Believing In Your Right To Recovery: Silencing The ED Voices

Today my doctor said to me, "You know, you deserve to be happy. You deserve to recover."

I sometimes question if I do deserve to recover. I'm not proud of some of the things I have done in life. I have not always been the kindest person. I have sometimes ignored people who needed me. I have put my husband and loved ones through years of anguish and fear as I slipped further and further into anorexia nervosa and failed at recovery many times.

I have made them cry as they thought that I could possibly die from my eating disorder. I blocked myself off from their fears and pleas, and continued to pursue thinness ruthlessly for years like a person possessed.

All of these things make me question my worth and if I deserve to recovery. But there's something more. My doctor, a wonderfully perceptive man even when I sometimes sit silently and dive back into the safety of my thoughts, said I have this space within my brain that allows the eating disorder to tell me that I do not deserve to be happy, healthy, and free.

This is so true, and I sometimes want to scream at the voices to stop and leave me alone.

Replacing The Eating Disorder Voices

He said I can retrain my brain, and make the eating disorder voices permanently leave.

It sounds like such freedom. It sounds like a miracle. It sounds like heaven.

How can I do this? He told me today it takes practice. I need to replace whatever bad thing the eating disorder voices say — You are fat...You are ugly...You are worthless...You don't deserve to recover — with positive messages.

It sounds so simple, but I know it will be very hard to replace some messages that have been floating around in my brain for decades even before I developed anorexia.

However, I gave it a try. I said to him, "I do deserve to recover. I do deserve to be happy."

It felt false at first. Like I was saying words just to please my doctor. But I know anything worthwhile takes practice, and this is definitely worth working on.

He had another suggestion. I told him when I was deep in anorexia, I kept charts of every bite of food and drink and how much I weighed. Each night I would fill out the food chart, and each morning I would climb on the scale first thing and then record my weight. Of course, the number never was right. It was never low enough. I was never thin enough. I could never be thin enough, because to be as thin as I wanted to be would have most likely killed me.

Anyway, he asked me if I kept charts of the good things people said about me and the wonderful things that happened in my life. I looked at him, smiled and said, "No." It never occurred to me to do something like that.

Then I remember one time last fall when one of my professors from graduate school said to me, "You have a rare gift." She was referring to my writing abilities, particularly in the area of creative non-fiction.

I was so touched by her words, so amazed that someone with a doctorate in English would say something like that to me, that I took two colorful index cards and carefully wrote: "'You have a rare gift.' 13 October 2010. From a teacher, mentor, and friend." I posted one in my study and the other on the mirror where I get ready for the day each morning.

We Do Deserve To Recover

"You have a rare gift." Why do I forget when people say nice things to me, or when I do nice things for other people? Why am I always so quick to think the worst of myself? My doctor said that is typical of many people with eating disorders, and that they often don't think they deserve to recover.

I plan to put his ideas into practice, and write down the nice things people say about me and the times I feel joy and wonder and freedom. I plan to change that place in my brain into a place that reinforces the best parts of me.

My doctor left me with these words: "You deserve to be free. And you will be."

Let us all believe that, because it's true each one of us deserves to recover. We are precious children of God, and He wants us to live full and abundant lives.

Let's finally silence the ED voices that have been hammering at us for so long.