Doing Recovery for Me (even when I had every excuse not to)
July 2019- a turning point in my life and my recovery.
I didn’t start recovery for me. I was too entrenched in my eating disorder to comprehend a life anything greater than my current existence. The only thing that mattered to me more than controlling my body was the boy who loved me. At the time, I couldn’t see how my low weight was hurting me, but it was hurting him, and in turn, our relationship. Like a heavy, frigid fog, distance and resentment set in between us. It was only when I realized that the way I was living was threatening our relationship and the risk of losing him, of losing us, was one I could no longer take.
I promised him I would get better, even though I didn’t quite believe there was anything truly wrong with me. I went to my first therapy session, stepped on a scale, and handed a meal plan. No part of me wanted anything to do with any of it. The only thing that kept me from bolting out the door and never coming back was the look on my partner’s face when he confronted me, his desperation etched on my eyelids.
Over the next two years, I gained weight, slowly, erratically, and with hostile resistance. I ate, I cried, and I ate again. I ran when I was forbidden to do so, did crunches behind closed doors, got caught, screamed and cried, confessed my shame, ate and cried some more. I hated food. I felt alienated from my body, and worthless without running.
However, I knew that continuing to eat and restore was slowly healing our relationship. I limped onward, despising every pound gained, fearing every morsel and every meal, but determined to regain his trust and prove that I was choosing him, choosing us, and leaving ana behind.
It was never a clear easy path. There were many, painfully long periods of time where I was doing “well” in recovery, maintaining a”healthy” BMI, and eating regularly, but was absolutely miserable. Sure, my partner was happy I was physically healthier, but I was so consumed by shame and self loathing, that the distance began to creep back in. I unloaded a lot on him, those days where everything was just too much, and soaked his t-shirts with my tears. He was left with a burden that was only growing harder to bear.
My disorder blamed my changing appearance, the new weight nestling upon my frame. But the real truth was that he was pained by my own pain. He couldn’t grasp how I was feeling. I could barely grasp it myself, pummelled by emotions I hadn’t felt for years. I grew withdrawn and bitter, feeling betrayed by my body, distrusting of my appetite, and horrified that he would no longer want me. I didn’t even want me. Why should anyone else?
For a long time, I was always on the edge of turning back, reverting to my long standing routines and destructive habits that kept me safe and numb. The only thing that kept me on the ledge was him; his relentless hope that I would get through the ugliness of this recovery and make it to the other side. The more I ate, the happier he was. Whenever I admitted to feeling hungry, his face would light up like a little boy’s, as if he wanted nothing more than to give me food. And the times he caught me restricting, or running, or even walking too far, his hurt and disappointment scorched and scarred greater than any act of betrayal.
At the time I hated it. I felt like he was turning against me, like he wasn’t even trying to understand, and was only trying to cause me more pain. Looking back, I realize how blessed I was to be loved and cared about so deeply, and I want to slap the girl I was for not revelling in it.
A year or so into recovery, things started to shift. It was like the sky was beginning to open up after a torrential downpour, offering a few glimmering moments, where it felt like maybe the sun would shine upon us once more, and that all the misery may have been worth it. Moments like sharing spontaneous smiley fries on a cloudy afternoon; enjoying a week long ski trip, properly fuelled and present to join in with all the fun on the mountain and the apres ski; laughing until we cried around the table at Thanksgiving, eating with pleasure, with abandon, and without fear.
It happened so slowly, subtly, almost imperceptibly, that I didn’t realize the shift until I had no choice but to face it, dead on.
I was 800 kilometres away in British Columbia, on the gravel runway of the ranch I was on for the summer, when a single phone call changed everything. The anchor that had grounded me these past three years had released me. I hung up, staring at the fiery sky peaking through the mountains, unable to comprehend how this could be the same view I breathed in every other night. It was like my sun had been swallowed by a black hole, and and I had been untethered from gravity.
Ana’s whispers swirled around me, beckoning. You’re free. I had no one to answer to, nothing to prove, or be, or weigh, three time-zones away from anyone that might have held me accountable. I could reclaim the body that had been manipulated away from me. I could rebuild the fortress of routines and rituals that kept me safe, centre my existence around chasing the highs of hunger and hipbones. I could once revel in the breathless, body numbing euphoria of running until I feel like nothing more than a reverberating heartbeat.
The ranch and the horse that stole my heart last summer.
However, a resounding, sonorant voice cut through the whispers.
Why?
My body did not feel foreign the way it once did. My brain felt clearer, my days easier and more carefree than they had in awhile. Running to numb out didn’t make the same sense anymore, now that I was experiencing how wonderful it felt to truly feel. And having gone so long without restricting, I was discovering a love for food, in all its various forms and types and settings, in a way that was no longer purely calories.
I could go back. But I no longer wanted to. Finally, ironically, I was no longer doing recovery for him. For the first time in five years, I was on my own. And on my own, I was committed to carrying on, onwards and upwards.
Ours was not quite a love story, nor was it a tragedy. It was a fated gift, a critical lesson, and my saving grace. He may not have been my happy ending, but without him, I may never have found myself at this new beginning. And for that, as our lives continue to undulate in diverse directions, I will always be grateful to him. The boy who loved me, who catalyzed my recovery, before I was capable of doing it myself.
a new perspective.
Moral of this story: It’s okay if you do not start recovery for you. But you will never be finished recovery, until you own it. Trust the journey. Life gives you what you need, even if you don’t understand it.
-Jordan
xoxo
