What Is Eating Disorder Recovery?
There are many hallmarks that make eating disorder recovery. One of them that I have been returning to and that psychedelic journeys almost always circle back to, is learning how to be with the unknown.
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The eating disorder likes to control things in such a way so that things seem like they are known, where the outcome is planned, where there is very little room for spontaneity, and feelings can be well-managed.
Behaviours like calorie counting, over-exercise, restricting food groups, eating at specific mealtimes, not letting anyone else cook meals, eating the same things, body checking, or avoiding social situations that involve food are all attempts to reduce the possibilities of being swallowed by the tidal waves of the unknown.
Sticking to rigid food and body behaviours feels safe, known, measured and manageable.
So, the question is then, why is there such a need to predict, manage, or control?
This is because eating disorder patterns often stem from places of trauma. And trauma is something where there was no choice (it happened and the individual couldn’t avoid), that felt out of one’s control, and left deep imprints of hurt, fracturing the psyche in some way.
The eating disorder patterns are coping mechanisms that try to manage the unresolved stress survival energies (fight, flight, freeze) that are still stuck in the physiology and in the nervous system from the trauma.
Eating disorder behaviours indicate that something happened in someone’s life that was so overwhelming, uncontainable and uncontrollable, resulting in an all-encompassing belief that life cannot be trusted. At the core, eating disorders indicate nervous system dysregulation.
The eating disorder is trying to bring in feelings of order, control, and power to a psyche where one’s integrity, agency, autonomy, trust, and safety was taken away in the moment of the trauma. An eating disorder is actually trying to bring balance back into one’s life and body.
One of the aspects of recovery (and there are many), is develop a baseline of safety and containment and trust so that over time, an individual can begin to practice being with the fundamental nature of life - which is unknown.
Recovery does eventually ask us to be with the unknown, to try new things, to be courageous to trust in the yet-to-be-known.
Just like a psychedelic journey, eating disorder recovery is a journey from the known to the unknown.
There is no agenda, or needing to find a solution, or to perfect something, but rather to practice being present in your body to what comes up.
This is an opportunity to notice the fears that come up, the limbo states, and what thoughts and emotions come up what when you find yourself in uncharted territory.
We grow our capacity to embrace newness by going slowly and titrating the process, and pausing to integrate and harvest what information is coming through.
As we start to open up to being with the yet-to-be-known and change, implementing supportive and sustainable resources that help us ground, calibrate, and maintain a curious perspective, we will be faced with all new kinds of layers within our recovery.
Indeed, the layers that eating disorder recovery reveals are infinite and come in a variety of forms.
To open up to the feelings we have avoided.
To open up to support from others.
To open up to to trusting that support.
To open up to subtle cues from the body such as hunger and fullness.
To open up to joy.
To open up to believing in that we are deserving of joy.
To open up to the possibility of pleasure.
To open up to rigid patterns around food and body that have become habitual and automatic.
To open up to trying a new food or eating out with friends.
To open up to tuning into your authentic impulses, your yes and your no.
To open up to setting in boundaries; sometimes saying no is an opening up.
To open up taking up space.
To open up to taking space to rest.
To open up to the idea of not having to do this alone.
To open up to the inevitable ebbs and flows of life.
To open up to your capacity to navigate these changes.
To open up to going slow, remembering that this work needs patience and gentleness in order to integrate.
To open up perspective; that this healing work is intrinsically linked to the collective and your lineage.
To open up to trusting in your core self.
Opening up and expanding into the unknown on the eating disorder recovery path requires developing nervous system regulation, inner and outer stability, support from others, and moments of rest (aka integration). There are so many layers to this journey that reveal themselves in strange, relentless and magical ways.
Over time, as one works with releasing the stress survival energies from the past traumas (through somatic practices and by connecting with the body), and developing and adding other life-supportive, healthy resources, individuals can rely less and less on the needing to know, to control, to manage, to contain, or to grip tightly.
The eating disorder patterns slowly dissolve into the background.
New ways to navigate change, challenge, ebbs and flows are established.
Confidence, capacity, compassion, adaptability, and understanding develop.
No longer living from the past, in nervous system dysregulation, one is able to live embodied, in the present moment, grounded, clear, connected.
Photo by Nicholas Sampson on Unsplash