Recovery really is one big journey, with plenty of ups and downs. I tend to go so long doing really well and pushing further and further out of my comfort zone before my eating disorder pipes up like ‘hey, remember me!? You’re doing a bit too well’ and I fall backwards. The time I stay down before realising I need to pick myself up and fight, gets shorter and shorter every time. I’m slowly learning that I want my life, I don’t want to be consumed by this voice every single day, living by a set of rules that I set myself.
‘You’re either working on recovery or working on a relapse’. This statement couldn’t be any more accurate. Recovery is a massive task, it takes so much effort, energy and determination. You don’t just choose to recover one day, it’s a choice that you have to make not just every day but every minute of every hour of every day. That choice is harder on some days than it is on others but the decision is extremely important. That’s why this mind dump blogpost has been written. I’ve recently been at a point where I stopped working at recovery and was depriving myself working towards the wrong goals. I’m not going to sit beating myself up or feeling guilty about it, instead I’m going to be proud that I’ve recognised it and put all of my efforts in to turning things around and continuing on my journey to recovery.
I want to choose to have every meal until it doesn’t feel like a question anymore, I hope to get to a point where I eat naturally without even considering otherwise. The only choice I want to make is what I fancy eating. I want to get to a point where I can count my blessing and achievements- not my calories or weight loss. I want to be able to look in the mirror without ripping myself apart. I want to be able to voice when I’m not ok and tell those around me, not show them through starving my body. Most of all when I make a mistake or do something imperfect I want to remember that I still deserve to eat and take care of myself.
I want to learn that food is not there as a reward or punishment. It’s fuel. The fuel we need to get up each day and follow our dreams. To do the things we love and create lifelong memories and to spend time with the people we love. To build a positive relationship with food is a huge part of my journey to a healthy and happy mind set… something we all deserve regardless of how much we value ourselves.
It’s not easy, I know that I can say all of this and then eat something and feel a shed load of guilt and have thoughts about being greedy and needing to restrict. But that’s ok, as long as I don’t act on the thoughts, I need to challenge them and put everything in to overcoming this illness.
So no, it’s definitely not easy but it is beyond worth it!
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