A recovering perfectionist’s guide to eating disorder recovery
I followed my meal plans. I turned in my food logs every week. I heeded my treatment team’s advice (sometimes).
From the outside, it looked like I was committed to recovery. But beneath these bids for approval, I clung to that ever-familiar feeling: control. Without trying, I had transferred my eating disorder’s rules and rigidity to my recovery.
I thought recovery meant I’d be leaving strict rules and an achievement-focused mindset behind. But they followed me. Instead of obsessing over calorie counts and minutes on the treadmill, I shifted to fixating on whether I was recovering the right way, progressing fast enough, and doing everything in my power not to mess up.
Moving through recovery taught me that my perfectionistic tendencies weren’t solely relegated to my body and workout regimens; they permeated throughout my life. And if I wanted to get better, I’d have to learn how to shake this rigidity and make room for flexibility.
In this post, I’ll (do my best to) explore the following (even if imperfectly)!
How perfectionism shows up in eating disorders
How perfectionism can spill over into eating disorder recovery
How to loosen the grip of perfectionism and allow for flexibility in recovery
Let’s start this imperfect journey, shall we?
What is perfectionism?
According to a study from the Journal of Eating Disorders, “perfectionism is a trait of personality comprising two facets:
Perfectionistic Strivings, or the desire to reach perfection and to pursue unrealistically high standards, and
Perfectionistic Concerns, which involves self-criticism, concerns over making mistakes, fears about social negative evaluation, and lack of satisfaction with achievements.”
How are perfectionism and eating disorders related?
A systematic review from the European Eating Disorder Review revealed that perfectionism is consistently linked to body dissatisfaction and behaviors, like restriction.
And another paper from the Journal of Eating Disorders found that individuals with high levels of obsessive perfectionism are more likely to exhibit symptoms of orthorexia nervosa.
Possessing perfectionistic tendencies doesn’t mean you’ll develop an eating disorder, but research has shown a strong correlation between the traits of perfectionism—such as discipline, high standards, attention to detail—and the development of disordered eating patterns.
Personal story: When perfectionism is praised
Keeping a tidy room, getting good grades, and excelling in sports all reinforced the idea that exceptionalism was aspirational. As a child, receiving praise for these behaviors motivated me to do them more. Over time, I’d so fully absorbed the external comments that they became my internal dialogue. And eventually, these same compliments would transfer to my beliefs and behaviors around my body.
How perfectionism can show up in eating disorder recovery
When the recovery process begins, it doesn’t necessarily erase perfectionism; it just redirects it.
Perfectionism can weasel its way into eating disorder recovery in the following ways:
Being the “good patient” in the eyes of your treatment team
Comparing your recovery progress to others
Feeling like if you mess up, you’ve failed
Craving a clear, linear path to the finish line (spoiler alert: this doesn’t exist)
The irony about striving for perfection in recovery is that it can hinder progress. Even if your idea of doing all the “right things” to recover works at first, it will likely only be temporary.
Doing recovery “perfectly” can reinforce black-and-white, good vs. bad thinking, which, rather than easing the restrictions the disorder once placed on you, can cause you to become even more rigid.
Personal story: Recovery’s mental mind games
Early in my recovery, I was pulled between two forces: One wanted to impress my treatment team by heeding all their recommendations and doing everything they asked, while the other demanded I stay stapled to my disordered behaviors because these new outsiders (i.e., my treatment team) were a threat. I quickly learned I couldn’t appease both sides and do it perfectly. I had to either commit to one over the other, or let go of being perfect. Recovery would soon teach me that I would have to do both.
Flexible eating disorder recovery: How to loosen the grip
For a lot of us in eating disorder recovery, the idea of loosening our grip means relinquishing control, and this is a direct threat to our disorders.
This terrifying concept can be made less scary by removing the pressures of right vs. wrong or all-or-nothing types of thinking. Instead, we can opt to see recovery as a series of small steps, starting with the question, “What can I do right now?”
This can help shift the narrative from control to learning how to trust ourselves again. Instead of focusing on performance, we can learn how to be present.
How to practice imperfect recovery
You learned how to strive for perfection, which means you can unlearn it, too! Here are a few ways to practice carving out space for imperfection in your life.
Identify perfectionistic language. When you catch yourself in a loop of self-talk that lures you toward perfectionism, try to call it out. Remind yourself that it’s coming from a perfectionistic part of you, but it doesn’t mean it represents all of you.
Practice doing something “well enough,” without thinking about the end goal. Pick a low-stakes task, like cleaning your room, and see how it feels to do it imperfectly. If this feels too intense, try a writing exercise: write how you might feel or what it might mean for you to leave your room untidy.
Sit with discomfort. When you think about doing something imperfectly or acknowledging that something about your life or body is imperfect, allow the uncomfortable feelings to settle in. What comes up?
Resist the urge to compare. Remember that social media is a highlight reel, that people often want to present the best versions of themselves for the world to see. This is only part of their story.
Being OK with being imperfect
Imperfect recovery isn’t just likely to happen; it’s almost guaranteed. Slip-ups, setbacks, and lapses make recovery what it is: a process. If we learn to not only accept the imperfect moments but also embrace them, eating disorder recovery becomes slightly more manageable.
Perfection-free recovery frees up mental space for more flexibility, more self-compassion, and room for mistakes, so that when errors do inevitably happen, we’re able to navigate them with a little more ease.
Personal story: Making room for the messy
A combination of hindsight and my continued work on my recovery has revealed to me just how much perfectionism gets in the way of progress. I still face moments where the pressure to perform or the want for everything to go smoothly enter the chat. But rather than letting them steal the moment, I acknowledge them, thank them for what they once did for me (i.e., offered a semblance of control in a period of my life that felt wildly out of control), and invite them to leave. They’re no longer needed.
For most of us, myself included, recovery isn’t something I’m setting out to achieve. It’s something I’m working on. It’s an experience I learn and grow from, from moment to moment. And this is what healing looks like.
Pause & Prompt
If you let go of perfection, what are you afraid will happen?
What would “good-enough” recovery look like for you today?
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I thought recovery meant I’d be leaving strict rules and an achievement-focused mindset behind. But they followed me.