An eating disorder is a sneaky thing that’s always trying to kill you. We forget that fact easily and to our peril as we travel down recovery road. But time passes and memories fade. Emotions, once hot, mellow, and the dramatic resolutions of early sobriety seem over-the-top with the passage of time.
Were things truly that bad? Is eternal vigilance really the price of liberty?
Kind of. Yes.
It’s the pickle line problem. You can turn a cucumber into a pickle easily enough, but unpickling is impossible unless your first and last names are God. Some roads go one way. I can live a sober, abstinent, “in recovery from my eating disorder” life, but I will never be like someone who was never afflicted.
It’s tempting and dangerous to forget that fact.
From Hope Whispers: “Somewhere along the way I dropped my guard, stopped being vigilant to my triggers. As I changed my label from being “in recovery” to “recovered”, I allowed myself to become complacent. I quit viewing the eating disorder as the serious illness that nearly claimed my life and saw it as more of an old friend I’d lost touch with. No longer in the picture, no longer dangerous or deadly. Something I could even be nostalgic about.”
The pickle line problem—I like that. It fits well.
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I never question how bad addiction truly was and I doubt you do either. Going back to it despite all that for whatever reason is another pickled pike to fry. 🐟
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I’ve never had pike. Though I did enjoy the band, “The Northern Pikes.” 😉
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I’m glad you recognize the pickle. Not everyone does.
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