This blog post represents the author’s views and should not be interpreted as professional/medical advice or endorsed by NEDA.
My name is Malikai Shavkat and I was diagnosed with severe Anorexia Nervosa at the age of 12. Recovery was anything but easy or linear – mine began with a steep decline before slowly shifting into a timid yet persistent upward curve toward health. In search of comfort, I delved headfirst into the recovery content available online. What I found, however, was a grim reality: a narrative that promised little more than Quasi-Recovery – not sick but not quite healthy.
I’m writing this blog post to challenge that myth: the notion that full recovery doesn’t exist, that a life beyond the constraints of Anorexia Nervosa simply is out of reach.
Food, Culture, and Stigma
Ever since the age of seven, food and I have shared a complicated love story. In Tajik culture, food is a celebration, a means of a connection, and a ritual of care.
And yet, nestled in this love lies a paradox: the very culture that teaches us to offer bread as blessing is also one where Ammas and Kholas greet you not with salom, but a catalogue of observations about how your appearance has changed, for the better or worse since you have last met.
Food is at the heart of tajik culture. Every gathering, and celebration revolves around our staples: plov, shashlik or qurutob. After a long school day, it’s normal to return home to a table spread with freshly made dishes – warm non, chebureki, and sambusa. In our culture, to reject food is to reject love.
Here lies the tension: you can already see the conflict between the expectations of my culture and the reality of my eating disorder.
Although mental health education has become more widespread, the stigma and misconception surrounding psychiatric disorders remain. I remember overhearing a conversation at a family dinner, where my relatives discussed the neighbor’s extremely germaphobic tendencies. They described her behaviour as if she had gone insane – salvageable by no one except God. In Tajik culture, mental illness often carries a heavy shadow: people conflate it to madness, blame it on poor upbringing, or dismiss it as a lack of faith. And no one wants to be followed by a shadow – if you deny it, who is left to say something is wrong?
How It All Unfolded
Thinking back now, with all the insight from my journey and hours of meticulous research, my illness no longer feels like a sudden stroke of misfortune but rather the accumulation of countless past experiences combined with a genetic vulnerability that metastasized into this devastating plague. My journey with Anorexia began at twelve, sparked by what seemed like an innocent attempt to adopt a healthier lifestyle during COVID-19. Within a year, everything had spiraled out of control. I was sicker, weaker and frailer than I had ever been – I was deteriorating at an increasing rate, right in plain sight.
It was only after my mother took me to the hospital—under the guise of an “accidental trip”—that I was finally given a formal diagnosis for this elusive disorder. My doctor sat my parents and me down. There was no easy way to say it, but the truth was already written in my empty eyes, my cold fingers, and my thinning hair: it was Anorexia Nervosa.
From then on, life became a blur of revolving doors and endless trips to the Emergency Department. My case wasn’t promising –I wasn’t receptive – and every night became sleepless, marked by the fear that one morning I simply wouldn’t wake up. My parents exhausted every source of aid they could find—from treatment teams abroad I would communicate with digitally to therapists I visited multiple times a week. Everyone tried to help, but there was an unspoken consensus: recovering from this illness completely was a distant dream, for I was too far gone. The illness had already sunk its teeth into me, the poison had already paralyzed the functional part of my brain—the old Malikai was gone.
This hopelessness was echoed in much of the online content I consumed. Video after video carried the same underlying message: you’ll recover, but the illness will never truly leave you. I began to wonder—what’s the point if it never really gets better? Sick or not, I would always be trapped in a partial state of illness, so why bother at all?
The constant message that full recovery is unlikely, and that people must accept a partial state of recovery, should not be normalized. I firmly stand by this statement. In my own recovery, this notion often made me sit back and question: why go through hell and back only to feel marginally better? In such difficult times, we should not be so quick to accept the next best-case scenario. This lack of aspiration for the best possible outcome only diminishes the morale of those in recovery, who already find every step forward to be a mountain to climb.
Rejecting the In-Between
Although I do not deny that “full recovery” is less common, treating it like a unicorn—an elusive mythical creature that only a select few ever get to see—is not the right approach. A study led by the University of California San Francisco found that “Three in four patients with anorexia nervosa – including many with challenging illness – make a partial recovery. But just 21 percent make a full recovery, a milestone that is most likely to signal permanent remission”. This figure is incredibly demoralizing. However, what we tend to forget is that we do possess the power to change it. By allowing sufferers—and ourselves—to settle for this “in-between,” we diminish the drive to strive for true healing, for full recovery. We unknowingly provide a harmful reason for individuals to stop fighting to get better—because why should they, if the odds are not in their favor?
