Sophie Shev:
Art can be such a beautiful form of rebellion. I got to engage with the world in a way that was so much bigger than the medical system. And it reminded me that there is the possibility of a future out there where these systems don't even need to exist.
Shannon Kopp:
Ever felt so stuck in a rut that the very rhythms of our world seemingly reinforce your self-destruction? Today's guest knows exactly what that's like and has devoted her considerable talents towards upending those patterns. Welcome back to Mental Note Podcast and the final episode of our Say It Brave on Campus miniseries. I'm Shannon Kopp, your guest host. And throughout this series, I've been sharing college mental health stories from students I've met through events on campuses around the country. To cap off our time together, we're stepping into the expansive imagination of Sophie Shev, a mental health justice activist, public speaker, and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, whose journey with an eating disorder began in childhood as a response to feeling "broken" by educational systems that pathologized her learning differences.
Sophie is a unique, up and coming thought leader who invites us to consider how eating disorders act as ways of coping with disordered societies. And in turn, how true healing is not found through being "fixed," but rather by reclaiming a personal inner knowledge about what we need to heal. It's a packed episode, and I cannot wait to share a conversation about art as resistance, learning as liberation, and what becomes possible when we stop asking students to conform and start trusting them instead. You're listening to Mental Note Podcast. I'm Shannon Kopp, sitting in for Ellie Pike. Sophie, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here.
Sophie Shev:
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here and just to diving into this very important conversation.
Shannon Kopp:
I'm stoked. I just think your story is incredible. And, I'd like to really start at the beginning. If you could share with us a bit about your journey of experiencing an eating disorder as a student, how old you were, when it started, and what that was like.
Sophie Shev:
I think I'm going to start this off by framing that it's hard for me, and I think for anybody that has struggled with disordered eating or eating disorders to pinpoint an exact origin of like, "This was the date and time where it began." And, when I first, I think, began to consciously struggle with things like body image was very early on. I'd say as early as three or four-years-old, I remember looking in the mirror and thinking, "Why am I different? Why am I struggling to fit in?" And, I was somebody that had learning disabilities growing up and going to school, and that experience really impacted my orientation to my own identity and to my own sense of self, right? If you're told, "Oh, you're not performing well in school." That's really going to impact your self-esteem when that's what's valued in your community.
So, I think that began to manifest as a very embodied experience like, "There's something wrong with me. There's something wrong with my body." And that was a conscious thought I had very, very early on. But I was first, I think, pathologized as somebody that had disordered eating behavior around 11-years-old. So I was in, gosh, fifth grade, sixth grade at the time. I was involved in competitive gymnastics. Obviously, with sports like that, a lot of it where it's performance-based, there is critiques of body. And also, yeah, a big part of it for me was expressing and reacting to this feedback that I was getting from my surroundings that there was something wrong with me, that I was deficient in the way that I learned and deficient in the way that I acted by internalizing that and by turning to what I could control, which was food.
Disordered eating and eating disorders are really ways that we cope and create order within disordered conditions and disordered societies. And a lot of that disorder really does manifest in the way that we treat people with disabilities. So, this is something I'm going back and learning about after having done a lot of healing at the time, that really wasn't how I conceived of it. It was just I started to control my food in certain ways. I started to think a lot more about my body and it became something for me to hyper fixate on and make my world rather small when challenging these systems that led me to feel so broken felt like such a big thing for me to do and something like I couldn't really do.
So, that's really how my journey began as somebody struggling with an eating disorder as a student. So yeah, around 10, 11-years-old. And the first time that I was hospitalized for an eating disorder and it really interrupted my schooling experience and really burst the bubble of little sheltered Jewish West LA that I grew up in was when I was 15-years-old. That was when it really got to a point where it was impacting my physical health to a degree where I needed care in order to save my life. First of all, being pulled out of school and put into a treatment system for two years. But second of all, what it was like within this treatment system, witnessing and experiencing so many injustices I otherwise would have not been exposed to, including often being denied the care that I needed, because my body size wasn't in line with what the medical system today continues to conceive of as being in line with a restrictive eating disorder.
