How to start eating disorder recovery - tips from someone who’s been through it
So, you’ve decided you want to recover from your eating disorder. First off, this is huge. You should feel so proud of yourself for choosing eating disorder recovery. And I also want you to know that it is completely normal to be afraid, anxious, excited, hopeful, and a bunch of other emotions all at once.
Based on my personal experience, I wanted to share how tips on how to start the eating disorder recovery process:
Get support / tell your support system you want to recover.
Usually, this starts with an uncomfortable conversation with someone closest to you. I remember having a mental breakdown after a really tough night of eating disorder behaviors, and calling my mom, sobbing and telling her I wanted to recover. She helped me a lot with figuring out my first steps in eating disorder recovery.
A support system continues to be important during my eating disorder recovery, and I have created a small group of close friends and family around me who can support me when I want advice, need to vent, or don’t want to be alone.
(I love this article by Jennifer Mcgurk on why a support system is important in eating disorder recovery.) Having support / community is so helpful in eating disorder recovery!
Create an eating disorder recovery plan.
The next step is to determine what your plan is for eating disorder recovery. There are several types of eating disorder treatment. These inpatient, residential, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, and outpatient (in descending order from most intensive to least intensive). The type of eating disorder treatment you select will be based on your needs, motivation, and finances.
If you are able, I recommend at least working with a specialized eating disorder dietician and eating disorder therapist (in addition to a regular primary care doctor, of course). If one therapist or dietician isn’t working, they may just not be the best fit, which is ok! You can find another :)
For those who don’t have the resources, I want to encourage you that you can accomplish eating disorder recovery at home. There is a great eating disorder recovery community on social media, including therapists and dieticians, as well as podcasts, books, online articles and blogs, and free online eating disorder recovery support groups.
Start separating your voice from the Eating Disorder voice.
When thoughts come up, determine whether they are actually your authentic voice, or if it is the eating disorder voice. As a guide, your authentic voice will be kinder and more encouraging, while the eating disorder voice will be critical, shameful, and rude.
For example, “I am guilty because I ate a piece of cake,” is an eating disorder thought. So, replace it’s lie with truth: “I deserve to eat cake because it brings me joy, and there is no such thing as a ‘bad’ food.”
You can journal this out if it’s easier than thinking through it.
Pro-recovery things will likely feel scary, but do them scared!
Eating disorder recovery is one of the most uncomfortable things that you will go through. But it’s also one of the most rewarding things, and the best decision I ever made.
Remember that every time you are uncomfortable in eating disorder recovery, you are growing into the person you want to be, someone without an eating disorder.
The eating disorder is the comfortable thing right now, so anything you do against it will feel uncomfortable. But feelings aren’t truth. It’s good to feel uncomfortable. It’s ok that you’re scared. This is how you defeat the ED. You do it scared!
I hope these tips help and give you some encouragement.
Powered By Scotland Clothing LLC >>Sending you so much love!
xx tori
Other articles on how to start eating disorder recovery: