anorexia, orthorexia, and exercise addiction. And I went through recovery, which was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. 

I went from existing to living. I had no idea what I’d been missing out on. I felt so different and so much better. I felt like I did actually deserve a place in this world, and that I had worth. 

I just felt so passionately that other people needed to know that life was incredible when you recovered that I then became a coach. I started a podcast. I also now have an online community as well and I spend all my time helping people to recover and become who they truly are. And that’s me, really.

Aurélia: And that’s amazing. I mean, your path really is inspiring. And God, I recognize myself so much in what you said. I also developed an eating disorder when I was super, super young, and often people almost cannot believe it – but it’s true. So how has it been for you to reach that point when you had a reconnection with your body and enough trust to be able to explore again intimacy? 

Julia: So I’m married, and I’ve been married, for what, 30 years this year? And there was intimacy even during the eating disorder. But my husband never knew at the time that it was kind of done because it was the done thing, rather than because I wanted to or because I enjoyed it. I was, I guess, going through the motions. I didn’t realize that was because the restriction caused my body to stop producing the hormones that would actually give me any forms of desire.

So when I started recovery – it took quite a long time actually – but when I got well nourished again, I started to reconnect with my body. And initially that reconnection to my body was so fear filled: trying to adjust to allow myself to feel my body, which meant I could feel a lot of pain in a lot of places that I’d shut down for years, which really surprised me.

I was like: “why am I in pain now and I never used to be?” But it wasn’t that I never used to be. It was that I never listened to my body. So like, I don’t know, stubbing my toe hurt sometimes more than it ever [did] before. And it was because I was feeling and I was connected to my body. 

I guess I started connecting by doing very gentle yoga to just feel my body moving in different directions, and it took a lot of practice and a lot of sitting with the uncomfortable feelings of feeling my body. 

And then I moved on to mirror work and just being with my reflection, which initially was so hard and so uncomfortable. I just had to keep practicing being there and allowing the thoughts to come up, but not allowing myself to give them my energy. And then I started to notice what my body did for me and started to actually feel really pleased that I can walk and I can pick things up and I can move and that I’m really grateful for that. Noticing how my body healed and how incredible my body actually is, and that I always trusted my body that when I stood up and wanted to walk, it would work, that I could breathe, that if I needed to go to the toilet, it would tell me and I would go to the toilet. 

But for some reason, I didn’t think it could be trusted about food which, when you think about it in that context, doesn’t make any sense. Then, I started to realize that actually my body had never been against me. It was always looking after me and it wasn’t a separate entity, which is how I’d always treated it. 

And so, I became more and more familiar with my body as I started to work on acceptance – I guess that came first – just working on acceptance. I didn’t like it. I did not like how my body looked at all. And then I realized you don’t have to. 

I started to work through standing in front of the mirror and saying, “I can be OK with my eyelashes. They’re alright. I could be OK with that”. And then I was telling my brain to look for things that I could be OK with, rather than to look for things that I could criticize. The more I did that, the more my brain would find things that I could be OK with. 

Then, I started allowing myself to be held by my husband and that was hard to begin with because I’d spent years pushing him away. 

At a certain point in time, he had to go off and work in London for three months. So he wasn’t there. And shortly after he’d gone off to work, I suddenly got this incredible feeling of desire coming in and I was just like, “whoa, where does this come from?” and I was like, “oh my God, I feel like I’m suddenly a nymphomaniac. All I can think about is sex”. And it’s just like: how is this not happening gradually? It’s like I’ve been hit with a freight train of desire and, my God, it terrified me to begin with because it’s never talked about. 

It’s never talked about how you lose desire in an eating disorder, and then how, when it comes back, it’s like your body’s suddenly “OK. It’s safe now. It’s safe to be thinking about these things. It’s safe to think about things other than survival. So here’s all the desire you should have had over the last God knows how many years, have it now, all at once!”

And the funny thing was that I got in my car and I drove 3 hours to go and visit my husband just so that I could actually have sex. After a couple of months of me just demanding it all the time because it was all I could think of, he even told me he was a bit tired haha!

