Yes, I can be in recovery from an eating disorder while simultaneously wanting to (and actively working on) changing my body. I can accept where I am while also want to change it. It doesn’t mean that I am restricting, overeating, manipulating my foods to try and control my body shape and size to negatively impact my quality of life, but it can mean that I am working diligently with professionals toward my best physical self, whatever shape that eventually takes.
I’m scrolling through social media like everybody else and seeing everything. I’m seeing at home workouts and diet suggestions. I’m seeing memes about not keeping it together with regard to what goes in your mouth, while I’m also seeing memes of begged forgiveness and deserved compassion during this stressful time. I’m seeing ripped bodies that may or may not be filtered, and pictures of decadent foods. I’m seeing pleas for help and pleas for silence. I’m seeing people miss races and people going stir crazy. I’m seeing gratitude for quiet and outdoors and questions on how to do this “right”.
And it’s making me think. It’s making me think about how there was a time when this would have been Armageddon for me. It’s making me remember when the pipes would’ve been clogged and the miles on my car would’ve been wracked up trying to find an open store with foods that pollute me and numb me to life on life’s terms. It’s making me remember how I would’ve starved all day and binged all night. It’s making me remember the absolute necessity to act on how I was feeling, instead of waiting it out. It’s making me remember how tired I was, running circles around myself all day and all night, trying to change how I felt by changing what I saw in the mirror.
And it’s also making me grateful that although I do very much want the excess that slowly accumulated from having a broken leg over the winter gone, that I don’t have to force it off any faster than it’s coming. It’s making me grateful that I know there is no real sense of urgency to get “back”. That yes, I want to bomb trails and run for hours, but that I can take the time given to us now with no races around the corner and let my leg tell me what’s right for us. It’s making me appreciate hiking at a leisurely pace with the dogs and my friends, noticing the green floor in the woods and the flowers budding instead of tracking my times and getting as many miles as I can in that time (while also very excitedly looking forward to getting that part back starting this week).
It’s making me grateful that I can look forward to my meals today and plan flexibly. It’s making me appreciate that the scale goes up, and then it comes back down. It’s making me appreciate how far I have come, instead of how far I have to go. Yes, I have days where I feel horrified by how my pants fit and how things squeeze in places that didn’t six months ago. Yes, I have days where I feel insane and hurried and weird. Yes, I have days where I don’t know if I’m moving forward or if I’m falling backward. I have days when I wonder if I’m doing the next thing right for myself, or just being a fool.
It’s not my fault (or yours) that I think about myself a lot. It’s not my fault (or yours) that I think about my body, my food, what I’m going to eat, what I’m not going to eat, how I’m going to move, how I’m not going to move, or anything relating back to my body or what she consumes. This is my disorder. This is my disease. This is what’s been gifted to me so that my experience can eventually benefit others. I (and you) are not less than because we think this way or because we trend toward feeling overwhelmed with things that don’t fucking matter to a lot of other people. We are not failing because in times of crisis we revert back to old ways of thinking or doing. We are not selfish and shitty because we cope by exhibiting behaviors that won’t ultimately serve us. We are not poor examples of recovery if we’re struggling right now. We’re all struggling, we just show it differently.
This is an incredible time to be human. To ask people if they’re isolating because of me, or because of themselves. To share that I think I should be somewhere other than where I am. To know this is a break I’m receiving because of circumstance, not punishment. To know I can be of service to others who can’t see the forest through the trees. To know I can cultivate a place of neutrality and love, instead of a place of fear and angst. To know I can be of service and be a messenger.
And without a doubt, so can you.