So, as soon as I think my eating disorder treatment began in that mode around 15, when I was in high school, my eating disorder treatment advocacy to work against that began as well.
Shannon Kopp:
Sophie, I so appreciate you sharing about the disordered society and this idea of a label that you were given as different or less than because of learning in different ways, right? And, we hear a lot about this at Say It Brave on Campus, how our identity gets wrapped up in our life as a student, or how we are judged, or our grades, or our performance. And, I don't know if you could speak more to how, from the outside, it seems like a big problem, right? But, for those experiencing it, we don't just come to these behaviors with the idea that we're going to do it once or we're going to do it 1000 times. It appears in our lives as a solution, even if it has long-term consequences that are negative, a temporary solution, a reprieve from this feeling of, "I am not enough. I am different." And it sounds to me like you were really getting that messaging from schooling. And I didn't know if you could share a little bit more about that, and what that felt like, and how the eating disorder masked itself as a solution in the beginning.
Sophie Shev:
No, that's a really good question. And it's something I think about a lot, especially now here at Stanford. I'm doing my master's through the Graduate School of Education. And, something we talk about a lot is how the systems that student interact with really lead to the internalization of certain identities. And that really impacts, I mean, life trajectory, but also, it's important to talk about the fact that, yeah, there are systems built out to place students into different identity categories. And then they really internalize that. And then, the "solutions" that we create deal with individual solutions and individual identities, rather than looking back at these systems that stratify students in the first place. So that's just an overarching pattern that I'm very interested in exploring further.
But yeah, in my own experience, I can definitely say, that internalization was very present. I mean, we're all embodied beings and we are conditioned to internalize what we're told. So if we're told, "You are not performing well. And in order to be successful in life, you need to meet these certain performance standards." You are going to feel broken. And very, very early on in my life, I think, I was conditioned to feel that way. And I think so many of us often are. Sometimes that does... And school systems tend to be a place where students learn to internalize that they are broken. And this is a huge problem that we see throughout the American schooling system.
So, for me, I think that's something that definitely did take place, how schools react to those students that are identified as underperforming looks very different from student to student. And I want to recognize my privilege and that the special education space that I was placed into, the extra support that I got was intended to remediate my performance, because I was identified as somebody that, given the fact I was white and had a financial privilege with somebody that was supposed to go to college and supposed to join the workforce.
When students are of color, when students are pathologized with certain disabilities, that is absolutely not the case, and that's when we end up with students being placed onto pathways that end up in incarceration or school dropout rates and really harsh punishments within the school system. So, it's important to contextualize my experience recognizing and acknowledging those injustices and my orientation to the privilege that I do have. But yeah, I think, learning in school can also, in turn, be a space where students learn to find the tools and the relationships that they need to heal. And I think, for me, I found a lot of that through my own learning after having been through the mental health treatment system and really thinking about these systems critically in taking classes about disability justice in college. So I also want to recognize that, yeah, I think in practice, the school system in the United States does impose a lot of harm onto students, and oftentimes that can lead to behaviors that are pathologized as eating disorders or other mental health conditions.
And then the solutions that we provide people almost punish them for those behaviors, which doesn't make any sense, because really, what causes them in the first place is the stratification. But, if we use educational tools to empower students, A, to recognize this injustice, but B, to learn how to create identities for themselves that include feeling empowered and include recognizing their own agency, then we can really do a lot of good in that space of what we call prevention, rather than just addressing the healthcare conditions that are caused by these injustices.
I know that was a lot and I tend to get very theoretical and get really deep into the systems, but it's hard for me to talk about my own experience without contextualizing it within larger systemic issues. It's something that's so hard not to see once you first see it.
Shannon Kopp:
I think it's so important that you've contextualized your lived experience within the systems that we are in today. And, what I was really moved by when you joined us, you've joined us for Say It Brave on Campus several years in a row. And every time after you share your story, students contact us and comment on what you experienced and say, "Me too. Me too." And so, I'm wondering, you've walked us through your journey as a young child feeling different, turning to behaviors to help you. And, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but perhaps to feel less alone or to have a brief reprieve from this idea that, "I'm not good enough." Or, "I'm not performing as the school system is telling me to perform." And I think, the word you used was to control or make your world smaller when it felt like there was bigger forces at play. And, you then were hospitalized at 15. Can you share with us then after those years what the graduating high school and moving into college was like and continuing to tend to your mental health?
