Baby steps in recovery

For far too long in my own recovery I was convinced I had to take recovery “at my pace”. If I could carefully manage my own recovery then one day I would be free. It took me a long time to recognise that pattern as appeasement - this was exactly playing into the hands of my ED. I was tweaking tiny parts of my intake and hoping that it would smash the cage entirely open. Needless to say, it did not work. Taking baby steps only maintained my ED for even longer.

The ED thrives on negotiation. You might be able to make small improvements but they are done within the safety net of other ED behaviours. Compromises are made in an effort to sidestep the deep distress that would be accompanied by the non-ED path. That doesn’t build a new neural network - that strengthens the ED network. On paper lots of these steps can look good but underneath the ED is still in control. It’s setting the rules and you’re attempting to do recovery within them. If every step forward must be approved by the disorder first, then it isn’t actually forward movement. Simply put: it’s the ED in disguise.

Eating disorder recovery is not comfortable healing. It’s disruptive healing. You are meant to feel uncomfortable. Waiting until you feel ready to take bolder steps is a sure-fire way to wait forever. When I accepted that my anxiety was likely to peak pretty quickly regardless of how bold my action was, I was incentivised to make it count.

I had tried slow and steady. I was frustrated that I wasn’t better yet. But then equally resistant to taking bigger steps. I felt stuck. When I stepped back and really understood that ripping the bandaid off and taking big swings at my ED was my shortest path to freedom I was able to unlock a new level of recovery. I recognised that if I wanted to actually recover I had to take the actions before I felt ready, before I felt motivated. That I knew exactly what I needed to do so I had to strategise from a truly pro-recovery perspective, rather than one that is micromanaging the process to appease the ED. Because I had all of the planning skills and ability to make recovery happen, I just kept convincing myself that now wasn’t the right time. Or that I was doing “enough recovery” for today so didn’t have to push elsewhere. 

So then I started asking myself some different questions:

• “What would be the most scary option right now?”

• “Can I eat more than this?”

• “Will this action accelerate or slow down my recovery?”

• “Where feels safe today and how can I make it more challenging?”

If holding hands with my ED under the guise of making it tolerable was a long-term strategy for full recovery then I would have achieved it by now. Yes those baby steps got me on the journey but they weren’t going to take me the whole way to full recovery. They would only ever get me to a place of quasi where I could eat more and function better but still within a matrix of rules and conditions. That wasn’t where I wanted to stop. So bigger bolder decisions had to be made. Not because I wanted to in the moment, but because I recognised that without them my idea of full recovery was just a dream. That holding hands with my ED was not compatible with full recovery. 

And if it helps, have you ever seen a baby take steps? They’re not tentative - they are bold and fearless. So in that respect DO take baby steps. Take the brave steps into the unknown with abandon. And surround yourself with a safety net of support to scoop you up when the falls happen. With the right support and the right tools you can tolerate far more than the ED makes you think.