As I reflect on my many prior attempts at recovery, and then see the true overall picture of complete recovery, I have to ask if gaining weight back to what is normal for my body was truly the hardest part of recovery? I know it's the part that I fought the hardest. I know it's what I was most afraid of. But since I've completed the process, I can see that it was crucial, and had to be the FIRST phase of recovery, but it truly wasn't the most difficult. Dealing with the discomfort of the changes in my body were horrible. But it was that discomfort that motivated me to search for the answers to what was maintaining my eating disorder. I have learned that discomfort or doubt about how I look, or how I am percieved, is truly an emotional manifestation of feelings that I am somehow not dealing with or expressing. The hardest parts, but the most rewarding and revealing have been discoverying my true identity as a person without an eating disorder, and being able to embrace that and celebrate my life. Taking the risks to step into relationships, while terrified of rejection, and learning that my worst fears were not realized, was terrifying, but it has increased my self-confidence, and enabled me to develop a large circle of healthy relationships based on truth and emotional honesty. I have had to accept that I am basically an anxious person, and that I will never be perfect. I know that I will not die from anxiety, and that the energy it requires is not worth wasting. For every person who is recovering from an eating disorder there are as many different obstacles that have to be dealt with. The crucial part is to continue to fight for freedom from your eating disorder, and to never give up!!
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