Recovering vs. Recovered

In the eating disorder community, there is some debate over whether or not it is possible to ever fully recover from an eating disorder. Many people think that it is something that a person will have to deal with all their life, no matter how much recovery work they do. Yes, you can get to a much better place, be for the most part physically and mentally healthy, but never get all the way there. According to some, you can go ten, twenty years without acting out on your eating disorder, but no matter what, you will always have that voice in your head tempting you. You will never really love your body completely and unconditionally, you will never fully stop wanting to lose weight, you will never be completely free from ED's grip. It simply gets more manageable and you don't have to act on it.





Personally, I am not a fan of this philosophy, and it is not one that I agree with. I find it to be very pessimistic, and hopeless. Why on earth would I go through all of this pain and hard work, put every ounce of myself into recovery, if I could never be free from my ED anyway? If that was the way things were, I would not even attempt recovery, it would not be worth it.

Despite that there are people who believe this way, I know that it is not true. I am 100% confident that there will come a day when I no longer want to lose weight, when I love myself the way I am, and comfortable and confident, and don't have ED's voice spinning around in my head. I know because I have seen it, and experienced it for myself. I have seen it in my therapist, who once struggled and now is completely free and happy. I've seen it in my dietician who recovered so fully that she is able to spend her life getting over their own struggles with food. I have seen it in myself. I've seen it in whole days I have gone where I have not worried at all about what I was eating or what I looked like. I have seen it in moments of looking in the mirror and truly loving what I see. Although I am definitely not there yet, and still have a long way to go, I know with complete faith that someday I will be there.

So I challenge you, if you are worried that things will never get better, and that no matter what you do you will never recover, change your thinking. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you think things will never get better, than they never will. Look at your role models and the people you have seen that have made a full recovery, and know that it is possible for yourself. Remember those bright moments that intersperse the dark, where you could eat without feeling guilty, and look at yourself without hating what you saw. Believe for yourself that even though those moments are fleeting now, there will come a time where those moments make up the everyday workings of your life, and are here to stay. There will come a time when that voice is no longer in your head. You will get there. You will recover.