does the eating disorder voice ever go away? | recovered-ish with chloe cox

Episode Description

One of the most common questions I get — from clients, from Instagram, from people deep in the trenches of recovery — is this: does the eating disorder voice ever actually go away?

In this episode, I get honest about my own experience with the ED voice: what it sounded like at its worst, how it shifted through different stages of recovery, and where it lives now (spoiler: it's a lot more like an intrusive thought about tap dancing in a grocery store than a voice running my life).

This isn't a tidy yes-or-no answer, because recovery isn't tidy. But it is a real one — and one I don't think the internet talks about honestly enough.

In This Episode:

• What the eating disorder voice actually is — and why it can feel like a separate voice in your head (and no, that doesn't mean you're "crazy")
• The difference between ego syntonic and ego dystonic thinking, and why that shift matters in recovery
• My personal experience with the ED voice from its loudest point to where it lives now
• Why the voice often gets louder when you start recovering — and what that actually means
• The beach ball analogy: why trying to "shut up" the ED voice often backfires
• What actually moves the needle: building your own voice, not silencing theirs
• The near-relapse I've talked about before — and why it happened even without a constantly active voice
• Why "if I can't fully recover, why even try?" is one of the most dangerous traps in recovery
• Practical tools for when the voice feels all-consuming

Timestamps:

0:44 Intro & life update 3:22 Episode topic intro: the eating disorder voice question 7:19 What is the "eating disorder voice"? 10:56 Who asks this & why 13:39 My personal experience: the voice at its worst 14:38 Do I still have disordered thoughts? My honest answer 20:42 How I got to where I am today 28:06 The beach ball metaphor: giving the voice less space 32:24 My answer: yes and no 36:54 Practical tips if the voice is all-consuming 40:03 Outro

Practical Tools Mentioned:

• Name the voice: learn to label thoughts as "eating disorder thoughts" without immediately fighting them
• Hear it, don't obey it: practice acknowledging the ED voice and giving yourself permission to have a different opinion — even if you don't know what that is yet
• Identify the feeling underneath: fear, panic, sadness — and ask what you need that isn't an eating disorder behavior
• The "noise" technique: when all else fails, just say it out loud — noise, noise, noise

Quotes from This Episode:

"The goal maybe isn't to stop having an eating disorder voice entirely. Maybe the goal is to stop having it rule your life."

"It stopped being just about the eating disorder. I started writing more about meeting new people and discovering new parts of me."

"Even if your life can be 50% better than it is right now — that is so worth it compared to the 100% hell that is living with an eating disorder."

Keywords/Tags: eating disorder recovery, eating disorder voice, ED voice, does the eating disorder voice go away, quasi-recovery, restrictive eating disorder, disordered eating, food guilt, recovery mindset, anorexia recovery, bulimia recovery, Recovered-ish podcast, Chloe Cox, recovered-ish, eating disorder therapist, eating di

