What is the shoreline of recovery?

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...

• If a woman's main symptom was purging and she is no longer engaging in that symptom but is clinically underweight, is she in recovery? 
• If a boy always struggled with anorexia and is now a healthy weight but is terrified of eating certain foods, is he in recovery?  How about if he will only eat by himself because he is too ashamed to let others see him eat?
• If a girl's main symptom used to be bingeing on large quantities of food and she no longer does that, but she decides to go on a diet in order to lose the weight she gained from bingeing, is she in recovery? 
• If a man has always restricted and is now allowing himself to eat a variety of foods, but he is not at a healthy weight, is he recovered?
• If a girl with anorexia is at a healthy weight and allows herself to eat a variety of foods, but still measures her food before she puts it on her plate, is she in recovery?  What if she is at a healthy weight but still records her calorie intake and calorie expenditure daily?
• If a boy who used to binge and purge no longer purges but very infrequently binges, is he in recovery?
• If a woman is no longer engaging in restricting or purging as she once was, but she must exercise at least 60 minutes a day every day, is she in recovery?

Confused?  So are we!!!  Eating disorders are so unique to each individual, it is nearly impossible to describe what recovery looks like.  As I have talked about this issue with people, I have gotten many different answers.  There are clinical definitions of recovery created by professionals, and there are personal descriptions of what recovery looks and feels like from those who are living it.    The question of "what is recovery" is complex, and I can delve deeper into that in another post.  For now, I just wish to raise awareness about the complexity of eating disorder recovery, and the endless fog that many of us find ourselves stuck in over and over again.