Setting Yourself Up for Success: Starting a Recovery-Centered Semester

Get your Game Face on

Maintaining Eating Disorder recovery is a herculean effort all on its own, on the best of days. Doing it while taking college classes or attending graduate school? That’s a whole different ballgame. Trust me. I know from experience. The steps below are how I have set myself up for a healthy, happy, and successful last semester of Grad School.

Take a look at where you’ve been

My track record for being in school and staying healthy is historically, well…not so hot.  I have ended up in inpatient ED treatment both times I have attempted to complete my grad school program.  What’s the solution to this, you ask?  Just don’t go back to school, then you’ll be fine!  If only it were that straight forward.  And I really want to finish my degree. 

I love school and learning and practicing my instrument and being around people with similar passions.  If “talking music” is a love language, it’s mine for sure.  I love the academic atmosphere, researching, creating, and honestly, the buzz of excitement and nerves that happen during finals and jury times and especially the huge sign of relief when the semester is over. 

So why does something I love so much have such an unfortunate tendency to send me to the hospital?  Well, it’s been important for me to realize that correlation does not equal causation. Yes, I love school and I really, really love learning.  But I now also know that my inborn, natural tendency to be an off-the-charts Type A Perfectionist Overachiever, and my erroneous limiting belief that my worth as a human was directly correlated to My Success In Life And Ability To Maintain An Extended High Rate Of Productivity And Achieve All The Things Perfectly can sort of get in the way of enjoying the learning.  Basically, while the academic setting can be challenging, and grad school is notoriously brutal on its best day, when I put myself and All Of My Old Beliefs into that setting – BOOM.  Explosion of tears, I’m-Not-Enough-ness, panic attacks, and eventually, restricting and over-exercising.

know your Eating Disorder functions

I’ve discovered that one of the functions of my eating disorder has been to create a buffer between my perceived worth of myself and my performance in life (i.e., inevitable failure, since perfection is impossible).  I feel the need to do All The Things Perfectly, but I know that’s not actually possible.  Somewhere inside me, I feel the need to make up for this lack of perfection because of the extreme anxiety that it causes me.  My particular brain with its particular “complexities” latched onto the idea that being small was a good back-up plan.  It’s like thinking “If I can’t actually be perfect, I’ll just get as close as I can, and then being thin will give me enough ‘bonus points’ to make up for the gap.” Culturally, I see the connection.  Logically, not so much. 

When my Do All The Things kicks in, it’s not just at school.  I turn into super-wife and super-homemaker and the house is intricately organized, I have dinner on the table every night, even my drawers are more organized than they ever should be (big thanks to Marie Kondo for fueling this fire, lol). It seeps into every area of my life and I whip myself into a frenzy of perfection and starving to make up for “perfection gaps” and I get more anxious, overwhelmed, overworked, and then, inevitably, completely burnt out.  Then comes the “well, fuck it” stage where I am so tired and anxious that I give up everything else and zero in on making the number on the scale get as small as possible as fast as possible.  Effective, right?

So, now, knowing all of this and with school starting this week, what am I planning to do to set myself up for success?  I’m glad you asked!

Know your patterns

I am pretty aware of how my patterns weave into the knitting of my eating disorder at this point.  If you’re not sure, how can you find out?  Look back at times that you really struggled in your recovery (if you don’t have an ED, what other coping mechanisms do you use?  Zoning out?  Watching too much tv?  Shopping?  Drinking?  Overworking?  “Eating Healthy”?  Everybody’s got one, I promise.). What sort of events happened in the weeks or months prior to this?  What were you feeling or thinking?  What beliefs do you have that likely triggered the compensation efforts of your Coping Method of Choice?

Stay Aware of Your Thoughts and Emotions

This is a biggie for me.  If I am not consciously aware of the flurry of thoughts buzzing around in my head all the time, they tend to slip back into old patterns pretty quickly.  Knowing your “red flag thoughts” is key.  For me, if I hear myself thinking “ugh, I’m so fat” or “dang it, I’m never going to get all this done” or any version of “I don’t want to do ___ because I’m afraid of what they will think of me,” that’s my cue to jump in and change the trajectory.  This is where the Renfrew term of “reappraising” your thoughts is helpful.  Take what you’re thinking and turn it.  “I’m so fat” can become “I am not in the same body I used to be, but I am ok.”  “I’m never going to get all this done” turns to “I can choose how I want to spend my time and be in alignment with MY priorities, not anyone else’s.”  See?  It does take legitimate, purposeful energy to do this, but it’s HUGE, people.  Try it.  Write yourself a list of your “red flag thoughts” and practice turning them now, before they pop up.  That way, you’ll be ready when they do.