Resources + Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @recoverwithchloe
• Recovery Skills Training: use code PODCAST for $57 off!
• Leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
• Subscribe on YouTube! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Do I still have disordered thoughts? I have a different answer to that. And I'll be so real with you. And I want to be real with you because I don't think that people are always real about this online. They'll start talking about their eating disorder and describe it as like this voice that they have in their mind that's telling them to do things, that's giving them instructions, that has these sets of rules, and then they'll really be super concerned and say, like, does this mean that I am crazy? Oh my gosh, why am I sharing this? This is embarrassing. I'll be in the middle of the grocery store and I'll think, what would happen if I just like burst into song and did a tap dance? What would people do? You're listening to the Recovered-Isch podcast. I'm your host, Chloe Cox. And yeah, I know a thing or two about eating disorder recovery. Between my own very complicated history with disordered eating and the work I do now, I've seen this thing from pretty much every angle. This podcast is where we talk about the messier parts of recovery that don't really make it online. No platitudes, no inspirational quotes, just the real, raw, sometimes frustrating, sometimes surprisingly liberating process of building a life beyond your eating disorder. Let's get into it. Hello and welcome back to the Recovered Ish Podcast. My name is Chloe. Thanks, as always, for being here. I have to say, this week feels so much better. At the top of the episode, I feel like I always give you all like a little bit of a life update. And I know last week my life update was a bit extensive. This week everything is so much better. I'm feeling much more like myself. The week has been more structured and consistent. My husband is home. The sun is shining, and it's not like 90 degrees, which it's been, it's like 75. So we're feeling good. I'm really impacted mood-wise by the weather, and I'm also very impacted by temperature. I run in extremes where if it's cold, I feel extremely cold. But if it's hot, then I'm like extremely overheated. And then I get super irritable either way when temperature is in the extremities. So I'm happy when it's 70 and sunny with a light breeze. No one asked for my weather preference, but here we are talking about it. Last week was kind of a heavy episode, I have to say. And it's probably because my energy was also very heavy last week. It was a bit of a tough reality check about what it truly, truly takes to recover. But I hope that instead of leaving you feeling hopeless, it instilled an idea of what is real when it comes to tackling recovery, what to actually expect. And I hope it helps you to have some more compassion for yourself when the road feels long and never-ending. It's not because you're doing anything wrong. That really was the goal of the episode was like, this is the skill that really matters for long-term recovery that makes the most difference. And you can, you can develop it, but it's hard. And recovery takes a long time and it's just exhausting. That being said, last week was a bit on the emotionally heavy side. This week is more of a thinker answering a question that I get a lot, actually, not just from people on Instagram, but from my clients too. Actually, the entire idea of this question is woven into the fabric of what this podcast was founded on, which is the idea of recovery kind of existing on this spectrum, where we hear spoken so much about in the binary. I know when I was in treatment, there was this idea of being in your active eating disorder, being in recovery, and the being recovered, period. End of story. And the idea that recovery, full recovery, is possible. That was so linked to this idea of finality. You're going to reach a day where recovery is complete and you no longer have an eating disorder and it's just gone forever and you're free, which sounds amazing. And I think is, you know, at risk of repeating everything I said in episode one, I do think that's possible. And also I think it looks different for everyone. It's a spectrum, as I said. But this question is a specific one and asks us to look at a very specific part of what it means to be recovered. On the outside, and especially in medical spaces, people think about eating disorder recovery in a f in a very physical sense, like you are weight restored, or you are eating adequately and a variety of foods, or you are no longer engaging in compensatory behaviors. Like essentially, a lot of recovery is defined behaviorally. So you might go through like the checklist and the DSM 5 and realize, oh, okay, I do not meet the criteria for all of these things anymore. So I don't have this eating disorder technically. What it ignores, and I know you all know this so well, is the whole part about an eating disorder not just existing in the way that we act, but also in the way that we think and feel. So much of an eating disorder is completely mental and silent in that way. When I first started therapy, that's when I kind of first started giving that was when I first had the language to differentiate myself from the part of me that was the eating disorder. Previously, you know, when you're really deeply in the eating disorder and