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How to Know You’re Fully Recovered From an Eating Disorder
Don’t get stuck in quasi-recovery like me.
There were countless times in my eating disorder recovery I didn’t know what was worse: living in the grips of my illness or exhausting so much time, energy, and money trying to overcome it.
After more than a year of outpatient treatment and months of abstinence from restricting, bingeing, and purging my food, I decided I was “healed enough” and stopped scheduling appointments with my therapist, dietitian, and MD.
The next two years looked a little something like this:
- Not weighing myself but obsessively mirror-checking to make sure my body wasn’t getting “out of control.”
- Not using a fitness tracking device but depending on exercise to compensate or to earn food and alcohol.
- Not tracking my calories in MyFitnessPal but tracking calories mentally.
- Not abstaining from any foods but often judged myself for what I ate.
- Not bingeing or purging regularly but bingeing and purging once every few months “because I earned it.”
The long and the short of it: I cut the recovery cord too soon and ended up working with an eating disorder recovery coach to help me with my unfinished business.
Now, I can confidently say I’m fully recovered. Here’s how I know it’s real this time (and not just my eating disorder playing tricks on me) and how you can gauge where you’re at in your own recovery journey.
A bad body image day is basically equivalent to a bad hair day.
Even though I wholly respect my body, show it daily gratitude, and consider it my most prized possession, once in a while I still catch myself not totally loving what I see when I look at myself.
Sometimes it’s because my clothes are feeling a little snug. Sometimes it’s because I notice a line or “texture” in my skin that I’ve never seen before. Sometimes it’s because things seem wider or stick out farther than usual.
Regardless of the trigger, I’ve trained myself to acknowledge and allow any unpleasant feelings I’m having about my body while…
