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4 Things I Do When Eating Disorder Recovery Feels Far Away

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Getting better always felt really far away from me. It always seemed like it was something I’d have to work for for a very long time. And while I was ready to put work into my recovery, I didn’t want to be “recovering” for the next half of my life. I wanted to achieve recovery and be recovered. I wanted that end prize sooner than what I thought it was going to take. But I wasn’t quite prepared for what recovery all required, I didn’t really realize all of the missing pieces I would have to find and implement before I would be able to come close to calling myself recovered, or healed, or whatever you want to call it. But some of those things are:

1. Eating regularly.

This seems obvious. But I wasn’t doing it. I needed to start eating on a schedule and not letting myself go long periods without food, to always keep nourished. This keeps my mood regular and stable too, which is super important for someone who has bipolar I.

2. Hydration.

I am getting better at this. I have to remind myself to put down my Coke and pick up my water bottle sometimes because hydration is really important and dehydration is really serious. I don’t want to end up in the ER anymore for IV fluids, so staying hydrated is super important for me because I forget really easily about water. But I have been getting a lot better about drinking water and staying on top of my daily fluid intake.

3. Dissolving toxic relationships.

I thought I could keep some relationships around if I kept them in super small doses. This is not true. Relationships that harm your recovery do so in any amount and as hard as it was to let some people go from my life — my recovery is thanking me for it.

4. Trashing your scale.

The scale is my biggest weakness. It’s the thing that has kept me stuck the most and the thing that always keeps me coming back to my ED. I am currently trying to let mine go again. I’ve given it up and taken it back, time and time again. It is my safety net. It makes me feel more secure. But that’s a false sense of security and I am working on letting it go because being recovered is more important to me than a scale. That number it gives you really only gives you anxiety and insecurity, and I am trying to remind myself of this to try and give it up once again.

All of these things are factors that will contribute to my recovery journey of me becoming recovered. By achieving these things, recovery becomes less far away from me and more within my reach. These are four little goals, four things I know I need to actively work on in order to further my recovery and better myself. There are a lot of other things out there too I need to work on in order to complete my recovery, but these things I’ve listed are some of the main ones for me, personally. I don’t want to be recovering for the next half of my life — so I’ve decided I won’t. I will get this right, one step at a time. And you can too.

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Originally published: April 8, 2018
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