Thanks for starting this thread. I never understood how she went from the ACUTE Center for Eating Disorders in Denver to one in Portugal; while skipping over the ED Center at Johns Hopkins.
Edited to add: I just reread the OP. She never went to ACUTE!
Thanks for your patience for this video recap; I could not muster the energy to watch a thirty minute video of Rodchael repeating the same things they say in every video. But you are in luck, because today I don't feel like doing my job, so here we go.
Rachael reminds everyone that she's in college to become a counselor, mostly because she wants to know what is wrong with her. She could have achieved this by consistently engaging in therapy, but that would require her to make some actual progress in her recovery. Rachael reads off her list of disorders, which is something she has been doing a lot in the past year: anorexia, trichotillomania, (hair picking) OCD, ADHD, Anxiety, self-harm, excoriation (skin picking). Rachael says that she is struggling again and that she experienced a "low" after her 21 Day Fear Food Challenge. She does not know why. It's a mystery. She does not know what she could do differently. She'll still do a recipe of the week.
We are treated to her meandering and incomplete explanation of how opioid receptors in the brain are related to mental illness and addiction. This might be a good time to acknowledge her own addiction to fentanyl patches and how this interfered with recovery from her eating disorder. She does not.
Someone in the live chat asks Rachael how her recovery is going. She doesn't answer the question.
Thanks for your patience for this video recap; I could not muster the energy to watch a thirty minute video of Rodchael repeating the same things they say in every video. But you are in luck, because today I don't feel like doing my job, so here
Rachael reminds everyone that she's in college to become a counselor, mostly because she wants to know what is wrong with her.
I’m fairly confident that she will never become a licensed counselor of any kind, not without recovering. she will not have the energy/brain cells to do the graduate or possibly even advanced undergraduate work that’s required of her. She will probably dabble in undergrad psych courses until it’s too hard for her to pass anymore, drop out, and continue to give out irresponsible internet advice. Or she’ll get some shitty diploma mill degree like Anna Johnson and give our irresponsible internet advice
Rodchael broadcast their first "recipe of the week": an extremely basic chicken noodle soup, except with chickpeas and lentils instead of chicken, and no noodles. Rachael eats it with a fork, ensuring that no excess broth passes through her lips. Rachael acts like it is the most amazing thing she's ever eaten even though it lightly seasoned with salt, pepper, rosemary, and...salsa? She also looks miserable every time she takes a bite. Rachael tells everyone that she pooped today and is wearing a shirt that reflects this. Rachael also reminds everyone that she suffered greatly after eating a single bite of cheeseburger from the 21-day challenge. She says she is gaining momentum in her recovery. She eats approximately six bites of the soup. It ends with a clip of her looking at candy in a store window.
On Rodchaels' facebook, a commenter writes: "What are your improvements over the last 4 months? Inspire [us]! The last year?" Rodchael does not respond.
I think more common than you might think. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201908/when-anorexia-strikes-in-midlife There are tons of stories if you google 'anorexia and middle aged women'. I also think women who maybe had a tenuous grasp of their mental health beforehand hit the hormonal fluctuations of middle age, and any lingering mental health conditions they had that maybe weren't nailed down can suddenly and violently take root.
Time for an update. As always, nothing has really changed with Rachael.
Q&A:
This 32 minute video from May 2022 is titled as a Q&A, but instead it Rachael answers one question posed in her chat and continues with her usual rambling. She continues to use her undergrad classes as a substitute for real therapy, pretending to be an expert on her mental health despite being unable to achieve her own weight restoration. She claims that she has found “other means” to dig herself out of her hole, despite not actually having dug herself out of her hole at all. She has recently learned that OCD and eating disorders are related which “blew her mind” because “we don’t talk about that.” In reality the link is extremely well-documented, and if she had ever meaningfully engaged in treatment she would have known that.
She continues to falsely claim that her 21-Day food challenge was legitimate exposure therapy. She tells us that "substance use was not my poison" although, as documented in this thread, she had a serious dependency on fentanyl for quite some time.
The video ends with Rod sticking his head in and asking people for recipes that they can make on-camera.
At the end of June, Rodchael post a video promising an "update." Like all "updates," it is a listing of reasons why she can't gain weight. She tells us how she has experiencing anemia, hyperthyroidism, electrolyte imbalances, and fevers, conveniently during her finals week. She meets with "her specialist" who is a "nonjudgmental" endocrinologist, which is Rachael-speak for "a doctor who will ignore the fact that my raging anorexia is the source of all of my physical problems and will not suggest that I gain weight as a solution." She is convinced her symptoms must be due to something like an infection in her GI. She mentions that people wonder why her recovery is so slow; her response to them is "try living it." She implies that treatment centers have made her eating disorder "resistant." She says she hasn't body-checked in months. The video ends with one of Rod's bland paintings. The comments have more than the usual number of people who call her out for making no visible progress in weight-restoration, with ana-chans vehemently defending her.
