I now believe there were certain factors that came together in such a way as to ultimately enable me to make and continue making that choice. No one’s triple point of recovery is going to look the same. Some may have a double point or a quadruple point. We’re extending beyond scientific terms with these, but eating disorder recovery isn’t formulaic like chemistry. I’ve mapped my recovery with a triple point, and although it by no means provides a definitive explanation, it provides a foundation, some scaffolding, for my own understanding of how I recovered.
Why would I want to understand? Why would I desire to continue to reflect on that difficult period of my life? Because I want to be prepared for conversations, when they happen, about my recovery. If someone asks me how I healed from a disease that almost killed me, I don’t want to give a nonanswer. I’ve been tempted before to say that I simply left my eating disorder behind and moved on to more important things, as if it were an easy break-up. Or to brush off the question, saying it just happened, it’s over, and I don’t like talking about it. The painful memories of the years I spent starved of energy, of life, are something I have until recently wanted to keep buried as a thing of the past. What I’ve missed about this, though, is how I am simultaneously burying the opportunity to help those who may be caught in the same cold grip of an eating disorder that I was able to escape.