At that moment, I started to realize that it didn’t matter what my body looked like, it was how I was feeling. And so letting myself focus on how I was feeling, rather than the fear thoughts that were in the background about how I appeared made it so much easier and so much more pleasurable. But yes, it was frightening and hilarious how desire returns all at once. 

Since that’s happened, I’ve learnt that it is quite common, but it’s never talked about. 

Aurélia: That was really interesting and truly, it’s never talked about. Also, you were talking about letting yourself be held by your husband, and I feel like those little moments are so essential. Those little moments when you realize that actually something has changed. For months, you practice exercises, trying to change your mind, and then it’s just one moment that makes it all concrete. 

For example, I remember that for a long time, I never allowed my partner to touch my belly when holding me. It was just a “don’t do that, I can’t handle it.” I couldn’t even explain why, I just knew I couldn’t. And then, one day, it happened. And I almost cried. I realized, actually, I feel good. Actually, I like this feeling. 

It was something I had never experienced before. That moment – when I felt safe and even enjoyed being touched there – was the moment I felt like I had found something in myself again. And I still cherish it deeply.

Since you mentioned the presence of your partner, that brings me to one of my questions: how important has it been for you to have conversations with your partner about all of this? And do you have any tips on how to begin those conversations, especially when the other person hasn’t experienced an eating disorder? Only to the extent that you feel comfortable sharing, of course.

Julia: Yes, we have had the conversations. They were hard, awkward, and uncomfortable; there was just a lot of general awkwardness and a real reluctance to talk about it. But it’s those feared conversations that actually bring you closer to your partner, because being vulnerable opens up new layers of trust. And if they’re your person, they’re going to respect that. They’ll welcome your vulnerability.

So yes, we had conversations – particularly about my belly. I told him, “I don’t want you touching my belly,” because during recovery, that’s the area that gains weight first. And it’s probably the place you least want to see any change.

So we went from absolutely no touching to: “OK, you can put your hand there — but don’t move it, don’t jiggle it, don’t do anything.” And that was something I could cope with. I’d say, “that’s OK for today,” and we’d leave it at that. I also asked for patience, and for gentleness – because after so many years of living in the eating disorder, which is abusive to your body, all your body really wants is gentleness.

So having those conversations, even when they’re hard and uncomfortable, is really, really important. And you can bring humour into it too – humour really helps. But ultimately, you just have to be honest. Tell the truth about how you’re feeling, what you’re OK with, and what you’re open to exploring, and then build from there.

Aurélia: Thanks a lot for your answers. Shifting a bit now to your work as a coach – how would you describe what you do? And what does it look like when you see someone coming back to life, emotionally and physically?

Also, especially when you’re working with teenagers, how do you approach questions that are more connected to desire, intimacy, or sexuality?

Julia: OK, so it’s the biggest privilege in the world to support somebody through recovery because they go [from existing] to living and the first sign is that they start to smile more and their eyes start to light up. And I’ve got a client this morning who sent me a video note, and for the first time I just saw her eyes have got light in them and it’s beautiful and incredible. They start to laugh and they start to be more open to connection and less isolated and shut off. 

As for intimacy, I think that it takes a while to come back. 

I think it’s one of the last things because if you think about it, the desire comes from your reproductive hormones. And when you’re in a perceived famine, your body shuts down reproduction because it’s not safe to reproduce.

It’s not safe to bring a child into the world in a famine. And whether you do or don’t want to have children, your body doesn’t know or care about this. All it’s thinking about is that there is a famine, so it’s not safe, therefore it’s going to shut down any part of this. And so your body’s got to feel very safe before it considers opening up to the possibilities of reproduction. And so you don’t get those hormones back for quite a while and when they do come back, it’s confusing. And you need to be gentle with yourself, especially at that moment. 

When you start having those flickers of desire back, especially as a teenager, there may be fear and more self-consciousness, especially when you’re coming out of an eating disorder. That’s why, in my work, I do things a bit differently than most traditional eating disorder treatments. I don’t focus primarily on food or weight. Instead, I work on the reasons the eating disorder developed in the first place – on coming back to who you actually are.

