How can it be 4 years since my stay from Eating Recovery Center? I’ve been in recovery for 4 years and I could not be more happy than I am today. To be able to stay out of treatment for 4 years is such a big accomplishment for me. I never thought that I would make it to this point in my life where I can eat what I want and not feel too guilty, I’m wearing the clothes that feel right to me, and to go for a run whenever I feel like it and not make it a chore. From the moment I stopped fighting was the moment I started winning. I sat with my emotions and when I was hungry I ate and didn’t go for a “run” to burn off the calories. I had to learn to speak my feelings instead of restricting them. The first few weeks just sucked and I didn’t think I could go a day without using my eating disorder. And today I can say I am finally beating my eating disorder for FOUR YEARS! 4 years of finding life, enjoying food, lots of rants to my therapist, and gaining back trust within myself and my thoughts/feelings.
In recovery I’ve learned and accepted a lot. I accepted that I am no longer an athlete who put herself through hell to try and be the best and perfect athlete. I can look back at old photos and videos with peace and joy, to appreciate the good times I had with my teammates and lay to rest the bitterness I used to have about the bad times. I have accepted that my body is not constant: that it changes from moment to moment internally in ways I can’t see, and overtime it changes externally- the changes society loves to focus on, yet the changes that also mean so little when it comes to ones worth. I have accepted that I have to take care of my body and treat it with kindness and love. I’m still learning to be assertive and open about my thoughts and feelings, while also being free of judgement towards myself for doing so- that has been the hardest part of recovery and I’m still a work in progress.
What I’ve learned from all these years is that no matter how many times I was hospitalized or put into treatment or showed up to therapy, the moment I truly wanted recovery was the moment I was ready for the fight. It’s confusing, exhausting, and constantly uncomfortable hard work. It’s a very confusing thing to do, how do you know what part of your brain is the healthy part and the part that is disordered that will be a part of your life forever? It’s exhausting to be at war with your mind all day long and giving up the voice inside yourself that told you not to eat. I learned to be uncomfortable with being in my own skin as it should be. To allow myself to work on the root of my eating disorder and how to move forward from my mistakes.
My best advice for recovery is that you have to let go of the idea that everything will somehow just click and happen and how the painful feelings you get when you try to recover meaning you “aren’t ready”. It’s not true. Recovery is painful and hard and it’s just how it is. You must find the strength to work through the pain. Recovery is a choice you make every second of every day, and to make the right choice is not always easy; you must have another choice that you want more. Whether that be going off to college, not living in and out of treatment, being able to go on vacation without bringing along your eating disorder, or saving your life, you must have a choice that you want to pick more than your eating disorder. Every single person that’s gone through recovery has had to fight to pain. When you hear a story about someone recovering you may feel as though they had some “miracle” to recover and that you will never get that, but in reality we all fight through the same painful demon of an eating disorder. No one finds recovery without a painful fight; However we are all more than capable of taking on that fight. It took a lot of hope, support, relapses, and white knuckling to get where I am today, but all that matters is that I made it. I am in recovery. I don’t like to say that I’m “recovered”, because I think recovery is a work in progress that I will deal with the rest of my life. I am still Rebecca and I am the one who’s important in the end of my recovery process.