Thoughts, but no behaviors: Is this recovery?
Welcome to a new blog series called Is This Recovery?
In this series, I’ll explore questions surrounding eating disorder recovery, including common signs of recovery, how we know we’re healing, what it might mean when we stumble, and how to keep going.
For more posts on this topic, type “is this recovery?” into the search bar on Words by Me.
“It’s about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable,” my eating disorder recovery mentor told me during one of our check-ins.
Before hearing this, I had never considered the possibility of just accepting discomfort. After all, why would anyone choose to be uncomfortable when they could be comfortable instead?
“Your eating disorder is trying to distract you from feeling hard feelings,” my mentor went on.
Yes, I thought to myself. And it’s working. Because I don’t want to feel hard feelings.
But this is what recovery is about—feeling the hard feelings. So now, that’s what I practice.
Instead of jumping to console myself with disordered behaviors, now I sit with the thoughts. As the years have passed, I’ve been waiting for the thoughts to slowly slip away into oblivion. And some have. But others? They’re stubborn. They don’t want to leave me. They still think they have a purpose. And that purpose is to keep me stuck.
Which prompts the question: If I still have disordered thoughts, am I really in recovery?
In this post, I’ll explore:
what it’s like to still have disordered thoughts, but not act on them,
why thoughts stick around long after the disordered behaviors have stopped, and
why this isn’t a sign of stagnation, but a sign of progress.
Ready to get uncomfortable?
What does ‘thoughts-minus-behaviors’ actually look like?
The moment we decide we no longer want to live with our eating disorders is the first step in adopting a new way of thinking. But as much as we want fresh thought patterns to replace the disordered soundtrack in our head ASAP, it takes time.
Recovery often begins with a widening gap between what you think and what you do.
We may learn new quips of internal dialogue, we may start to form our own internal monologue, but only with practice can these thoughts grow in strength, strong enough to eventually supplant what was there before.
During this process, disordered thoughts may still pop up. In fact, some will emerge so quickly and automatically that we don’t even have a chance to notice them. They’ll feel just as loud and convincing as ever. But soon, we’ll start to notice a pause between the thought and the action.
What does this look like? It could be:
a hesitation between wanting to skip a meal and eating anyway
a millisecond between feeling uncomfortable in your body, but instead of engaging in behaviors, you practice stillness
an urge to check, control, or restrict, but resisting or pivoting to something else
It’s in these brief pauses that we learn how to exist and move through disordered thoughts, urges, and compulsions. Rather than reaching for the quick fix, we stick around to watch the desire melt away.
Personal Story: Post-meal urges
Sometimes after eating, I feel the food. Like really feel the food, both in and on my body. I feel certain parts have grown, expanded, and no longer feel the way they were before I ate. Have actual changes occurred, or is this my disorder sounding the alarm that I need to undo something?
I notice this feeling, but instead of jumping to fix it, I leave it alone. I acknowledge that bodies are always changing. Day to day, minute to minute—our cells are moving and adapting to keep us functioning. My body doesn’t need guidance from diet culture or anyone else telling me I need to change. It knows what to do, and after years of recovery, I’m finally learning how to trust it.
Why do thoughts stick around?
Think about how long it took you to develop your core beliefs around food, your body, and exercise. For some of us, our current beliefs were the first beliefs we ever had about these topics. We learned them during our most impressionable years, when our brains were soaking up new information and imprinting that info into our subconscious.
Suddenly, we’re conditioned. We’ve tied our identity to these beliefs. We turn to coping mechanisms at the sign of any negative feeling. This is because our brains default to what’s familiar. When we’re triggered by our environment, stress, or physical changes, we reach for what we know.
Meanwhile, these beliefs are continuously reinforced by what’s around us every day—diet culture, weight stigma, and social messaging can reactivate old thoughts, keeping us pinned to the ideals we’re trying to escape.
Despite all of the above, it’s important to remember that lingering thoughts do not mean failure. They stick around because they’re practiced, reinforced, and supported. Which means shutting them down takes extra effort.