don't super see a problem with it, you kind of think, I agree with all of these actions. The restriction, the the rules, the rituals, they all feel like things that are what's called ego syntonic, which means that the way that you're acting, your behaviors all align with your values and who you are as a person. So you think that really when you're in the disorder, else you don't, you wouldn't really continue, truly, at the beginning, at least, if you felt like what you were doing was so counter to what you believed in. I know for many of us it starts with a well-intentioned goal to be healthy. And so you're taking these actions in the pursuit of improving yourself. And that feels very ego syntonic. You're kind of in agreement with your disorder. So at that point, you're truly enmeshed with it. You and the disorder are one. And when I first recognized that it was a problem, that's when the switch started happening from ego syntonic to egodystonic, which, as you can probably infer, means that now I was starting to see my behaviors as something that was unwanted in my life, something I wished could disappear and I didn't have to think or feel or act on. And this wavered day to day. Some days I was more aligned to the disorder, other days I was feeling like it was a problem I needed to get rid of. But when I started making that shift, and especially when I started therapy, that's when I first heard the idea of an eating disorder voice. And I'll have clients come to me in session and they'll say, they'll start talking about their eating disorder and describe it as like this voice that they have in their mind that's telling them to do things, that's giving them instructions, that has these sets of rules. And then they'll really be super concerned and say, like, does this mean that I am crazy? And that's kind of the term that they'll use. Does this mean that I have psychosis? And I get why you might feel that way at first, because sometimes it kind of does present itself that way, where it feels like there is this nagging internal voice that will not shut up and is ruling my life and is telling me to do things. Now, again, that kind of exists on a spectrum too, where it can get to the point where it feels veering along the lines of something that might be a different clinical issue. But for most of us, not all, but most that are in an eating disorder, we will have a part of us that speaks up and feels like a separate voice. And sometimes we don't hear that at first, right? We we assume that it's our own voice, our own agenda, our own thoughts and feelings. But when I started therapy and started disentangling myself from the disorder, it was so helpful for me to label those thoughts and that thought cycle as the eating disorder, as the eating disorder voice. So if you are newer in the recovery space and you're hearing people talk online about like, oh, my eating disorder said this, or my eating disorder voice this and that, or my eating disorder voice is really loud today, and you're like, what the heck is that? Like, what are you talking about? It's kind of just a way to conceptualize the ways that the eating disorder influences our thoughts, our emotions, and behaviors in ways that are automatic and when you're trying to recover, really unwanted. I found that so helpful to be able to say, all right, when these thoughts start coming up, boom, I can at least point my finger and say that's the eating disorder. And even if I'm not able to change it quite yet, I at least know that that's what it is. And positioning myself as separate from the disorder put me in a position that felt a little bit more powerful, like I had a bit more agency to do something different. So, all this is to say the concept of an eating disorder voice is one that I think many of us identify with. That there's this other part of us that we sometimes agree with, we sometimes don't, that holds a great degree of power over our thoughts. But when we really get into the thick of recovery, we are trying our best to get that voice to be quiet and go away and stop having so much power over our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. That ramble is all to explain the question that I always receive, which is will my eating disorder voice ever go away? Or does the eating disorder voice ever stop or disappear? I also get the question, do you still have an eating disorder voice? And I'll be answering all these questions today. First, I want to pause and say when this question comes up, it's usually from one of my clients that is so in the thick of fighting this voice, where the voice is so incessant, it's all the time, it's all consuming, and the battle feels like it's happening 24-7, where the voice is giving those instructions, the eating disorder has very strong opinions, it essentially rules your life at that point. And so usually this question is coming from a place of desperation of like, does this eating disorder voice ever stop? And I think the real question underneath that, the emotion that's driving it, is a sense of will I always have to fight this hard? Will my relationship with food and body always feel this loaded and this charged? At later stages of recovery, when I hear this question from clients, it's more of a sense of the voice has gotten quieter, but is this always just going to exist in the background of my life? I there is a reel that I've mentioned before, one that I think a lot of you