The reality of recovery

Recovery is not fun, it’s not easy, it’s not even simple.  Your motivation wavers.  Everysinglefear you ever had is suddenly staring you down.  You find yourself to be in possession of more emotions than you even knew existed, and none of them feel very nice.  You realize that you have no idea of how to function in the world without an eating disorder.  You are a mess, maybe just on the inside, maybe on the outside too.  You make a little progress, and then realize how far left you have to go, or how many other aspects of your eating disorder you have yet to address.

There is no clear path.  There are no simple step-by-step directions.  You have to make your own choices and your own decisions

You start eating, or at least trying, because there’s really no other way to go about it, and then the veil is lifted from all of these other problems you didn’t know you had.  Or maybe you knew, but were there always so many of them, always so complicated?  It’s so hard to decipher exactly what they are or where they came from, or how to go about making them better.  As you continue to avoid your disordered behaviors, it seems that they keep getting more difficult to deal with, snowballing into a giant tangle of problems because you can’t mask them anymore by starving or purging or binging.

With all of this chaos in your head, all of the pain and difficulty of it, you wonder why you’re even doing this?  Why bother?  Will all of that messed-up-ness in your head ever go away?  You know your eating disorder would be so much simpler and easier.  It feels like things have gotten worse since you started recovering, but it’s because you’re fighting.  Because you’re doing what’s difficult and facing the things that are uncomfortable, the things that you have avoided for so long.  You’re proving to yourself how strong you are, and you’re striving for a better life than anything your eating disorder ever gave you, even if it feels awful for now.

You’re doing it because every once in a while, and then more frequently, there’s something good in your life.  A moment not thinking about food.  A burst of energy.  A spark of connection with another person.  Time spent doing something enjoyable.  A hint of self-esteem not dependent on a number.

And as you continue, with much struggle, the good things come more frequently.  The struggle gets less intense, or maybe the good things in your life just start to overwhelm it.

And you know that you’re doing it because it’s worth it.