Personal Story: Fatphobia
I was never overweight, but that didn’t stop me from developing a serious fear of one day becoming overweight. I saw the way people in larger bodies were treated. I heard the comments whispered about them so they couldn’t hear. I watched as they were made fun of on TV and in movies. From very early on, the message was clear: Fat is bad; thin is good.
I’m a bit embarrassed to write this, but sometimes I find myself still retreating to these old beliefs. I hear a comment or see a body, and without a beat, a judgmental thought enters my mind. I now know how incorrect and damaging these thoughts are, and I’m quick to intervene. But I want to share this as an example of how just how deeply etched into our brains some of this messaging can be. No matter how long (20 years) or how often (every day) I practice rewiring these thoughts, unlearning them in a world where they are constantly reinforced takes extreme effort. But I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.
What does this mean for recovery?
Having the thoughts without the behavior isn’t a sign of stagnation, it’s a sign of progress.
Why?
First, it means you’re actively interrupting patterns.
Much of recovery involves reframing and rewiring the neural pathways that formed during our developing years. Thoughts tend to linger longer than the urge to engage in behaviors. This means, once the urge passes, it takes time for the brain to catch up. By practicing building new responses, you’re strengthening new neural pathways.
Second, it means you’re not just managing thoughts but working on rewiring thoughts. Each time we resist acting on thoughts, they weaken just a little bit more. This creates psychological distance between us and the disorder.
During this phase, it’s important to remember the likelihood of two coexisting sensations:
Pride and strength for not acting on thoughts
Discouragement for still thinking the thoughts
This is common, as this phase can feel like the hardest in recovery. Remind yourself that although your mental space isn’t as quiet as you’d like, you’re no longer numbing or escaping hard feelings with behaviors. And that’s something to celebrate.
How thoughts fade over time
We can’t force thoughts to leave us. But as we practice replacing them or resisting action, we start to outgrow them.
When thoughts aren’t acted on, they lose credibility, they become less automatic, and they become easier to dismiss. We’re not only changing the thought itself, but we’re changing our relationship to the thought.
As we start to introduce new practices—like nourishing our bodies and resting when our bodies need it—we create room for new beliefs, like “I trust my body to let me know when it’s full” or “I’m allowed to give my body rest today.”
It’s nice to think that one day, all our disordered thoughts will disappear, but this isn’t realistic for everyone. Instead, we can strive to become less attached and less reactive to our thoughts, making us more confident in our choices.
Personal Story: “You’re not good enough.”
At the onsent of my eating disorder, its main message was that the body I inhabited wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t thin, desirable, perfect—whatever adjective I could find to describe the body I wanted, my body wasn’t it.
When I started recovery, this unwanted mantra continued to echo in my mind. All of the sudden, I wasn’t worthy of recovery. I couldn’t shake the disordered thoughts, and (I thought) this must mean recovery isn’t for me. No matter how much I worked or how hard I tried, the thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone.
Now, as I write this blog post, seemingly rationalizing why I still, to this day, experience disordered thoughts, I can offer myself some grace. I know not all recovery journeys are the same. But they all require patience, forgiveness, and perserverence. And we’re all worthy of that.
Practice makes progress
Progress isn’t always monumental, memorable, or even noticeable in the moment. Which is why it bears repeating that still having the thoughts, even if we don’t act on them, isn’t a sign of still being stuck in the disorder. It’s a sign of recovery in motion.
You’re consciously deciding that your old coping tools weren’t working, and you’re changing course. Each time you do this, you’re creating new patterns for the life you want to live, one where the disorder gets quieter by the day.
Although thoughts may still be bubbling beneath the surface, they don’t indicate a lack of progress or effort. If you feel stuck or behind or confused, I’m here to remind you that you’re right where you need to be. And sometimes, these spots call for the most courage.
Pause & Prompts
When disordered thoughts show up, how do you respond?
Even if your thoughts haven’t fully disappeared, how have your behaviors changed in recovery?
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What to do when the intensity wanes, but the work isn’t over.