A Post Originally Written For Instagram Towards The Start Of My Recovery:
One thing few who have not been through recovery from an eating disorder can appreciate is just how mentally all consuming and draining it is… alongside the emotional charge to it!!
Recovering from restrictive eating causes ongoing thoughts of food as the starved brain tries to drive us to eat but navigating this with the fears, anxieties and staying alert to the other little tricks the eating disorder will try is a whole extra layer.
To put in recovery action daily is therefore a more than full time job of mental processing, fending off ED fuelled thoughts to restrict or be active and instigate more helpful means to cope with fear or emotion.
All this alongside the actual action of eating very regularly and in sufficient quantities!
Since starting this recovery process I’ve found my ability to focus or concentrate on things beyond recovery has been very limited! Yet, when in the illness I could manage more than full time work while managing a home and more besides.
I guess though that this stage in recovery can be messy and if I have to put most of my mental energy into recovery for now then it will be worth it when I come out the other side, as I know others have done.
It’s draining and emotional at the moment but I don’t intend to give up.
In the meantime if all I can manage to focus on is trashy novels to distract with my choccie bars, c’est la vie!
RECOVERING NOMAD 