Forcing A Path Through Recovery Woods

“When you’re lost in those woods, it sometimes takes you a while to realize that you are lost.
For the longest time, you can convince yourself that you’ve just wandered off the path, that you’ll find your way back to the trailhead any moment now.
Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are, and it’s time to admit that you have bewildered yourself so far off the path that you don’t even know from which direction the sun rises anymore.”
Elizabeth Gilbert

This quote from Elizabeth Gilbert describes how I feel at the moment in my eating disorder recovery.

It feels that at the start of recovery I left the cold ED world behind and entered the woods, hoping to find a relatively well cut back, signposted path through to a recovered life on the other side.

Instead the path I planned to take is lost.  I can’t find the path back and no turn seems to lead me to even a sign I’m going in the right direction for health.

Night falls every evening and each day is a repeated scramble through branches of trees, in darkness which is bewildering and frightening.

At times I’m not sure if I should pursue the possible route to recovery as that seems so uncertain and messy or if I fumble back to illness.

One thing I know is that I can’t stay where I am- there are only hard options ahead… one way is going to feel impossible at times to get through but can lead to health, while the other is a road back to a life I was so desperate to escape… returning to it would be suicide.

So each day I must rise and keep scrambling through; clearing paths until I find a sign of light… evidence that the recovered life is out there waiting and I just need to keep moving towards it.