The border between recovering and recovered is illusory and vague. Recovery can take awhile, but as almost anyone on the post side of an eating disorder will tell you, it's worth it.

I've been pondering my own struggle lately, and how it changed me. And how, despite my denial, the anorexia became an obsession that controlled my life, and could have killed me. What consumed my thoughts--(and in part drove me to insanity)--is now, at most, just soft white noise, occasional radio static, or faded into the background altogether.

Still, its shadows linger--for the better and the worse. (Mostly the better.) Maybe you can relate to these things in your own recovered life.

1. You can't deal with negative comments regarding weight.

Or fat jokes of any kind. Luckily, your family knows better than to ever, ever go there or so help us, God.
And your friends who might not know about your past have the sensitivity and common sense not to imply anything either.

2. You still feel "big" in your head.

It feels strange when people say things to me like, "it's always the skinny girls who eat the most."
I may or may not have eaten an entire pizza myself while studying abroad in Italy two summers ago, and someone made that exact comment. I felt strangely flattered and pondered the irony of knowing how I'd almost killed myself starving to lose weight at one point...
And yet another part of me realized that eating an entire pizza myself, though most pizza in Italy is smaller than that of the US--is nothing to be proud of. But then another voice told me not to beat myself up for it--because how often do you go to Italy and eat amazing pizza? It reminded me that that damning voice of shame was probably the same one that wanted me to starve.

3. That elusive thing called "balance" may not be perfect.

Right before I'd begun my true recovery journey, three words came out of nowhere and began repeating themselves in my head: "Control. Balance. Healing." And I didn't know what it meant at first, or how to make those concepts real in my life, but they formed a mantra that I clung to, and it comforted me. Eventually, much later on, I gained these three in various, unexpected forms.
And honestly, I'm not sure "balance" can ever be perfectly achieved and kept constant in anyone's life, but that doesn't mean we can't at least aim for it. If you find yourself still trapped in the obsession with food, even if you're not engaging in the outward behaviors, you don't have to stay there forever. If you still don't feel fully "recovered," then don't give up. Recovery takes time.

4. You try on everything and feel at least twenty pounds overweight.

"I need a stylish fat person to teach me how to dress." --Actual words I said last week.

5. Yet other days, you look in the mirror and see a person with actual "normal-sized" arms.

Instead of the morbidly obese girl you always thought you were, who wasn't only "big," but also somehow abnormally proportioned like no one else on earth--a total freak of nature.
But now you think about how amazing it feels to actually see yourself with "normal-sized" arms, and feel okay with yourself and your body, rather than pine for bones jutting out, and believe emaciation is the only way you can ever look halfway decent.

6. You know more about calories, exercise, and losing weight than your friends do.

But they don't know you do.
And they don't understand that low-impact exercise just doesn't burn off the calories they'd like it to. Even if you tell them that, they won't really believe you. They don't know about the extensive, obsessive research you used to do. How you scoured Google, how you carried around a book of all the nutritional info on anything you could possibly eat, how you memorized the calorie count of literally everything.

And even years after your bouts with eating disorders, you still keep up regular exercise, but now you do it for your health (mental and physical), instead of slow self-erasure. And you no longer count calories.

And when they ask if you want to join their new diet plan, you shrug it off and say no thanks, tell them that weight loss just isn't one of your priorities right now.

7. Sometimes you worry about the state of your physical health.

Occasionally I get concerned about my heart when I'm really pushing myself hard exercising. And it's weird to think about how this soulless-yet-symbolic organ inside of me could turn against me, could betray me in failure.
Due to a combination of former medications and old anorexic habits, my heart has never quite been the same. I'm nowhere near the danger zone anymore. Sometimes I think about my heart and wonder how long it will last. And maybe you feel the same way about yours.

8. Your outlook on food is forever altered.

When you've forced yourself to go without, your food preferences and tastes change. Even simple habits change, as well as your relationship with food and appreciation of it.

9. Life isn't so black-and-white anymore.

Your relationship with food isn't an all-or-nothing battle anymore. I remember feeling so out-of-control when I slipped into a binge. And how obsessive I'd been during my last bout with the illness, years ago. And how it pushed me to the brink and everything went completely haywire, almost like having a brain injury.

10. But the allure still calls to you like a siren's song.

It's creepy, honestly. Why is this painful, shame-stirring, controlling, isolating mental illness so strangely alluring at times?

11. Yet ultimately, you're incredibly grateful to be free.

The high you got from seeing lower numbers on the scale and bones poking under your skin truly isn't worth giving up your life. The occasional highs of anorexia and the avoidance of emotional problems is nothing compared to living a life of actual freedom from the addictive habits and obsession.

And you long for others to experience that same freedom! Recovery is different for everyone, but it's possible. There is hope.