Keep Choosing Recovery - 5.9.26

5.9.26 - Keep Choosing Recovery

I almost relapsed.

I almost gave up on recovery and everything I’ve built so far. The past couple of days have been hard and exhausting. The kind of hard that doesn’t always look dramatic from the outside, but feels overwhelming on the inside.

I’ve been stuck in my head. Overthinking. Picking myself apart. Feeling self-conscious in ways I thought I had moved past.

And almost automatically, my mind went back to what it used to know best:

Restrict.

That old voice came back like it never left. Calm. Convincing. Familiar.

Telling me it would make things better. Telling me it would give me control again. Telling me it would quiet everything down.

And for a moment, I believed it.

That’s the part people don’t always talk about, how believable it can still sound, even in recovery. Even after all the progress. Even when you know better.

But this time, something was different.

I paused.

And in that pause, I remembered something recovery has been trying to teach me all along.

Restriction isn’t the only tool I have anymore.

It used to be. It used to feel like the only way I knew how to cope. The only way to deal with discomfort, insecurity, or the feeling of things being out of control.

But not anymore.

Recovery has given me other options. Not perfect ones. Not always easy ones. But real ones.

I can sit with the feeling instead of running from it.

I can question the thoughts instead of automatically obeying them.

I can reach out, distract myself, take care of myself in ways that don’t involve punishment.

I can remind myself that feelings, even the intense ones, are temporary.

And I won’t pretend that choosing these tools is easy. It isn’t. Sometimes it feels slower. Less effective. Less certain.

But it’s also the only path that actually moves me forward.

Because the truth is, going back to restriction wouldn’t solve what I’m feeling, it would just shrink my world again. It would pull me back into a place I’ve worked incredibly hard to leave.

That’s something I have to remind myself of, especially on days like this.

Recovery isn’t about never struggling again.

It’s about responding to the struggle differently when it shows up.

So instead of restricting, I stayed.

I stayed in the discomfort.

I stayed with myself.

I let the thoughts come and go without acting on them.

And that might not sound like much, but it is.

Because every time I choose this, I’m reinforcing something new.

Something stronger than the habits I’m trying to leave behind.

I just had to remember,

Even the hard days in recovery are still better than the “good” days in my eating disorder.