Post-recovery

Yep.  Recovery is great.  Freeing, wonderful, all those things.  However, it's also hard, and I'm not just talking about the process.  I'm talking about life after the ED is gone, or mostly dormant.

Most my life was spent devoted to dieting, exercising and any thought around counting calories, pounds and anything else numerable.  In fact, I feel a good portion of my identity came from my ED.  Being in the EDNOS zone, I got labeled all sorts of things by outsiders.  I was healthy.  I was always working on myself.  I was self disciplined and loved fashion.  I was a runner, an athlete accomplishing more than the average person.  All these admirable qualities put a shiny exterior on the body I worked so hard to get.  Everyone loved it, and let's just be honest, I thought did too.

With heaven comes hell - keeping up the facade was more than my mind or body could take anymore, so recovery started.  I began going to other way and reinventing everything.  So here I am today - bigger, fuller, smarter.

The big question is - who I am?

Those who knew me with my ED and now know two different people.  They know the person I was before, a professor of hiding secrets (and food and emotions) and they know the person I am now - a loud and proud storybook, negating all that I used to be.  In my mind this makes sense, but I'm starting to realize that the transformation may be not so easy for others.

While I'm sure people enjoy the new me - the one that actually wants to try the new restaurant and have dessert, the one who doesn't give up a Friday night because I have a long workout routine the next morning - it's still a different me.  And it's one I am still figuring out which may be most difficult of all.  If I don't even know who I am yet, how can others?

One the toughest new situations in my life is a lack of exercise.  For all the food hiding I did, my workout routines were out in the open.  I bragged about miles run, workout DVDs finished at 5am and anything else that included working my body at an excessive rate.  During recovery, I experienced severe foot issues, something I think in some maniacally strange way aided me in my recovery - I literally couldn't workout and I had no choice but to stop.  I have not truly worked out other than a weekly casual swim for nearly two years now.

Exercise was an identity as it is for many people.  Almost anyone can name off someone they know and say things like "Oh, she's a marathon runner" or "He's a triathlete"  This happens when we are kids growing up and we find an athletic activity to identify with.  Even my nephews can be identified with the actions they use to move their body - one is a swimmer, one is a soccer player.  Of course, my nephews are much more than their sports, but the terms tied to the person are linked without much thought.

As a former runner, and maybe even a former cyclist, not having an exercise-realted identity is tough.  Figuring something to call me is hard - other than the obvious "That's Jill and she used to have an eating disorder".  Do I need a term?  Of course not, but it goes back to the notion of who am I?  What is it I do?  I'm Jill and I'm a... what, really?

Terms aside, let's remember what not having the ED has exposed:  How do I handle emotions that I used to starve away?  How do I make them appear insignificant like I used to?  I can't, so how can others bear to be witness to the more emotional me, if that's even possible?  Everything now feels so bare.  When you strip the ED off, what is left?  Now what?

Post-recovery, there is still work to be done.  Still keeping the ED at bay, the real struggles are on the table.  They are open and need attention, and that is painful.  And while recovery is glorious, it is still hard and maybe there is a burnout that comes from that.  When you have to fight nearly everyday to do what feels uncomfortable and terrible, when you have to learn how to live in a new body with new ways of eating, moving and conversing, how can that not be exhausting? 

It's challenging to say but recovery doesn't guarantee a happy life.  There is not one thing in any of our lives that can - being thin doesn't guarantee happiness.  Neither does a great job, a wonderful marriage or being wealthy.  At the end of the day, life doles out the stress, struggles and human feelings despite it all. 

For us ED folk, recovery is tool to encourage us to use other healthy and true ways of dealing with emotions and recovery is a rock we can stand on so we don't turn to measures to make matters worse.  But the emotions still show up.  The pain and joy of life comes and goes - recovery can't take that away.  Recovery is life, but it doesn't interrupt life in ways we'd maybe want it to.  When recovery has arrived, we must hold on for the long ride of life and react as we truly are.