Part 1A-Opening When I started thinking about what I wanted to write for my next blog post, one word kept coming to mind. Boring. Maybe that’s not the word everyone would use to describe treatment. But it’s the word I’d…
What Is Life Really Like After Treatment?
I’ve been out of treatment for four weeks now. An entire month has passed since I walked out of those doors knowing this time I wasn’t coming back inside. There’s something strange about leaving a place you once couldn’t imagine…
Finding My Self-worth Again
Before treatment, I wasn’t enough for myself. Nothing I did was ever good enough. I could accomplish something and immediately find a reason it didn’t count. I could make a basic human mistake and treat it like evidence that there…
Finding My Sense of Achievement Again
Before treatment, I had lost all sense of achievement. What they don’t tell you is that when you struggle with depression and anxiety, you can lose your sense of achievement without losing your ability to achieve. I was still accomplishing…
Learning Who You Are When You’re No Longer Surviving
Throughout treatment, I learned a great deal about recovery—what it looks like, what it doesn’t look like, and what it asks of us. I learned to lean into uncertainty, to follow through with exposures completely rather than white-knuckling my way…
Eating Disorder: My Story of Recovery
Trigger Warning: This piece discusses eating disorders, OCD, purging behaviors, laxative abuse, body image struggles, and mental health. I had never had a controlling relationship with food. I loved food. And although I struggled deeply with myself, it was never…