I was recently listening to a program on NPR about what makes world-class athletes so great. There was a story about a woman who was attempting to swim across a large channel of water. She was swimming through a thick fog and became overwhelmed with fatigue. She called for the boat to pick her up and climbed into it with a heavy heart. A few minutes later, the fog cleared, and she saw that the shoreline was only about 1 mile away. She said, "If I had known the shore was so close, I would have kept going." Five months later she returned to the channel and completed the feat.
I entered treatment and therapy for the first time over 10 years ago. The work towards "recovery" is relentless, and I often wonder, "how much further do I have to go?" I feel as if I am perpetually stuck in a fog, not knowing whether I have a few meters or a few thousand miles left before I can drag myself onto the shores of recovery. Just like the woman in the story, I think that if I knew how much further I had to go, I could muster my strength and finish.
But recovery from an eating disorder is not black and white.
OFTEN, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE SHORE EVEN LOOKS LIKE.
Let me demonstrate the obscurities of recovery from an eating disorder...
