Revolutionizing Recovery

Since I have a new website and the title of this website is "Everlasting Recovery," I thought it would be good to do a blog post talking about the meaning behind the very essence of my blog. 

See, I believe we can fully recover from any disorder or addiction we struggle with. But I also believe and know for a fact … that we're imperfect and still struggle. 

In today's world, we have two main views on recovery. One I'm going to label "Part-time Recovery."

Part-time Recovery: Meaning - You won't ever fully recover from your disorder/addiction but you will learn how to live with it. You will learn how to equip yourself with different tools and methods to fight your disorder. That way, you can go and do life with your disorder/addiction at bay, but it will always be there. 

The other recovery I call "Perfect Recovery.”

Perfect Recovery: Meaning - You can and will recover from whatever disorder/addiction you struggle with and never struggle with it again. 

There may be other recoveries out there, but those are the two recoveries I read about and heard about while I was trying to recover from my EDs. But what if I tell you that I believe there is a third view on recovery that combines both of these views and creates an entirely new third viewpoint on recovery?

As I have gone through my recovery, I realized neither of those recoveries exists. I want to try to break down my view on recovery and explain to you my revolutionizing view on recovery … a recovery I call "Everlasting Recovery." 

Everlasting Recovery: Meaning - A complete recovery from whatever you struggle with while remaining in a state of recovery your whole life.

My view sounds paradoxical and quite possibly insane. But if you can stay with me and wrap your brain around this, it can help you with how you view your recovery and alleviate a lot of stress and impossible expectations from your life. 

I have battled a lot with this and have thought through this quite a bit. Okay, so let me try to explain this by sharing what I have learned through my recovery. 

When trying to recover from anorexia, I would read about people who said they never truly recovered from anorexia but learned to live with it. That scared me and bothered me deeply. I am a Christian and I have believed from the first day I knew I had an eating disorder that because I am a Christian, God can and will defeat this disorder/addiction … entirely. I wouldn't accept the fact that I would learn to live with my disorder/addiction/sin. I fought to believe that I would recover from this 100%, and I kept fighting for that "Perfect Recovery."

Fast forward to when I started recovering from anorexia and switched to battling bulimia. I knew that I had surrendered one eating disorder for another. (But with all of this, God used bulimia to destroy the roots of anorexia planted deep in my heart … and he used bulimia to do that. You can read more about that in detail in my book.)

But during those three years of fighting bulimia, I knew I had let go of anorexia and grabbed onto bulimia because I was still too scared to let go of food and hold onto Christ. But there was a point in 2020 when God had taken me through a series of events and showed me different things to where I knew my eating disorder was gone without a doubt. I know because I had lived with a type of eating disorder most of my life and let me tell you, when you live with an eating disorder for most of your life … you better believe you can feel the absence of the eating disorder. I knew my eating disorder was gone in 2020. But … with that being said … my struggle with food wasn't. 

Over the past couple of years, I have still struggled with food and have still struggled with finding a good balance but I have done all that without having an eating disorder. See, I struggle … because I am imperfect. I am human, and I mess up. Early on, when I was fighting anorexia and trying to recover, I kept desperately trying to find my "Perfect Recovery." I wanted to reach a point in my life where I would never mess up or think wrongly about food again. But no matter how hard I looked for it and fought for it … I never found it. 

Striving for "Perfect Recovery" in those early years stressed me out enormously because when I messed up, I'd think I was stuck back in my ED, and that scared me and made me more susceptible to falling into the old lies of my ED. Because the fear from failing was so overwhelming at times that I needed food to help numb the fear. And in these later years, I would be so scared to mess up cause I thought it meant it would take me all the way back to square one. Living with that much stress made me go to food to numb that stress. It robbed me of life, kept me in my eating disorder and actually robbed me of a lot of recovery that I was unaware of. 

And Part-time Recovery just wasn't an option for me. I wasn't going to accept the fact that I would learn to live with my disorder. 

