Choosing Myself Over My Eating Disorder: Why Should I Even Want To Recover?

I really want to choose myself. I deserve to choose myself.

My one year anniversary since fleeing domestic violence is coming up and I’ve been reflecting. What do I wish I had been told when I was first struggling with an eating disorder? Why should I even want to recover? Is relapse a natural part of recovery? 

When I was first recovering, I wished my mental health providers and parents had approached things from a gentle place. I wish someone had said “It’s okay that you binged last night. Your body was so hungry and it makes sense. If you need to binge- do that” instead of shaming me and saying “Stop overreacting and just eat. Your ED is telling you that, not you”. But it's just not that simple. It never is. 

As people with eating disorders, we are often stigmatized, misunderstood and denied care. Especially folks who are disabled, 2SLGBTQIA+, BIPOC, fat, low-income, or otherwise marginalized. 

The eating disorder Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) I went to helped me to eat consistently and be weight-stable for about 6 months, but I never truly processed things. I never really felt like I had control, even when I was eating consistently. I didn’t truly learn what it means to have an eating disorder, how relapse is natural and necessary, and why I struggle in the first place. 

So much of my life, these behaviors were legitimately the only thing in my control. Even in high school, I didn’t have agency over what I ate but I had control over how much. I was so hungry all the time and it makes sense that I have lots of urges to binge, eat my comfort foods or restrict myself. I feel like I have been starving for my whole life, not just because I was starving for enough nutrients, but because I was starving for love, connection and peace. 

Every day, choosing yourself over your eating disorder, is a battle. It’s exhausting. You deserve to have an identity outside of your eating disorder. You deserve to choose yourself too. 

Here Are Some Reasons To Recover That I Have Found Helpful:

I want to have an identity outside of my ED.

I want to enjoy food and not plan my entire life around it. 

I want to travel to new places and try new foods. 

I want to be able to enjoy going out with my friends. 

Sweets and chips are yummy!

I want to watch cooking shows again without getting anxious. 

I want to be able to allow people to cook for me and feel relief, rather than anxiety. 

I don’t want to have to avoid mirrors or be afraid of taking photos. 

I want to have real energy, rather than the fake, stress response ‘energy’ from my ED. 

I want to enjoy cooking again. 

I want to enjoy popcorn at the movies. 

I want to tune out when diet culture conversations come up, instead of being overly defensive or activated

I want to enjoy buffets. 

I want to stay out late and order food with friends instead of needing to go home to have my safe, planned evening meal.

I want to enjoy birthdays and holidays. 

I want to find my body’s natural, set point weight range and accept it, instead of spending my life fighting it.

I want to try and enjoy new foods, without foods being my main source of joy, purpose and fulfilment, instead food becoming just that: food.

I want to feel just as okay going to bed after a day of rest as after a day of activity.

I want to actually eat the cookies I baked. 

I want to feel happy when someone gives me a treat, rather than feeling terrified it’ll make me ‘lose control’.

I want to ‘break the cycle’ and not pass it onto the next generations (children learn from what they see us do and not do).

I want to order what I truly want from the menu. 

I don’t want to be standing there analysing nutritional labels and looking up ingredients in the middle of the supermarket.

I want to reconnect with my body’s cues, and enjoy the intimate sense of trust and comfort that entails.

I want to stop living in an endless pursuit of ‘the perfect diet’, and instead accept there is no such thing.

I want to stop secretly resenting someone for being thinner than me. 

I don’t want to dread grocery shopping. 

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life constantly cognitively impaired by undernourishment, or constantly fighting my own hunger and body.

I want to experience just how amazing my body and brain is at healing, as long as I give them the fuel to do so. 

I want to choose myself and my life over my eating disorder.

You have everything inside of you that you need to recover. There is no ‘right’ way to recover. It is not a linear path and no one else can tell you how. Which I know is incredibly scary. But it can also be incredibly empowering. Trust yourself and this process!