Eating Disorder Recovery Advice

The bar patio was partially filled with murmuring summertime Portlanders. I sat across from one of my best friends, Veronica, shivering in my hoodie despite the heat. I was always cold back then.

“Babs, what I really wanted to talk to you about was this,” Veronica said in a high fast voice. She took a sip from her pabst in a can and met eye contact with me. Her bright blue eyes were sharp and clear. “Yesterday, my dad lost a patient… to bulimia.”

My heartbeat accelerated. It was kind of a thinly veiled secret that I had an eating disorder. People knew it but rarely addressed it. It wasn’t their problem.

“People don’t really die… from… um… bulimia,” I muttered, incorrectly. I was about twenty five at the time, and just plain wrong about this fact. “Anorexia is the… um… dangerous… I don’t know.” I peeled at the label on my porter bottle.

“She died from bulimia. It was a gastronomical problem or something.”

Tears began to fill my eyes. Veronica’s brow furrowed. “But she was a more serious case than you. She had been bulimic since she was 15.”

“I was 12.” Tears leaked easily and silently down my cheeks.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” We were both crying.

“You need to stop.”

I am so grateful for Veronica’s bravery and love. It wasn’t the first time someone tried to help me, but it definitely was the first time someone pointed out if I continued along this path that I would meet a grisly death. I believed I couldn’t just escape an addiction to food, because it’s not like I could quit food cold turkey. (Literally since I’m a vegetarian.) My eating disorder was a complicated relationship, but one of the darkest and most toxic, and longest relationships I’d ever had. After that I cut my purging down to about once or twice a month. I had a flare up in overeating a few years later when I got out of an abusive relationship. But now, I’m a lot better. I’m not perfect. I’m still weird about food, but who isn’t? It’s weird. I’ve made an enormous amount of progress over the last five years, especially the last year. I haven’t thrown up on purpose in over nine months (It’s a girl!) which is longer than I’ve gone without doing it since I was a kid. I’ve weighed basically the same amount for over a year. At 120lbs, I feel like I’m at my normal, healthiest, weight. I’ve worked hard to get over my eating disorder, and I’m proud of how far I’ve come.

I’m not a therapist, or a psychologist, so I can’t give any definitive answers for how to recover from an eating disorder. But I have made vast improvements with my relationship with food, and I’m happy to share what has worked for me, in the hopes that it may inspire and help someone else.

1. Therapy

I think therapy can help anyone, even the healthiest person. The right therapists have helped me with seeing my actions more clearly, and realizing I’m not a terrible person. The simple act of going to therapy in and of itself, for me, is an act of self love.

2. Eating food that makes me feel good and healthy

Just because I had an unhealthy relationship with food didn’t mean I could cut myself off from sustenance completely. I had to learn to cook healthy meals for myself and choose food that made me feel strong and nourished. Additionally, now that I’m getting better nutrition, I’m sleeping more, having less anxiety, and in turn never feeling frantic enough that a binge or purge seems like a reasonable choice. Subsequently, the more healthy I eat, the less I view the occasional over or under eating as a dramatic disordered failure. Nourishing is an act of love, and the best way to beat an eating disorder is to love oneself more.

3. Medication

Antidepressants aren’t for everyone. I’m not currently on them right now. (I’m emotionally raw dogging.) But when I did take them, one of the marked differences I noticed was that I no longer experienced body dysmorphia to the extent I used to.

4. Drinking enough water

People who have eating disorders dehydrate themselves. Dehydrated people have less energy. People with less energy are more easily susceptible to depression and anxiety symptoms that can bring on a binge/ purge.

5. Exercise

Exercise always makes me feel calmer, happier, more full of energy and endorphins. It’s my natural antidepressant. Also, feeling physically stronger has made me feel safer and more like I belong in my own body.

6. Spending time with friends

My love language is quality time. The more time I spend with friends, the better I feel about myself. When I spend significant quality time with loved ones, I would feel ridiculously self indulgent and immature were I to engage in eating disordered behavior. As someone with social anxiety, I had to learn that certain people (for me it’s mostly men) drain my energy socially and then I need alone time. But spending time with people who are bright, fun, chill, smart, or silly often empowers me.

7. Volunteering or doing nice things for others

For me, getting out of my own head and empathizing with others can be incredibly beneficial. (Crap, is it selfish if I get so much personal gain out of doing good deeds?) A lot of people think of eating disorders as definitely an upper middle class, white woman’s disease, and on some level, it is a privileged problem. For me, helping others facilitates control over my feelings and lessens my self absorption.

8. Drawing, using photoshop, or video editing

I used to spiral out of control when I had anxiety attacks. Now I do something with my hands that requires attention, concentration, and detail orientation. It makes me feel grounded physically, and then I feel grounded emotionally.

9. Working on creative projects

Being artistic and creative is another thing that improves my self esteem.

10. Getting enough sleep

At the height of my bulimia nervosa I was sleeping maybe 3 hours a night, lying awake and staring at the ceiling for the rest of the time. It was kind of a weird cycle: because I wasn’t getting the right vitamins I was anxious; because I was anxious I didn’t sleep; because I was sleep deprived I was more anxious; because I was more anxious I binged and purged for relief. Now I sleep about 7 hours a night and I feel much more calm and level headed.

11. Drinking less alcohol/ coffee

For me, alcohol, coffee, and any drug affected my mood drastically. And most of them result in me staying up too late. Cutting back on stimulants and depressants a little has improved level of calm and stability.

12. Doing things for me

I think I developed an eating disorder as a result of anxiety and depression over not feeling loved enough, feeling guilty for existing and taking up space, and not feeling good enough. It was a coping mechanism that yielded more harm than benefits. The more things I can do to love myself, to help myself feel love from others, to empower myself to give and receive love, the better I am.

In the last five years, and the last year especially, I have made tremendous strides in my mental health, physical health. I no longer binge and purge. I no longer have extreme body dysmorphia. When I do occasionally have some dysmorphia or if I undereat or overeat, I don’t punish myself or view it as disordered, “sick” behavior. My relationship with food and my body is much calm now. I don’t know if it will ever permanently go away, but I don’t think I’m in any danger anymore. I’m not saying all the aforementioned steps are the end all be all cure for an eating disorder. I’m just saying they’re what has helped me. For me it wasn’t an instant fix, but rather something that I diligently worked on for half a decade and have only recently noticed the dramatic difference.

If you have an eating disorder, you are not alone. Don’t feel ashamed. There are many people like you. There are also many resources for you to get help. I found affordable therapists and support groups in my area through simple internet searches. If you know someone with an eating disorder, you can help them by loving them patiently.

I really hope this piece helps someone.