Is eating disorder recovery meant for me?

“I don’t deserve to recover from my eating disorder.”

If you’ve ever heard these words ring through your head, you’re not alone.

Hi, I’m Allie, and not only have I told myself this, but I have believed it, too.

In the depths of my eating disorder, I considered recovery to be something other people did.

But me? I wasn’t meant to recover. No, I’d be stuck in this never-ending pattern of cyclic behavior for the rest of my life.

These thoughts made regular appearances throughout my eating disorder recovery. The harder it got, the less I felt I deserved it. But then I wondered…why don’t I deserve to recover? Why do other people get to recover, and I don’t?

The same questions of worth that prompted me to engage in behaviors in the first place had morphed into a very real obstacle to eating disorder recovery.

In this post, I’ll go into:

• Why eating disorder recovery feels so impossible

• Why relapse feels like failure (but it isn’t!)

• How to restore hope when healing feels overwhelming

Why eating disorder recovery feels out of reach

If recovery were easy, far people would have healed relationships with food and their bodies. But unfortunately, most of us continue to have daily arguments between our minds and our bodies.

For those of us in the throes of disordered eating, we might feel like we’re so deep in it that there’s no hope in trying to dig ourselves out. Or we’ve been entrenched in our behaviors for so long, we’re terrified of what life (and we) might look like without them.

Maybe we know people who have recovered from eating disorders. Maybe we scroll past post after post on social media of people who are living recovered lives. Just when we think there might be hope for us, too, the eating disorder charges in to convince us that just because they can recover doesn’t mean we can. And this can feel incredibly isolating.

When we’ve been beaten down long enough, we feel we deserve to stay there. And this makes the concept of recovery feel nearly impossible.

The exhaustion of eating disorder recovery

If you think healing feels harder than eating disorder recovery, you’re not alone.

The decision to start healing your relationship with food and your body can come with a mountain of fears:

• fear of eating foods you once considered off limits

• fear of body changes as a result of behavior changes

• fear of losing control

Guilt and self-blame can add an extra layer of fear to the list above. Each time you “go against” the eating disorder’s wishes, you may be met with guilt for betraying the eating disorder’s rules.

This mental exhaustion can feel scary, but with time and practice, you’ll learn that standing up to the eating disorder translates to progress in recovery.

The fear of relapse in eating disorder recovery

Despite our best efforts at recovery, the fear of relapse in eating disorder recovery is very real.

Falling back into behaviors can make us feel like we’ve failed at recovery, and that perhaps we’re destined to struggle with disordered eating for the rest of our lives.

But relapse doesn’t mean failure. In fact, relapse can be a major learning moment for recovery.

If relapse happens in recovery, use it as an opportunity to collect data. Here are a few reflection questions to ask yourself in the middle or after a relapse:

• What circumstances or events led you to engage in disordered behaviors?

• What did you hope these behaviors would do for you? How did you imagine they would improve the situation?

• What are some recovery-supportive ways you can use to manage uncomfortable feelings in the future?

What to do when eating disorder recovery feels impossible

Each time we face an obstacle in eating disorder recovery, we may wonder if it’s ever going to happen for us. Can we ever really heal our relationship with food? Is there hope in eating disorder recovery?

Here are a few things to remember when these thoughts arise:

• You’re not alone. Although it may feel like you’re the only person in your life who understands what you’re going through, the truth is, there are a lot of people who struggle with their relationship between food and their bodies. It’s an unpleasant thought, but it’s also a comfort to know it’s not just us.

• Relapse doesn’t erase progress. Any fear of relapse is completely normal—it’s very common in eating disorder recovery. But a relapse doesn’t mean we’ve failed at recovery. In fact, we can even choose to see it as a positive. After all, we can’t relapse if we’re not trying to recover.

• Support is available. Recovering from eating disorders takes a tremendous amount of strength and commitment. A solid support system can make this process much less intimidating.

Why eating disorder recovery is worth pursuing

To start recovery from eating disorders, remember that even the smallest of steps can be major wins. Actions like emailing an eating disorder therapist may seem insignificant, but they signify a desire to want to change, which is a major first step in eating disorder recovery.

Even if you’ve been struggling for longer than you care to admit, even if you relapse a hundred times, even if you question whether you deserve recovery, recovery is worth pursuing.

Click here to hear some of the lessons I’ve learned as I continue to pursue recovery.

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Pause & Prompt

I feel unworthy of recovery because…

I feel worthy of recovery because…

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