Recovery is a stretch

I think so many times, how far recovery has caused me to stretch and to grow... and "become".

It is not a coincidence that for many of us WHO HAVE recovered the quote "And the day came when the risk to remain in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to bloom" resonates deeply within us.

Because we remember that suffering was great and was a daily risk that we took with our bodies, but that staying there was a kind of safety zone, because it did not requiring risking being honest with our selves and others. It did not require us to challenge firmly held (irrational but still believed) beliefs. And it allowed us to live in quiet holes sheltered from certain pains and outside influences. Our eating disorder was our protector somehow from the outside world. And we remember that day when we said- "enough". The risk staying here, is greater than the risk of moving out of here.

But the stretch it takes to recover, to "become real" is so great, and it is so much work. I am so proud of my friends who keep fighting, who keep growing. I see how much time it takes to make the whole trip, to peel off the layers of the ED, to keep plunging deep inside yourself to face the fears you pretend aren't there and to liberate your true self, to keep developing the parts of yourself that are immature and undeveloped. And I am proud. I am proud of you, and I am proud of me.

And we can never stop stretching.