During the years I spent sick my grasp on reality was a tenuous one.
The boundary between the real and the make-believe was shaky and unclear.
There were so many lies and delusions I was innocently fed both by myself and others, perhaps none more damaging than those about recovery.
Those recovery lies kept me stuck and ashamed and most certainly delayed if not prevented my healing.
Which is why I want to share with you 4 of those lies I told myself during recovery with the intention that my sharing may help you identify your own, because what if?…
What if that thing you’d been telling yourself the past 15 years or even your whole life wasn’t even true?…
Lie No. 1: Recovery is Long, Slow and Painful
Time doesn’t heal you; you heal you.
~ Bonnie Killip
Yes, recovery can be long, it can be slow, and it most definitely can be painful, but it can also be short, fast and interesting.
While we may not know all there is to know about eating disorders, we know enough to know that when people find, learn and develop what they need it is impossible to stay sick.
After all no one’s natural state is an eating disorder.
You can do whatever and however much damaging thoughts and behaviours it is you do and under it all your body will always, always, always be striving to steer you back in the direction of health because the natural human state is health.
Your body has no other choice but to do this because it is literally what it’s designed to do.
Recovery will take as long as it takes for you to learn what you need to learn and build the skills you need to build in order to listen to, respect and respond to your body’s needs. Which means rather than a factor of time it is a factor of how fast you can learn and do and there is no reason this need be long, slow and painful.
Many times (always?) recovery seems to unfortunately be complicated by not finding the right treatment, having traumatic experiences with treatment, inconsistent and sporadic treatment and unspeakably harsh self-judgement and shame of where you are versus where you “should” be.
If you were to find the right treatment for you, let the judgement go and get in and get it done how fast do you think you could recover?
Quick recovery is possible because quick change is possible.
Humans do it all the time.
Lie No. 2: Recovery Means Giving Up Achievement and Becoming Lazy
“Often we tell ourselves, “Don’t just sit there, do something!” But when we practice awareness, we discover that the opposite may be more helpful: “Don’t just do something sit there!”
~ Nhat Hanh
Real fear right here.
The fear that recovery meant I would be less productive, less driven, do and achieve less was a very real fear of mine.
A fear I’ve heard it echoed back to me in many different shapes, forms and tones from those I have worked with during their own recoveries since.
Anorexia pushed me; it gave me this almost inhuman ability to carry on, no matter what.
And I really do mean No. Matter. What.
To be honest it was incredible and perhaps something I do slightly miss, although even for that superpower I wouldn’t trade what I have now.
I wouldn’t trade all the money in the world to have that back if it meant I had to have just one other thing that came with anorexia nervosa.
Achievement with anorexia was abundant, but it was hollow.
It was the definition of unfulfilling.
The truth is, when you recover you won’t be lazy or achieve less. You will achieve differently, and this shouldn’t come as a surprise because the whole point of recovery is to be different and do different, right? but I can tell you this, you won’t be any of those things you don’t want to be.
The truth is you’ll be whatever you value.
Most importantly you’ll be free to fully embrace and enjoy that.
Lie No. 3: I Could Recover If Only They…
No one can love you into recovered.
~ Bonnie Killip.
Perhaps the biggest lie of them all, the belief that you will recover when mum, dad, brother, sister, spouse, partner, boss, friend, “society” changes.
The belief that the only thing standing in your way of feeling and behaving as you want to is their treatment of you.
The belief that if they were only kinder, more understanding, more empathetic, granted you more freedom, trust, ability or had greater confidence in you you’d recover is, as hard as it is to hear, a straight up lie.
Your recovery will come through you and only you.
People can help, but no one can love you into recovered.
Recovered, like confidence and happiness, is something you cannot be given, it is something you learn and develop.
They may change or they may not, society may change, or it may not and even if it does it may not happen in your lifetime and you want to change in your lifetime, don’t you?
It is only you who can build the skills you do not have which your lack of is keeping you in the illness.
Lie No. 4: Everything Will Be Amazing When I Am Recovered
You don’t need anorexia in order to fail, you can do that all on your own.
~ Bonnie Killip
The hardest shock to find out is that life when you are recovered is indeed not as easy as you thought it would be.
Freedom comes with responsibility.
Boom.
Freedom comes with the responsibility to work, develop relationships, learn taxes, make decisions, buy a house, clean your house, make sure you have fuel in your car, that you have clean clothes to wear and remember to feed your cat… You get the idea.
Freedom from anorexia comes with the responsibility of no longer collapsing into the pain and instead doing all the things which allow you to stay afloat in a demanding and fast paced world.
Freedom comes with the responsibility of becoming an adult, and that is a choice.
Many people do not choose it, and there is nothing which says you must but if you truly want full recovery then yes, you must.
The belief that recovered life is so much easier and people without eating disorders have it so much better is an entirely unfair one but it is one I told myself.
I am a little hesitant to admit that I envied and perhaps almost despised people who did not have anorexia and complained or who did not have anorexia and weren’t more advanced in life.
In any case I was mad at them because in my mind I thought they were ungrateful for what they had and judged them for where they weren’t because from my perspective, they had nothing holding them back from success.
“If only they knew how good they have it” was something I often thought.
What excuse did they have to not be beyond where they were?
I now know they had the excuse that life is hard (it’s also amazing, incredible and brilliant but yes, also hard for all people irrespective of your circumstances).
If you pin all your beliefs on the lie that “all will be fine if you just recover” that’s a huge barrier to actually getting there because your unconscious mind knows better.
Your unconscious mind knows all will not be peachy when you’re recovered.
An eating disorder is all invasive and there is no part of your life left untouched which means you have much to do on the other side of recovery in order to build the life you actually want to be living. On top of this, the reality is in a life recovered and rebuilt the stressors don’t stop, they’re just new and different to those you faced in your life with anorexia (and not cause of overwhelm and self-destruction).
Life is a lifelong process of growth and that’s great, because you have the rest of your life.
Final Thoughts
Surrender your fear, something will come that is far greater than what the fear is trying to protect.
~ Moojr.
There you have it a sample of 4 less than glamorous lies I told myself for years and years and years and which definitely prolonged and possibly even prevented my recovery.
They may not be the ones you’re telling yourself (or they may be) but I want you to think of all the things recovery means to you and that includes the fears because you might just find when you explore those fears close up, they reveal themselves for the lies they are.
It’s unfair that you got sick in the first place.
It sucks that you haven’t recovered yet but what would suck more is if you were to stay sick because of things that aren’t even true.
With my whole heart I hope you found this information useful and inspiring.
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.
