NEDA Awareness Week Post #4: Recovery Takes a While

As I explained in my first post for NEDA Awareness Week, HERE, eating disorders are no sham.  They are complicated, neurological mental illnesses.  Like other mental illnesses, recovery is a long, long process.  How long, you ask? Well, that's what I'm going to explain today.

I love this little guy :)  Remember
that numbers NEVER define you!

So the recovery process varies dependent on the individual's cooperation, their body, their specific eating disorder and their level of care.  However, when it boils down to it: It is recommended that those in recovery stay in treatment for two years after they've gotten to a restored weight.  That is because the brain takes about that long to rewire and function correctly again.  And to clarify, that two years starts when the individual is behavior free.

One of the most frustrating things about anorexia recovery is the facade I seem to have adopted.  It's exciting to me that my body is nearly at a healthy place again.  It's also frustrating because the rest of the world sees normal.  It sees a healthy me.  It sees "ok."  What the world doesn't see is the inside.  That's where the wheels are turning and the battles are raging, day in and day out.  On behalf of the eating disorder community: Don't assume that things are ok just because the body looks better.  I don't say that to set off alarms.  I am, for a fact, doing really great.  (RELATED: Am I Beautiful?)

If you read yesterday's post though, you'd know that the DSM-5 has now officially recognized illnesses such as atypical anorexia, where the individual's body weight is still within a healthy range but they have lost a very unhealthy amount of weight through restricting.  That goes to show the outside is not always a clear indicator of emotional or mental health.  We need to get to know each other, connect and educate ourselves on eating disorders so we can know the signs and avoid the train wreck at the end of the line.

As a cross country and track runner, I like to view recovery as a distance race.  I'm in it for the long haul.  But there's a reason for that: There's hope at the finish line.  There's freedom in Christ that I haven't yet grasped. (RELATED: A Freedom Filled 2015) There's greater friendships and fun and running and travel and all that good stuff.  Yup.  It'll take a while to get there but it gets better and easier every day.  So I keep on trekking.

Love,
Hannah

NEDA Awareness Week Post #3 HERE
NEDA Awareness Week Post #2 HERE
NEDA Awareness Week Post #1 HERE