Self-Care is Crucial to my Eating Disorder Recovery

I suffered from a mental illness for many years and at the time, felt powerless against it. My eating disorder, bulimia consumed every aspect of my life. Now 5 years into the recovery process, I stay recovered by maintaining a level of self-care that goes way beyond simply avoiding triggers and practicing coping skills. Without self-care, my recovery would be compromised.

Self-Care is Healing in Eating Disorder Recovery

I had no idea what ‘self-care’ was up until I started therapy a few years ago and started to apply it to my daily life, in order to maximize my recovery outcome. Part of my healing has meant to learn that I need to nurture myself on a daily basis. "Self-care" isn't the best known expression; and so the following is what I mean when I describe "self-care" and its importance to the recovery process:

Self-Care is the Gift That Keeps on Giving:

If I take care of myself, I actually make better decisions, even simple ones, which result in better self-image and better feelings about myself and where I fit in the world. In turn, this leads to a positive reinforcement loop, because when I feel good about myself, I can be there for others, which re-affirms my positive feelings.

Self-Care is Empowering:

It allows me to feel ok with sometimes putting myself first. Part of my positive mental health comes from being able to say yes, or no, with certainty. That certainty comes from maintaining my one goal: loving myself and choosing recovery. That is the reason why I will pass on that 7:30 breakfast meeting unless I have no choice, or that important event I must RSVP to ASAP. What may appear like trivial things to others, are sometimes events which I know to be harmful, so saying no and looking out for my own best interests are part of what keeps me recovered.

Listening to my Needs Doesn’t Mean Overindulging:

There is a fine line between listening to what my mind and body wants versus allowing myself to have too much of a good thing. This is especially true when one is at the beginning of eating disorder recovery, or when working in therapy on uncovering what is at the root of self-harm behaviors. In my case, guilt played a big role. I felt I didn’t "deserve" to take time for myself, eat certain foods, or have certain drinks. In recovery, I soon learned nothing was off limits, as long as I could establish guidelines/boundaries for myself and others.

Self-Care Also Means Taking Time for Yourself:

Even though you have a busy schedule, we all need to recharge sometimes, which is why sometimes I take a solo walk at lunchtime. This allows me to be alone, support my own thoughts and permits me to disconnect from my emails!

Self-Care Helps You Discover Who You Are in Recovery

When practicing self-care, you might allow yourself to open up to new activities you never even thought you liked. That happened to me! I remember in therapy, I was asked ‘Where do you find joy in your every day life?’ Sadly, at the time I couldn't really answer that question. Truthfully, I had a hard time finding an activity that simply brought joy to my life, as a simple pleasure. Sure, there were activities I was good at, which made me feel proud of myself, but that really isn't the same thing as finding an activity pleasurable, pleasurable activity, where regardless of the outcome, the journey was the best part.

I used to care a lot more what people thought. My biggest fears included others thinking it was weird that I refused to eat between meals, or that I avoided certain topics of conversation; but in part, self-care taught me that what I care about most is my well-being, and that is key to my recovery.

So with this post dear readers, I challenge you to find something that makes you happy for a period of time and share it with me. If you have it already, let me know how you have fun. If you don't have an activity for fun's sake, try some things you may like and let me know how it went. It might just change your life! In the interest of sharing, I'll tell you mine: I realized that just talking about my illness and how I was coping in recovery brought me joy. I kept journaling about it, and thought that maybe one day if I was far enough into my recovery, I would speak and share my story publicly. That’s actually what I started to do last winter, and in the springtime I was invited to join this very blog, and I've been connecting with you guys ever since. It's now a big part of my healing process. Thank you for reading me!

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