QUESTION: I've been in treatment three times. I'm currently having a hard time with my eating disorder and I'm very frustrated that I'm never going to get well. I'm thinking that I'm very scared to give up this disease and that's why I don't ever get better during treatment. I don't want to die due to I just had a baby in May and I want to be well for him. How can I find the courage to get better and not be so scared of not having my eating disorder anymore?

ANSWER: I think you are right in your assessment. You are very scared to give up your disease, because you have not yet bought into the belief that there is anything else that can comfort and protect you like you believe your eating disorder has.

You already HAVE the courage to get better – it is your courage that is allowing you to see that you are scared. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘Courage is fear that has said its prayers’? Having courage doesn’t mean you feel the absence of fear. It means, in the face of intense and immense fear, you make the move ANYWAY.

You have tremendous inspiration to get well for your baby. Now you have to find that same inspiration to get well for YOU. The more you allow yourself to get frustrated, and dwell in that frustration, the more you will get lost in your frustration and cease to fight it.

So, instead, you must look behind your frustration to see its PURPOSE. Your frustration is showing you that you do want to get well – badly. It is showing you that you do have the support to get well – now. It is showing you that you do have the courage to take action – right away. So use your frustration to your own advantage. Get up every day and say to yourself in the mirror, ‘I am not going to let this ed get to me. I REFUSE to be so afraid anymore! I refuse to let my fear and frustration get in the way of doing the right thing for me and my baby. I refuse to settle for life with an eating disorder when I could have life FREE from my eating disorder. I am now doing whatever it takes to break free!’

At first you won’t believe yourself. You will gather up evidence to the contrary. But then you can start to prove it to yourself by committing to doing at least one thing every day to choose recovery. You probably aren’t strong enough to do all the things you need to do to recover all the time – I certainly wasn’t when I started my recovery work! But you can do one thing every day. Practice makes perfect. Choose one trigger area and build a new coping skill for that one area. Then move on to the next.

Get back into treatment in whatever way you can. Surround yourself with people who see the best in you, and people who want recovery as badly as you do. Just because you are afraid of giving up your eating disorder doesn’t mean you don’t want recovery. We are all afraid of giving up our eating disorder. Or, in fact, we are not so much afraid of giving up the eating disorder as we are of giving up its protection from what is BEHIND it!

So right now, make a list of all the coping skills you have. Then, look back over the period of time since you were last in treatment and examine every moment when you have been triggered and have returned to the eating disorder to cope. What triggered you? What emotions were you feeling? What else could you have done, but didn’t do in favor of the eating disorder? What feelings/issues are still unresolved? Your challenge will be to, little by little, replace the eating disordered behavior patterns with other self-soothing, empowering coping skills. Before you can replace it, you must know what causes you to return to it, and address your fear of THAT.

You will find the courage the same way that I have found it – one small step at a time. The single greatest obstacle to successful, sustained recovery is discouragement and unrealistic expectations. You will not one day leave a treatment center, or walk out of a therapy session, or wake up in the morning, completely recovered. In fact, if you are anything like me, you will recovery so gradually, imperceptibly, over time, that you may not even notice the accumulation of your recovery work until it has been evident in your life for quite some time!

So instead of beating yourself up for all the areas where you are still struggling, start to pay attention to areas where you are a little bit stronger than before. Build on those areas. Be encouraged by even the tiniest signs of progress. Be EXCITED whenever you make a tiny decision that was tough. I used to keep lists of all the areas where I had exhibited strength – I got so excited about adding to the list that it became a motivation for me to add even more.

Warmly, and with HOPE,

Shannon

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