What it Takes to Really Get Better from an Eating Disorder

Eating disorders usually start at a young age and become a central part of how a person functions early in the development of our identity.

The eating disorder rules organize daily life around food and weight, sets a clear and definite idea of right and wrong and helps life make sense at a confusing developmental period.

Eating disorder symptoms serve as an easy and effective way to manage feelings and calm oneself down during periods of distress.

Eating disorders become central to identity. It’s acceptable to conflate an eating disorder with personal goals, personality and a legitimate organizing force in life.

By the time the eating disorder becomes a problem, one’s entire life and self-image is organized around this illness. In fact, the eating disorder often doesn’t feel like an illness. Questioning the eating disorder usually feels like a personal attack instead.

Recovery doesn’t mean getting better from a long-standing illness to most people. It feels like tearing away the fabric of their being. It feels as if clinicians are asking them to remake themselves, to start from scratch.

So getting better from an eating disorder only begins with a stable meal plan, regular meals and snacks. Recovery quickly becomes more of an existential crisis, a journey to figure oneself out and to throw out the old theories.

Anyone starting recovery, and any clinician embarking on this path with a patient, needs to be aware of how disorienting and exposing recovery feels. Getting better means opening up some of the deepest personal spaces and looking at the raw emotion and fears that are revealed by the end of eating disorder symptoms.

The process of recovery demands respect, empathy and creativity. The path often leads to unexpected places, figuratively and practically, and can end up at unpredictable realizations about life.

Only with a knowledge of recovery and a willingness to explore what the person needs to face, without judgment or criticism, can someone find their way to being truly well and to being truly themselves.