NEDA Week 2022 - my humble thoughts

I had no idea what NEDA week was until I was in treatment. By random chance, I was in treatment during NEDA week 2019. My treatment center decided to make it a sort of spirit week. We had different themes for the days. I remember one day was decades day, one day was purple day, etc. Friday was challenge day. We had to do something to challenge ourselves. I think my challenge was actually getting ready that morning, dressing in something other than baggy sweatpants, doing a skincare routine, all that jazz.

I think that it was cool my center did that because at the time I was a lonely sixteen-year-old desperately missing high school. I think everyone else I was in treatment hated it because they were all adults. As a semi-adult now I get why they hated it. My treatment center accepted patients of all ages, which is a good thing. But I always hated being the youngest person there.

NEDA Week can be really hard. I think that I feel a sort of pressure to be at a good spot in my recovery when it comes this week. And I am at a pretty good spot. But I feel like I need to perfect when it's NEDA Week. I have to step back and remind myself it's ok. I'm ok.

I haven't written on this blog in a while. And I haven't posted on the Instagram account either. I love doing this, but sometimes I feel like if I don't write about my ED recovery, I'm not in it. I'm just a 'normal' girl without the issues, but I know it's not true. I keep thinking back to my time in treatment when I was that lonely little sixteen-year-old. I wonder if she would be proud of me, or if she would be disappointed.

Specifically, I keep thinking about that NEDA Week. I remember that after my treatment ended I would leave to go to play practice at my brother high school (I went to an all-girls high school and we had a brother school that we did theater with). We were doing West Side Story and I was doing some ensemble role. I was so happy I was still able to do theater even though I didn't like it that much because it was the one source of stability in my life at the time.

Now, my life is very stable. I have a good family, a good boyfriend, a good if somewhat small group of friends, and I'm doing really well in my recovery process. I have a strong support network. But I still feel like I need to do better during NEDA Week because it's now been three years since that treatment. I feel like I need to get rid of those thoughts I still sometimes get about my food and body. Then I remember where I was that first NEDA Week (not actually the first one, just the first one I knew of).

Something I keep struggling with is feeling like I'm faking this whole recovery thing sometimes. I know I shouldn't feel like that, that I am doing better. I really am. But it feels like I'm just pretending. I tried to explain this to a friend once and she said it sounded like imposter syndrome. But I think I'm just disappointed that even though I get those bad thoughts less and less, and even though I haven't acted on them in a really long time, I still get those thoughts. Sure I don't have my head screaming at me to purge and I don't feel so empty I just want to fill my body with food and I don't force myself to be full even though I'm not.

But sometimes I have days where I'm just not hungry at all, and I force myself to eat three meals. Sometimes I have days where I'm so hungry that I have to stop myself from just eating all day. Sometimes, alright a lot of times, I look in the mirror and I don't like the way my body looks. I've been practicing body neutrality. I really have. But it is so hard sometimes to make peace with the way I look.

And sometimes, when it's National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, I feel like I should be better. But those are just my own humble thoughts. I do think NEDA Week is extremely important and needs to have all the publicity it can possibly have. I want people to know about it before they by random chance end up in ED treatment in February.

My main point to say: it's alright if NEDA Week is hard for you. It's also ok if it's easy. Whatever you feel is valid. Stay strong and remember you are not alone.