New Beginnings In Your Eating Disorder Recovery?

Today, my dad got remarried and it got me thinking about new beginnings and starting over in our eating disorder recovery.  My dad was married for almost 30 years when he and my mom got divorced years ago.  Now he is starting over, starting a life with his new wife and they couldn’t have been happier today as they stood at the altar exchanging vows.

It was a beautiful wedding – the ceremony was outside with beautiful pink and white flowers adorning the gazebo overlooking the lake.  This wedding was a second marriage for both, a starting over – a “redo” so to speak from their previous lives.  This marriage signifies their commitment to each other – a starting over; beginning again together.  I know the relationship is much more meant to be, as they compliment each other and I can tell they enjoy just being themselves around each other.

So it really got me thinking about eating disorder recovery – as I too have thrived on new beginnings, on starting over.  I have started over so many times in my eating disorder recovery that, over time I came to feel very discouraged.

When I was in the throes of my eating disorder, I would constantly have bad days and tell myself, “Tomorrow will be different.  I will stop tomorrow.”  But tomorrow never came, and I always broke these promises to myself.  Every day would be exactly the same, and I would find myself again binging and purging or restricting my food and worrying about my weight and wondering if it would ever end.

How often do you make promises to yourself that you don’t keep?  I know how awful it feels when you are using the eating disorder behaviors – the binging, purging, and restricting – and feel so sick and disgusting and swear to yourself up and down that “I’m done!” and, “I’ll never do that again!” only to find yourself doing it the very next day (or sometimes even sooner)!
So how do you get past it and learn to keep those promises and take forward motion steps in your eating disorder recovery?

Well, it does take believing in new beginnings, believing that we can truly start over, no matter where we are, or how far we’ve gone in the eating disorder – that recovery is possible, no matter who you are or what you’ve been through.

“Every passing moment is a chance to turn it all around.” ~Vanilla Sky

I realized that I had a choice in the matter – that I could sit back and keep letting this thing take me over, or I could choose to do something about it so that eventually I would NOT choose the eating disorder behaviors.  I decided to wake up, start over and choose life each and every day!

Truth is, we do have a choice every day and whether we want to take action using the eating disorder behaviors or take action in our recovery.  Every day we get to choose – we have a choice about what we do each day and how we want to feel.  If you are not the person you want to be, there is no better time than right now to start.

Everything we do is a choice!  We must choose those things that make us feel good, and not attempt to chase the eating disorder behaviors that give us that short term relief, but makes the pain and suffering worse in the long term.

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” ~Seneca

This is so true, but it also means that one beginning – the eating disorder – must come to an end as your new beginning in recovery starts.  Some people do it quickly and others take their time, but it’s really up to you.  You can choose to learn from your “mistakes” and keep moving forward in your recovery, or you can curl up and let it take you over, let the misery, discouragement and pain consume you as you numb out with the eating disorder.

Because trust me, eating disorder recovery is not always easy!  Through each of my new beginnings, I would start fresh and tell myself that this was a new day and I could choose my recovery from bulimia and anorexia and the things that make me feel healthy and whole.

I tried so many times to “recover” and failed!  Well, not failure I guess – but definitely pretty bad relapses, but back then they felt like failures, and I definitely felt like a failure.  But every “failure” has led me to where I am now in my recovery from bulimia and anorexia and the most important thing is that I never gave up.

So at the wedding today, one of my dad’s friends said to me, “You look great honey, you just look so happy and relaxed.”  And you know, he was right on.