We often overlook the power of the mind and the sheer influence of raw human will. A study conducted by the Stanford School of Medicine demonstrated how individuals experienced
physiological, psychological, and cognitive responses to a placebo product: AquaCharge Energy Water with 200mg of caffeine, which in reality was nothing more than a falsely labeled bottle of spring water.
The results showed that the effect of product labeling on physical alertness (blood pressure), psychological alertness (self-reported alertness), mental alertness (cognitive interference), and product endorsement was impacted by social influence. Participants reported greater psychological, physical, and cognitive alertness—and stronger approval of the product—when they consumed the product with others who thought it was effective, compared to when they consumed it with others who did not think it was effective.
These findings suggest that social influence can change how people feel, how their bodies respond, and how they function when using a fake product, in this case transforming the effects of plain water.
Moreover, a study by Khan, Redding, and Brown (2008) looked at how long the placebo effect lasted during 12 weeks of continued placebo administration in depressed patients who had initially improved after 6–8 weeks of placebo treatment. Based on the total number of patients who continued in this phase, 79% of placebo responders remained well (did not meet relapse criteria) during this phase. In other words, 4 out of 5 participants taking the placebo stayed well.
Although these pieces of research do not directly relate to the treatment of anorexia nervosa, they do demonstrate the power of the mind—how a fixed idea, such as the inevitability of a full recovery, can materialize from a simple seed of hope with nourishment.
My Recovery and Beyond
I would like to believe that my story stands as a testament to this strongly held belief of mine. When I first began recovery, I was shrouded in doubt, fearful that the quasi-recovery phenomenon would become my story—that I would be another victim, not quite out of the dark, yet not truly free either. Still, I have stubbornly held on to the belief that I am the exception, that this simply is not about me, and that I will not settle for less. If I am pursuing recovery, I want my choice to be clearly defined—not some gray area where I hover between relapse and survival. I couldn’t afford that, not at the cost of my future, or all the memories I’m bound to miss with my brothers and my family, stained by arguments over my behavior and my inability to live freely, forever limited to the constraints of my home and at arm’s length from my parents, who will always live in constant fear that I’m slipping back into old habits.
I wasn’t going to settle – and I didn’t.
I’m proud to say that I’ve made a full recovery from Anorexia Nervosa: I’m a success story, and there’s no harm in acknowledging that. I’m thriving abroad at boarding school, and most importantly, my parents’ minds are at ease knowing that their daughter is back, stronger than ever and grown. I can enjoy those Tim Horton Nutella-filled donuts and the apple juices I loved so much as a little girl, without constantly being pestered by the nagging voice of the disorder and beyond. My opportunities are endless and my future is bright.
Just recently, I was granted the opportunity to spread my message on the big stage with my TEDx speech, “The Weight of What We Refused to See,” which I delivered at the Cardiff Museum. For the first time, I openly shared my story to encourage open conversation and educate the public on the prolific and ferocious nature of eating disorders—how they hide in plain sight and how we are all vulnerable, regardless of our backgrounds, gender, race, size or age. This prompted me to write a handbook on eating disorder treatment to combat the lack of digestible resources available online—a basic guide my family and I wish we had when we first started navigating the conundrum of eating disorder recovery.
The First Step
To those reading this who are in recovery—or supporting a loved one through it—know this: never settle for less than you deserve. Full freedom is possible. I’m not saying the path is easy or simple, but impossible? Absolutely not. Don’t compromise with quasi-recovery. You’ve already come so far; give yourself that little bit more to reach full recovery and reclaim a life where you hold the reins, not your disorder.
Cement that unwavering self-belief. It may take time and effort, and you might not believe it at first, but your words become your reality. You are neither controlled nor defined by your disorder—you hold the power to reclaim your life, your autonomy, and your freedom. Full recovery begins with one step, and that first step is the mindset you choose and the language you use. Start there, and the rest will follow.
Resources
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Malikai Shavkat is a 17 year old Cardiff Sixth Form student from Tajikistan, TEDx speaker “The Weight Of What We Refuse To See”, author of Your Health Handbook, and eating disorder advocate. You can find her on LinkedIn here.
