And that ladies and gentlemen is a wrap

So there we go, now is my time to leave the Naomi program and begin the rest of my life. When I arrived on Naomi I was completely under the control of my eating disorder and the lies it told me, I didn’t believe recovery existed and I didn’t believe that I was unwell enough to need to stay longer than my initial plan of six weeks. I’m so glad I have completed the Naomi program, I’m proud of everything I have achieved and I feel like I am definitely now on the road to recovery. I have achieved so much whilst I have been on the program and I’m really proud of the work I have done. I have grown in confidence, really worked on identifying my needs and how I can get them met, challenged unhelpful old system rules and core beliefs and gained so much more of an understanding of myself and my difficulties.

I have really taken a step away from my eating disorder and identified the underlying causes of it and worked on these meaning it has a low weaker grip on me. I can't thank the team and community enough for such amazing support. The last 9 months has consisted of some of the most challenging and difficult points of my life. I have battled against my eating disorder and really got to understand it, faced really difficult and sad times with my family and overall learnt a huge amount about myself. Despite my struggles, I feel I really have a different relationship with my eating disorder now and I've learnt to really be able to fight it.

My life really has changed and I can't thank all of the people who have supported me to get to this stage enough. I'm still the same person as I was at the start of the program, just a different version of myself, hopefully a better version that is less diluted by my illness. It's been a long road and it's not been easy but I feel like I've got what it takes to keep choosing recovery each day. Now the real work begins as I practice doing it independently, the prospect of the rest of my life is a little daunting but I will gradually work on it and become the best version of me that I can. I truly believe everyone can recover and sometimes it just takes the right support; like a seed the time, place and conditions must be right before germination can take place and the seed become a flower. I hope that this was and is my time to bloom.

The place of true healing is a fierce place

The reality is, recovery is shit but gradually you get used to that and it becomes more tolerable, eventually you don't even realise you're doing it anymore... well that's the hope anyway.

Once again the timing of my blogging has been quite apt, I seem to have a knack of starting a blog post and then having a conversation of the same theme with someone, or seeing it in real life. This happened again today. Last week I wasn't well and as a result I was under quarantine and 'banned' from the ward. Now so close to my discharge date, a bit of independent practice wasn't a bad thing but it showed me that actually living a 'recovered' life is exhausting and a real challenge. The nice shiny idea I had of leaving the program all better was possibly a bit of an unrealistic expectation because I actually do still have an eating disorder. This realisation, I suppose, has been something I've been coming to over a number of weeks but the time to myself completely independently just brought it to the forefront of my mind.

I have a cartoon on my wall that depicts the road to recovery as two lines, the expectation of a line that goes directly from A to B and the reality of a line that goes backwards and forwards in a form of a scribble, ultimately getting from A to B but not straight away. As long as the general movement is in the right direction then it's ok if it's not exactly the way you would expect, it's ok for it to be good enough. Nb. I've added the cartoon now! Because it made more sense to have it in my blog.

So one night, at the dining table, we were discussing the difficulties we were facing and wondering when it would start to feel easier. At the start of the program, we complied with the boundaries because we had to which became doing it for ourselves because we had worked out our reasons for recovery which often also included recovering for others. The reality was that recovery was and still is hard work, a constant battle and drive to keep on track and make the 'recovery' focused decision multiple times a day. The silver lining, I determined, was that gradually you get more used to how crap recovery is until, hopefully, it would become so routine and mundane that it would be the automatic choice rather than requiring an internal dialogue each time. It all sounds somewhat depressing but actually it feels like real life. The hard things become tolerable, you may not always love doing them but you have an inbuilt understanding of why you need and want to be doing them which then becomes almost innate. And overall, faced with the alternative, recovery sucks a while lot less than life with an eating disorder does! So yes, recovery is a bit shit, but I will be choosing it as it holds the key to the life I want to leave and I'm ok with the fact that it's going to feel uncomfortable until I've got used to it.

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Just keep swimming

I think I've been looking for a eureka moment in recovery when I wake up one day and think... 'jolly good, that's me recovered now'. I think, coming into an inpatient program, set me off thinking that I would defeat my eating disorder and be rid of it before I left. The scary reality is that I will be leaving this program with my eating disorder, it's not going to be completely squished as I hoped it would. The difference is that I am a lot more resilient now and able to manage it in a way that is compatible with real life. I have friends and acquaintances who say they are 'fully recovered' and I really do believe them. I suppose it really feels like this journey isn't going to be one that I reach the end of any time in the near future but one that's more of a slow burn... chipping away at my eating disorder and continuing to shift the balance to the recovered life I want step by step, bite by bite. 

It's so weird even contemplating a life without an eating disorder and a life out of hospital, where I've been for the last 7 months. It's weird to imagine having stretches of free time to fill and manage and enjoy! I have a realistic view that life won't be completely perfect and there will be times that are more challenging but hopefully the work I've done will keep me on the straight and narrow and on the right road to recovery. 

I also wanted to say hi to my lovely new followers! Please let me know if there are any blog topics you'd like me to talk about!