Rod bleaches Rachael's hair. It is boring. It's also a miracle that Rachael has not lost all of her hair from a combination of malnutrition and constant bleaching/dyeing.
Finally, in July they post a tribute video to their deceased dog, Papa Ike. "I haven't had much of an appetite, but I'm gonna eat through it," she tearfully promises us. Sure, Jan.
There was no recovery update. This video was mostly about Rachael having dental work done, which she made a priority because she's all about self care and she needs her teeth to "eat, eat, eat!" (Yes, she said that.) She also went to some sort of outdoor event, Glowfest, and filmed about 20 seconds worth of content from that.
I probably should document that I found Rachael through my YouTube recommended via a two-part interview published three weeks ago. It is on UNTOLD, a very small channel with less than 2k subscribers, but has 70-80k views on Rachael's interview videos. The interview appears to have been filmed in 2019.
Worst Anorexia Case Ever Interview - Rachael Farrokh (Part 1):
Worst Anorexia Case Ever Interview - Rachael Farrokh (Part 2):
The video pinned comment says there will be a new up-to-date video with Rachael on December 15th. The channel also claimed that Part 3 would be uploaded today, but it has not.
There's something sad about skellies that really tugs at my heartstrings, and I know it's wasted on Rachel who doesn't seem at all interested in getting healthy. She is such a grifter enabled by her narcissist creep of a husband.
There's something sad about skellies that really tugs at my heartstrings, and I know it's wasted on Rachel who doesn't seem at all interested in getting healthy. She is such a grifter enabled by her narcissist creep of a husband.
It's wasted on 90% of the social media-friendly ones, your pity is magically translated into "wow you're so skinny and beautiful uwuuu" in their shrivelled, protein-starved brains
There are definitely spoopy girls out there worth your feels. But as a rule of thumb if they're posting their journey to Instagram then they ain't them, sis.
Thank you for this thread, I find the psychology behind eating disorders like this one very interesting since it plays up an insecurity most of us have about our bodies. That being said I am amazed she is that bad in recent photos, from lurking different sites and forums a common theme is generally before they get to this point they end up in the hospital for one reason or another and get a NG tube to feed them somewhat. Yes they go back to their old habits near instantly in the overwhelming number of cases but it keeps them a little further from death and looking like, well how she looks now.
I thought I'd check and see if this one had a thread and what do you know... Anyway recent comments suggest she's lost a lot of her "family" followers and now just gets shit on for being a grifter. You love to see it.
The farmer formerly known as Swiggety_swoogitty here, back to update everyone on Rachael’s Road to Never Recovering.
Since our last update, Rachael has checked herself into a full-time recovery center, is weight-restored, and she and Rod are both working full-time outside of the home! continues to malinger.
In August Rachael tells everyone how she’s soooo “sick of being sick!” Here are this month’s maladies that have prevented her from gaining weight: fevers! Hyperthyroid! GI pain! Cramps! Nausea! There is no explanation for any of these symptoms, but it’s definitely not that she’s fucking anorexic. It could be her gallbladder, but probably it’s because she “pushed too much fat too fast.” Hence, she must eliminate fat from her diet, and can’t possibly replace the “fat calories” with “carb calories” because of the edema weight gain.
But never fear, because mentally she’s “solid.” She’s even going back to school and taking a class called “Medical aspects of Eating Disorders.” This is apparently a course associated with the Human Services program at Saddleback College and is a part of its Eating Disorders Studies Job Skills Certificate. Soon Rachael will be able to wave her 9-credit certificate in the faces of all those MDs and PhDs who insisted that she can’t recover without weight restoration, and tell them to kick rocks!
Rod is painting inspirational photos of the Cross.
Rachael and Rod post the first edition of “Self-Care Sunday,” (getting an error when attempting to upload) dedicated to discussing “Rachael’s recovery obstacles,” as though every video Rachael has ever posted wasn’t already dedicated to this. For some reason, they are recording from separate rooms of the house. Multiple commenters express doubt about Rachael’s commitment to recovery and point out that their relationship is codependent.
