The unexpected after fight
NOT FOR PEOPLE STILL STRUGGLING. [If you are still struggling with any ED please dont read, it may be discouraging for your healing progress. Healing is never not worth it.]
Its been almost a year since I came out of the hospital for anorexia. Every doctor told me that battling it while I was submerged by the illness was the hardest part, butting definitely wasnt to my mind.
ED are so vicious, and they still control my life today. I eat normally, but I still know the calories of each food, I still count how many calories I had in a day, I still want to do better than everyone in sport because I want to be the one that lost the most calories, all of this without punishing myself if I had too many calories or didnt do sport because I was tired.
I know that not everybody lives his after illness the same, but it just feels like I never see recovered people struggling like I do in a basic day to day life. The hardest part is definitely the guilt of not being sick anymore (for some odd reason) and the safety that I felt when I was recovering in the hospital, I just feel so endangered now that I am in the real world, its like someone poked my safety bubble. Am I the only one experiencing this a whole year after ? Am I doing something bad on journey to complete recovery ? I dont know anymore, I am lost. Feel free to share you recovery experiences in reply, Id love to learn what youve been through and if I am the only one living this :)
@Dwarfancy I have recovered once, and at it went well for a while, but after two years with almost no trouble I relapsed in October. So I'm starting from scratch again...
@EvilRegalsReadToo i am so sorry to hear this... never forget that if you won once, you can twice and that this is not a failure. ED are tricky to battle, and can make you believe that you are nothing without them, which can not be more far away from the truth. I am sending a lot of strength your way sweetheart, you are hecking strong.
In my opinion, I think the most difficult rather is the "kick" start. (which i am kinda stucked at)
Once "you" have the hang of it, perhaps if you can "remember" how to not let ED thoughts take over, you should be able to get over it again.
(But... this is someone saying... based on thoughts only... No experience... yet)
Take care.
@Dwarfancy I think there are multiple parts of recovery, and I promise that you are not alone in those feelings - for me, I struggled with the thoughts on a day to day basis for a long time after I stopped struggling with the behaviors and was eating "normally". But with time and with continued recovery work, for me they were able to fade back. I think that often we view recovery as only being about the physical part, but the mental side is really important too - dealing with the reasons that you fell into the eating disorder in the first place, what need it was filling for you, what feelings are there when you eat even now, etc. Are you still receiving any support in working through the thoughts/feelings side of this, even if your eating is back on track?
