An eating disorder is a complex organism – and it only retains its power and authority by recruiting other key players to help further its cause. Exercise is one of them. Eating is another. The mental thought patterns that make the ED-world turn are like the eating disorder’s second-in-command – they are put in charge of distorting and contorting every other activity, impulse and interest in life to somehow relate back to weight, size and food intake.

So, when you feel guilt about eating, when you feel guilt about exercising, do not be misled. It is just your eating disordered mind at work again….trying to slowly chip away at all you have accomplished in your recovery. Glaciers melt away one small crystal at a time. So, too, can your recovery be taken from you, one small insecure thought at a time. Do not let that happen. Be vigilant. Understand the game you are playing, and when your eating disorder makes a move on the ‘recovery chessboard’, be prepared to make a countermove, and then checkmate it with a move of your own.

This is just how it is done. You deal with it – with the guilt, with the initial mental fallout of not complying with the eating disorder’s demands – by simply dealing with it – not by escaping, not by running back to your eating disorder for comfort, shelter, amnesia or absolution. Recovery is HARD WORK – if it feels difficult to you, then take heart – that is how you know you are DOING IT RIGHT! It is time to praise, not blame yourself, when you go through a rough spot, and triumph over it, without returning to old damaging behaviors and thoughts.

Think of it like this – let’s use your eating disorder against itself here to work out how you can cope with the guilt. Imagine you are on an exercise bicycle. You have chosen the ‘random’ exercise pattern. So, for the first several minutes into the cycle, it is easy to push the pedals around, right? You are just getting warmed up. Then, all of a sudden and with little warning, you hit the ‘hill’ part of the cycle, and it becomes much harder to push down on the pedals. Do you just get off the bike, abandoning your routine midway through? No, you push through it. You become willing to break a sweat, to tough it out, to grit your teeth and set your mind that you WILL MAKE IT THROUGH, knowing it is just for a moment or two, and not for forever. Then, just when you were about to give up and get off the bike, the ‘hill’ cycle ends and you get to coast down the other side of the hill, barely peddling at all. This is the very show of discipline you have used, up until now, to maintain the demanding deprivation your eating disorder has required of you. NOW, use that same discipline to maintain the demanding discipline of RECOVERY.

This is how recovery works. Some moments in each day will be harder than others. Some days will be harder than others. Sometimes you will grit your teeth, break a sweat, tamp down HARD on old, negative thoughts and behavioral impulses, telling yourself to buck up and deal – no one ever said this (recovery) would be easy, but you haven’t heard one person yet say recovery isn’t worth it. And you know that, each time you successfully ride out another difficult challenge, the next one will be easier to overcome, and the challenges will get less and less as new thought patterns and habits gradually replace the old.

Better hydration and nutrition will also help – strengthening your mind and body to fight back. Each victory will encourage you to stay strong through the next challenge. Day by day by day, the habit of guilt (and, yes, it is a habit just like not eating, purging or any other) will lessen. Guilt just doesn’t feel as good as the joy of victory and the celebration when you triumph over a triggering moment! One day, you will wake up and realize you have found balance – you haven’t felt guilty for awhile, and you really can’t remember the last time you beat yourself up for restricting or not exercising. In fact, you remember more vividly that you felt guilty when you DIDN’T eat your meal on time, or exercised just a bit too long….

This exact phenomenon is what happened to me, late in my own recovery process. I told a story to the very first audience I ever spoke to about my recovery experiences that one night I locked my keys in my car, and the FIRST thought I had was, ‘my salad is in there – I haven’t eaten dinner yet!’ I felt guilty, yes, but it was a healthy guilt – directed, for my own benefit, to pointing out that I was NOT eating and taking good care of myself, and motivating me to rectify the situation as soon as possible. My mind had finally bought into recovery as my #1 priority, and that was the day I knew that I had finally turned the tables on my eating disorder for good. And, I will tell you, that was the best feeling in the world – worth all the difficulties, all the challenges, all the hard work, all the years. It was exultation unlike any other – quite literally the achievement of a lifetime. Nothing in my life has made me prouder than kicking the ED to the curb once and for all and taking my life back.

This is the process that has worked very well for me. I hope it helps…it is easy to read between the lines in your email and see that you are doing the work, asking the tough questions, looking for the answers that make sense to you. This is how it is done – this is the only way it can be done. I am proud of you.

Warmly,

Shannon

Do you have a related question you would like to submit for future editions of Good News?

Would you like to send a message of encouragement and support to the person who asked this question? (NOTE: all messages of support will be received and published anonymously in future editions of Good News)

If you would like to submit a question or send a message of support please send it to Shannon c/o Good News HERE