Rachael’s recovery update is that she “overdid it” but “it wasn’t [her] fault,” because she and Rod tried to complete an 80-hour peer support training course, which made it too stressful for her to eat. My guess is that they were trying to obtain a California Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist Certification, for which one of the requirements is to “have a strong dedication to recovery.” Rachael makes it sound as though she and Rod were already certified, as she says they had to “re-do” the certification; however, if that was true, they would only have to do a 40-hour course rather than the 80-hour course; also, there is no record of either Rachael or Rod ever having been certified in the registry. That leads me to believe that what she really meant was that she and Rod have failed the course before and have failed it once again.
She also explains that she has had a TPN in the past which resulted in her GI getting “lazy” and the dreaded edema/re-feeding syndrome, and also made her “bleed out of her face,” and also she has scar tissue. So she can never have a feeding tube ever again, please stop suggesting it. She’s also not vaccinated because the hospital is a “trauma environment.”
Rachael announces that she’s autistic, except “it’s still being diagnosed right now.” I can assure you that Rachael is not fucking autistic.
They end by trying to sell their viewers a skin care product. I would definitely trust this face to sell me on skincare:
Rachael posts a tiktok that is not worth archiving, in which she sings happy birthday to Rod in what looks like a dorm room. The cake looks like a dish of diarrhea with candles stuck in it.
Part three of the interview series with Rodchael had dropped (still getting an error message when uploading). It was filmed back in July 2019, when Rachael was actually achieving weight restoration. The difference between then and now is stark:
In this extremely boring interview, Rachael shows off her completely normal stomach to the camera as evidence of abnormal swelling. It looks like she is wearing an adult diaper. She says the swelling is “fine” and that she isn’t triggered by it, contrary to every other statement she’s ever made.
Rod admits that he has enabled Rachael in the past, but he doesn’t give specific examples of that behavior or exhibit any insight into the ways in which he is still enabling her.
She also says she had a prolapsed rectum at some point. Gross.
I’m fairly confident that she will never become a licensed counselor of any kind, not without recovering. she will not have the energy/brain cells to do the graduate or possibly even advanced undergraduate work that’s required of her. She will probably dabble in undergrad psych courses until it’s too hard for her to pass anymore, drop out, and continue to give out irresponsible internet advice. Or she’ll get some shitty diploma mill degree like Anna Johnson and give our irresponsible internet advice
do you not know of Katy and Maria Campbell? Twin UK drs and super spoops. Never practiced due to the severity of their anorexia,, but did graduate med school. I’d say that’s pretty rare, though.
And Ps. Aneorexia makes you incontinent so wearing a diaper doesn’t sound far fetched. Weak pelvic floor muscle will do that.
I thought Ashley's skull-face was the worst but man, Rachel's must take the cake (yes, pun intended).
I know it's been discussed already but I cannot wrap my head around her husband's willingness to spend his life by her side to get some attention. That and also his possible anorexia fetish, which is just baffling.
Rachel, just like her sisters in skelly Ashley and Eugenia, is hopeless. One can only hope she'll keel over soon: death is a much preferable option than living in constant agony.
Rachael has been having GI "issues" and can't finish her food, quelle surprise. It's out of character! Not like her at all!
Her electrolytes are low.
They have a guest, Rod's friend Shane, which is probably our first evidence that either of them have real-life friends outside of their sick co-dependent relationship.
Rachael is sure to talk about how "coercion" should not be part of treating mental health. A viewer responds that a part of recovery is doing things that are uncomfortable. Rachael tells her to leave the channel.
Rachael continues to claim that she is "getting still clinically diagnosed" with autism.
A viewer asks her if she is afraid to get better, and she actually admits that yes, she is. She explains this is because she was sexually abused and that she is afraid to look attractive in a woman's body. IMO this is the most honest insight into her condition that she has ever shared. Keep tugging on that thread, Rachael!
Rachael films herself waiting for a CT scan, emphasizing that she needs to "attend to the medical first." Rachael has always used physical ailments as an excuse to avoid mental health treatment, pretending that they are mutually exclusive.
Rachael has a virtual equine therapy session, which consists of watching a video of a person feed carrots to horses. Much therapy, so recovery.
Rachael is wearing a mask even though she is alone in a room in her home.
Rachael pretends to cry when a commenter validates her malingering.
Her fake autism diagnosis is her real problem.
She is healing through "learning." You know, instead of healing through therapy.
A viewer asks her to go to a hospital or treatment center. Rachael says that hospitals have almost killed her several times, and she won't go to a treatment center because they will make her go to a hospital first. A commenter challenges her by saying that her eating disorder is what almost killed her, not the hospital. Rachael completely misses the point, countering that she has been underdiagnosed and that's what really makes her sick, not anorexia!.
