When you’ve struggled with an eating disorder, particularly when other people have been aware of it, you can feel like it’s intrinsically a part of who you are.

This can be one of the biggest stumbling blocks in recovery for people. Letting go of something you perceive to be innately you, a part of your very core, feels alien and terrifying and impossible. For me, this was incredibly challenging, and a lot of work in therapy and internally helped me to overcome this hurdle. There were lots of ways I started rediscovering myself, some of which I hope might help you too.

Socialising and building relationships
Although I’ve always been lucky enough to have a wide social circle, I did find that I was isolating myself more and more as I deteriorated. It was also increasingly difficult to participate in things because a) I was exhausted and b) so much of what we do centres around food and drink. Starting to allow myself to be part of different social experiences again helped me to reconnect to the people I love, which in turn helped me reconnect to myself.

Hobbies
It’s really hard to engage in meaningful activity when you’re unwell. The worse things got, the more difficult I found it to do anything that used to bring me joy. As I started recovering, I introduced activities I used to enjoy back into my life such as arts and crafts, horse riding and journaling. I also disengaged from things that looked like hobbies but were driven by my eating disorder, such as long walks, going to the gym and watching cooking shows.

Learning
While I was in treatment and not able to be part of any formal education, I did some short online courses. Some of these were unrelated to my eating disorder, such as one around feminism and social justice, and others were related, such as body image work. When I was more well, I went back into formal education by applying to university. As my brain and body were both working better, I remembered that I am someone who loves to learn. I need to stimulate my brain and feel like I am developing myself. Although it was challenging doing a formal qualification while still relatively new into recovery, it helped give me something else to focus on and distract me from anorexic thoughts.

Career
My career is a huge part of my identity and something I pride myself on and have worked very hard for. Settling back into work and putting my professional hat on was useful in adding another element back into my life. I also started thinking about progression and what I’d like to do next, which led to my university course and subsequent promotion. I have always been ambitious and proud of my profession, and going back to it helped me remember that there is more to me than just being a patient.

Values
I did some work around values in therapy. This helped me to not only identify what was important to me, but helped me reflect on ways I wasn’t living by or incorporating those values into my life. The main take home for me, from doing this work, was that I could not simultaneously live alongside my values and have anorexia. It was impossible for those two things to coexist. That was a real turning point for me in deciding it was time to let it go.

Social media detox
I unfollowed a lot of accounts related to eating disorders, especially those who were not in active recovery or made me feel bad about myself. Although my social media does have a heavy focus on this topic, curating my feed so that it included art and cats and positivity meant that I wasn’t faced with eating disorder talk every time I opened my phone.

Focusing on my appearance
I don’t mean this in the sense of focusing on my body, which I was obviously trying to actively move away from, but in the things that make me feel more ‘me’. Making sure my hair was freshly coloured, painting my nails, buying new colourful clothes that fit me and made me feel good about myself.

If you have any other strategies that have helped you to reconnect to your old self or discover your new self, I’d love to hear them.