Know your non-negotiables

One of the things that has been really helpful to me lately is a quote by Rachel Hollis that reads “When everything is important, nothing is important.”  This sat heavy with me for a while.  For someone who routinely has multi-page, bulleted and itemized, often color-coded to-do lists, this hit home.  If I’m trying to do All The Things Perfectly, I’m likely actually doing None of The Things Well running myself ragged in the process.  So, I sat myself down and I wrote out a list of What I Protect At All Cost.  What are your non-negotiables?  What do you know you need to do to have a healthy, happy existence?  If you protect and honor yourself with doing things first and foremost, there will be time and space and energy to do the other life things.  If stuff doesn’t get done?  Maybe it wasn’t really that important, anyway.

List Your Priorities

I don’t mean just have an idea of things in your head that are important.  I mean, get out a piece of paper and write them down, in order of importance.  Really think about it and decide how YOU will choose to spend your time and which things will get your focus.  I wrote mine out on an index card and it’s sitting on my desk, all the time, as a reminder that I alone get to choose how to spend my time.  And YOU ALONE get to choose how you spend yours.  Need an example?  Here are the first three on my list:

1. Food/hydration
2. Sleep
3. Therapist/doctor appointments

These come first, no matter what.  I know these are vital to my staying where I am and continuing to get into stronger, happier, healthier places.  Non-negotiable.  What are your priorities this semester? Write them down and keep them where you can see them.

Know Your Values

While values may sound similar to priorities, and they are, they are also a little different.  Whereas your priorities dictate your day to day activities, your values are the areas of overarching importance in your life.  By doing a lot of values work over the last couple of years through Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT), I’ve learned that there are a few key elements in life that are very important to me.  My core values are Connection to family and friends, Gratitude, Laughter, Learning, Nature, and Play.  When I know that these things are the elements of true joy in my life, I can set myself up in a way that leads me towards them. 

My priorities are how I set up individual days, help me achieve them.  I know I can’t truly be connected with the people that matter if I’m hungry or foggy from dehydration, so I need to prioritize nutrition and hydration.  Perhaps I need to study, but what if I did it in a place where I could sit outside and feel the breeze and sunshine?  Being goofy and silly is a huge part of my personality, and I LOVE to laugh.  Knowing this, scheduling a time to get coffee with a friend to sit and talk and laugh is just as vitally important to me as anything else. It’s not “slacking off” or “being lazy.”  It’s feeding my soul with the things that matter most. 

I know that every single choice that I make can lead me closer to or further from my values, and I feel empowered to take good care of myself and give myself what I need to truly thrive.

Want to find out what your priorities are? Find a list here.

Have A Plan Just In Case

Part of the devastatingly complex nature of eating disorders is that they’re always changing.  The ED that I had as a child is not the same one that I have as an adult.  Just as I grow and learn and change, so does the insidious ED.  There is no doubt in my mind that I have come a long way in the last two years.  As weird as it may sound, I am so infinitely grateful that I’ve been where I have because of the immense growth I’ve gained as a result.  I would not trade the last few years of pain and sadness because of where I am now because of it.  Maybe I wish I could have learned these things another way, but that’s not how it worked.  I am grateful for where I am.

That being said, do I know for sure that I’ll never find myself in a restrict/exercise cycle again that I might need help breaking?  Of course not.  Growth is a life-long process.  We always are exactly where we are and know what we know right now.  We do the best with what we have.  If I ever find myself doing my best with what I have and still struggling to take care of myself, I know I have people who have my back.  They have been with me through all of this, and I do not doubt for a second that they will jump back in with me again should I need it.  My core supports include my family and friends and some kick-ass professionals who have been with me every step of the way.

Be realistic about set-backs

I also know that when I get sucked into the ED, it happens fast.  It’s not a slow process for me.  I go from feeling ok and eating ok to raging anxiety and not eating at all.  I also stop drinking, which is a particular challenge for me.  My body responds quickly, too.  I am not one of those people who will lose vast amounts of weight before my body decides to give up the goat.  Much to my ED-mind’s dismay, I start feeling medical complications pretty quickly.  Knowing this, it is SO important for me to catch things quickly, before the shit storm really picks up speed. 

If I notice any of my “red flags” popping up, I know how to reach out for assistance.  The trick here, though, is that I know that once I find myself in that place, I won’t want to stop because losing weight feels good.  We are culturally programmed to see weight loss as a positive thing.  I have to plan ahead to raise the white flag early if something goes wrong.  It will not be a failure if it does.  All it will mean is that my ED has morphed into something that my current coping skills cannot outsmart and that I’ll need to learn and grow some more to tackle it.  I want to see struggle as an opportunity for more growth.  If that’s not giving yourself grace, I don’t know what is.  And you guys, it feels so, so good. 

Only You Are In Charge of You

Can you see this as empowering?  Does it feel comforting?  Maybe right now it still feels scary, to know that your life is genuinely yours to live, and while we can and should have help and support, in the end, our choices are ours alone.  I can empathize with that.  I feel that way sometimes, too. 

Don’t take on the whole world at one time.  Just a little is fine for now.  What can you do today though, to set yourself up for success?  Share in the comments below or reach out to me on social media. 

Need some help finding helpful resources? Check out my suggestions or look for professionals on the NEDA website.

Love and light, my friends.