9 Reminders for When Your Eating Disorder Tries to Pull You Back in After Being in Long-Term Recovery

If you or someone important to you is in recovery for an eating disorder, there will come a time where you hit what one of my team members refer to as a “stabilization point.” This is the point at which you have recovered some of the behaviors and thought patterns that kept you stuck in your eating disorder, and now you are at a point in your recovery where your work and efforts are spent trying to maintain the mental (and maybe physical) space you are in. After a while, you may have to put in less effort to maintain some of the habits and thought patterns you have developed while recovering from your eating disorder. It may come as a surprise, then, when you have a moment, day, or season where you are tempted to fall into old eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and patterns after being in recovery for a while. This may derail you mentally, but it does not have to derail your recovery. These reminders can help us stay in recovery when we feel like we are being pulled back toward our eating disorder.

9 Reminders for When Your Eating Disorder Tries to Pull You Back in After Being in Long-Term Recovery

1. Your eating disorder was (is) not on your side

After months or years of being in recovery, it can be easy to forget some of the toll your eating disorder took on your mental, emotional, and physical health. When our distance from being in the trenches of our eating disorder grows, it may present itself as comforting or familiar in the face of a hard situation or season of life, but it’s still a force that takes, not gives.

2. Slipping isn’t failing; It's a chance to recalibrate and recommit to recovery

Setbacks in recovery don’t erase all the progress that you’ve made. If you encounter a setback and old thoughts or behaviors creep in, it’s a sign to check in with yourself, your team, and work to address it in a way that puts you back in a space of healing. One of the wonderful things about treatment is gaining the tools to be able to choose recovery . . . again and again if you need to.

3. You’ve learned to live without your eating disorder in the driver’s seat, and you can continue to do so

Recovery has likely allowed you to thrive in ways you couldn’t when your eating disorder was in full control. If you are well into your recovery, you may have built a life beyond it, and this is something that you can continue to build. Getting help from your support network in seasons where you are tempted to reverie back to old behaviors can help hold you up when you need it, and can help you resituate yourself in the strength you already have.

4. Recovery can feel boring, and that’s okay

Once we have been in recovery for a while and you feel more mentally and physically stable, the stability can start to feel, well,.... kind of anticlimactic.  This is not something I anticipated or was told because it fails to fit the messaging about the amazing parts of recovery (which are also so valid and helpful!). But I know that part of what kept me stuck in my own eating disorder behaviors for so long was the fact that it required so much of my attention; it was needy and time-consuming, sometimes dramatic, and took up so much of my mental space. When all of that is gone and the initial ups and downs of recovery have mellowed out, stability can feel unsettling after years of emotional intensity. A calm, stable life with the ability to invest in the simple joys life has to offer is a beautiful part of long-term healing, and that is true even in moments and seasons where you don’t feel it.

5. It’s normal to miss your eating disorder; this is not a sign to go back to it

Long-term recovery can bring with it moments of nostalgia for your eating disorder, especially if it served as a source of security for a while. It’s okay to acknowledge those feelings, but remember that acknowledging them is possible without engaging in them. More on missing your eating disorder here if this is a challenge for you.

6. You’re allowed to change

You may feel like you are an entirely different person now than you were when you were actively engaging in eating disorder behaviors. There are so many reasons for this, and you probably feel good about many of the changes that you have made. In the wake of a longstanding shift in priorities, interests, habits, and more, you may feel an urge to revert back to something that feels familiar to you.  Remember that you are allowed to evolve and change, and that *familiar* does not mean better. The familiar thoughts and behaviors you had and engaged in during your eating disorder days were not serving you.

7. Your coping strategies are stronger than your urge to use eating disorder behaviors

hroughout your recovery, you have built a set of coping skills – some intentionally and others may have developed more organically. When you get what feels like a random thought or urge to dip your toes back into your eating disorder behaviors after a period of time where you have been in healing, remember that your eating disorder behaviors are no longer the only option for security, coping, engaging with or avoiding emotions —  you are now equipped with tools that can continue to help you fight the urges to fall back into your eating disorder.

8. You've made it through some hard days without reengaging in your eating disorder

You have made it through some really hard days throughout your recovery journey without leaning on your eating disorder to numb, distract, or otherwise distance you from your recovery. Remembering this can help you believe that you do, in fact, have the ability to get through hard days without tapping back into old habits.

9. Recovery is ongoing, and this is okay

It’s natural to wish that recovery had a clear finish line – this is something I still sometimes wish. It would certainly make the recovery process feel more direct and “achievable.” Reframing my own thoughts to remind myself that recovery is truly a journey, not a destination (sorry for the throwback reference to the posters on your middle school classroom walls, but the relevance is there!) has helped me get less upset with myself when I get random thoughts or desires to re-engage in eating disorder behaviors despite being in a relatively “stable” spot overall.

Recovery is about more than simply avoiding old behaviors — it’s about cultivating a life that you deserve, one where you can thrive without the burden of your eating disorder.

Once you have been in recovery for a while and you start to feel like your head is consistently above water, that you are able to actually engage in live in a way that allows you to enjoy many of the things you were not able to enjoy before, you may be surprised and discouraged by the temptation to reengage in your eating disorder behaviors. Remember that this can be normal, and that it’s something to be curious and attentive toward instead of being discouraged. If the temptation is overwhelming or disorienting, lean on your support system, use the tools you've gained, and remind yourself that this journey, with all its ups and downs, is still worth maintaining the healing you have worked so hard to achieve.

By: Erika Muller, Assistant for Wildflower Therapy LLC

All images via Unsplash

How Can Wildflower Therapy in Philadelphia, PA Help You?

If you’re looking for someone to come alongside you to help you unpack and approach the the complex set of experiences and emotions that come with having and healing from an eating disorder , our therapists in Pennsylvania are honored to help!  In fact, you can get to know a little bit more about them here and book a free consultation here.

Other Mental Health Services Provided by Wildflower Therapy, Philadelphia, PA

Life is a unique and sometimes messy journey for each of us; we all have our own individual battles to fight. Our therapists know there is no one-size-fits-all approach to any of life’s challenges and because of that, we offer many unique perspectives and approaches to help meet you where you are with our Philadelphia, PA Therapy services.

With this in mind, we offer services for eating disorder therapy, services for anxiety, and depression, and have practitioners who specialize in perinatal mental health , maternal mental health, therapy for college students and athletes. As well as LGBTQIA+ Affirming Therapy. Accordingly, we have something to offer just about anyone in our Philadelphia, PA office. Reaching out is often the most difficult step you can take to improve your mental health. We look forward to partnering with you on this journey!