Sophie Shev:
Yeah. I think during college over these past four years was a time of a lot of growth for me. And I think a lot of these connections that I'm making now that I'm speaking about took place for me during college. I also will say, I already grew up understanding I was not in alignment with what this standard of norm was, but that becomes further emphasized when you interact with the mental healthcare system. And with that, came an understanding that my journey through education was not going to be "normal." And there was a time where I thought I wasn't going to graduate high school and I wasn't going to go to college and that was just not my path forward. So, yeah, during high school, I went into treatment, and then COVID hit. So I graduated through an online program. And then I took a gap year. And that I think was one of the most informative periods of my life.
I was living independently and working in the mental health advocacy and policy space. And that was when I learned that not only was our mental healthcare system, I mean, fundamentally continuing to enforce the stratifications that lead to a lot of the responses to this disordered society I spoke about earlier, but so was the policy system that was meant to address it and they're very interlinked. And, I think, yeah, that was a time where my world expanded and it went from something that I think I subconsciously made smaller through things like disordered eating behaviors and into something where a lot of the healing took place for me when I started to think about my place in this much larger interconnected set of systems and started to envision what it would be like to live beyond them. And I think that really did begin to take place during my gap year. It did not take place in school. And I needed that insight in order to be able to apply it to school.
So I'm very thankful I did that before coming to college, because I took classes with the understanding that I wanted to equip myself with the tools, with the language, with the knowledge to envision what it would be like to live in this larger world where we are not constrained by these systems. And that's what I came to school for. And I want to emphasize again, I am very privileged to have had the ability to come to school for that, because majority of people need to obtain some certain level of education in order to get a job in order to survive. And for me, I am lucky to be in a privileged position where I am on the path to get a job. I'm on the path to be able to pay my bills and have the support to do so. So I'm able to dive into these theories and into this knowledge that we have, but is not valued by academies and by institutions, unless we really learn this way of speaking about them. So I came to learn to speak about them in this way.
And yeah, throughout my time in college with that, that was very healing for me and that continues to be very healing for me. I'm writing my thesis about eating disorder care in America and analyzing it through this lens of disability, critical race studies. And for me, that is extremely, extremely healing and it's very valuable for me to be able to pull my own experiences in my own context, and again, place them into this larger understanding of intertwined systems. So yeah, I think, a lot of the learning for me in college also came with learning how to take care of myself and engage in care in new ways that I hadn't previously thought about or had the opportunity to really engage in.
Shannon Kopp:
So Sophie, I hear you saying that you were continually navigating being told what healing, or recovery could, or even should look like, and perhaps in a more linear way. And you being able to... And an important thing for all of us to be able to look at what's being told to us or said and discern for ourselves, "How does this feel? What does this mean? What is true for me?" And what I remember you sharing during Say It Brave on Campus about your treatment experience was that creativity came into play. And I wondered if you could share a little bit about how creativity, whether at ERC or after has become an important part of your healing process.
Sophie Shev:
Yeah, absolutely. And I share this story quite a lot, because I think creative reflection and creative processes are such an important way of learning, and knowing, and communicating that our bodies can produce so much more than the work that we are pressured to produce and the outputs that we are pressured to produce. And, art can be such a beautiful form of rebellion against that. And in turn, such a beautiful form of the rebellion against this shrinking of the world that comes with dealing with something like an eating disorder. My creative writing teacher, Ms. Mansfield, at the time that I left high school, had also left her teaching job at high school for the first time to seek cancer treatment after having battled metastatic breast cancer for 15 years. And, she was an incredible poet and fiction writer. And, she had also opened up to me about how she had struggled with an eating disorder growing up.
