White Picket Fence Counseling Center Newsletter Archives

Books and Resources for the Recovery Stage

Life Without Ed is a book that I recommend to anyone who struggles with anorexia or bulimia. By creating a persona named Ed, representing the eating disorder, author Jenni Schaefer teaches the reader how to separate the person from the problem. I heard Jenni speak at a conference of the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals (IAEDP) and what a gift it was to be in her presence – she's like a guru in this field and has helped so many people.

At the conference, Schaefer and co-presenter Michael Berrett, PhD spoke about how finding reasons to change helps eating disorder clients to reclaim their lives. Jenni also spoke more about the life she is continuing to build now that she is free of her own eating disorder, including writing a second book called, goodbye ed, hello me.

I also recommend Regaining Your Self, by Ira M. Sacker, M.D. Sacker is Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, New York University Medical Center and Bellevue Medical Center. He is also the Founder, President and Medical Director of HEED Foundation, Inc. (Helping End Eating Disorders), a not-for-profit organization, and the co-author of Dying to Be Thin. This book helps explain how an eating disorder can be your identity, and so recovery must include a grieving process for the loss of that identity. 

How Relationships May Change in Recovery

As soon as you take your first steps in recovery from an eating disorder, your relationships will start to change. By the time you enter into the maintenance stage of living in recovery, you may focus more of your efforts to dealing with this. By now, you're feeling more comfortable about your day-to-day eating habits and you have many tools and people to reach for when things come up.

With the people who have been in your life for many years, there will likely be communication and relationships patterns that no longer fit with your new version of self. Now that you are more confident and comfortable speaking your mind, people may not know quite how to handle that.

Perhaps you used to be controlled by people pleasing, doing anything to avoid the guilt associated with letting someone down. Perhaps the people around you aren't ready to accept an inter-dependent relationship, rather than a co-dependent relationship with you. As you change and grow, not everyone in your world may jump on board. This is a big adjustment for everyone.

If you're not paying attention to these relationship issues, other people can easily trigger a "lapse" into unhealthy food behaviors, or even a full-blown relapse. Watch for sure-fire signs of relationship struggles, such as talking about other people's faults or wishing they would change. You will have more peaceful relationships if you remember that you can only change yourself. You are lucky enough to have these recovery tools at your fingertips – others are not as well-equipped. Practice compassion for others and healthy communication strategies that protect your recovery.

Your relationships can grow with you, if you give yourself and others the time and attention that are needed for long-lasting change.

Tools for the Recovery Stage of Life

A major part of your recovery will be gaining comfort and acceptance of your body. Whether or not your body size has changed in recovery, you can learn to love and be grateful for who you see in the mirror.

A distorted body image can be deeply embedded in people who are recovering from an eating disorder, whether that's compulsive eating, anorexia or bulimia. The food behaviors they reach for are used to disconnect from the body.

Recovery brings the opportunity – and the challenge – to be present in the body, perhaps for the first time.

To begin, you can use the following tools to discover your personal image and your connection to your body. Then you can start to learn where this story has come from. That way you can release any hurtful or unhealthy perceptions, and move into compassion and full acceptance.

I teach a model called "The Five A's" to guide people through this process:

1. Awareness (includes acknowledgement and anticipation) – Build your awareness of your current body image beliefs by journaling, meditating and talking about what you discover. Acknowledge your positive, healthy perceptions and anticipate the benefits of moving more and more into this new perspective.
2. Appreciation (includes achievement and abundance) – Practice self-caring and self-loving rituals that celebrate your body and all of its gifts.
3. Action (includes attention, amends, aspiration and accountability) – Take the necessary steps to care for and heal your body. You may have spent many years making unhealthy choices, but you can repair that damage one day at a time. Build and use a support team for this process (e.g., therapist, dietician, exercise buddy, therapy group).
4. Acceptance – The sooner you can accept yourself and your body as you are right now, the sooner you will be able to evolve into the next stages of recovery.
5. Affirmations – Talk to yourself kindly and positively, always choosing the perspective that everything you want is already on its way.

Learning to Live in Recovery

According to the Transtheoretical (Stages of Change) Model developed by Prochaska and DiClemente, once someone has passed through the active stage of recovery they enter a maintenance phase. As I wrote about in 2009, a big area of focus in this stage is on how to prevent relapse.

But there has to be more to life than just the absence of your eating disorder. Otherwise it's still controlling you and your life. I encourage people to learn how to live in recovery, to build a life where you're dealing with the realities of preventing relapse, but also open to new discoveries and growth beyond what you've ever imagined for yourself.

The truth is that the stages of change and recovery are fluid, and you will move back and forth between them. Part of the challenge is that life will continue to throw stressors and unpredictable things at you – the difference is that now you're not using food or eating behaviors to deal with them. That may seem scary, but it's actually really great.

Imagine just how proud you'll feel the first time get through a tough time on your own – without the old crutches that you used to use. It doesn't mean you're doing it alone, it means you're reaching out for help in a healthy way, from healthy people, and you're receiving and using that help.

Living in recovery requires a totally different way of being. At the White Picket Fence Counseling Center, we talk about this with our clients right from the beginning, so they can practice the tools they can tap into later. Otherwise, they may not know how to handle it when, let's say, people stop noticing or commenting on their new healthy body weight, or when it's time to replace their mealtime habits of calorie counting or deprivation.

We pride ourselves on equipping our clients with the tools, confidence and self-assurance to be strong in their recovery, and to be aware of potential issues so they can talk about them instead of reaching for old, unhealthy behaviors. We remind them, "This too shall pass," and it always does!

Life in recovery brings the chance to develop healthy relationships with food, with your body, with yourself, and with others. When you're using food behaviors, if you have a problem, then automatically you have two problems. In recovery, when you have a problem, you have one problem, and infinite tools and resources to solve it. That is true freedom.

At the White Picket Fence Counseling, we will be continuing our series of Recovery Stories in the Living Room events, where clients share about their journey to recovery. We're looking for volunteer speakers for this series. Please contact us today if you would you like to share your story. We'll also be doing some specialized workshops on this topic, so stay tuned for details. In the meantime, watch the blog and newsletter for additional articles about tools, resources and relationship guidance for the recovery stage.