Is Eating Disorder Recovery Worth It?
Is recovery worth it? At Wildflower Therapy, we hear this question often. So, right off the bat, if you're reading this, wondering if recovery is truly worth it, please know you are NOT alone. Maybe you’ve been battling an eating disorder for years, or perhaps you’ve just recently realized that something does not feel good about your relationship with food and your body- but the process of recovery feels harder than you ever could have imagined. It’s very understandable to wonder if the whole slough will be worth it. The answer is nuanced, but, in our opinion, clear-
Yes, recovery is worth it.
But not because it’s easy, or because life becomes magically perfect once you’re on the other side. Your temperament will be the same. Our thin-obsessed society will still be thin-obsessed. Your will still have days when you wake up and don’t love what you see in the mirror. But, recovery is worth it because it brings you back to yourself. As eating disorder therapists (and many of whom are recovered ourselves!) we feel confident in saying that. Recovery restores your freedom, your relationships, your cognitive abilities, your sense of humor, and your ability to be present for your life-even with its inevitable hardships. It makes life feel possible again. It makes the day to day doable. It turns going out to dinner with friends back into a chill, enjoyable experience- one that you can actually mentally show up for. And while recovery doesn’t promise perfection, it offers a life a hundred times richer than the misery of an eating disorder.
Let’s talk about what makes recovery so hard, why it can feel like giving up a part of yourself, and why it’s still one of the most worthwhile choices you can make.
The Sisyphean Nature of an Eating Disorder
Eating disorders are exhausting. When you struggle with one, your mind feels like if you don’t hold SO tightly onto the numbers and the control, you will lose everything. It’s such a weird experience, because while your mind feels CONVINCED that you are holding tight onto control, your life actually is often falling apart around you. You may experience thoughts like:
• “Without thinness, I’ll be nothing.”
• “I need to keep this because my identity is ‘the healthy one’.”
• “This is the only thing I have found that I am good at.”
For many, an eating disorder becomes a coping mechanism, a constant companion, and a cruel source of both safety and suffering- all folded into one confusing experience. It’s beyond understandable to feel terrified at the idea of letting it go. It can feel like grief — as though you’re mourning the loss of something that has also sort of helped you through some hard times (even though it’s now destroying you).
That’s one of the most difficult parts of recovery. You’re asked to face life without your old go-to coping mechanism. And that’s not easy. In fact, it can be downright brutal at times.
What No One Tells You About Recovery
Many people expect that recovery will feel like a straight line — that each day you’ll feel a little better than the last, and soon you’ll be on the other side of it. In reality, recovery is often messy and nonlinear. We like to reframe it as “the long game”- the benefits are not something you experience right off the bat, or even consistently in any way for what often turns out to be quite a while.
At our eating disorder therapy practice in Philadelphia, we remind clients that it’s normal for recovery to feel worse before it feels better. You might feel more anxious. You might grieve the body changes if that is part of your journey. You might feel out of control, especially if extreme hunger is part of your recovery process. But remember- this is suffering in the right direction. This is suffering that brings you closer to the eventual goal of a more peaceful, flexible relationship with food and your body. This is in contrast to the fruitless, Sisyphean suffering of an eating disorder.
Even once you reach that more peaceful place-life isn’t perfect. Joy will still exist mostly as mere moments studded throughout the mundane. You will still likely have bad body image days. If you are a deeply feeling person, the lows will still feel-well-low. Stressful situations might stir up old thoughts. But the difference is, you are present for all of it. No longer numb, you will be showing up in the bright messy world and connecting with others. You will find that those thoughts that used to feel like a grenade to your day now feel like tiny poppers that go off- and you flick them away. You’re no longer in the trenches of obsession about by food rules, numbers on a scale, or compulsive behaviors. You gain coping skills, resilience, and a stronger sense of self than you ever had when the eating disorder was running the show.
So… Is It Worth It?