And when I first had to pull out of school, I was emailing my teachers. And, by this point, I was recognized as a good student and put on this track of honors and AP classes and held a lot of shame around having had to essentially drop out for a bit. So, I wrote to teachers and didn't really disclose much, "Oh, I'm a bit sick. I'll be back in a few weeks." Needless to say, that was not true. But, I felt compelled to open up to her a bit more, because I just felt so safe in her classroom environment and felt so seen. And I was even starting to write some creative pieces where I was alluding to some of the struggles that I was dealing with and some of these systems I was starting to recognize before I even had the words for them in a non-creative context.
So when I reached out to her, I wrote her an email saying essentially, "I'm struggling with an eating disorder. I am being hospitalized. And, I am scared and I don't know what's going to come of this. I don't know if I'm going to be back at school. I also don't know if you're going to be back at school should I come back. But I just want to thank you for providing me with this very, very healing space. And I think it's going to be important for me to return to it." And she wrote back opening up about her own struggles and about how much writing helped her and how our stories seemed very parallel. She grew up as a dancer and let go of that form of creative art and turned to creative writing. And that was very healing for her. And, her struggles with an eating disorder growing up continued to impact her writing and continued to impact her orientation to being a caring force for other people as a teacher.
And, from that point on, we formed a very powerful pen-palship, where we exchanged creative work throughout both of our time and treatment, her time receiving treatment for cancer, and my time receiving treatment for my eating disorder. And that became a space for healing for me. And I think that was the most healing space in the entire period of my life that I was in eating disorder treatment, because I got to build an identity for myself outside of these pathologies, outside of this diagnostic criteria. I got to engage with the world in a way that was so much bigger than the medical system, and then the mental healthcare treatment system. And that's something that I think a lot of us struggle to do when we're literally within the confines of four walls of a hospital.
And it reminded me that there is the possibility of a larger world out there, that there is a possibility of a future out there where these systems don't even need to exist because the disordered systems that lead to these pathologies melt away once we begin to engage in other creative ways of imagining the future.
Shannon Kopp:
My goodness. I mean, I'm picturing you writing to her, her writing to you, both of you finding comfort, and connection, and I guess freedom from an identity that can be imposed upon you if you're a cancer patient or an eating disorder treatment patient. It can be so easy. And I speak from lived experience too, for your whole identity, to feel consumed by the mental health challenges you're going through. And to say on the page to your teacher, "I am so much more than this." And for her to say, "I am so much more than this cancer." And to have that safety and intimacy through pen-palship is so beautiful.
And a reminder, I think also, that when we're confronted with any problem, if we're in the mind, right, trying to solve it in the mind, it can feel so complex and impossible, but that there are these simple things, like connection, creativity, space, taking a gap year that I hear in your story that, say, for Sophie, you must have felt it just somewhere deep in your soul, "These are the things that work for me." Right? And that I think are not as intellectual or involving even these systems at hand, but going deep into your soul, Sophie, and saying, "This feels freeing to me. This feels healing." And, you experienced that writing to your teacher. Every time you share that story, I think I think of it a little bit differently, but how are you taking care of your mental health today? Where do you find healing today?
Sophie Shev:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's such a beautiful way to put it. I think the thing that I want to emphasize from what I just heard you reflect on and what I heard you just say is, we all hold this knowledge of what we need. We hold this knowledge of what is going to contribute to our healing and don't let systems and institutions state that they know your needs better than you do that. Again, there is some level of conforming to that that we need to do to literally access lifesaving care sometimes, but this knowledge is deep within you, and it can be very, very lonely and very, very isolating, and create a lot of dissonance not to be able to express that. So that's where something like art and creative expression can come in, and that's also where relationships come in. That's also where talking about these things come in, having somebody that recognizes your knowledge and you recognize their knowledge, that is a true healing relationship.
That's totally what I felt with my creative writing teacher, and also what that experience taught and helped me conceive of is that that extends so far beyond this current realm. I mean, even when she died, that's something I continue to feel today. She continues to guide me and her impact she left on my life continues to guide me. And, I don't know, it goes quite deep, but this made it really made me think about the legacy that I want to leave here and how the impact that we have extends so far beyond what we might know and what we might be able to see immediately. So, holding onto that knowledge can be very powerful and can be very healing. And yeah, in this current moment, I think reminding myself of that can be very important. I think it can be a bit of a struggle to engage creatively when we put pressure on ourselves to do it.
