Days in Recovery: 8

Days Binge-Free: 8

Hello readers, it’s been a while. And as you can probably tell from my numbers this evening, it’s been a bit of a bumpy ride recently. After more than eight weeks in recovery, I relapsed last month into binge eating disorder, and only managed to get back on my feet eight days ago.

It’s been a complicated five weeks since my initial relapse, and as anyone who has suffered with an eating disorder knows, it has taken a lot out of me mentally. But after a week back in recovery, I’m ready to write about my experience, and I thought it might be a good time to talk a little about what my relapse looked like (and why “relapse” and “binge eating disorder” aren’t as simple as they sound).

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FIGHTING THE RELAPSE

‘Fighting the relapse’ is the period of time I like (or dislike?) to think of as the turning point from recovery into binge eating disorder, and possibly the most taxing mentally – and physically.

Binge eating disorder, for me, always returns in the same way: with a long mental battle. As you know, I had been in recovery for my longest period yet, but for some reason (triggered in some way, but that’s a whole different post) my binge eating returned.

Unfortunately for me, it never returns just like *that*, but with a long period of internal battle, and meticulously tracked days where I successfully stay clean vs. days where I ‘give in’ and binge eat.

For between three and five weeks, I can look back on the tracking I use on my phone – a simple yes-or-no “did I binge” calendar – and see the internal fight I was having.

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WHAT THIS FEELS LIKE

Pretty awful, to be brutally honest. Even worse than my full-blown binge periods (picture the same calendar, but all red), because I haven’t yet adopted the “fuck it” mentality and am still angry and upset with myself every single day I binge.

Note: This is not to say I am not angry and upset during a full-blown binge period, but I often have days where I ‘shut off’ the feelings of anger or guilt in order to indulge myself. During the ‘fighting’ period, I do not have these shut off periods.

Mentally

Every single morning I wake up with the intention to stay clean. Sometimes with the intention to ‘make up’ for a binge, by not eating until dinner, not eating at all etc. – all part of the unhealthy mindset.

This means that every single failed evening is a night of shame and disgust. Even minutes after a binge finishes, I will sit and think to myself “why did I do this? Again?”. Effectively, it is like being hit mentally by a battering ram practically every second day. A constant cycle of hating myself, and hating my eating disorder.

Physically

Often the physical effects of an eating disorder, beyond weight loss or gain, aren’t mentioned at all. Yes, I start to gain weight very slowly, but the effects go far beyond this. I’m retaining water, my face is puffy and swollen from overeating and sugar overindulgence and my stomach sticks out uncomfortably and disproportionately because it is almost constantly over-full and bloated.

My features get softer and my acne returns, spurred on by excess sugar and fat. None of my clothes fit right, and I return to my pre-recovery trousers (even though recovery was eight weeks long, and this is only three). I feel my absolute worst. Not only do I look practically ill, I am out of breath climbing a single flight of stairs – likely due to a lack of proper nutrition such as fruit and veg – and for days at a time I will even forgo showering in order to spend more time binge eating and, afterwards, unwilling to leave my bed.

FULL-BLOWN “FUCK IT”

Mentally, this is almost like accepting that the worst has happened, and that life is hopeless. It involves letting my eating disorder fully take over my brain, resulting in daily binges often occurring in place of any regular or healthy eating schedule (5,000+kcal of chocolate and biscuits at 4pm, nothing else all day) because I am planning for my eating disorder.

It also involves the total and complete take over of my brain; every single thing I do is based on my eating disorder. Leaving parties and events early in order to go by the supermarket on the way home so I can binge eat, spending money that I genuinely do not have on mass amounts of food every day, not planning anything after 6pm because my binge will occur and I won’t want to leave my bed.

This is what my eating disorder looks like at its absolute worst. It takes over my entire life. I no longer feel uncomfortably full because my stomach has adjusted to the ridiculous amounts of food, but my whole body aches every morning and most of my earlier symptoms remain.

But the main reason why this is the scariest period: this is the point where I no longer care about recovering, and my eating-disorder-fuelled brain has decided that it doesn’t matter if I binge every single day for the rest of my life.

In the spirit of small victories, this only lasted two weeks long.

While this seems like a long time, my last “fuck it” period lasted more than three months long.

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I am, however, now back in recovery. A small sign, a big life shift, and a change of heart helped to pull me back on track – thankfully, only two weeks into my full-blown binge.

I know that I am still in the ‘honeymoon’ period of recovery, and it’s been plain sailing, but I feel good and strong and can hopefully hold out this time.

Relapsing is all part of the long recovery journey. This past relapse has just helped to make me stronger, and one step closer to full recovery.

The tracking app I use is HabitBull, with a habit that I have named “BED” for Binge Eating Disorder. It is free and uses a simple green/red system for a yes/no question, e.g. “Did I Binge Eat today?”, which can be specified for each habit.