Stories of Eating Disorder Recovery: Find Support and Get Uncomfortable

Marissa Campbell, RDN, Follow her for more inspiration on your recovery journey here.

Recovery was SO hard. It felt impossible. It felt unreal. In the beginning of my recovery, I was in denial that I had any issue with food and exercise and believed that my newfound “lifestyle” wasn’t that harmful. I genuinely thought I was being healthy. My parents were the first to observe behaviors and a decline in health (specifically having a hard time focusing, slow reaction time while playing basketball, continued weight loss, and obsession with eating specific amounts of food in a very particular way). They brought me into therapy and boy did I NOT want to go, but I am so grateful that I did. My therapist shared her recovery story with me, and I felt like she understood me.  She “got it,” and she was recovered- she had her life back!  She brought to my attention all of the things my eating disorder had taken from me- trust from my family, my health, my ability to ski and adventure with my family, JOY from food and moving my body, my intellectual abilities, social life, and my values.  I could not have made a commitment to recovery if it wasn’t for SUPPORT and TRUST. 

If you are someone hesitant to make this terrifying commitment to recovering and leaving the eating disorder behind, I see you. I hear you. I’ve been there. My eating disorder felt safe, something I could manage when there was chaos around me.

My encouragement to you is to find at least one person in your life (outside of your treatment team) to support you in your journey.

A person to call up when you just feel like you can’t do it anymore. Someone to eat with you, walk with you, and be by your side. If they don’t “get it,” that’s okay. They will still care enough to just be there with you. In addition, a treatment team is absolutely essential. My parents had no idea what to do, what exactly an eating disorder was, and how to help me through the times I felt like giving up. I worked with a therapist, dietitian, and doctor weekly for quite a while. I HAD to trust them if I wanted my life back and recognize that my eating disorder had NO good intentions for me and that its promises were empty.  

As my recovery went on and I went to college, the eating disorder morphed. It went from solely restriction and over exercising to a restrict/binge cycle. I cannot tell you how scary it felt to eat past fullness and the guilt that followed. I had so many rules around food and exercise and felt like I was owned by them. Yes, I was not medically compromised anymore, but the eating disorder had quite a grip on my life. It wasn’t until YEARS later that I understood what the purpose of bingeing was. I needed food. My body was trying to protect me! It had gone so long with not getting ENOUGH that it wanted to make sure that would never happen again. At that time, I could only see it as something “wrong,” and “unhealthy,” and I felt trapped in this cycle for quite a while. How did I finally break the cycle? PERMISSION. 

Slowly I broke down the rules I held around food and exercise and gave myself FULL PERMISSION to eat what I truly wanted without limits and move my body in a way that actually felt good instead of compulsive and self-punishing. Yes, it felt very scary at first. I definitely thought I was “messing up” and would never be able to “control” myself around the foods I deemed as “off limits,” but much to my surprise this didn’t happen. I experienced more PEACE around food, contentment and satisfaction when choosing foods I actually wanted, and less fixation on what I “should” or “should not” eat. This didn’t happen overnight, unfortunately- It took time, practice, patience, and self-compassion. 

If you find your life is being run by eating disorder rules around food, exercise, weight, etc.- I see you. I hear you. I’ve been there. Letting go of these rules can seem impossible and absolutely terrifying. It is also incredibly uncomfortable (especially in a culture that is disordered around food!). We’ve got to move through the uncomfortable to get to a place in our relationship with food and body that is sustainable! Start one rule at a time if that feels more doable and consider where this rule comes from, what the rule is doing for you, and how it is impacting your daily life and goals for recovery. By breaking down these rules, you CAN find PEACE with food.  Working with a treatment team and other supports during this process can be incredibly helpful as well. 

I finally have my ENTIRE life back. I have relationships, headspace, JOY, and PEACE. You can have these too! You can recover. I believe in it 100%! Yes I still have thoughts that come up every now and again, but I NEVER want to go back to my eating disorder. It STOLE so many aspects of my life from me, and now I have all of it back. 

I want to end this with saying, you are deserving of recovery, treatment, love, and support, and you deserve to have your life back! As hard as it is, it is SO worth it- to have a mind free from intrusive, negative, and rigid thoughts and more SPACE to think and do the things that align with my values! YOU CAN DO THIS.