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Recovery is fucking hard. Pardon the expletive; but without it, the statement simply doesn’t feel strong enough.

For more avid readers, you may feel a sense of déjà vu. “She’s said this before. We know…” Some may even be wondering why it is taking so long to recover – asking themselves if I have been battling in place all this time – like a bizarre game of shadow-boxing where the injuries are self-inflicted, and I remain firmly in place.

I have been reflecting on this a lot over the past few weeks.  20 years, 2 stints at the Douglas, 2 intensive treatments at the BACA Clinic (an exceptional treatment program) and the battle is not over. Despite this fact, I know without a doubt that I have not been standing still.

I am stronger. I no longer run way from every single negative emotion. I have been able to stick to a meal plan for months. I have eaten McDonald’s, Dairy Queen, Harvey’s, A&W, Tim Horton’s donuts and Domino’s pizza without running for the hills. And I have maintained my heavier weight despite my body image issues.

Still…I struggle a lot with vulnerability. I continue to have this overwhelming urge to rewrite every rejection I have ever felt. And I still have a hard time with food. A few weeks back, for example, the girls wanted to have McDonalds for a picnic and I balked. I was shocked at my reaction. “What is the matter with you? You have had McDonald’s 3 times with no issue. Why are you petrified of the Golden Arches today?” The failure alarms were wringing loudly.

Here is what they tell you when you start recovery: “it will get harder before it gets easier.” This is true. What they don’t tell you is that each stage gets harder and harder until…finally… it gets easier. The problem is that it varies by person so no one knows how many stages you will have to go through until it gets easier. You have to power through and hope that the next step will be the easier one.

The other thing they don’t tell you is that you can be doing well for days, weeks, months and sometimes years – and then the eating disorder can pop up again to say hi…to see if you want to be friends again. The trick is to be aware, be prepared and kindly decline the offer. Caught unaware and you run the risk of being blindsided by the return of thoughts and behaviours you were certain were long gone – leaving you shocked, disappointed and tempted to return to your anorexia.

My current stage of recovery requires constant vigilance. I am on high alert all the time – which is not only exhausting but triggering as well. Great, I notice everything, so I can stop myself!

Um, not quite.

Shit! I notice everything and feel distraught every time I do something “wrong”. I am hyper-aware of everything I do that puts me at risk; everything that helped contribute to the anorexia in the first place. And every time I see these things, these patterns, these instincts, I get overwhelmed and disappointed. I don’t feel perfectly imperfect. I feel like a walking disaster.

Treatment has brought me many things: a greater level of self-compassion, an improved ability to feel rather than run from my emotions, a bit more self-acceptance and lots of awareness of the areas I need to work on. Initially, this newfound awareness was exciting…bringing endless hope. I knew what to fix and had a dogged determination to take corrective action. But, over time, I started to feel daunted by my imperfections – too much to fix, too many situations where I saw what I should have done differently. Some days, it feels like all of my natural instincts are wrong.

My people-pleasing causes me to put others first; to never say no. My insecurities cause me to thrive on performance & doing to make myself feel worthy. My discomfort with tough emotions causes me to run from them… to distract. These characteristics feed my workaholism, my anorexia, and my tendency to overextend myself – all of which are very hard to change.

Sure, knowing this will help in the long run as I develop more confident, secure and healthy ways of interacting with the world. The problem is that the long run seems to be far away. And since I cannot unlearn what I know, I have no choice but to work hard at adopting new “instincts” and learn from the times I resort to old habits. And this is the hardest part – not feeling like a failure when new habits don’t stick immediately and consistently:

1. When I delay eating a snack because I am highly focused on a work assignment;
2. When I volunteer for work because it makes me feel important and useful;
3. When I tell myself I have to feed the kids, put in the laundry and empty the dishwasher before I eat breakfast;
4. When I skip my chocolate milk at breakfast because I feel like a disappointment in life;
5. When I feel like punishing myself for feeling sad; and the list goes on.

Rational and self-compassionate me knows this is all part of recovery and that these are learning opportunities. The overachieving perfectionist in me cannot help but scream that I should have already learned these lessons by now. And the self-aware recovery part of me knows I should remove the word should from my vocabulary, accept who I am with zero judgment and reduce my expectations. Accept – don’t criticize; sit with emotions – don’t deny them; don’t judge; don’t judge yourself for judging; be kind to yourself; don’t beat yourself up for not being kind to yourself…

Yeah…Recovery is hard.