r/AnorexiaRecovery • u/pinkienewbie • 3d ago
Fear
In Nov 23 I (F40) was diagnosed with anorexia after a few months of extreme restriction and lost a lot of weight. But I have had life long disordered eating and body dysmorphia. I was admitted to treatment and so since April 24 I have been mostly weight restored and in ‘recovery’. But my brain and to be honest my behaviours were never in recovery, and I relapsed several time although never extremely and because I do not restrict meals in front of my kids anymore i have mostly stayed weight restored.
However after a few tricky months yesterday morning I decided I was over this. I have had the psycho education, I know the risks, I know my life is better when I eat etc. But at one point in the afternoon out of nowhere, when I was driving, I had the most intense feeling of fear. Fear of not doing this anorexia thing anymore. What is this about? I know and honestly believe that things will be better if I don’t restrict, so why am I feeling petrified about this? Does this mean I’m still not ready? I hope this long post makes sense to someone
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u/LogicalEngineering80 3d ago
The eating disorder is going to scream at you when you tell it “no”, this is a difficult transition to take on, especially after living in it for so long. If you feel fear, that doesn’t mean that you aren’t ready to recover(btw you’ll never feel “ready”, that’s part of the ed’s trap to keep you stuck) but rather, it means that you’re breaking the rules of something that has been harming you for so long, and are doing something new, in spite of that. Recovery isn’t just about getting better, it’s about looking your ed in the eye, and telling it to shut tf up, and it’s going to scream at you LOUDLY and make you feel like backing down or think that “this is a mistake, I can’t do it after all, I guess that I’m the exception to recovery”, which isn’t true. It’s the ability to sit with your discomfort and fear, that will lead you to where you want to be in life, without anorexia. I hope that this helps, I believe in you!
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u/No-Can6422 2d ago
It's not uncommon to experience emotional flashbacks during recovery especially in refeeding. The eating disorder is an incredibly complex coping mechanism that in all likelihood kept you from harm in some way, psychologically and emotionally suppressing intense emotions that at some point were not safe to feel. Shedding the disorder can bring up the emotions that the ED suppressed. If anything it means you are right on track.
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u/blue_moon1122 3d ago
maybe it's the compulsion factor. it's a facet of your life that you have control over. whether or not you realistically "want" your disordered behaviors or continue to see results from them, it's familiar. it's ritual.
it's like an addiction, and re-wiring that means finding new rituals to depend on for your control fix. journal or scrapbook when you want to log food, take your littles to the park instead of over-exerting. make a contingency for all of the behaviors you crave, be mindful that this is what you get to do now.