Dispelling the Myth About Full Recovery from an Eating Disorder

The widespread information online about eating disorders and recovery provides people suffering with these illnesses the ability to educate themselves. Access to knowledge informs people about their experience and how to get help.

The benefits of information are widespread. Patients have much more knowledge about eating disorders and treatment from the start. Research into all forms of help from medications to various types of therapy reveals many different options to get better. Broad details about clinical care gives patients the ability to express their own thoughts about the course of treatment. And educating oneself can be the best motivator to get well.

In recent years, the information available is more often from individuals rather than educational websites or non-profit organizations. Searches for eating disorders are likely to lead to Instagram influencers or marketers rather than a university hospital study or the Academy of Eating Disorders website.

Accordingly, the information people learn tends to be curated by people who may or may not be as educated about eating disorders and who may have a personal agenda. The agenda could be as simple as building a clinical practice or may reflect a personal bias about eating disorders. Since the internet equates all knowledge, people searching for useful articles can instead stumble upon biased data.

One myth that is particularly concerning is the idea that people with eating disorders will always be sick, that the best a person can do is tame the eating disorder thoughts but should expect to live with these thoughts forever. Although the belief that one can’t recover from an eating disorder is old, propagating the myth through social media runs the risk of making this idea appear to be fact.

Some people don’t get fully better from an eating disorder for a number of reasons, but the majority of people can and do get better. If people first learning about eating disorders believe they won’t get better, they approach treatment in a very different and less determined way. Armed with the myth they will never be well, these patients struggle to commit to recovery and to do the hard work needed to take on the process of recovery.

I worry that this myth is growing because more and more people grow their online presence and identity as someone who has recovered from an eating disorder but always needs to be vigilant. If people build a practice around the ever present identity of a recovered person, then being fully free of the eating disorder can jeopardize the business model. If people get well, then the practitioner needs to find a new identity to sell as part of the treatment the provide.

Although access to information can help many people learn about eating disorders and find the courage to seek help, the eating disorder community needs to be sure the goal is full recovery. Holding onto the identity of a recovered person runs the risk of helping people get better but limiting their identity to someone who is recovered. The goal of recovery needs to include becoming one’s true self.