"Jono" - recover-ed.life

Absolutely. There was NO chance in my mind that we would ever be past our daughter’s anorexia. If you have bet me one million dollars that one day the anorexia would be behind us, I would have taken that bet.

Recovery was rocky and not linear.
Our daughter started showing some signs of intuitive eating, and then announced one day that she was over her anorexia. We couldn’t believe our ears – in fact we were suspicious that she was tricking us.
The recovery period lasted for a few months, over which time she wanted to have more independence and freedom. It was really hard for us to trust that she was “really” recovering, and that we were not being tricked somehow. It took us quite a while to adjust to the new reality.
Although she is no longer restricting, her eating habits have not returned to the way they used to be before. From time to time we have tried to encourage her in the right direction, but even now she reacts angrily, accusing us of treating her like she is still restricting. So we have to learn to bite our tongues.

I don’t know what had her recovery easier for her – you would have to ask her this.
For us, I guess it came down to trusting that her recovery was real. Which was very hard for us, given how many times we’d been deceived and manipulated.

Our life is completely different.
Our daughter has so much in her life now – she is studying a course that she loves, she is working, and she has a partner. She is totally enjoying all the foods that she used to deny herself. There is less of a vacuum in her life now, and therefore less of a reason for anorexia to take hold.
All of us are so much more relaxed and happy now. We enjoy doing things as a family again, and family dinners with cousins and grandparents are no longer fraught with tension. We are all getting on much better than we have in years.

While restricting food intake is certainly one way to control anxiety and depression, it is incredibly destructive. There are so many effective ways to control anxiety and depression. Many of them don’t come naturally, and they don’t feel effective the first time you try them. They have to be learned, and like anything else, the more you practice them the more naturally they will come to you.
I would tell them what I read in a sign I saw in the street near our house, only today: “No matter how obsessed you are with your own vanishing, there will always be someone who wants you whole” (Hanif Abdurraqib).
Who you really are is the person you are inside, and that your body is nothing more than a vehicle to transport you around.
It’s OK to make mistakes in life, to do stupid things and make bad decisions. Not only it it OK, it’s EXPECTED. Some of my mistakes have been spectacular! That’s how you learn. That’s how we all learn. As long as you’re learning from your mistakes, you’re already doing better than most other people.

The only way to get through it is one day at a time.
No matter how bad their behaviour, your child or sibling is actually being held hostage by their eating disorder. They hate how they are behaving. It can be hard to remember this at times – very hard – but it is not their fault.
To the parents of an anorexic child, I would say that, it’s a battle of attrition between you and the anorexia, and battles of attrition are not won quickly.
Over time, through your being steadfast, the anorexia will see that you are going nowhere – no matter how long it takes, or how awfully it makes your child behave.
Do not give up ground, and do not allow yourself to be manipulated. Don’t feel like you are being tough on your child – you are being tough on the ED, and deep down your child is desperate for you to do that (they just can’t tell you). Once the ED can see this through your actions, it will begin to weaken. If you weaken, it will sense that it can gain ground, which will take you backwards.

Recovery is absolutely possible, and it WILL happen at some point, even though it feels like it NEVER will.
For now, forget about when recovery will happen – just know that it will. Until then, just worry about getting through each day.

Embrace your failures! Put them down to ‘lessons learned’, and keep going.
You are not your eating disorder. You are not your body. You are not your skin. You are not your eyes. You are not your hair. You are not your fashion accessories.
External beauty is temporary, and illusory. Your true beauty is within.
You have the right to make bad decisions, and to do stupid things. This is how we learn. These things are what DEFINES us as human.
“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself” (Thich Nhat Hanh).
“One day I had to sit down with myself and decide that I loved myself no matter what my body looked like” (unknown)
“This is most important: in order to find true happiness, you must learn to love yourself for the totality of who you are, and not just what you look like” (Portia de Rossi).
“All bodies are good bodies” (unknown)
“Don’t take your health for granted. Don’t take your body for granted. Do something today that communicates to your body that you desire to care for it. Tomorrow is not promised” (Jada Pinkett Smith”. “Addiction is giving up everything for one thing. Recovery is giving up one thing for everything” (unknown).

“Jono”