We Organized Our Nonprofit and Lost Our Jobs, But We’d Do It Again
By Abbie Harper
In 2022 and 2023, I worked at the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), the largest eating disorder nonprofit in the United States, as a helpline associate.
My job was providing peer support to folks coping with eating and mental health concerns via the NEDA Helpline, the organization’s only direct service arm. The Helpline was run by a small team of full-time workers with the help of hundreds of remote volunteers. We all loved our jobs—we just didn’t love our working conditions. We were burning out.
My coworkers and I, hired precisely because of our own lived experience with eating disorders, were operating under the false assumption that a mental health organization would care about the mental health of its employees.
When we raised our workplace concerns, we were reminded to “practice self-care,” as if a cup of tea could meaningfully address our burnout…
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