You know when people say....'Recovery is so much worth it"? (which is true by the way..), but what does this actually mean? People say 'your life will start piecing together again' but to someone stuck in an eating disorder this could mean many things. The outcome of recovering/recovery can be so different from 1 person to the next which is why it can be feel a bit daunting/confusing at first. I'm going to use my experiences as to why Recovery definitely IS worth it and how life really does start to get exciting once you begin to shut the door on an illness that has taken so much away from you.
To begin with I've been there. I'll hold my hand up and say I've told myself I've 'recovered' a handful of times. Most of theses being just as I had left hospitals. It's what everyone wants to hear right? But looking back on these times I had known deep down that I wasn't recovering at all. I knew what I was doing wasn't right but had still convinced myself and others I was doing well. Recovery is so bloody difficult and that's why it takes time and effort. It's not a straightforward process as it requires your brain to think/behave in a completely new way. You have trained your brain for so long to go down a 'certain path', which is why any 'little' diversion back down that path can begin a snowball effect and before you know it, you're long gone back down that path it can seen almost 'impossible' to turn back around. This is why it is so important to be honest with yourself. Be honest with where you're at, use your skills to do a sort of 'mini-evaluation' of how you think you've been doing. This gives you the opportunity to assess if you've started to use any old behaviour/s that you know have always taken you back down 'that path' in he past. This may seem weird but in order to prevent a relapse and keep yourself on track, it's so so important to keep checking in with yourself. 'It's only the once I'll do it all properly tomorrow'...'I won't have this today but I'll sure to have it tomorrow', 'It's only a little behaviour so it's not important'. Sound familiar? They do to me. I know that I've left myself vulnerable to a relapse when any tiny negative behaviours have been used, because I always think 'It's only today, it's not a big deal'. But it is a big deal because as soon as you've triggered that 'old brain pattern', it wants more and more. Tomorrow never comes, nor does the next day or the day after that. Before you know it, using negative behaviours has now become a regular behaviour and that's when things can spiral, and in a short space of time. This is what happened to me late last year. I was healthy, learn all my skills and thought I was 'cured', but didn't use them enough to tackle head on any tiny negative thought that came into my mind so just 'went with it' and before I knew it I was back to square one. I remember asking myself 'How has this happened'? and unfortunately it had all happened just by listening to that one 'tiny' niggle from the voice before I continued to listen and obey. That's why I'm trying to highlight that any little negative behaviour that you think is a 'one off' will become more and more difficult to not listen to.
This leads me onto the sort of 'approach to take' whilst in recovery/maintaining recovery. You have to cut off all rules. Not just a few, not every single one of them apart from 1, but all. You need a clean slate. One thing I have learnt that you simply cannot recover whilst bargaining with your eating disorder. I've tried and tested this over and over again but each time I follow this, it never works, and then you begin to wonder why It hasn't again. You truly have to rip up the old rule book - after all...keep asking yourself where has following this rule book ever got me? You have to create new rules which are sort of boundaries (and will start to form the 'new pattern' of thinking that you can train your brain to become familiar with. When you practise these new rules they become less 'odd/natural' and will feel more 'normal'. After all, this is how you started to train your brain to think in more negative ways, so you have equal chance of thinking/believing/ acting on new thought patterns. This also reminds me of the saying 'You were never born with an eating disorder' which is 100% true. Well we weren't were we? So any time when it gets tough and you think 'Well I've always been like this'.... 'I'll just accept this is who I am'... 'I'll never change' <<< These are definitely NOT true. These are just thoughts and the ability to change comes from within is believe it or not. I used t think 'do I REALLY' have the ability to recover? I've always ended up going backwards'...again these are JUST thoughts and they are not real! We have the capability within ourselves to recover..and it's bloody hard that's why it's sometimes hard to believe but it's true!
Anyway back to why recovery is WORTH it. When you truly go against all rules, and you get your eating back in check something magical happens...your LIFE starts to piece together again. I've always thought to myself 'When will this happen', 'When will I start being interested in doing things again?'...'When will I make more friends?'...'When will I be comfortable with going into a restaurant?'...'When will I feel more happier and care-free'? There is no definite answer, it is different or everybody and from my experiences during the past few months, it just 'happens'. You don't wake up one day and think 'I'm happy now' or 'I feel social again', overtime once your brain starts to function properly again and your body thanks you for adequate nutrition..things do happen. One thing I will say is that the more you put into recovery the more you'll get out of it, just like the reverse; the more you bow down to any negative thought,the more similar thoughts will start creeping in again. This is why people say 'recovery is a choice'...because as hard as it is to believe sometimes and although you didn't choose to have an eating disorder,you rally do have the power in your own head to decide which way you want to go.
I sometimes reflect on how quickly things spiralled down the wrong path for me between October/-Jan-Feb time'. It seemed within a blink of an eye I was back in a place I truly didn't believe I would ever be again. But spinning this around...since April time-present (which feels like a lifetime but in the grand scheme of things it's only around 4 months), so so much has changed (positively) in what is really a short space of time. This is what helps maintain recovery. Once you see the 'perks' of recovery i.e. getting your life back...it helps you continue because of how much you enjoy just 'living again'. And to get to this point you have to 'do recovery' to see what it's really like. And this is why like I said earlier any old rule that hasn't helped needs to be binned. Because old rules and recovery don't mix well together. You will never truly see what recovery is like if you still cling to old behaviours. Don't get me wrong, every day will not be 'brilliant. You will have blips and that's ok (hence why recovery isn't 'linear'...but it's how you get through these blips that happened. Not thinking 'Well I've messed up now I may as well carry on' (I am guilty of this in the past. Doing this is what starts leading you back down the old path again. But if you learn how to recover in a more positive not so black and white way, it helps to maintain your recovery. For example, thinking 'maybe in hindsight I shouldn't have done that.but I know that in future I will do something different about it'...and then being able to move on and focus on the road ahead. That's why 'checking in' with yourself can be so so helpful in the process of recovery.
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