The 47-year-old from Deggendorf in Lower Bavaria is proud and happy about this success.Nevertheless, the former federal border guard has to be careful to stay on the right, the “good” side. She still feels that her thoughts sometimes drift away. Then she finds her normal weight back in fat, and every tasty meal turns into an ugly calorie pile. For Nestler, every contact with someone seeking help means a look in the mirror: Up until nine years ago, she herself suffered from anorexia.
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The way out of the eating disorder
In 2001, she sued her employer for bullying. She had to testify in court and was under enormous pressure. That was the trigger. She had to go to a special clinic twice. “A cup of quark every day,” she says, “that’s how I got back into my life.” She made it – and firmly believes that other sufferers can also achieve this goal. “You can do it, but you can’t do it alone” is the motto of the self-help group that she founded – for Stephanie Nestler, who receives a disability pension, it is a life’s work and therapy at the same time. “It is enormously important to free oneself from loneliness and secrecy and to regain trust in one’s social environment,” Nestler knows from his own experience. “People with eating disorders feel misunderstood by healthy people.
help those affected
As an affected person, I find a different approach to them. It means a lot to them to feel accepted the way they are at the moment.” When relatives call Stephanie Nestler’s cell phone number, she usually advises them to back off. “In a less tense situation, those affected often feel a little better and are willing to talk.” Her words do not sound hollow, not high-school, but honest and encouraging. “The first step is to accept the disease and accept help,” she says. She almost keeps it to herself that she often succeeds in giving others the strength they need. The participants in her self-help group have long since ceased to be local.
Some put up with long journeys because they get something special in a Deggendorfer inn or beer garden: compassionate motivation. There is a woman sitting across from them who knows how high the hurdles are. Nevertheless, it remains a tightrope walk for Stephanie Nestler. But today she knows the warning signs. When she strays too far from the “good” side, she talks to her therapist, who reminds her: food is the stuff we need to live. “I have to learn to set myself apart,” says Stephanie Nestler, “in order to be able to continue to help.” Just as she helped the teenager from Berlin.
