Recovering You – She Takes Flight Blog {2012}

PUBLISHED ON SHE TAKES FLIGHT BLOG
FEBRUARY 2012
WORDS BY EMMA KATE CODRINGTON AND ELISE THOMPSON

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What eating disorders do, is create a little world.

We had a little place in that world carved out especially for us. In that world, the real world seems not to exist and life is simple. It is full of hard times, pain, fear and loneliness but it is simple; stripped back.

There is no colour in that world – people live in black and white. When you enter that world you must start moving and never stop. Why? Because that’s the rule of the world. There will always be something to keep you moving; that internal spin, that never-ending voice pushes you to keep going. The world is bigger than you might think. There is a hierarchy, a system of order – it is a little society. There is no time or headspace in this all-consuming world to question the logic or confront the rituals. And you become completely, utterly trapped.

But life wasn’t always like this. Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you recall a time when you were happy. When food was… food. When eating was enjoyable, not merely fuel or a tool for punishment. The eating disorder may try to convince you that this is a figment of your imagination, that it never actually happened and that you are much better now than you were then. But this is not true.

There comes a time when a part of the eating disorder is torn away from you, either by force or because you let go a little bit. This is what we call the half-life: a world in between the eating disorder world and the real world; a space where you are suspended, unmoving, caught in between the two. The eating disorder world, with all its security and comfort that comes from knowing what is expected of you, is still seducing you. But at the same time, you can see the positives of recovering and rejoining the real world, you fantasise: what if.

For the real world, you know weight restoration will be expected and the maladaptive disordered eating behaviours must no longer be present, but it is perfectly fine if you hold onto your struggles in little, subtle ways. There may be foods you will just never eat: bread, butter, chocolate? It’s okay to keep a small locus of your control, keep yourself contained, hold back a bit. After all, you’ve had an EATING DISORDER. It may always be a part of you. You are recover(ing/ed) but perhaps it is best that you don’t venture further.  You wouldn’t want to relapse, now, would you? And is there such a thing as complete recovery, anyway?

We’re here to tell you yes. Absolutely, irrefutably, definitely YES. Holding back, holding on to a little bit of your eating disorder – it’s not enough. Denying yourself certain foods – it’s not enough. A half-life existence – is not enough. Your life could be a full, unbridled, completely fulfilling existence. Colourful. There’s millions of colours in the real world. How do we know? Because we did it. We’re there. Here. We have been for a long time now and we know with absolute certainty that we would never be anywhere else. We’re living this way and it is beautifully authentic.

So how do you move towards the real world and a real life? Stop making excuses and never stop challenging yourself. How many things are there that you just don’t do? Foods that you just don’t eat? Just don’t is a common phrase we uttered when suspended in the half-life. I just don’t feel comfortable going to other people’s houses to eat. I just don’t eat after a certain time at night. I just don’t like not planning what I’m going to eat each day. I just don’t like going out to restaurants. I just don’t feel comfortable not exercising every day. I just don’t see why I need to push myself harder, I’m a lot better now.
And the list goes on and on.

Whenever you hear yourself saying I just don’t, you need to ask why. If it is eating disorder related, challenge it. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Don’t accept a life only half lived, because that is not what life is about. Embrace it.

We thought we might discover some sort of explanation, justification or basic sense of logic behind our 6 year battles. And we haven’t found any of these answers. But we finally realised that we do not need to. We are resolving not to resolve; we choose to live the questions.

Having an eating disorder is like chasing a rainbow that no-one else can see. The chase is futile, because the eating disorder’s final goal, be it perfection, total and utter happiness, or peace, keeps moving further and further away the harder the sufferer tries and the sicker they get. For us, life with an eating disorder was a black-and-white existence. A world of extremes – too much or too little, all or none, life or death.

Living that way was, on one hand, gloriously simple, because real life to us seemed complicated and messy. But the one thing that kept us from staying in that simplified world was the thousands of colourful shades of real life, so much more beautiful than that eternally elusive eating disorder rainbow. They found their way into our colourless existence, and they are part of what pulled us back, eventually. The promise of something better and brighter if only we were willing to lose our footing momentarily, an act that would ensure we would not lose ourselves.

So we jumped, and embarked on the process of learning how to immerse ourselves in the real colours without drowning.

We now live amongst these colours every single day.