When an illness outpaces the science meant to guide it, the space between you and the world widens and silence becomes the disease. Paige Gordon found recovery through a drug no one was studying for people like her. No one was even looking at first. She started looking herself. She has made it her mission to track the research: every study, every researcher, every clue. It’s the work behind the work: the science, the advocacy, and the stubborn hope that we can do better.

In this powerful and thought-provoking keynote, Gordon shares her personal journey alongside emerging research into reward circuitry, reinforcement learning, compulsion, and the neurobiology of eating disorders. Blending memoir, science, advocacy, and humor, she challenges long-held assumptions about recovery while exploring what happens when lived experience and scientific inquiry are allowed to inform one another.

More than a story about an eating disorder, Searching for Full is an invitation to rethink how we understand suffering, behavior, stigma, and healing.

“Twenty Years with Bulimia Taught Me a Lot About the Brain, Recovery, and the Stories We Tell About Illness.”