Both these recoveries weren't working for me. There was no peace or freedom in either one. So I found Everlasting Recovery, which leaves room for failures and mess-ups but also room for growth, victories and a whole lot of grace. See, with Everlasting Recovery, I realized that one can recover completely from the disorder and yet still struggle. I also realized that everyone who has lived this life … is on a road to recovery. (I know, it sounds strange, paradoxical and against everything you believe about recovery. But if you can, just hang in there with me till the end!)

Everybody is on a road to recovery, and every single road looks different in millions of different ways. Picture it like this: we each have our own road, which takes us on different paths. Some paths are dark, twisted and long and other paths are bright, straight and easy. So say, when someone is struggling with an ED, they are currently on a dark and despairing path. But they won't stay on that path forever. They can find their way out and never have to walk on that path again. The next path they may come across may be twisted but not so dark because of all they learned from their experience from the path before. Nonetheless, the person is still moving forward on their road to recovery. You only fully recover when you take your last breath here on earth. 

The road to recovery is never perfect. It just isn't. But you learn from different paths. Some people get off their " eating disorder" path quickly, never look back, and never have a negative food thought again, but they may have a new path ahead that gives them different struggles. Or they may get on a path that is clear and full of happy times but eventually find themselves on another path with varying kinds of struggles. 

Some people may get stuck on a path of addiction, and it takes years and years to get off that path. They finally get onto a new path, but that path's twists and turns make them feel like they never got off that path from before, the path riddled with addiction. But in reality, they are on a new path and have moved forward quite a bit; even though you can't see it, progress has been made.

There are many different scenarios and paths in our life, but we are all on a road to recovery. Let me show you an example by sharing with you my life's different paths. And then, when you are done reading mine, try writing down your life's different paths.

Back in 2013, I found myself on a path filled with darkness. That was when I realized I was fully anorexic. I stayed on that path till 2015. Then I got on a new path after my time at the treatment center, which took me through some victorious battles against anorexia, but it also took me on some twisted times of relapsing. In 2017 I entered a new path that took me through a new disorder with depression, yet a path filled with many victories from anorexia. In 2020 I embarked on another path filled with recovery from my eating disorders.

And to describe the latest path I've been on would probably be a path of learning how to stand confidently as the Natalie I have fought to be. It's been an unknown and foggy path, yet it's been filled with a lot of freedom. It's been a path with many struggles and growing pains, but it has helped me become stronger and more confident and it has grown me closer to the Lord. 

I have continued on my road to recovery and have many different paths ahead of me that I have no idea what will look like. I know some will be hard and some easy, but all paths will further me on my road to recovery, strengthen me and, most importantly, draw me closer to the Lord. And by the time I come to the end of my road, it will be my last breath here on earth and my first breath in heaven, where I will be completely perfect and will no longer need any form of recovery. 

So you see how recovery here is ongoing … aka everlasting? It doesn't mean you will forever struggle with your addiction/disorder. You can undoubtedly have complete recovery in whatever you struggle with, but there will always be something you struggle with. A lot of times, when you get better in one area, another area gets worse. For me, it's fear. As food has gotten easier, fear has gotten worse. So you see, it's another thing I have to fight. 

We will always have to fight and struggle in this life because Satan doesn't want us freed up to be who God wants us to be. But you absolutely can recover from whatever you battle against. Just know you will eventually struggle with other things, no matter how big or small. It's just because we are humans and live in a fallen world. But that's okay because we are all moving further and upward on our road to recovery. It is an Everlasting road to Recovery … but even on that road … you can find Everlasting Recovery. 

Do you see how it combines both and creates an entirely new recovery? I sure hope so. I know this is deep and may be hard to follow. But if you can understand this and accept it, it will help you not strive for a perfect recovery. It helped me understand that I didn't need to be perfect and that I was not starting over every time I messed up but continuing on. It really encouraged me, and I truly hope it encourages you too.

Each road to recovery is unique to each person. There is no same path. So you can't compare. You are on your own unique road specifically designed for you. Don't give up. No matter which path you're on, a new one is ahead, and you can absolutely find your Everlasting Recovery on your Everlasting road to Recovery. 

~ Natalie