The Process
I have a shit ton of topics that I’d like to blog about, and that I have drafted, but for once I’m feeling some kind of emotion and felt the need to blog about it… that’s what “real” bloggers do, right?
Lately I have been seeing a lot of people in the “recovery community” online saying things such as:
I’m almost fully recovered!
I’m almost at a healthy weight – I can’t wait to be recovered!
When I reach X weight will I be recovered?
These statements and questions piss me off to no end. Why? BECAUSE RECOVERY IS A NEVER-ENDING, FOR-LIFE PROCESS. I truly believe that once you have an eating disorder, you’re in recovery (if you choose to recover) for the rest of your life. Now, recovery can definitely have an ending point in terms of “quitting” and giving into eating disordered behaviors again, but I don’t believe that there is a such thing as full recovery. No matter how few eating disordered thoughts you have, no matter how well you eat, what your weight is, etc. there are always going to be things in your life that could possibly trigger behaviors again – whether it be an unintentional weightloss, a death of a family member, WHATEVER it is. Whenever those things come up, using your eating disorder to cope WILL cross your mind – even if it’s something you’d never do and choose to use other ways to cope. THAT RIGHT THERE IS RECOVERY – you’re choosing not to go back to your eating disorder. So how could recovery ever have an end point?
With that, I do think that it’s possible to reach a point where you are comfortable with doing everyday things, such as going out to lunch with friends, or buying a new pair of jeans without crying for hours. I also believe, though, that if you’re not comfortable with those things, that you can’t stay at a standstill. Right now, that is my problem.
I would say that I am at a standstill recovery-wise. I got out of the hospital and was extremely motivated, and slowly that motivation evaporated. The thing is, I can’t be admitted into the hospital everytime I lose motivation just so that I can gain that motivation back. That would be quite expensive and definitely not how I want to live my life. My problem is that I don’t know how to make that motivation long-lasting. I need to do something to challenge myself to give me that “recovery boost” again and to self-motivate.
I usually tend to avoid numbers, and don’t go into many “personal” aspects of recovery on my blog because it seems as if people don’t know how to give me my space about those things once they are in the public (as in I’m constantly nagged about whatever I posted), but I do want to set a goal for the next week. I want to be able to increase my calories by 400 calories this week. I think it’s a doable goal.
Other than that, yesterday I went to Hershey Park, like I mentioned a few blog posts ago, with my friend for her birthday. It was a nice day, although I cant’ say I had a wonderful time. I didn’t go on as many rides as most of the people with us went on because I was nervous about my heart doing something crazy on the roller coasters. It was nice to get out of the house, though, with friends.
Do you struggle with this as well? What are things that you do to get yourself re-motivated?
Have you ever been fruit picking? I might be going strawberry picking next weekend.