have connected with, where I speak about like just how very constant it is to have an eating disorder in your brain where you can be doing other things and talking to other people and working on your homework, or you're like focusing on a project at work. And still there's that thought of I'm sitting in this chair right now, and I just had X for lunch, and I'm planning to do that workout later today. And oh, but this weekend I have X, Y, and Z. Like there's still a sense of that, and you're able to kind of like let it exist in the back of your head, but there's always a running dialogue, like truly, truly incessantly. And people don't understand that it really just doesn't ever stop. I got some comments on that, Reel. That's normal to think about what you had for lunch earlier and plan for the rest of your day. Yeah, to have one of those thoughts, but not for that to be the thought literally all the time, not to be thinking about your body literally all the time, that is not a normal thing. That is you have an eating disorder taking up space in your brain. Anyways, this question tends to bring up is that thing always going to be there? Is that always gonna be just like the soundtrack of my existence? Because you get far enough along in recovery where it becomes quieter, but then it's like, okay, at what point do I never have to hear this ever again? Like, at what point am I actually free from this voice? So, first, I kind of just want to speak to my own experience because that's what I know the best. That's what I've lived through. So, this is this is what's been true for me. When I was deep in my eating disorder, that voice was everything. It was who I who I was. It was the constant, this is what you need to eat. If you eat something different, then you need to do X, Y, and Z to correct it. And this is how many minutes you need to exercise, and this is how many calories you need to burn, and like it was just always that so much, and I really vividly remember how much it was all consuming. And then on top of that, just like the pure disgust and the self-hatred and the the panic, the crying, like it was just it was who I was. Chloe was gone. I was in there screaming to get out, but Chloe was gone. I and if I'm telling you the truth, I remember that, but that version of me feels so distant that it almost feels like a dream. That feels so far away from the way that my life is today, that I actually don't have any emotional connection to it anymore, personally. You've seen on the show sometimes where I talk about certain aspects of recovery or the disorder or just like life, and I get teary and I feel things. When I think about myself and the depths of the disorder and the way that that voice was so loud, it almost feels like it was happening to somebody else because my life looks so not that way. And my internal world is so not that way anymore. So my answer is does the eating disorder voice ever go away? I can't answer it with a yes or a no. That eating disorder voice, the one that haunted me 11 years ago, that voice is gone. The power that that voice held over me is so, so gone. The emotional impact that that voice had on me, that is not here. That is not my present. Do I still have disordered thoughts? I have a different answer to that, and I'll be so real with you. And I want to be real with you because I don't think that people are always real about this online. This is just my experience. But I do still have disordered thoughts. Not every day, not incessantly, not all the time. And this is the important part that I really want you to hear, not in a way that holds power over my life at all. Not in a way that ruins my day or changes the way that I eat or changes my plans, just in the sense that sometimes you think things you wish you didn't think. This is what I can compare it to. I have what I wouldn't call intrusive thoughts because they're not threatening or scary or violent. They're impulsive thoughts. Let's put it that way. Where sometimes I will think things like I'll be in the middle of the grocery store. Oh my gosh, why am I sharing this? This is embarrassing. I'll be in the middle of the grocery store and I'll think, what would happen if I just like burst into song and did a tap dance? What would people do? And I used to have those thoughts in school too. I would think, like, what if I just in the middle of my math class stood on this table right now and like shouted something absurd? And I wouldn't do those things. I would just like ponder them. It would just pop into my brain, be like, that would be so, so wild if I did that. I'm not gonna do that, but it would be wild. On a more serious note, I was dating this guy back in grad school. This is actually a couple months before I met my husband, but I was dating this dude. I really liked him, and he was super cool and he was super rich, and I thought he was all that. And we like started off really strong, and then he stopped responding to my text messages as much, and it just really pissed me off because he would tell me things like this is such a digression. He would just tell me all the things I want to hear, and then I wouldn't hear from him for five days. I knew the code to his house, and so I had this little plan in my brain. He was renting this place as an impermanent home. His company was paying for it, and none of the furniture was his, but there were all these vases everywhere, and I had this thought that