The Power of Community for Eating Disorder Recovery Support
I remember the first time I walked into an in-patient treatment facility for eating disorders. It was back in 2009. I had just made it through high school and was on the brink of needing some serious help.
*
*
*
I didn't want to go this treatment facility.
I didn't think I needed to go either.
But - it ended up saving my life.
More than what we did or what kinds of treatments we received; it was being with a group of people who understood what it meant to navigate an eating disorder that helped me most.
I felt like I had arrived in a space where I felt seen, heard, and supported in ways I had been missing for so long.
It was a relief to be with people who understood the complexities and nuances of navigating disordered eating. Each person was at different stages on their healing journey, and so it was a rich environment for me to gain clarity, perspective, direction for my own growth.
I felt at home.
I didn't have to explain or put a disclaimer on what I was going to say. I knew I would be understood and accepted (even through the really, really challenging parts), and through that, I began to feel more of a sense of home within my own self.
I have heard from many people navigating eating disorder recovery that it is an isolating journey. Often there are additional layers of shame, judgement, and fear that make it hard to be out in the world.
Not only does the eating disorder cut us off from friends and family, but also from our feelings, values, priorities, and purpose - as well as our bodies.
This is because when there has been trauma and a history of eating disorders, the parts of the brain involved with integrating and interpreting one's sense of self changes. When the body and the brain don't communicate smoothly, we feel emotionally detached, shutdown, disconnected, or no-body.
Only by getting in touch with the body, and connecting to it on a visceral level, do we regain a sense of self, reconnect with what we care about, and feel safe in our body-home, grounded in the present moment.
Sometime later into my recovery, I realised the campfire of connection that the in-patient clinic gave me all of those years ago was still burning and yearning to be fanned.
I knew in my heart that I couldn't do this work alone.
This insight both excited and terrified me at the same time.
Since my eating disorder tried to keep me protected from painful intimacy, hidden, and unseen in the darkness, reaching out to connect with others felt like a threat to my eating disorder.
Indeed, repairing relational woundings are often what is needed in recovery. And this then requires us to slowly start connecting with others who can support us in the process of developing safe, trusting, loving, understanding, supportive relationships.
So, in my own recovery, I knew that in order to truly feel at home within myself, and at home on this Earth, opening up to be seen by another, held by another, and acknowledged in all of my contradictions and emotions by another, would be the journey back home.
This, for me, is the heart of eating disorder recovery.
I invite you to consider how you have experienced deeper connection (whether it's with people, the Earth, or your body) in your own eating disorder recovery.
When have you felt more heart?
When have you felt more at home, in your own skin?
Who or what are you with? What are you doing? How do you feel?
In the spirit of connection, you can now join the next cohort for the next Eating Disorder Recovery Support Group. This group will run from May to June 2023. There will be a total of five group sessions over the container, with email follow-ups throughout. If you can’t make this group, there will many more hosted throughout the year. Sign up to my newsletter to stay updated with new group dates!
If you are looking for a community space to authentically express your recovery journey, to be compassionately witnessed, and to be held openly, I invite to you join us in the next group.
Photo by Vonecia Carswell on Unsplash