And that's where, I think, being a student can be a little bit tricky. I'm a creative writing minor and there are certain classes where I need to write poems. And, that can be tricky, because it's like, "Okay, I have to produce this piece of art to be reviewed." And for me, it's actually very helpful, because if not, sometimes I won't sit down and do it and I function well when I have these deadlines and what's on the page is on the page and it helps provide that level of structure that can be helpful. And, also understanding true art is meant to exist beyond these structures too. So, yeah, that is something and a practice that I am really hoping to continue to dive into as I continue to work through how I'm going to take care of myself for the rest of my life.
There's that definitely, as I said, I think for me, advocacy and building an identity for myself as an advocate, as somebody that hopes to engage in change making, that can be so important and be such an important pathway for healing. And, obviously, this is not just for myself, but that's how I see my approach to education in general. If we help students understand that they are change making agents in their own communities, that can lead to so much healing. So really thinking about that and thinking about the impact I want to have and surrounding myself with people that I feel like stand in solidarity with that, and I feel like I can do that with, and be in community with people where I feel like we all want to make change together, that's also very healing for me.
And, a lot of this work includes levels of literally sustaining the work and sustenance, and sometimes that means a break. Sometimes that means attending to our very basic needs and doing what we need to do in order to make sure that we are breathing, sleeping, eating, taking space. That is important. That is not the solution. And I think we have become so hyper individualized in how we approach mental health, but we talk about our struggles with mental health and we're told, "Well, make sure you get enough sleep and stay off of your phone." And that is not the systemic solution. But, I recognize I need to meet these basic needs in order to do the work that I feel compelled to in order to do the true work of healing. So there is some level of that as well.
And yeah, continuing to have these conversations. I'm so thankful for the community at Say It Brave and I think that's been a very healing community for me, because like I said earlier, finding people and finding communities where you can really express your own authentic knowledge and also recognize other people's knowledge can be so empowering and can be so healing. And, being in spaces like this, like this podcast, like the Say it Brave on Campus, events that we host, that for me has been very healing, because I've been able to find people and find communities that really do align with that knowledge.
Shannon Kopp:
Sophie, thank you so much for sharing this. And I love being a part of Say It Brave with you. And I really do see this Say It Brave space as a place where I honor and hold space for your experience and your intelligence and wisdom, and you hold space for mine. And, in thinking about your story, I'm wondering if you could go back in time and you talked about how being four or five-years-old, you already began to, as your identity was forming, process this idea of feeling different, or not good enough, or even discomfort in your body as a young four or five-year-old. And I wonder if you could go back in time what you would say to that young child then, and also, words you would offer to your high school self about 10 or 11 years later.
Sophie Shev:
What I would say to my five-year-old self is, "I know right now your differences feel like weaknesses, and I'm not going to lie to you and say that your differences are strengths." I think that would also maybe be a bit toxic positivity leaning. But what I will say is that, "Your ability to recognize that the forces that are causing you to feel different, that are causing your differences to feel like weakness, your ability to imagine a world where that does not exist, that is your strength, and it is a source of strength you might not always feel in touch with, but it is always there waiting for you and your future self and the future in general where that does not exist, because that will happen. We will get to a future where we address these systems of oppression and work towards justice, and that's something that I hold, that space is a space for you to exist in."
And I guess that's similar to what I'd also say to my high school self, but I'd also say, "You're about to wake up to a whole bunch of systemic injustices that you might've not otherwise had to interact with in your life, just given your position and given your privilege. And as you do that, I mean, there's going to be a lot of pain that you hold. There is a lot of pain in this world. There is a lot of pain in this society. You're meant to feel it. It's okay to feel it. It's okay to struggle with it. It's okay for it to come out in ways that you're not always super proud of. Holding shame around those ways and those behaviors, especially those that are pathologized as eating disorders and disordered eating is not going to help." I think there's a big difference, and I'm still learning this, between shame and between recognition of what we can do to change and to better align with our own values.