One more time for the folks in the back- YES. And not because life becomes a flawless Instagram feed afterward — but because life becomes real. And you can show up for it in a more honest and flexible way.
In recovery:
• You can enjoy dinner with friends without being distracted by mental math about calories.
• You can say yes to spontaneous plans without being consumed with worry about how they’ll affect your eating routine.
• You can focus on your relationships, your passions, your career — things that truly matter.
• You regain energy and laughter- your sense of humor comes back! Remember laughing for real? That can happen again.
• You can connect with others more fully. (And if your ED is causing stress to your relationships with family, friends, or your spouse- this stress won’t be there in the same way anymore!)
I (Hi there! Dr. Reichmann here!) remember at one point, deep into my recovery journey, realizing- “Wow. I didn’t realize how exhausted I was until I wasn’t anymore.” I did not realize how horrible it felt to exercise on an empty stomach until I got back to fueling myself routinely and appropriately before movement. I didn’t realize how depressed I had become as restriction took over my world until I started to *literally* feel my lips form smiles again and realized how foreign it felt to do that. That’s the thing about eating disorders — they slowly, silently drain the color from your world until you forget what it ever felt like to be free.
Recovery brings that color back.
A Hundred Times Better
We’re not here to sugarcoat recovery. At Wildflower Therapy, we believe in telling the truth: recovery can be (and usually is) unimaginably hard. It feels totally counter culture. It tends to involve following a path that feels exceptionally uncomfortable at best, while trusting others/holding the hope that what they are saying is true (aka that you will eventually feel better.)
But it’s also worth every ounce of effort. Even if things aren’t perfect, life living outside of an eating disorder is so, so much better than life inside of one.
Instead of spending your days obsessing over numbers, you can focus on what truly matters to you. Instead of isolating yourself, you can nurture meaningful relationships.
Instead of being at war with your body, you can learn to coexist with it.
You’ll have hard days. You’ll have setbacks. But you’ll also have sunsets you actually notice, meals you actually enjoy, conversations you actually remember. You’ll realize how small your world had become and how much more there is waiting for you outside of the eating disorder’s grip.
How Eating Disorder Therapy Can Help
You don’t have to navigate this path alone. At Wildflower Therapy, we offer eating disorder treatment in Philadelphia, and the main line area at large for children, adolescents, college students, and adults. Our compassionate, experienced team of therapists understands how complex recovery is. Many of us have walked that road ourselves! We get it. We will sit in the suck with you. We will hold the hope when it’s hard for you to find it.
We provide a range of services including:
• Individual therapy for eating disorders
• Family-based treatment (FBT) for adolescents
Our approach is warm, relational, and nonjudgmental- and skill-based. (AKA we are relational AND believe that nothing changes if nothing changes. You deserve a therapist who can come to sessions prepared with different lenses and techniques to try in your day to day life.) We don’t believe in one-size-fits-all treatment, because no two eating disorder stories are alike. Together, we’ll help you build a recovery that feels possible and sustainable for you.
Final Thoughts
If you’re in the thick of it right now-deep in the trenches of recovery and wondering if it’s worth it- please PLEASE hear us when we say that: it is.
Again, not because life in recovery is flawless, but because it’s in color again. Your deserve more than black and white numbers, rules, and rituals. You deserve to take up space, to feel joy, to live a full and meaningful life, even with its imperfections.
Recovery won’t fix everything. But it will give you back the capacity to engage with life in a way that’s sustainable, and leaves more capacity for flexibility, connection, and moments of joy. And that’s worth everything.
Ready to Start?
If you or a loved one is struggling with an eating disorder, reach out to Wildflower Therapy today. We offer highly specialized eating disorder therapy in Philadelphia, Villanova, West Chester, Wayne, and Haverford. Whether you’re seeking help for the first time, or have been through inpatient treatment multiple times, we are here to help you find your way back to yourself.
Visit our website or call us at 215-668-9356 to schedule a consultation. You don’t have to do this alone — and recovery is absolutely, deeply worth it.