you know what? I'm gonna go into his home and smash all these vases because this dude is not treating me right. I did not do that, but it was just a thought that came through my mind, and I didn't really want to, so I didn't do it. I was feeling something, and a thought popped in my brain. And so you're like, how does this have anything to do with eating disorder recovery? I promise it relates. Those types of thoughts, that's the same way I feel about when I have an eating disorder thought in my day-to-day. The same way that I like was feeling a feeling about this dude and then wanted to smash all of his vases, but there's no freaking way I was ever gonna do that. It just popped into my mind automatically. That's kind of the way that these thoughts present now. I'll be like going through my day. Maybe I'll have a tough moment. And this happens because I'm very hard on myself. Where like I will maybe leave a session and feel like, dang, I did not do the clinical work that I really wanted to do, and I feel really bad. And then it's like, uh, I really don't want to eat my lunch right now. A feeling. It never gets further than that. It's like, ugh, we shouldn't have to eat my lunch right now. Whatever, walk into the fridge, like gonna eat my lunch because I am hungry. That's it. It does not go further than that. It's just like, meh. And I'm like, why are you telling me that? You're ridiculous. This will happen not very often at all, but when it comes up, it's like zero distress. I know that I'm just feeling an emotion. I don't even really have to process it. It's just like it's irrelevant. I'm gonna eat my lunch. It's irrelevant, it doesn't bother me. So my answer to the question with these examples would be Did my eating disorder voice go away? Yes, in the sense that it holds literally no power over me at all anymore. It is not menacing, it is not controlling. It's kind of just ridiculous at this point when it comes up. In the same way that it would be ridiculous for me to sing in the middle of the grocery store, and the same way that it would be ridiculous for me to go and smash up that guy's house, things that would never happen, like list like things I'd never do. It's on that list. It's like, ah, crazy brain. Moving on, how I got to that point, because it is a slippery slope as well. As you all know, I was at a point a couple of years ago where I was close to a relapse. And I think if you haven't heard that episode yet, the whole episode's on relapse. I think it was episode four or five or something like that. The reason that happened was not because my eating disorder voice is constantly active. That happened because the emotions I was experiencing at that time, I was not equipped to handle. I did not arm myself with the right support. I was in a uniquely vulnerable position where my body had changed postpartum and that was uncomfortable. I was amidst like a major trauma. So when I had the thoughts, like the eating disorder thoughts that come up that are unwanted and ridiculous, it's like it snuck in at the right time, plus a couple other factors of like being exposed to my weight, et cetera. So many other triggers had to happen for me to hear that voice again and even consider listening it, and even consider listening to it. So, in the spirit of recovery being a Spectrum, that's where I land here is the voice as it once was gone. A voice that comes up sometimes in a completely different way, it is there. What I have to be aware of in my life is that I'm taking care of myself in all ways mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, even. Those are things I need to have in check. And if something starts to shift or go wrong, or life comes up and something else catastrophic occurs, I need to make sure that I can show up for me so that my eating disorder doesn't show up for me again. But in times like these, despite everything feeling like the last couple of weeks kind of chaotic in my life and challenges coming up, I'm in a much better position personally to handle all of that. I have emotional support. I have routines and habits that support my emotional well-being. I'm getting enough sleep. I'm nourishing myself well. All of those things keep me safe in moments that are catastrophic or at least just chaotic or not ideal, where the voice still doesn't shake me. It still registers as ridiculous. Even in moments like last week, where my child was in the hospital and I was eating hospital food and the most random stuff. It didn't matter. I was thinking about other things. It didn't occur to me. I didn't have any eating disorder thoughts that weekend. All my attention was based on surviving the weekend, getting through the moment. And I could do that because I had support. And I could do that because I support myself. And I've set myself up to be in this position where the voice doesn't feel impactful anymore. I don't need it to tell me what to do. It just when it comes up, it's on that ridiculous list of things that won't be happening. But I also want to be real about like just practically how I got to that point because it did not happen overnight. And it didn't happen that just one day I had done enough therapy and got my life together and everything was fine. And then suddenly the voice didn't impact me in the same way. It was such a slow progression, almost imperceptible the way that it shifted. But if I had to kind of go back and unpack it for you, which I