Recovery First:
Putting life on hold to get well can be an important decision.
One thing that pushed me to put my life on hold to recover was hitting the age of 40 this year & the reality hit of just how sick I was & how, despite being functional, the illness was trapping me: disabled, alone & miserable.
Life had passed me by in so many ways while I lived in a cold anorexia bubble.
I realised I had to make radical changes before it was too late.
To have a real life & a future worth living, I had to put life on hold & fully recover this time.
And, for me this is a key step for any eating disorder recovery.
Recovery is a full time job – it sucks our energy, it is exhausting- physically and mentally and it can fully deplete us before we can rebuild our lives.
Eating disorders kill -that is a sad reality.
Recovery must be our life priority.
If this was a deadly physical illness there would be no question as to whether it was sensible to remove anything possible that impedes recovery from our life for the short term to heal.
Of course, the ED brain comes up with many reasons why recovery cannot come first…
These include:
– “I’m not going to let the eating disorder stop me living my dreams…” yet if we don’t get better the eating disorder will ensure any life lived, any ‘dreams’ accomplished are without true freedom or happiness.
– “I’m not deserving…” there can be self blame for the illness & a feeling that therefore we don’t deserve time to recover or receive care. But an ED is never a choice -there is no blame & everyone deserves to be well.
– “I will let others down if I don’t do x,y,z…” when really anyone who cares would rather we are well & functioning fully with them in future.
– “I will be seen as weak…” send anyone who thinks this about you to me to sort out!
Putting our life on hold in any way possible & putting ourselves through all that full recovery takes for us, our families, our future & for all we could give back to the world when we are well is not selfish… perhaps it is actually a self-less thing to do.
We must prioritise us: our health & our life!
@feast_ed have a saying, “life stops until you eat”….
And with an ED life really could stop unless we heed this advice.
RECOVERING NOMAD 