The Truth About Eating Disorder Recovery

I’m years into my recovery from my eating disorder. I went from someone suffering in silence to a patient checking herself into multiple treatment centers, to a human in the beginning stages of recovery. Now, years later, I am an eating disorder counselor who owns her own outpatient practice. My counseling practice works primarily with individuals recovering from all types of eating disorders. I share this to say that, yes, I have seen a lot of people go through this healing process. I have seen people at their worst, I have seen people thriving in recovery, and I have seen everything in between. Through my own recovery and work as a counselor, the main thing I have learned is this: no matter the person’s situation, recovery is a messy process.

Here are some of the not-so-fun realities that make this process a messy one:

1. You can’t abstain from food. You need it to survive.

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First off, food is the one thing that we need to survive. Recovering from an eating disorder doesn’t require abstinence, it requires balance, which I have come to believe is far more complicated. You have to eat, but every day of eating is slightly different. Sometimes we have dessert, sometimes we are on a road trip and eat snacks all day, sometimes we are so busy at work everything has to be premade and planned the day before. Food is constantly…