Eating Disorders Trauma Depression Anxiety

Case Study

One Concern, Many Roots: How One Woman Found the Trauma Beneath Her Eating Disorder

At 57, Diane came to The Center • A Place of HOPE to understand her eating disorder. Within a week she saw it was sitting on top of unprocessed trauma, depression, and anxiety. Five weeks of whole-person treatment helped her work on all of it together.

By The Center • A Place of HOPE Updated October 12, 2026 7 min read

Before Treatment: A Problem She Thought She Could Name

When Diane (name changed for privacy) began looking for help, she believed she knew exactly what was wrong. At 57, she had lived with an eating disorder long enough to be tired of it, and she wanted two things: to understand it properly and to learn skills that would let her manage it at home.

“My goal was pretty simple. Awareness of what was going on with my eating, and some tools to help me get through it. I did not go in expecting much more than that.”

— Diane

Her situation is more common than most people realize. The National Eating Disorders Association reports that 13% of women aged 50 and above experience at least one current symptom of an eating disorder, and that between 2% and 7.7% of women over 40 meet full diagnostic criteria [1]. The stereotype of the teenage patient hides a large group of women in midlife who are struggling quietly, often for decades.

What Diane did not yet see was how much else was tangled up with the eating. Difficulties in her relationships, a history of trauma she had never worked through, and periods of depression and anxiety had all become part of the same knot. The National Institute of Mental Health notes that eating disorders frequently co-occur with mood and anxiety disorders [2], and a national survey of U.S. adults found that the large majority of women with anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorder reported a history of interpersonal trauma [3].

“Where there is one issue, you will find others attached further down the line that might not be as visible. I could not have told you that before I went in.”

Q&A: Deciding to Go

What made you decide on a residential program rather than another round of outpatient help?

Diane: I had reached a point where I was tired of managing symptoms on my own and I wanted something concentrated. I wanted to step out of my normal life for a few weeks and actually deal with it.

Were you nervous about the admissions process?

Diane: A little, but it turned out to be straightforward. The admissions team was friendly and helpful. They answered my questions, they got me the information I needed, and they got me there. I cannot think of anything that would have made that part easier.

Finding The Center • A Place of HOPE

Diane chose The Center • A Place of HOPE in Edmonds, Washington, because its program treats the whole person rather than a single diagnosis. That distinction mattered more than she knew at the time. Research on eating disorders alongside trauma has found that when the two are treated by separate providers who do not coordinate, care tends to become fragmented and incomplete, and that concurrent PTSD is present in up to half of eating disorder patients treated at higher levels of care [4].

She arrived in May 2026 for what would become a five-week intensive stay, completing the program in June 2026.

The Treatment Experience: Five Weeks of Connecting the Dots

The turning point came early, about a week into her stay.

“I realized there was so much more going on than my initial concern. I came here for an eating disorder. What I found was that the eating disorder was sitting on top of a lot of other things.”

— Diane

Her days were built around classes covering depression, anxiety, boundaries, relationships, emotional abuse, and trauma, alongside individual therapy sessions. The breadth surprised her, and it turned out to be the point.

“Through their thoughtful and caring approach to teaching about all of those areas, I was finally able to gain awareness of my unprocessed trauma and how it led to the eating disorder, the depression, the anxiety, and so on. Each therapist has their own distinct qualities and style, and that was helpful. Different people explained things in different ways, and something would land.”

The Course That Changed the Most

Of everything on the schedule, Diane singles out dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), a skills-based approach originally developed to help people manage overwhelming emotion.

“DBT was one of the most beneficial takeaways for me. The skills are practical. You can use them the same day.”

Her experience matches the evidence. A systematic review and meta-analysis of eleven studies found that DBT produced greater improvements in emotion regulation, depressive symptoms, and eating disorder psychopathology than control conditions, with the strongest effects in binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa [5].

Diane also credits her primary therapist, Melissa (name changed for privacy), with much of her progress.

“Melissa is amazing. I believe I would not be where I am in my healing journey today without her guidance, support, compassion, and knowledge.”

— Diane

Her contact with the medical team was lighter, which she took as a good sign, and the interactions she did have were pleasant.

Treatment Progress: Weekly Milestones

Week	Focus Areas	Key Breakthroughs
Week 1	Assessment, orientation, and building trust with the treatment team	Recognizing that the eating disorder was one part of a larger picture
Week 2	Trauma education and depression and anxiety classes	Naming the unprocessed trauma for the first time
Week 3	DBT skills, emotional abuse, and boundaries	Learning practical tools for managing overwhelming emotion
Week 4	Relationships and how the pieces connect	Seeing how trauma, mood, and eating had been feeding one another
Week 5	Integration and planning for home	Beginning to shape a continuation of care plan

Q&A: Inside the Program

What was it like to discover the problem was bigger than you thought?

