A letter came in today that may speak to many people this holiday season. The writer, I'll call her Kendra, had an eating disorder slip last night.

Eating Disorder Slip

Kendra spent successful time in a residential eating disorder treatment center. She continued her recovery work on an outpatient basis at home with a private psychotherapist and a support group. This sounds good to me. Then she had an eating disorder slip.

Danger Signals

She stopped seeing her therapist and stopped going to the weekly support groups because they became triggering for her. These are red flags for me.

Self care wards off an eating disorder crash

The beginning of a new year is often a time of hope for the end of eating disorder symptoms. You want to start the new year fresh. Without considering needed self care you promise yourself that you won’t binge or purge or restrict in this bright new year. This will be your new beginning. Without regular self care to back up your promises to yourself you are in danger of a crash.

Stress can trigger anxiety. Anxiety can trigger a binge or period of restricting. An eating disorder gives you an immediate action  with an immediate consequence. When you step into recovery, patience and enduring commitment are necessary. Living with an active eating disorder is different from living within recovery mode. You learn to tolerate your discomfort. This is new. This requires a self care practice you can rely on.

The Blush of the NewYear Fades

In the first few weeks of the new year you discover promises don't insure instant Fast changes for the better

Coping with feelings as holidays end

If you have or had an eating disorder, January can be difficult emotional territory. The promises of the new year and  the activities of the holidays fade. Coping with feelings can be difficult when days are the usual Monday through Friday with a week-end attached, just like before.

The hope for sudden and lasting change fragments. If you were happy during the holidays you hoped it would set a new trend for your everyday life. If you were sad and lonely during the holidays you hoped that you would start a new way of living that would bring in more friendship and community.

Meaning of "Fully Recovered" from an eating disorder


A thirty-three year old man wrote to me saying he had been a binge eater most of his life and now was fully recovered. Food has been a non issue for two years.

Of course, I am glad he is happy with the strides he has made in his life. But his post got me to thinking about what recovery means.

I have been working since 1980 with people who have and who have had eating disorders.  People have many different attitudes and definitions of being fully recovered.

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Reality of eating disorder in-patient treatment

A wonderful, honest, detailed and accurate description of what it's like to go through an eating disorder in-patient experience is a gift to anyone with an eating disorder.
 
Molly Freedenberg shared her eating disorder recovery viewpoint.Her post dispels myths and fantasies about early recovery. I'm especially glad that her vivid examples make clear that in-patient or residential treatment is the beginning, not the end of recovery work.

It takes many steps and blunders before we reach the first step to deep healing and real recovery.

We can be in pain because we’ve lost a person or an object dear to us. We can be frightened or humiliated because our longed-for plans and expectations have crashed around us. We cry, blame others and blame ourselves. We rail at the injustice around us.

But mostly, we are bewildered and thrashing blindly. Hopefully, we are not reaching for food, drugs, alcohol, dangerous relationships, and risk-taking to escape our bewilderment.

Eventually, our bewilderment is so thorough that we feel forced to ask for help. Even then, we ask for help to get our world in order, to stop pain, and to regain or recreate what we have lost.

Through the course of my forty years as a psychotherapist, I have heard this question from my adult eating disorder patients. Whether they are in their thirties, forties, fifties or sixties, they ask, “Aren’t I too old to resolve this eating disorder? Isn’t it too late for me to change my life?

I’m increasingly grateful for my age. My words of encouragement will not give them a believable response. But my existence as an older woman living a satisfying life does reach them. My presence gives them hope, even in their denial of hope.

But what are the details that bring about healthy change? It’s not diet and exercise. It’s not medication. It’s not a physical makeover or an affair.

An eating disorder forces a person into the body. The sensations of eating, starving, purging, exercising, and chewing on sweets or salt pull a person away from internal experiences of emotion and thought. The person plunges into raw sensation or keeps that plunge in reserve, always knowing the plunge will take her away from what she can’t bear to experience.

Choices of how she will use her time are based on the sensational needs of the body to thwart awareness. Yet she will despair over her behavior, her body and the quality of her life. She wants happiness.

Facts based on reality, not preferred reality, but actual reality, become difficult to grasp. Happiness is fleeting, sporadic and often not recognized when it occurs. Recognizing what is meaningful grounds her in reality and can provide satisfaction throughout her life.