totally will, there are several stages I think that I went through with the voice. Obviously, we've already talked about what it looked like at its worst, where it was really active. It was there all the time. It was really held complete power over me. When I started treatment, like the intensive treatment that I've received, the voice still held mental power over me, but it started to lose its grip a little bit. It would still speak up. And this is the really horrible part of recovery is when the voice is still so loud, but you are doing things differently. And it actually, for me and for many other people, it gets louder when you're in the active recovery stage. Because all the time, the whole point is like you're doing the opposite of what your eating disorder is telling you to do. So it's gonna be so mad, it's gonna scream at you way louder than when you were obeying it. It was constantly there when you're obeying it, but when you're disobeying it, it turns super abusive and very loud. So in that treatment space, it went from I hear the voice at this level constantly to now the voice is like volume turned up times 10. But things started to turn a corner because I started receiving the tools I needed to fight back. And I wasn't doing it alone anymore. I was learning how to reframe my thoughts. I was learning how to disarm the eating disorder with counterpoints and counterevidence and different types of logic. I was learning how to care for my feelings as they came up when I was doing things that challenge the eating disorder. And importantly, I was finally giving my brain enough nourishment to actually function well. So that's a point that I really like to make to all of my clients is when you're trying to recover, but you're still in a space of malnourishment or undernourishment, it's still gonna, it's gonna be even harder because, and that's the catch 22 of it all, is it's hard to get yourself to eat in order to recover, but you have to get yourself to eat in order to recover. And in order for your brain to be functioning well enough that you can do the mental lifting to fight back against the voice. So that's a point in time where I think things started to turn was not only was I being equipped with the tools to challenge the voice and actually strengthen my own voice, but I was also nourishing well enough that my brain was finally functioning properly so that I could access my own voice and I could access true logic instead of being this eating disorder zombie who was amidst brain fog all the time. So again, it started at a level, let's say a level the the voice was constant, then it was extremely loud, and then it started to taper down. This happened over the course of years, this next phase, where I would have moments where the the eating disorder would just be, and I wouldn't even notice it until the eating disorder came back, but I'd be like, oh my gosh, I wasn't thinking about food or my body for like five minutes, and it would be crazy. It would be like, wow, that was crazy. And then I was back to thinking about it again. But I would have flashes and moments of time where I would just be so present that the eating disorder wasn't there. And this is the key here when it comes to pushing the eating disorder voice out. It's not about shutting it up, but it's about giving it less space. I don't know if you've ever tried to push a beach ball underneath water. If you're in a pool and you have a beach ball and you're pushing it underneath water, like trying to keep it under the water, it fights so hard to pop back up, right? If you can imagine that, that's kind of what it feels like when we just when we conceptualize shutting up the eating disorder. It's like we are pushing down this voice, and the more that we push it down, the harder it's gonna fight to get back up. So, a more effective strategy I found was letting that voice exist, knowing that it was going to exist. And instead of shouting and getting angry and screaming at this voice to be quiet, which sometimes actually can really help, but instead I focused on how do I make my voice stronger? How do I make my voice louder? How do I make my voice the one that I trust again? And that's what edges the eating disorder voice out of your life, is when you feel more confident in trusting yourself when you know yourself, when you know what you value, not what the eating disorder values, and you can return to that again and again and again. That's what actually creates change and what turns that voice from center stage to background vocals. And I think I really discovered that in those moments where I was living my life again. And, you know, a couple weeks ago, we looked back at my old journals, and I've been doing that even more since the episode, just obviously off the off the podcast. And I would read through pages, and some would be like when I was, you know, post-treatment, I would be talking about like, oh my gosh, it was a horrible day. Like, I feel so bad about myself, so bad about my body. I can't believe I ate X, Y, and Z. It was awful. And then the next day it would be a journal entry about how like I just got a new job, and it was so cool to meet all the people at the store. And then I would be writing about like enrolling in classes for school and um how I felt so aligned and so purposeful. And then the next page would be what a rough day. But I noticed it it stopped being just about the eating disorder. I