"So, continue to work through that even when so many forces in the world are going to drive you towards shame. Combating that is going to be a source of strength for you as well. And continue to learn." I think that's something that I would tell my teenage self too. "And continue to process, however you do. And, it's okay to also remove shame from the way that you process. I think it's beautiful that early on you were able to view art as a source of shameless processing. But if that processing looks like ways that are pathologized, I mean, that is also something you accept and you hold, and you move towards and you move through. And that's all part of the process." So yeah, that's what I'd tell my younger self.
Shannon Kopp:
Sophie, in listening to your story, there's definitely so many points I want to hone in on. And I'm hearing this tension between neurodivergence and how that impacted your life and also a systemic view on this, right, that impacts students. And then, your lived experience with experiencing food and body image challenges. And, as I'm listening, I'm wondering if you could share with us, if you could pick maybe three different ways we could change the world... Let's just go for it. Change the world into a more healing place, a place where people of all identities and backgrounds can heal. What would those three changes look like or be? Could you speak to that?
Sophie Shev:
Yeah, absolutely. I think one example is even within the healthcare system itself, it's very much stratisfied into their patients and their providers. One thing I'm learning from the Centering Body Trust Framework, which is a really wonderful framework, there's a book called Reclaiming Body Trust that I recommend a lot of people dive into. It's really about how in order to truly care for folks that are working through challenging harmful body image standards, and beauty standards, and norms, it requires that providers do that for themselves too and really dive into their own body stories. And, that we are all born trusting our own bodies, but then power systems and structures cause us to unlearn that trust. And, it is a very powerful, yet painful process to relearn it. And I think that's something that everybody can engage in, regardless of if they are labeled as a patient or as a provider.
Also, I think it's important that we empower patients to recognize themselves as healers too. Everybody has the ability to contribute to both systemic healing, their own individual healing, healing for their communities, and the knowledge that they hold is very powerful and very valuable in that work of healing the world from the harm that we see on a daily basis. Everybody has some level of power to do that. Everybody has knowledge and experiences that can contribute to that. Empowering people to recognize that can be very, very important and it's something that I really do wish to see present in our healthcare system, because right now it does feel very stratified in that way.
Shannon Kopp:
I really appreciate you painting the picture systemically, and then your ability to hone into your individual experience and your sensitivity also, I think, for all of our listeners, and speaking to your privilege, and speaking to your own challenges, and the level of empathy and compassion you speak with, Sophie, I think it really can touch everyone who hears this podcast. So, thank you so much for being on this podcast. Are there any last words you'd like to share?
Sophie Shev:
I just want to say, thank you so much for creating this space. And, I talked about feeling like being in relationship and in community with people that really value your knowledge and whose knowledge you value and that aligns with the vision of the world that you hope to see can be so healing. And I want to say, this has been incredibly healing. The entire Say It Brave community really has been. So, I'm so thankful to have had this conversation with you and also to know that the conversation isn't over. This is an ongoing partnership I'm very thankful to be a part of. And again, thank you for all the resources that you're creating and all of the community spaces that are really giving people so much hope.
Shannon Kopp:
As this conversation comes to a close, Sophie reminds us that healing doesn't happen in isolation. It happens in relationship, in creativity, and in systems that honor people as the experts of their own lives. From redefining shame as a signal of deeply held values to reclaiming art as an act of rebellion against productivity culture, Sophie offers a vision of mental healthcare rooted in dignity and trust. How do you feel about what Sophie shared today? What role do labels, educators, clinicians, and communities play in healing? We'd love to hear from you. You can email us at mentalnote@ercpathlight.com or join a support group to talk it out with your peers.
Thank you for listening to Mental Note Podcast. Our show is brought to you by Eating Recovery Center and Pathlight Mood and Anxiety Center. If you'd like to talk to a trained therapist to see if in person or virtual treatment is right for you, please call them at 877-850-7199. If you need a free support group, check out eatingrecovery.com/support-groups or pathlightbh.com/support-groups. Mental Note is guest hosted by me, Shannon Copp, produced by Ellie Pike, edited by Carrie Daniels, and directed by Sam Pike. Until next time.
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