Maureen

You can’t starve away your sadness.

Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.

Let’s clear something up. Recovery is hard. Recovery isn’t all avocados and peanut butter and yoga. Recovery is a constant fight and often you don’t even know who you’re fighting; You and your ED become so intertwined it’s hard to discern between them. Recovery is that twinge of guilt, but having done it anyway. Recovery is those tears, sometimes of joy and sometimes of sadness. Recovery is a twinkle in your eyes, But also fear. Because it’s not just the good emotions that return when you stop being numb. Recovery is life. Life isn’t perfect, but it’s real. However, recovery isn’t hypocrisy. Recovery isn’t letting one hurdle or one relapse get in your way, Recovery isn’t secret ‘ana’ promotion or compromising with the disorder. No, you can’t stay underweight and recover. No, you can’t recover on less calories than your body needs. Recovery isn’t about food, or weights, or perceptions, or tumblr tags. Because none of that matters in the terms of an eating disorder. It doesn’t discriminate. It consumes your mind and soul. It is death, and heck- Life may not be perfect, but death is nothing.

It’s not a big deal that you gained weight. Honestly, in the big picture, who cares? Did you live life the way you wanted to? Did you have fun? Did you find people you love? Did you learn lots of interesting things? That’s probably what you’re gonna care about when you’re at your death bed, not about the fact that you “gained weight” when you were 21.

Being asked to express feelings creatively in art therapy