On the flip side of that, a twenty pound weight loss doesn’t mean one is recovering either. My mother’s first hope that I was “getting better” is because I lost twenty pounds in one month. That wasn’t me getting better but just how my weight fluctuates (sometimes a bit out of hand) from month to month.

Recovery from an eating disorder certainly means taking control of our eating habits and actually eating and not binging and purging. But it’s so funny because the one thing I said I wanted from OT was to stop binging and purging. I’m making wonderful progress so I won’t slight myself on that end, but it’s painful and hard and there are so many downs and not far as many ups. Now recovery isn’t just about not binging and purging. It’s about eating right and not restricting from things I enjoy that aren’t healthy (and not restricting at all). It’s about accepting my body shape and weight and the size pants I wear (easier said today as opposed to two months this time). It’s about speaking up for myself and dealing with my emotions in a healthy way. It’s about being real and authentic and honest with myself. An honesty that isn’t judgmental and harsh and self deprecating.

I can’t lie. I still want to lose weight. I still want to look in the mirror and not see that THIS is my body. But I’m also not putting off living my life in the meantime. Because losing weight for me isn’t a GOOD thing. It makes the disordered food thoughts surge with a vengeance. And I think that there may be something more to life than being a size four.

Actually, I suffered from anorexia as a teen and young adult. I still think about food in a disordered way. But I hope to never be “active” again!

What got you out of the “dark period”?