Diane: Unsettling at first, then a relief. For years I had been treating the eating as the whole story. Once I could see the trauma underneath it, the eating disorder started to make sense. It was a symptom of something, and you can work with a symptom once you know its source.

Which parts of the program would you tell someone not to skip?

Diane: DBT, and the classes on boundaries and relationships. Those were the ones I would have protected at all costs. Having courses in all the major areas was what made it work, though. The way the program is tailored to the things you personally struggle with was a game changer for me.

Was there a moment when you felt the approach was right?

Diane: When I understood the whole person approach to healing. I wholeheartedly believe true healing cannot happen any other way. Depression, anxiety, anger, boundaries, relationships, abuse, the eating disorder, the trauma. They are all intertwined and woven together. You cannot pull one thread out on its own.

Life After Treatment: Building on a New Foundation

Diane completed the program in June 2026 and gave the care she received the highest rating available. She says the difference between the woman who arrived and the woman who left is mostly a matter of what she can now see.

“The Center was more than I ever expected it could be. The approach to healing and the compassion of the staff far exceeded what I thought I would experience. Their motto of whole person healing is spot on.”

— Diane

The numbers explain why that kind of care matters for women in her age group. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that past-year major depressive episodes affect 10.3% of adult women compared with 6.2% of men [6], and that 23.4% of women experience an anxiety disorder in a given year against 14.3% of men [7]. When those conditions sit alongside an eating disorder and an old trauma, treating any one of them in isolation leaves the others to pull the person back.

Continuation of Care

As her stay drew to a close, Diane and her team were finalizing a continuation of care plan for her return home, built around the DBT skills she found most useful and continued support for her eating disorder.

“We were still working on the details when I left. That felt right. I wanted it to fit my actual life, and I wanted it to be honest about what I would need.”

Q&A: Looking Back

What do you understand now that you did not before?

Diane: That the eating disorder was never the whole problem. It was the visible part. Everything else was further down the line and harder to see.

Would you recommend The Center • A Place of HOPE to someone else?

Diane: Yes. Without hesitation. If you come in thinking you have one problem, be ready to find out you have a few, and be ready to be treated with real compassion while you work through them.

Why This Story Matters

Diane’s story is a useful corrective to two assumptions. The first is that eating disorders belong to the young. The second is that a person’s presenting concern is the whole of what needs treating. She arrived with a clear, narrow goal and left with a far more accurate map of herself, because the program was designed to look at everything at once.

Key Takeaways from Diane’s Experience

Eating disorders do not retire. Roughly one in eight women over 50 has at least one current symptom, and many have never been treated.

The presenting problem is rarely the only one. Trauma, mood, and eating are commonly linked, and treating them together produces a clearer picture than treating them apart.

Practical skills matter. DBT gave Diane tools she could use immediately and carry home.

Whole-person care is the point. Classes across every major area let her see the connections she had missed for years.

A Message of Hope

Diane came to The Center • A Place of HOPE to fix her eating. She left having understood why it had gone wrong in the first place, and with a set of tools for the road ahead.

“I came here to address an eating disorder and realized after a week there was so much more going on. I am grateful I stayed long enough to find out.”

— Diane

If you or someone you love is living with an eating disorder, depression, anxiety, or the effects of past trauma, The Center • A Place of HOPE offers a whole-person program designed to treat the connections between them. Contact our admissions team to learn more.

References

[1] National Eating Disorders Association. Eating Disorders in Midlife and Beyond. https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/eating-disorders-and-midlife-and-beyond/

[2] National Institute of Mental Health. Eating Disorders. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/eating-disorders

[3] Mitchell, K.S., et al. (2012). Comorbidity of partial and subthreshold PTSD among men and women with eating disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication study. International Journal of Eating Disorders. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3297686/

[4] Brewerton, T.D. (2023). The integrated treatment of eating disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, and psychiatric comorbidity: a commentary on the evolution of principles and guidelines. Frontiers in Psychiatry. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10213703/

[5] Rozakou-Soumalia, N., et al. (2021). Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Improves Emotion Dysregulation Mainly in Binge Eating Disorder and Bulimia Nervosa: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Personalized Medicine. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8470932/

[6] National Institute of Mental Health. Major Depression. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/major-depression

[7] National Institute of Mental Health. Any Anxiety Disorder. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/any-anxiety-disorder