WHAT'S YOUR STATE OF BALANCE?
  • Home
  • Services
  • Blog
  • Contact Me
  • FAQs

Recovery is NOT Linear

6/1/2018

0 Comments

 
Imagine being stripped of anything that makes you feel calm and relaxed. Does that sound scary? Anxiety-provoking? Well, essentially this is one of the core reasons why recovery is not linear. Your Eating Disorder behaviors have developed as a form of coping with whatever underlying issues you were experiencing. Maybe that’s Obsessive-Compulsive tendencies, or Depression or Anxiety. Your Eating Disorder has the ability to calm those other undesirable feelings or experiences because your Eating Disorder has become a coping skill. ​
Picture
In recovery, you work on lessening your Eating Disorder behaviors while learning new coping skills that are more helpful. At some point, you had turned to your Eating Disorder to cope and at that time, that felt like the most rewarding thing to do which is why you did it. Unfortunately, your Eating Disorder then develops into a source for all of those underlying things you were trying to get relief from in the first place.

Now, in recovery, you start to take away the negative coping skill that seemed to help you for so long; the Eating Disorder. This is not easy. Taking it away will increase anxiety, OCD thoughts and other negative experiences. Replacing your old, comfortable coping skills (your Eating Disorder) with new coping skills is difficult. This is because it is different than what you’ve been doing, and it’s not so easy to always want to work on getting better. So, there you are, left to deal with the underlying issues and without your Eating Disorder to come to the rescue. This is extremely difficult!

Because of how hard this is, we can’t expect to see continuous improvement from the Eating Disorder. There are times you will resort back to old behaviors and that’s ok. Talk to your therapist about it and you can work together to understand what happened as well as brainstorm ways that may help to avoid it happening in the future. Recovery requires you to learn about your new, Eating-Disorderless self, and we have to hit pitfalls sometimes to learn the best lessons.

Sometimes it’s habit that causes us to slip back into old behaviors. And that’s ok and expected. Don’t feel disappointed in yourself or think that you’re a failure, or be too ashamed to talk to your therapist about it. Your therapist knows that this is expected and will not shun you nor be disappointed in you. ​
Picture
There are tons of reasons why we can’t expect that recovery is linear. While there are lots of varying reasons for this, one thing we can know to be 100% true for everyone is that recovery will not be linear. Everyone has their good days and their bad days. Everyone has days where fighting their Eating Disorder seems to just feel impossible, but don’t let that make you forget the days where it was easier or make you falsely belief that it won’t be easier again. It’s just a rough day, rough week or maybe longer. The most important things to do are to let go of expectations of what you think recovery should look like, and to be honest with yourself and with your therapist. It’s ok that you’re struggling, but things will once again get better. Be fair and be kind to yourself and allow yourself to struggle without judgment.

Thank you for reading this post, I hope you found it helpful! Please share with anyone else who you think could benefit from it. If you have any questions, concerns or requests for future posts, please leave a comment or message me privately.

I wish you kindness to yourself on your journey to finding your State of Balance!​
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Stephanie
    ​Van Schaick

    I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in NY & FL that specializes in the treatment of Eating Disorders.

    Archives

    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Anorexia
    Anxiety
    Binge And Restrict Cycle
    Binge Eating
    Body Dysmorphia
    Body Positivity
    Bulimia
    Coping
    Depression
    Dieting
    Eating Disorders
    Eating Disorder Specialist
    Getting Help
    Guide
    Healthy Eating
    Healthy Self Vs. Eating Disorder
    Holidays
    Medication
    Movement
    Orthorexia
    Prevention
    Recovery
    Self Care
    Skills
    Treatment

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Services
  • Blog
  • Contact Me
  • FAQs