So by the time those flickers of desire start to return, I’ve usually worked with my clients long enough for them to know – deep down – that they are good enough. That they deserve to be seen, that they have value in the world. If you haven’t done that deeper inner work and have only focused on weight restoration, then it’s much harder to build real connection in my opinion, you are still in an eating disorder. You still carry the same thoughts of not being good enough, of not being OK.

It takes going deeper – getting to know yourself as a person – before you can truly allow someone else to know you too. And that’s why, when someone reaches the stage where they’re willing to let another person share part of their life with them, especially in a sexual or intimate way, it’s such a beautiful part of the process. It means they trust themselves enough to trust someone else.

Aurélia: This is so powerful. And it’s really true. I’m so glad we’re talking about this part of recovery – not just weight restoration.

Because I think that’s one of the most common myths people have about eating disorders. There’s this idea that people with eating disorders don’t feel desire, that they don’t have the capacity for it, or that they’re just self-absorbed and focused only on themselves. And I don’t think that’s true at all. It just takes a different path – one that’s often hard to understand for someone who hasn’t had that experience.

Julia: Yes – just to add something to what you said. People often think that those in eating disorders don’t have desire or the capacity for it. But even when you’re deep in it, you desperately want connection – human touch – even if it’s not sexual or intimate in the conventional sense. You still want that closeness. It’s just incredibly hard to allow yourself to receive it. So people isolate themselves and shut others out, but that’s a coping mechanism. Deep down, they want to feel accepted. They want to be held.

So yes, it’s absolutely a myth that people with eating disorders don’t want connection. They really, really do. They just don’t know how to ask for it – or how to receive it.

Aurélia: Absolutely. Even your own touch can feel uncomfortable. So how could you allow someone else to touch you, if even your own hand feels like too much? I think that’s something really important.

Julia: And that’s actually part of the coming back. I started just by placing one hand on my face and simply allowing myself to touch it in a compassionate way. Then I began gently stroking my face. 

At first, it felt horrendous. But over time, it started to feel like a kind, loving gesture. Eventually, I would move my hand to rest over my heart or my shoulder. And honestly, it’s amazing how much that can help – how much peace that kind of touch can bring to a really stressed nervous system.

Aurélia: It’s amazing to see how, even though recovery looks different for every person, we all go through these shared moments. Things we’ve done – or still do – that overlap in powerful ways. It reminds you that you’re not alone. That what you’re going through isn’t some isolated, singular experience that cuts you off from others. On the contrary, it can actually become a point of connection.

So – if you had one message about healing and desire that you could shout from the rooftops, what would it be?

Julia: Oof, one message? That’s hard.

Aurélia: You can have several. This is the last question – put everything in it!

Julia: Desire has nothing to do with how your body looks. It’s about how your body feels. That’s what really matters. And when you allow yourself to be in touch with how you’re feeling, the person you’re with will feel that too. They’re not going to be thinking about how you look – they’ll be feeling how you feel, and how they feel in response.

Desire has nothing to do with appearance. You can feel desire in any shape, size, color, gender, body. It doesn’t matter. At any age – well, obviously not before puberty – but otherwise, yes. There’s no shame in it.

Any shame we carry around desire usually comes from fear. And no one wants to live a fear-filled life. The only way to move through fear is to go through it – not around it.

There is no shame in desire or in touch. It’s actually the most natural thing in the world – especially for women. I mean, the clitoris has twice the number of pleasure receptors as the penis. We are literally built for pleasure.

Human beings are built for pleasure. So you’re meant to feel these things. There’s never any shame in feeling them. And there’s certainly no shame in exploring those feelings with yourself.

That’s actually a really good way to begin – because it’s safe, gentle, and allows you to get to know what feels good for you.

So yeah – never be ashamed of your desire, or of yourself in any way. You are not broken. You’ve never been broken. You can heal.

There are so many people out here who’ve been through it and who believe in you. You are worth it – always. Worth the effort, the gentleness, the reconnection with yourself, with the world, with your sexuality, with your desire.

You are a whole, perfectly imperfect, worthy, complete person. You always were – and you always will be.

Relevant links:

Julia’s Website | Fly to Freedom episode “Sex, Shame and Learning to Feel Again in Recovery” | Fly to Freedom podcast | Julia’s Instagram

Image: Freddie Addery