In eating disorder recovery, you might notice you’re taking two steps forward and one step back.

This is often very normal and recovery is rarely a straight line. However, if you notice things feel like they’re going more backwards than forwards, these might be some of the red flags to look out for.

Reassurance seeking
This could be either seeking reassurance from others that you’re still sick, or asking for confirmation that you’re making the right recovery decisions. Eventually, you need to start moving away from the ‘sick’ identity, and trust yourself that you’re making positive choices. Deep down, it’s likely you know what the right steps are, but constantly needing others to validate those steps will only keep you stuck in the long term.

Putting recovery off
Delaying recovery by saying “I’ll start tomorrow/next week/in a months time” will likely keep you stuck. Recovery is so scary, I get it, but you have to make the leap one day. It won’t just happen to you, you have to be the one taking the step to make change.

Not being able to cope with change
Eating disorders can cause people to be so rigid, and struggling to manage change can be a big part of that. If you notice that you’re not able to cope with routine changes, or that you’re finding spontaneity more difficult than you were, it might be that you’re starting to slip back into unhealthy thinking patterns. You can challenge this by adding variety into your routine – eventually it will feel less scary.

Needing to still be ‘healthy’
Recovering with the caveat that you’ll still only eat certain ‘healthy’ foods or exercising a particular amount isn’t true recovery, and in the long run isn’t compatible with an eating disorder free life. It’s likely that still imposing these rules on yourself will cause your life to remain rigid, which isn’t a nice way to live in the long term, even if it feels safer at the time.

Only weight restoring to the minimum amount
Most people’s bodies are not designed to sit at a BMI of 18.5-20. That can be a really hard fact to come to terms with, especially when society and often eating disorder services tell us that we are ‘healthy’ when we reach that point. BMI is an outdated and poorly constructed measure of health, and letting go of that number can be one of the best things you can do for your recovery. Micromanaging your weight will hinder your recovery – if you’re restricting to maintain it, it’s not a healthy weight for you.

Trying to hold on to a little bit of your eating disorder
In therapy I told him that I wanted to keep 20% of my eating disorder because the idea of letting it go completely was too scary. This discussion resulted in me realising that in recovery I had always hung on to 20% of it, and I will always remember him reflecting that as long as I held on to that 20%, the chances of it taking over 100% again were very high. Only now that I’ve let myself reduce that number further do I realise how correct he was. If you give it an inch, it’s likely that at some point down the line, it will take a mile.

Only recovering in public
If you’re recovery is performative, you’re not truly recovering. If you’re eating well in front of others but restricting/bingeing/purging etc in private, your eating disorder still has a strong hold over you.

Only eating if you’ve ‘earned’ it
If you still have the mindset that you need to ‘earn’ your food to justify it, this is a sign that your eating disorder is still very much in control. You deserve to eat unconditionally, no matter how much you weigh, what you ate yesterday, how much you’ve moved or anything else.

It’s really, really hard (maybe impossible) to tackle all these things at once, and some of them might cling on for a long time. Don’t beat yourself up if some areas feel harder to change than others. Recovery isn’t a race and some people find some changes easier to make than others do. The most important thing is to acknowledge areas that your eating disorder still has its claws in, because that’s the first step to challenging them.

Keep going and don’t give up!