The Race To Recovery
Struggles in Early Eating Disorder Recovery
Artwork created by Cayla Bacon during recovery, expressing what words cannot.
At Set Apart Counseling, many people reach out after spending a long time searching for answers. Searching for reassurance. Searching for a way to understand what is happening in their body and mind. Searching for something that promises clarity or a sense of control. In the context of eating disorder recovery, that search is often fueled by an overwhelming amount of advice that suggests healing can be unlocked if you just find the right approach.
What is frequently missing from those messages is honesty. Recovery does not follow a formula. It does not move forward in clean steps or respond predictably to effort. It is personal, uneven, and often disorienting. While education and support matter deeply, there is no shortcut that removes the emotional, physical, and relational weight of recovery work.
This is why it is important to make space for writing like this from Cayla Bacon, Eating Disorder Recovery Coach with Set Apart Counseling. Cayla works remotely with individuals navigating disordered eating recovery. Her words reflect what many people struggle to articulate: the loss of familiar coping mechanisms, the quiet grief that can come with change, and the uncertainty that surfaces when external reassurance fades.
As Erin at Sanford Behavioral Health recently shared:
“Recovery from an eating disorder is not a destination you arrive at or a final box you check. It is an ongoing relationship with balance, self-awareness, and compassion. Rather than striving for perfection, recovery invites us to practice flexibility, to respond to life’s changes with curiosity instead of control, and to return to supportive coping skills again and again. Progress does not move in a straight line. There are moments of ease and moments of challenge, steps forward and steps that feel like pauses. Each experience becomes part of the learning process, not a failure. Recovery is a continual walk, one where growth happens through persistence, grace, and the willingness to keep choosing yourself, even on the hard days.”
That perspective reflects much of what Cayla expresses below. What follows is not a roadmap or a formula, it is a reflection on what recovery can actually feel like when lived in real time.
When Recovery Doesn’t Come With Instructions
“How to Ace Your Job Interview and Skip the Anxiety!” This was the title of an Instagram Reel that graced my algorithm this week. There are millions of these Reels out there; how to find the best restaurants on vacation, how to negotiate your salary in an interview, how to find coupons for any store while online shopping. Often, clients come searching for these “how-tos” in disordered eating recovery.
“How do I stop hating my body?”
“How do I stop comparing?”
“How do I stop?”
There’s no “how to” Reel for recovery. There’s no coupon code or cheat sheet. It’s swerved and sticky, giggly and grief-filled. It’s real (see what I did there?). I had to ask, in this searching for “how-tos,” what we are really searching for. These blueprints give us a sense of control, a false assurance of simplicity in recovery. They give us a temporary place to belong. A name to tell us we are finally doing what is “right.”
When External Reassurance Goes Quiet
Frequently, recovery feels like we are doing everything and have nothing but struggle to show for it. There are no more “wow, you’ve lost weight!” comments or praises for the seemingly ultra-devoted gym-goer hiding behind compulsion. The external reassurance goes quiet, offline, and dark, leaving the recoverer disconnected and vulnerable to the familiar voice of Ed (a popular term for disordered eating thoughts and urges experienced by disordered eating individuals). Here is where defining the self—and the home it lives in—matters most.
A Reflection From Early Recovery
A suitcase packed by Cayla Bacon during early recovery, a reminder of what we choose to carry and what we learn to leave behind.
In this realization, I was reminded of a writing I penned in my first week as a client in intensive care for disordered eating:
“I like myself best in the quiet of my arrival. Where I come to meet my name and give just who I am. But when a road wears from your feet, you start to change your shoes, and a heel too high to hop in suddenly becomes your soul.
I was allowed one suitcase, well, two, but I figured they’d like me more had I reduced myself to one. There isn’t room for extra shoes in a single suitcase shell. And I’ve freely walked these roads, the rubber squeaking silly. Never wishing for another pair, but imagining the ground pressing against my feet, our soles tied tight together.
Perhaps when I return to the pothole drive I know, there will be a fast foreboding of the other pairs persistent. Or maybe, in a world more delightful, they would find my feet just right, and the road my path to forge.“
The Urge to Predict, Plan, and Stay Still
In recovery, many will find themselves looking for the perfect path to take, carefully planning their next step, inspecting the ground for solidity before they move.
“What if I gain weight?”
“What if I start crying and never stop?”
“I just want to know why I am having this urge, then I could stop it.”
If vigilant enough in this endeavor, you could stay right there, forever searching. This might sound familiar if you’ve found yourself trying to perpetually predict triggers, plan for hardships, or fight hypothetical battles as your head hits the pillow. While being proactive is beneficial, it can turn into avoidance if it is never met with present action; processing emotions and navigating difficult situations with imperfect coping skills.
Whether in recovery or paralyzed by uncertainty, this is my whisper: You don’t need to squeeze into shoes that don’t fit, and it’s okay if you don’t want a new pair. Find the road you’re after, then find your footing. You’ll get there, if you’re brave enough to move.
Why Recovery Resists Timelines
In light of Eating Disorder Awareness Month, let this blog be a reminder that recovery is deeply personal, individualized, and hard. I tried to think of a better word than that, hard, but it simply is. It is hard! Trying to tailor it to a “how to” or leaving success up to external reassurance is reductionistic of the taxing mental, physical, and emotional feat clients face in disordered eating recovery.
I cannot count how many times I have been asked about a timeline for recovery, how long the symptoms will last, how long the Ed voice sticks around. We are always looking for a finish line, how to get there quicker, and beating ourselves up along the way for not arriving in the morning.
Letting Go of the Finish Line
As a last note on this race, I will leave you with a metaphor I often share with clients:
“Beating” an eating disorder is not like winning a boxing match, where you can see the punches hurled your way and watch the clock count down to push you longer. It is not like the marathon runner who breaks at mile 18 but knows on the 22nd they’ll find their second wind.
Beating an eating disorder is like drowning. It is like the boy in the mountains who fell below the ice, only to be found two hours later and revived. By all accounts, you die.
You lose the world for a moment and forget what it feels like to breathe. Everything goes dark, and you know the trench’s skin. And when there’s nowhere left to fall, you have two choices: To lose yourself clinging on to the world you’ve always known, or accept the peace that is death’s child.
When you finally give up your longing, when you have the strength to let go, it breaks you. Your body floats away with the sharks. Your hands will reach and scramble if you do not tie them tight, and you’ll wait there, under the waters, until you’re ready to be found.
This is your charge: to keep the dying. To make your breath forgotten. Though you’ll feel it fleeing from you, you’ll be dark through your discovery. It isn’t until that first taste of air rushes through your nose that you know you are alive again.
But it’s not the air that saved you. It was the waters cold, holding you there, that delivered you to be known again.
So keep the cold.
Keep the ties.
Keep the trying.
