What it really takes to recover

I am not alone in having spent years “trying” to recover. When I reflect on that time now I can see that I was trying to recover on my ED’s terms. I was searching for a way to recover that wouldn’t come with such distress. If I could just find the magic formula - the perfect balance - then I would do it. This trying was always confusing and always left me feeling stuck and like I wasn’t making meaningful progress.

Something changed in my final recovery attempt. I realised that I had to go where I never had before - that it was in my power to retrain my brain and to fully renourish my body. Of course I wasn’t going to want it all the time; that is what training involves. But I could use the very skills that the ED thrived on - planning, strategy, analysis, consistency, routine - to the advantage of my core recovering self. 

So what then, from a very practical perspective, did I really do to recover from my ED? Allow me to provide you with a roadmap:

1. Empowerment

I recognised my own autonomy. Not only that I had the power to change my actions, behaviours, thoughts and beliefs, but also that I had already been the one to build the strong neural network of my ED. Of course there is biology and survival mechanisms at play, but I had also been actively engraining the ED neural networks for decades. Therefore I had evidence that I could create different ones that were more aligned with the life I truly wanted to live. 

It was in acknowledging my own power that I was able to step up to the role of saving myself. Recognising that I wasn’t a puppet on a string - and owning that reality - enabled me to take an active part in my own recovery. I wasn’t doing this because someone told me to. I wasn’t doing it reluctantly. I was diving head first into this fear because I understood that is what it was going to take and that I had the ability to change the course of my life through my own actions. What a powerful position to be in.

2. Commitment

Recovery couldn’t just happen on the days that I was motivated. I’d been through those cycles before and I had to learn from them. Motivation wanes. Commitments do not. They are a much stronger, active decision to change behaviour even in the face of doubt, uncertainty, fear, <insert negative emotion here>. The actions I committed to were based on what I knew to be true, and usually when I was in a calm, rational state away from the perceived threat of food. I understood this and relied on that trust in my core self who made those commitments to my own recovery. Even in the moments when, faced with the actions, it felt like the last thing I wanted to do.

I had to accept that I wasn’t always going to want to take the recovery action in the moment - but I could follow through regardless. 

3. Abundance of food

There’s no two ways about this one - recovery requires a huge amount of food. When I understood this in the context of full nutritional rehabilitation and neural rewiring I found myself more willing to accept this reality. Previous recovery attempts referred to “weight restoration” and the rest of it being down to somehow changing my thinking.

When I understood that in order to change my thinking, I had to change my behaviours around food (and to not stop doing that just because I reached a certain BMI), I was able to much more clearly see the importance of having an abundance of food. With my restrictive ED I was stuck in scarcity mode. My body and my brain were under the impression (not unrealistically given my actions!) that food was scarce. In order for my body to feel safe and to rebuild other neural networks I had to show my body and brain that food was abundant. That had to be shown through actions - not just having food in my house. I had to do the eating. My body had to trust that abundant food was available at all times. That when it asked for food I would (could!) respond. That we were no longer in a place of scarcity. 

This process of food abundance not only ensured adequate amounts of food for nutritional rehabilitation but also went a long way in rewiring the ED neural networks that were heavily wired around “as little as possible”.

4. Opposite actions

Along with an abundance of food, it was crucial that I started to recognise my ED thoughts and do the opposite actions. The more I reinforced those restrictive thoughts as important ones, the louder they would be. And conversely, the less I listened to those ED thoughts - and taught my brain through my actions - that they were unimportant, well, the less they would show up. That was the theory anyway!

So I put it to the test. For a while it was hard to identify the ED thoughts - there were so many! - but I could recognise fear. I could recognise resistance. That is where I had to go. That’s where my opposite actions were.The more I pushed in that direction, the more obvious the ED thoughts became. It was easier to identify those ED thoughts and then take the opposite actions.

At a macro level I recognised my ED was structured around a desire to minimise my intake, even within a recovery context. Therefore I understood that the opposite of “as little as possible” was “as much as possible”. While terrifying to me with a ED neural wiring, this made the actions simple. I didn’t have to confuse myself with questions like “is this enough?” - if I could eat more then I did. Not easy, but simple. And turns out - very effective!

5. Self-awareness and self-honesty

My ability to be really, painfully honest with myself was incredibly important in my journey to full recovery. Without it, the ED gets away with far too much. There are so many seemingly reasonable excuses to not take recovery actions and it was up to me to call them out. I had to get very honest about where I was upholding the ED neural network. Where was I not acting in alignment with my recovery commitments? Where was I trying to do recovery but with a little bit of disorder on the side?

No one else knew exactly where my ED was hiding. There was not a single professional on this planet that would have known exactly what rocks my ED was hiding under. That was my job - I was the only one who knew and had to do the work of going looking. Of course I had guides along the way and this is where the value of my coach really showed up. With lived experience they were able to gently probe into the places that others might have missed. The places that perhaps I didn’t even want to examine myself. While difficult at the time I am now so grateful to that confronting work. I simply wouldn’t have recovered if I hadn’t been honest with myself.

