What is this 'Recovery' malarkey?

It's been nearly a year since I last posted something on here, so thought I'd give it another go...

I wanted to talk about the definition of 'Recovery', in terms of recovering from anorexia, or in fact any other mental illness. It's viewed as a positive; which of course it is, but what does Recovery actually mean? How do you measure how far in recovery you are, or when you can class yourself as being recovered? Is there a list of things you need to achieve, in which when all of the boxes are ticked you are classed as fully  'Recovered'?

I feel there may be a misconception of what 'Recovery' actually is, or what it means. I know for myself that I've found the word confusing to understand, and my own interpretation of the meaning has changed overtime.

A couple of years ago I viewed 'Recovery' as being this amazing, exciting thing in which my whole life would be 'perfect'. Better than it would have ever been before any illness. I would be happy all the time, without a care in the world, I wouldn't care what I looked like or what I ate, and nothing would go wrong. My idea of recovery sounded like a fairy-tale. Life with or without an illness is never 'perfect', so I have no idea why I ever considered recovery to be like this, and of course it wasn't. Why was I so surprised?

I did a quick google definition of what recovery is, and it defines it as "a return to a normal state of health, mind or strength'. I know from reflection, that I completely mis-interpreted what Recovery meant, and it's only since I've been in York I've started to realise what it means for me. Recovery isn't a new fantastic, different, better than ever life. Recovery can be introducing things back in your life, that you may have lost,  such as friends, family, education/jobs, hobbies etc etc. Every day things that you take for granted, and can begin to appreciate again.

I also used to worry that recovery meant you had to be perfect, and struggling would be a sign of weakness. I'm now coming to the realisation that this isn't true. Life isn't always fun and games; difficulties will come into our lives but it's the resilience and strength to overcome these that shows we are 'recovering', and if something goes wrong, or we make a bad decision....it's not the end of the world!

Not really sure what I'm trying to say but I've been thinking about this for a while..so if you've got to this line thank you for reading! Xx