Feeling scared to recover from your eating disorder? I was scared too.
Hi, friend! I wanted to write today to those of you who might be contemplating recovery AND are absolutely terrified of giving up your eating disorder. Maybe you’re even farther along in your recovery, but find yourself looking back and missing your old body or the rush of engaging in behaviors. I’ve been there.
While I know it can be easy to see your eating disorder through rose-colored glasses, I want you remember that those feelings are fleeting. I also know you probably spent a lot of time feeling preoccupied with food or your weight, isolating from your friends, and never feeling “good enough”.
The part of you that convinced you to diet, or restrict, or binge and purge might be feeling pretty scared right now. That’s your eating disorder self and it’s there for a reason. It’s there because at some point or another, this eating disorder self broke off from your core healthy self to help you cope with the world around you.
This could have happened for any number of reasons and I’m not here to speculate why you developed an eating disorder (you can dive into that with your therapist). I’m here to help you take one step toward recovery, even when you’re terrified.
Your eating disorder self’s intention was never to be harmful or malicious, rather it was filling a void that your healthy self could not fill at that moment. Your eating disorder helps you with many things (albeit in a destructive way) but of course it doesn’t want to go away. It believes its protecting you, keeping you safe, and giving you a way to cope with life’s stressors.
You might feel pressure from your friends and family to just “get rid” of your eating disorder self. To just get better. To just eat. To not purge. To just be normal. When that part of you feels threatened, its only natural for it to come back and feel even stronger. It’s angry. It’s scared. So you dig into your eating disorder behaviors even more. Your eating disorder self might rebel against the part of you that knows how dangerous this is and knows you can’t sustain these behaviors forever.
I want to tell you that recovery isn’t about getting rid of that part of you. It’s about strengthening the part of you that wants to get better (your healthy self) so that it can take over the job your eating disorder self has been doing. It’s not about getting rid of that part of you, it’s about stopping the behaviors while integrating your two selves. Once the part of you that wants to get better is stronger, you won’t need the eating disorder self anymore.
Maybe you’re thinking, “Yes I know I have an eating disorder self but it is stronger than me so I can’t get better!” And yes, I thought that way too. But here’s the thing. No matter how strong your eating disorder self feels, it can never be stronger than you. It is you, it is a part of you. So since it is a part of you, it can never be bigger or more powerful, even though I know it certainly feels that way. I hope that knowing that your eating disorder self can never be stronger than you starts to ease a little bit of anxiety and fear. You do have control over this, and you do have the strength to recover.
When your healthy self is stronger, you won’t miss your old body, or the clothes you used to wear as much because you will be too busy living life in the present moment. You won’t be pre-occupied by calories because you’re too busy tasting new foods (and enjoying them!). You won’t feel embarassed in pictures because you’ll be thankful to have some amazing photos that capture memories with the ones you love.
So it’s not about getting rid of your eating disorder self. It’s about choosing the healthy self decision over and over again and building a life you love, one where the eating disorder self has no room to exist. And you won’t want it there anyway. You’ll be too busy living.
If you haven’t already read Carolyn Costin’s 8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder, go read it. Key 2 is all about how to strengthen the part of you that wants to get better so that you no longer need the eating disorder self.
And if you’re over there thinking, “yea, other people can recover and strengthen their healthy self but I can’t”…. I want to tell you that I felt EXACTLY the same way. For many many years. I believed my eating disorder was my purpose, and I thought it was the only thing I was good at. I didn’t know who I was without my eating disorder, and that scared me.
Now I know exactly who I am. I know that recovering from my eating disorder was my true purpose, so that I can help others on their journey to full recovery too.
So if you’re feeling scared about “giving up” your eating disorder, try to reframe it. Think about getting your old self back. Maybe you can remember a time when you enjoyed life and school and friends without the constant preoccupation with food and weight and never feeling good enough. That’s what you have to gain when you recover.
Because you are good enough. You are a beautiful, amazing soul and you have so much left to give this world. Don’t let your eating disorder take another minute of your life away. Take care of yourself and choose recovery today.
Hey there, I’m Lizzie, a CCI Certified Eating Disorder Recovery Coach working with clients virtually worldwide. I help individuals heal their relationship with food and their bodies through day-to-day behavior changes and goal setting.