started writing more and more about meeting new people and discovering new parts of me. And I was really in this phase of time of like, what am I gonna do with my life? Who do I want to be? And sometimes it was really hard to think about, and there was there were tears and it was existential. And then other moments there was clarity. And what I appreciated seeing in the progression of those pages was my life had been diversified to such a point that the eating disorder wasn't the only thing taking up my time, my energy, my brain space. I was inspired by other things. So when my eating disorder voice would come up and would say, You gained weight, you look horrible, you shouldn't have eaten that, I could say, Yeah, that sucks. And I don't like the way that I look. And I would actually write this. And it's a slippery slope to listen to you. And I would write, like, yeah, this is a hard day, this is a tough day, but tomorrow I have to get up and go to school. And I'm so excited to turn in my essay. I would write that because I was, I was really into school at that time. All of this is to demonstrate that over the course of years, there were moments of freedom, moments of it getting quieter, then moments that it was loud. But the thing that really pushed the needle forward and made the difference for me was working on my identity and discovering who I was outside of the disorder and making that voice the voice that guides my life. Okay, so to the question, does the eating disorder voice ever go away? That's my personal answer. Yes and no. Does the eating disorder voice have to rule your life forever? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Does the eating disorder voice have to be distressing forever? No. Mine is ridiculous at this point. Yeah, sometimes I have a bad body image day, but like who doesn't? We live in 2026. The landscape of body trends are crazy, but it's not what it was. So, no, the eating disorder voice does not have to hold power, it does not have to cause distress, and it won't. It won't eventually, if you keep going. And I'll also say I have met people that say they don't have an eating disorder voice anymore. And like they don't even have thoughts. And I still hold hope that maybe someday that will be true for me. I'm only 11 years into this, I'm 30 years old, almost 31. I've got hopefully a lot more life to live, and I'm optimistic that someday those automatic thoughts won't pop in, however ridiculous they might be at this point. So for me personally, I know that it's still there sometimes, but not in a bothersome way. But for some people, it's not there, and that's cool too. But the thing that I want you to take home is the question of will it ever go away? The fact that it might not fully, fully ever go away should not be something that holds you back from trying recovery. Because, like I said, even though I have some thoughts come up every now and again, I don't even recognize the version of me that was in that disorder. I don't even I have no emotional connection. It feels like it wasn't even me. That's how far removed I am from the version of me that had an eating disorder voice that ruled her life. That I know is possible because I that's where I am. I've lived through it. And I've seen that happen for so many of my clients, and and for some of my clients, not too terribly far after they've started recovery, do they get to a point where the voice is less impactful? So we have to be really careful, and that's why I advocate for recovery being a spectrum. We have to be so careful about this idea of black or white. If I can't fully recover, why even try? That is that is something I used to think. But it's so it's so limiting. Just because you won't be 100% eating disorder thought-free, just because you'll you can't promise yourself that you'll never have the thought of, uh, I don't love my body today, you're going to you're going to give up the potential freedom that comes from being even recovered-ish. I I'm really happy in my life. I am really grateful for my recovery. And I am so, so glad that I did the hard things to get to where I am now. Because even if your life can be 20% better than it is right now, 50% better than it is right now, that is so worth it compared to the 100% hell that is living with an eating disorder. Be careful of those black and whites. That can be a tactic of the eating disorder. So if you can ground yourself in the idea that the goal maybe isn't to stop having an eating disorder voice entirely, maybe the goal is to stop having it rule your life, to stop giving it authority. That is what creates real freedom, real change, and honestly gives you the space to have actual control over your life, to decide for yourself what's important to you. And that is where recovery actually starts feeling good. And I know last week we talked a lot about how long recovery feels bad, and that's true, but it does get to a point where it feels good. It does. And that's the space, is when the voice has less authority and your voice has more. The last thing I'll leave you with are just a few quick things that can help if you're still in the thick of the space where the eating disorder voice is just all consuming. This can help you move a little bit closer to it being less impactful in your life. First thing, name it. If you're still in that space where it feels like it's your voice, start to identify in those moments where it's