The CT scan revealed that she has kidney stones, '"sludge" in the gall bladder, benign tumors in her liver, and assorted bone fractures.
She can't digest fats.
When she puts on water weight it fractures her bones. Water. Fractures. Her. Bones.
Rachael does not have body odor because her body doesn't produce oil. They promote some body lotions. Rachael must moisten herself.
In the last three videos, she was pretty sure that her recent GI problems were caused by bacteria. Now she says it's actually because she has "sludge" in her gall bladder, which is also somehow related to having a short torso that compresses her organs.
For the fourth fucking goddamn video in a row, she tells everyone about her shiny new maybe-autism diagnosis. She bases this diagnosis on having a sensitivity to odors, lights, and tastes, and also that she also doesn't recognize when she's hungry or in pain, which "has nothing to do with an eating disorder." Rachael is fucking stupid and if I were her professor I would fail her for making that statement: Increased pain thresholds, impaired hunger signaling, and heightened sensitivity to stimuli are well-documented in anorexia.
Rachael talks again about getting sexually assaulted at her first post-college job as the catalyst for her eating disorder. She cries when she talks about how she has abused her body in response to this trauma. This almost makes me feel bad for her, but then I remember that Rachael never actually uses these revelations to make progress. They are only excuses to stay underweight.
Her recent electrolyte imbalance is not because of her eating disorder.
Dental work has set her back. She has fevers. "They" limited what she could eat. A real bummer for her.
She has been OFFICIALLY diagnosed as autistic. She is positively GIDDY about this because it gives her another opportunity to disregard those stupid doctors who tell her that she needs to treat her anorexia. It's not anorexia! She's autistic! SHE CAN'T GAIN WEIGHT IF THE REASON SHE'S UNDERWEIGHT IS AUTISM!
A hospital once slit her jugular.
She has a new home-health nurse.
Her primary care doctor fired her as a patient.
She thinks that ACUTE euthanizes patients with eating disorders?? We're through the looking glass, people.
Her condition is not her identity. She's action-oriented. When she's aware, she does something about it.
In the comments, Rod says "we are finding out why she is so codependent due to the autism." Rod definitely has no role in this.
Let's conclude with a sperg about the ways in which Rachael is misrepresenting her co-morbid diagnoses:
Rachael's co-morbid diagnoses of ADHD, OCD and social anxiety are extremely common with anorexia. These diagnoses depend on whether she exhibits those behaviors in contexts that are unrelated to food or eating (for example, obsessions and compulsions related to cleanliness). She may very well have these comorbidities, although it is important to remember that Rachael is an unreliable narrator and is quick to attribute her anorexic behavior to non-anorexic causes. I'm not particularly concerned with questioning these diagnoses beyond this.
The autism addition is new and interesting. It is true that recent research has noted the overlap between autistic behaviors and disordered eating/feeding behaviors. There is an overrepresentation of autistic behaviors in eating disorders, particularly so in anorexia; specifically, people with anorexia often have difficulty with social perception, cognitive inflexibility, and sensory processing. The current understanding in the field is that having autism may predispose some people to develop anorexia, meaning that a truly autistic person with an eating disorder would have exhibited autistic traits in childhood, prior to the eating disorder. For everyone else, the elevated autistic traits are merely by-products of the eating disorder.
Why don't I think Rachael is actually autistic? She clearly has high empathy, the ability to recognize others' emotions, highly expressive social behavior and social gestures, and exhibits appropriate social overtures and responses. She has none of the hallmarks of social impairment that define autism. At best, she has social anxiety, but there is nothing about her that suggests that she is fundamentally deficient in social cognition, interaction, or communication.
But my guess is what really attracted Rachael to this diagnosis is the clinical conclusion that anorexics with comorbid ASD are treatment-resistant and therefore require special modes of treatment. She can use it to explain why "traditional treatment" won't work for her, and so she shouldn't even bother with it. She can use it to avoid challenging her sensory issues surrounding food. She already does this with her other co-morbidities, but at some point she must have realized that if she spergs too long on her OCD/ADHD/social anxiety, she'll be expected to treat those, too. But autism is a unicorn diagnosis for her: it's a developmental disorder, that cannot fundamentally be treated in the same way that a mood or anxiety disorder can be treated. It's a reason for her to say "I will always be this way, because my disordered eating behavior is because I'm autistic, not because I'm anorexic." Of course, in reality, there are ways to treat these things even in people who are truly autistic, but Rachael doesn't care because she doesn't want to fix herself.
Every time I update this thread, I always think, "At least Ashley Isaacs admits that she doesn't want to get better." It's so much more bearable than Rachael's tiresome, eternal-recovery grifts.
