I’ve been seeing this a lot lately. This idea of “recovered, but.”
I needed to write this to truly take the stigma and expectation off of what recovery truly means. It’s important to me to show you all that it’s OK to be where you are right now in your recovery journey. In fact it’s imperative to be truthful, mostly with yourself, about where you are on your recovery journey to achieve the actual end of an eating disorder.
It seems important to so many I talk to to convince me they are recovered or have been in recovery for a certain time period, as though they are synonymizing recovery with sobriety. Recovering from an eating disorder is much more complex than maintaining sobriety. Not harder, in any way, but more complex. Sobriety from alcohol or drugs requires one thing. Avoiding those substances. I wish with all my heart that recovery from an eating disorder was this simple (again, not easy, but simple). The questions that come up for sobriety usually are reduced to
- Should I drink now/today?
- Yes? Not sober
- No? Sober
When recovering from an eating disorder, you’re required to eat 3-6 times per day. This includes making the following decisions on almost a non-stop rotating thought wheel:
- What to eat
- When to eat
- Where to eat
- How much to eat
- What you ate last
- Was it enough?
- Do you need to make up nutrition?
- Did you eat too much?
- Should you restrict?
- Would THAT be disordered?
- What your goals are for:
- Long term recovery
- This meal
- Your next session with your treatment team
- Relationships with food/friends/family
- Who to eat with
- If no one is around, can I restrict?
- What you did today
- Does it require extra nutrition?
3-6 times each DAY!
With the process being THAT much more complex, with SO many more decisions to make on a rotation that never stops, the idea of “full eating disorder recovery,” needs to be given the honor it deserves. For instance, “Being recovered for 5 years, but hating my body,” is the same as “Being sober 5 years but drinking in moderation.” It’s not real. Patients of mine who have recovered don’t even use the “R” word. They just say that was a part of their life they’re done with now. With eating disorder recovery being THAT difficult, why would we EVER expect ourselves to just get there?
The road is damned long, because it requires so many things to heal. Recovery is not just ending eating disorder behaviors, or restoring weight. It requires healing of the thoughts that run rampant in your mind, your body image, your relationships, your expectations. It requires passion for life that makes the eating disorder naturally become boring. It requires your healing of obsessive weight thoughts, counting habits, nutrition label reading, exercise addictions, the list goes on.
My point here is that once you can make it crystal clear about where you are on your recovery journey, you’ll move more efficiently toward being done. If you are in the process of healing ANY of the above examples, you are NOT recovered. You’re still on your journey, and that’s AWESOME! It’s almost more honorable to be in a place where you can boldly state you’re working on accepting your body image right now, or you’re trying to have an easier relationship with food. That’s fucking brave. If you’ve healed all of your issues around your eating disorder, you’re done. You’re not in recovery, you’re recovered. Working toward full recovery is going to seem fruitless. You’ll work so hard without feeling like you’ve moved an inch, but I promise, if you can keep working and being truthful about where you are on your journey, all of a sudden, it will naturally become boring. Yes, boring, get excited!
*If you need support NOW, BOOK a phone session with me!*
Email me at:
SRO@ScarlettRameyOfficial.com
Or text me at:
(206) 910-8690
If you are looking for more support in your journey to Recovery and Life, I would be honored if you became a
Ramey Nutrition Insider
You’ll find fun fun support tools and freebies in my first email!
YES! I Want In!
If you’re into it, feel free to share this with any other people in your support circle that you KNOW need to hear these words!
Yours in love and support,
Scarlett Ramey, MS, RDN, CD
P.S. Hope to see you in the comments. Let’s rally together during this time and stay connected in supporting YOUR Recovery journey. The world deserves the BEST of you.♥️