There's all this information online about how amazing recovery can be and how difficult relapse is. But the journey from recovery to relapse isn't an overnight transformation, and there isn't nearly enough information out there about it. Because honestly? The middle of recovery is horrible.
The middle of recovery isn't all the dangers you can read about online- failing organs, thinning hair, bone loss, shakiness and fatigue- and it's not the sunshine and unicorns of recovered, either. But it's where we spend so much time that it's ironic there's not more information on all of its intricacies.
After your weight stabilizes, when no one is banging at the bathroom door or watching to make sure you don't pass out, when no one is worried you'll die in your sleep, when a missed text message no longer means you're in the hospital- you are still allowed to struggle. You don't have to be "cured" or "recovered."
In fact, I am asking you to struggle. I am asking you to try, every day. I am asking you to win and to lose, and I am asking you to be imperfect. I am asking you to be human. You were not meant to be anything else- superhuman perfection is not your assignment.
Weight restored does not mean cured. Losing a feeding tube does not mean recovered. Taking your medication, following your meal plan, being able to laugh for a moment- none of these mean that you have to be okay again.
No one will tell you this, so here I am. The middle of recovery is horrible. It is confusing and angering and frustrating. It is anxiety producing and depression heightening and sometimes almost too much to handle. You may be weight restored, but you are still allowed to cry and scream and want to give up. Every fiber in you is allowed to want the comfort of relapse.
You have learned not to measure your worth by your weight. Your worth is also not measured by your mistakes, thoughts, actions, and disorders. You are allowed to mess up in recovery. You are allowed to have bad days. And you are allowed to have good ones. You can cry and break down and want to give up, but that does not take away your title as warrior.
Relapse is life threateningly dangerous and terrifying, and recovered is a destination at the end of a long road. And the space in the middle is both the most beautiful and the most difficult place of all, and it's a perfectly normal, accepted, and okay place to be.