6. Self-compassion

The realisations that came with this self-honesty were both very upsetting and very frustrating. I knew better so why was I making it harder for myself?! Rather than go down the well-trodden path of self-loathing I had to practice the alternative - self-compassion.

I had to acknowledge that I wasn’t bad for not doing recovery perfectly. I was learning and learning always involves mistakes. However, these are mistakes I can continue to learn from and set myself up to win better. I had to be on my own team, like a coach would, and sit with the uncomfortable feelings of disappointment or frustration, and then decide on my next best step. I could choose for that next step to be in alignment with my values or I could choose to sink further into despair. By approaching this with self-compassion I was able to acknowledge my feelings and it then felt much better taking the decisions that I knew would bring me closer to my valued direction. I found this to be one of the most important practices so that I could, in fact, be honest with myself.

7. A willingness to sit with discomfort (and the tools to tolerate it)

Unfortunately all of the knowledge in the world will not eliminate the discomfort of taking the opposite actions in ED recovery. There is ED wiring in place that will retaliate against any behaviours that oppose it. That is what it has been taught to do in order to disincentivise behaviours that your brain interprets as a threat. I had to be willing to sit with that discomfort, rather than try to find a way to recover by avoiding it. I’d tried that and, unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.

But I recognised that I had a particular skill for tolerating unpleasant feelings - after all I’d had an ED for nearly two decades. I had to find new ways of tolerating this distress. I used all manner of things and was open to suggestions even when I felt like the world around me was crumbling.

For me, the most powerful distractions came in the form of connection with others. While I was still feeling great discomfort in both my body and mind, being with others allowed my perspective to shift, even if just a little. I was able to be drawn out of my hole of despair and connect to the experience of others. And even to learn that they wanted to connect with me too regardless of what I had eaten or how I looked. I found this to be profoundly healing.

I used many other strategies to cope with the inevitable discomfort - reading, puzzles, Netflix, singing - and none of them worked perfectly. But they all helped. Most importantly I was willing to experience the distress and remind myself that all emotions are temporary. That this too shall pass. And indeed it did.

8. Understanding my why

In the hard moments it became increasingly important to remind myself why I was doing this. What was it that I wanted my life to stand for? More than that, what did I NOT want my life to stand for?

There were many moments of doubt and frustration. Having concrete reasons for why I wanted something more for myself allowed me to zoom out. It allowed me to connect my actions in the present (generally something I was struggling with) to the version of my life that I desperately wanted. It reminded me that this was a transition state, but that every single moment and every single action was either going to take me towards that life or away from it.

9. Support

There is no one size fits all for the support individuals need in recovery. But I do not think recovery is something that needs to be done alone. Having the right type of support made all the difference for me.

I had tried many therapists and dietitians. They helped to a degree but never to full recovery. Many professionals I worked with didn’t even believe in full recovery (cool, thanks). I was very fortunate to have a loving, supportive family and partner who were always on my team. But still, I wasn’t able to take the steps I knew I needed to take. For me, working with a coach was life changing. There was an immediate feeling of being seen and validated - and with that came with a huge degree of accountability because I knew this wasn’t someone I was going to be able to dupe. Inherently I trusted that they understood my experience and I could learn something from them. They had been in my shoes and were encouraging the things I already knew. It wasn’t that they had new information for me. It was that I could feel seen, supported, reassured and challenged so that I could be honest with myself and take the steps to actually win at this recovery thing.

10. Making recovery my top priority

Finally I had to accept that recovery needed to be my number one consideration every single day. It wasn’t something I could think about after everything else was taken care of. There wasn’t an “everything else” if I didn’t get rid of this ED. By prioritising my recovery I was in fact prioritising the rest of my life. 

For me, this looked like taking time off work and delegating any other domestic tasks that I could to the people around me. My daily efforts revolved around resting and eating as much as possible. I resisted taking time off work for many years in the belief that I could do both. But with my personality and in my line of work, my career always won in the contest for top priority. That had to change and I’m grateful that it did. By making recovery my main focus of each day I had no excuse not to take action (well I did, but I got honest about those too). And more than that, recovery is a full time job. The energy required to take opposite actions, to battle your own thoughts, to doubt your actions, to emotionally meltdown at mealtimes is huge. Trying to recover without making space for all of this is even harder - and for me I knew I never would. So one of my biggest acts of self-support was to take some time for myself and really commit entirely to recovery. It’s one of the best risks I’ve ever taken.

While taking time off work might not be realistic for everyone, it's so important to consider how you can prioritise recovery within the constraints of your real life commitments - whether that is to work or otherwise. What that prioritisation looks like will be different for everyone but for recovery to be a success it cannot be an afterthought.

If you’ve made it this far then I’m guessing you’re searching for more information on how to actually recover. You don’t need more information - you need a game plan. The good news is that this strategy didn’t just work for me. It’s the blueprint I have now seen work with lots of clients in my work as a recovery coach. Do not mistake the simplicity for ease. This is not necessarily an easy process but once I understood the simplicity of it I found myself more able to take the required actions - and I believe that you can too.