What does eating disorder recovery actually feel like when you're the person trying to live it?
Not the theory. Not the neat list of recovery steps. Not the version told from the other side once everything has fallen into place.
This week on Fly to Freedom – The Anorexia Recovery Podcast, I wanted to do something completely different.
I invited six women from within my recovery community to come together and answer questions about eating disorder recovery. Nobody was specially selected, nobody was given the questions beforehand and nobody was asked to tell a particular kind of recovery story.
We actually started chatting before I'd officially begun recording, and the conversation was so open and valuable that I decided to leave that in too.
These women are different ages, from different backgrounds and at very different stages of recovery. Some have lived with anorexia and eating disorders for decades. Some have tried NHS or private treatment. Some know an enormous amount about eating disorders and yet still struggle to translate that knowledge into action.
We talk about feeling not sick enough to deserve support, and the way the eating disorder continually moves the goalposts.
We talk about knowing exactly what you need to do and still finding it incredibly difficult to do it. As one woman puts it, recovery can be simple, but not easy.
We talk about the shame of struggling as a teacher, therapist, professional, mother or middle-aged woman, and why eating disorders do not discriminate by age, intelligence, profession or life experience.
We also talk honestly about recovery communities. What happens if you're having an awful day? Do you need to be positive before you speak? What if you worry about triggering someone or bringing everyone else down? And what happens when somebody challenges something you have believed for years?
Then the conversation moves into self-compassion and something I particularly love: discovering who you actually are underneath the eating disorder.
One woman discovers that perhaps she doesn't love being constantly busy and productive after all. She likes a slower life, pottering and building Lego.
And then there is "holiday Sue".
Sue describes a freer, happier version of herself who appeared on holiday – someone who ate what she wanted, worried less about what other people thought and simply enjoyed life.
She's beginning to realise that holiday Sue may actually be the real Sue.
Perhaps one of the most moving moments comes from a woman who once believed gaining weight would be worse than almost anything she could imagine. Today, she would rather live in a higher-weight body and keep the peace and freedom she has discovered than ever return to the life she had before.
She once thought she might be the special unicorn – the person for whom full recovery simply wasn't possible.
The unicorn doesn't exist.
These aren't six women with everything figured out. There are doubts, fears, frustration, laughter and plenty of swearing.
That's precisely why this conversation matters.
Sometimes eating disorder recovery is questioning something you've believed for decades. Sometimes it is allowing somebody else to believe in you before you can quite believe in yourself.
And sometimes it is discovering that the thoughts and feelings you believed made you different are being experienced by somebody else too.
No scripts. No polished recovery stories. Just six women talking openly about what eating disorder recovery really feels like.
Julia Trehane: https://juliatrehane.com
The Eating Disorder Recovery Circle: https://edrecoverycircle.com
