Why Recovery Feels Uncertain: Understanding the Difference Between "Recovered" and "Cured"

“I am so happy that you got the help you needed and that those days are behind you".

A recent text from someone that loves me, sent innocently and with good intention, but woefully uninformed. I can’t blame the people in my life for thinking that things are so simple; I suppose to an outsider, an eating disorder is like any other disease. The narrative being that I was sick, I got help from medical professionals, and now I am cured. But the cold, hard truth is that “those days” will never be behind me; they must be at the forefront of my mind in order for me to continue living without the threat of relapse.

Sometimes I wish it were as easy as refraining from the behaviors that led me to seek treatment. A black and white list: “don’t binge or purge; don’t over-exercise; don’t restrict calorie intake or diet”. But what I’ve learned over the course of three years is that the list of do’s and don’ts in recovery is incredibly nuanced, unpredictable, and looks different for me than it does for anyone else. I struggle every day to keep up with it, and am by no means immune to the temptation of throwing it all away.

More than anything, it is the envy that threatens to unravel all of my progress. I am surrounded by people who knowingly or unknowingly engage with diet culture through medications, “get-skinny-quick” workout routines, and meal plans that don’t include carbohydrates. I die a little inside each time I hear someone saying, “I’ve lost 30 pounds since starting my GLP-1 injections,” knowing full well they were perfectly lovely prior to what they considered to be necessary weight loss. It reminds me of how many times I received compliments when I was “skinny”, and my mind warps the situation to make someone else’s weight loss about me.

Not only does it have the ability to make me jealous, but it opens the door for my ego, which quickly points out that, “those women were smaller than you when they went to extreme measures to lose weight.” That mean, critical, eating-disordered voice turns something that has nothing to do with me into ammunition. It is not my place to judge anyone else for their choices, but in moments of weakness, I will play the comparison game until I am completely depleted of what little confidence I had in the first place. And at those times, I am incredibly aware that “recovered” does not mean “cured.”

On bad days, my recovery makes me feel isolated, persecuted and incredibly nostalgic for a time when I could be like everyone else. Because now I must abstain from joining a gym; I can’t go back to the ever-popular facilities with cardio-heavy HIIT sessions, or the spin studio where I spent my entire second pregnancy. I cannot hop on the Pilates bandwagon, as I have yet to find a studio that focuses on anything more than burning fat and chiseling waistlines. I must follow a meal-plan, eat three meals and two snacks intuitively and not based on how I feel about the food. And under no circumstances can I even think about putting a substance into my body for the sole purpose of limiting food intake and losing weight.

All of these things, considered by society to be perfectly normal, are ticking time bombs for me. I cannot even dabble in the trends, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to. Falling off the wagon wouldn’t happen overnight; it would be a series of decisions over time; a shift in my mindset, where I could rationalize thoughts and behaviors as small or insignificant. It wouldn’t take long before the gap between me and my recovery grew so large that I forgot why I worked so hard to achieve it in the first place.

Because I am not cured of the disease; it lingers, ever-present and will never be fully eradicated from my mind. I am forever tasked with staying hypervigilant and doing things on a daily basis to fortify my recovery. Use what I’ve learned in treatment to manage the symptoms of the eating disorder so that they do not take over my life once again. I must anticipate the catalysts and triggers that may or may not present themselves on any given day because there is no guarantee that I won’t be faced with the eating disorder when I least expect it.

I could see all of this as my cross to bear; think like a victim and blame the way my mind works on something or someone else. Focus constantly on how my eating disorder has had such a long-term effect on my life. I could give up and give in so that things would be easier and I could go back to being just like everyone else. But for now, I won’t; because I am not chasing the goal of getting from recovered to cured as much as that would be ideal. My goal, the one that fuels my resolve to keep doing the hard, is not self-serving or short-term. And luckily, during the times when things seem too bleak to continue, I can look at my daughter and remember how crucial it is that I keep going.

Authentically Yours,