like, okay, that's an eating disorder thought. That's the eating disorder voice. That's coming from the eating disorder. You don't need to, you don't even necessarily need to start fighting it, just acknowledge it, label it, name it. The other thing I'll say is at that point, it isn't always helpful to argue with it for a million years. I think sometimes it is helpful to challenge it and give different logic back. But if you can't even think of an alternative thought yet, of like your eating disorder tells you that you've gained too much weight and you're like, yeah, I have, like, and it would feel really inauthentic to say, like, no, this is the weight my body is supposed to be at, and I'm glad about it. If that feels like totally out of the realm of what's true for you, it's sometimes not really that productive to argue with it. I would say, if you can just hear it and say, okay, I hear you eating disorder, I can decide differently. Even if you don't decide differently, just start practicing that. You hear the eating disorder, acknowledge that you might have a different opinion. Even if you don't know what that opinion is yet, just give yourself the space to have that different opinion. When you hear the eating disorder thought, notice what feeling comes up. Is it fear? Is it panic? Is it anxiety? Is it sadness? Figure out what that feeling is. And instead of obeying the direction, can you attend to that feeling? Not eliminate the feeling, attend to it. If you're scared, what do you need to feel safe? That's not eating disordered. If you are sad, what do you need to feel comfort? Again, not the eating disorder behavior, something else. Ask yourself what you need instead of jumping straight to the feeling that tends to just eliminate or avoid the emotion. If all else fails, and I may have mentioned this in another episode, something I used to do when my thoughts were extremely, extremely loud, and I just couldn't get them to stop, is I would just start saying noise, noise, noise, noise, noise, noise, noise out loud, which sounds, you know, a little cuckoo, but it helped because the noise was so loud in my brain. And I just had to label it that that's all it is. It's just noise. So if you can just say out loud, noise, noise, noise. I know it sounds a little bonkers, but it really does help if all else fails. And you're like, I can't just let it run through my brain without attaching to it. I can't position myself against it yet. Can you at least just say out loud, this is freaking noise, and that's all that it is? And just see if that helps to at least drown it out a little bit. If you're in the thick of it, that's where I would start. If I was your coach or your therapist, that's what I would tell you. So, does the eating disorder voice ever really go away? For most people in recovery, it gets so much quieter, it fades into the background of your life so much so that it's almost imperceptible. It doesn't have to be everything to you anymore. It doesn't have to carry power over you anymore. So the answer could be yes, it does go away. Does it mean you're not recovered if you still have an eating disorder thought? No, it does not mean that. In the same way that we have thoughts that we don't want to have all the time, having an eating disorder thought says nothing of your recovery. For so many of us, it's so much quieter. And the really important thing is it stops feeling like it's a constant battle in your life. The most important thing is in recovery, you absolutely change your relationship to that eating disorder voice. That's what makes the difference. You stop listening to it. And the more that you don't listen to something, the less it tries to be heard. It learns that that part of you starts to learn it's no use, anyways. If she's not gonna listen, why do I keep yelling at her to do this thing? Eventually, that's what that neural pathway of yours learns, and it ceases to function in the same way. And at the end of the day, that's freedom to me. It's being able to make choices for myself, trusting my inner voice more than the eating disorder. And if an eating disorder thought creeps in every now and again, I can let it pass. I can acknowledge it is not what I'm gonna do, and I can move on and focus on things that matter. And that is what I hope for you with every fiber of my being, wherever you are on your journey. I know that it's possible, I know you can get there. It's hard, it's so hard, but don't give up hope around it. Okay. I hope that today's episode was real, truthful. It's a nuanced conversation, and not everybody's gonna have the same answer, and people might not like this answer either. And that's okay. If you have different thoughts, I'd love to hear it. I'm always open to feedback and different opinions. We all have different experiences of this, so would love to hear yours. But if you enjoyed today's episode, I would so appreciate a five-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Subscribe if you're on YouTube. I know I always say this, but the podcast is growing, and I just hope that more people that are in eating disorder recovery, that are looking for an honest space that can hold uh conflicting emotions and difficult truths and hope at the same time happen upon this little space here. And with your support, more people can find the show. So thanks again for listening. I will talk to you all next week. Eat your food, eat your snacks. See you then.