What Anorexia Recovery *Actually Looks Like

Recovery from an eating disorder looks different for everybody and I've often struggled to embark on the journey because in the media, it's definitely depicted as an end goal instead of a journey. The idea of getting to a place where I'm 'recovered' is so daunting that it's always left me either paralysed or in a relapse. For some, they feel 'recovered' and maybe one day that will be me, but for now, this is what the process of eating disorder recovery actually looks like, day in and day out, for me.

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I have many habits and rituals that I've developed specifically in relation to my OCD and eating disorder. One of those rituals is my strict weighing schedule, a schedule I haven't found the strength to break. It's hospital protocol that eating disorder patients do a blind weight, meaning that the patient doesn't see those numbers, yet the hospital staff can monitor weight progression. Even in my hospital admissions, I would have nurses hold me back as I ran to the scales. Last week, was the first family vacation we'd had in years. Prior, I had been too unwell. And I knew that if I brought those scales with me, anorexia would be a member of our family. But my dad booked a hotel with two rooms, not three and the true, loyal members of our family have spent more than one too many family outings with anorexia. After over 365 days with my scale, I stood up to anorexia and said 'no'. That was a recovery decision that I made to progress in my journey of eating disorder recovery. Yes, my refrain was temporary, but it's always that the effect of doing the antithesis of an eating disorder's wishes is a statement that bears immense importance and longevity.

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I spend most of my time in fight or flight, gruelling over decisions that are what I imagine not gruelling decisions for others. It's not only deciding if I'm going to eat but its also deciding what. I have to convince myself to eat, plan it, agonise over it, analyse it and then I have to discover what snack or meal can 'fit' into my day. This involves its calories, nutritional make up, whether or not I consider it too big to be a snack or if it's perfect enough for its taste to be 'worth' a seat at the table. The entire process exhausts me, so much so, that often, not eating feels easier. Another component involves the moments where I feel prepared to eat later in the day but I've spent so much of the day already suffering, struggling, weighing up my options, that I feel like eating now would be a waste. Usually if I spend more than 30 minutes to an hour deciding whether or not I'll eat, if I decide I do want to eat, I feel that too much time agonising has past and that eating would be counted as dishonourable to the length of renumeration I've endured. Recovery, for me, occurs when I challenge any of these feelings because these feelings, at the time, feel insurmountable to challenge and overcome and completely set in stone. Recovery is deciding that even though I thought I'd spend the day restricting, it's the afternoon, I've changed my mind and I don't want to engage in those behaviours for the rest of my day. Recovery is finding the strength to have a snack I'd decided I wasn't going to have. Recovery is having something because I want it, not because I've planned it to 'fit'. Recovery is spontaneously saying 'yes' to a beer my dad offers me or sharing an ice cream late at night with my mum. When I let recovery into my life, it's beautiful. It's beautiful, not just for me, but for those around me who witnesss my suffering, can see how for just a moment, I get to be free.

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Anorexia's main goal is to find any excuse for its captive not to eat. There are many foods that I consider to be so scary that I'm not able to eat them. However, throughout hospital admissions, the way some of these fear foods have been packaged and portioned, have allowed me to view foods that were once completely 'off limit' as tolerable. For example, I didn't used to be able to manage milk, cheese or butter but after I shared with my Dad how if I had those hospital portions at home, I would be able to, he found a food manufacturer 30 minutes away that supplies them and now, we bulk buy. It's difficult when we have to go the extra mile to have these foods at home because I have the thoughts that I am 'greedy' in shopping for specials foods so that I can eat more but the healthy part of me knows that as a result, I'm able to reduce the likelihood of more hospital admissions. For one, I prolong an admission because I am receiving more essential vitamins and minerals. And two, I don't feel so deprived of foods I like that part of me becomes excited to go to hospital so I can be forced to eat my fear foods. Instead, I feel a little bit of fear at home which is so much better than feeling a lot of fear in a hospital bed. Recovery, in this case, involves accepting the assistance of my family and diffusing the irrational thoughts that they think I am 'greedy', that I ask for too much help and that everyone's lives would be simpler if I stopped trying.

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Dolls, there are days where I loathe recovery so much that I can't even hear the word. But on the days that I love recovery, I feel strong, I feel brave, I feel proud and most of all I feel a sense of hope. I wish I felt this hope more often because dreaming feels like a breath of fresh air in a world of smog. Please, Dolls, if not for me, for you, let yourself breathe, even just once, because you deserve it, you want it and you need it.

Kisses,

COS x

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