The Reality of Recovery

I eat relatively normally. My weight is in a normal range. I can take a day off from exercising and not have an hours-long panic attack.

And yet I’m not recovered.

I remember reading at one point that you never recover from an eating disorder, and I feel like that’s true for me. Still, I guess there’s something still in my mind that says ‘I wasn’t that bad, and I’m still not that bad, and if I’m not recovered, it’s only because I never really had an eating disorder to begin with.’

I’ve been delving into spirituality lately, and food has come up at certain points. Fasting, even a modified fast. Making offerings of food or drink that would require changing my current foods a little. Modifying my diet to be more natural and healthier.

I’ve struggled with all of that and have more or less set it aside. I’m not sure if that’s okay or not; on one hand, I made a decision years ago that I wasn’t going to think too much about my diet—I don’t consider myself vegetarian because, while I try to follow that, if the only thing available is chicken wings or I’m just craving a hamburger once in awhile, I’m not going to stick a single toe into denial. But on the other hand, it’s important to challenge ourselves, and all of these things scream addiction (ie, when I don’t have my coffee exactly when and how I want, and I’m an absolute mess until I finally give in, even if it involves spending extra time and money) that isn’t very much removed from the original eating disorders.

I’ve been at a stalemate with a spiritual project that I’ve been working on, and I’ve gotten the message that part of this is due to needing to address things that haven’t been addressed yet. One of those is my eating disorder. I was diagnosed in college, and ‘got better.’ Anxiety was addressed, and I guess I figured someone had noticed, and that was what I wanted. I wanted to focus on my body’s ability, letting it run and lift weights and walk. But here’s the thing: it was never addressed, and so while I’m ‘recovered’, it’s a pretty surface level recovery.

And all of that can sound very disheartening, but it actually doesn’t entirely feel that way. For one, it might have taken a decade, but it feels like permission. Not just to have a diagnosis and be seen—“okay, I’m severe enough, whatever that means, to count as being sick”—but, cliched as it sounds, to be in recovery. Like someone else taking ownership for it. When I was diagnosed, it was still in a very half-hearted manner—I was handed the diagnosis, and that was pretty much it. What was really needed, and is still needed, is being able to address the cause and the reasons, someone to say “why” and “let’s work on this together”. And now I am feeling permission to express that.

I also take some positivity out of it in that it’s not too late and not ever over. Like I said, I’ve heard that you’re never really recovered. I still kind of think that’s true. But I also think that means you never stop having the opportunity for it. You can have an eating disorder for twenty years, and you can still make progress towards recovery.

I’d love to wave a magic wand and be fully “recovered.” Maybe I will get to the point where I will be—I can’t imagine not having some aspect of an eating disorder in my life, but there’s a lot that I couldn’t have imagined. But failing that, taking steps to actually work on real recovery has a lot of positive potential.