recovered-ish with chloe cox

the truth about life after eating disorder recovery | the recovered-ish podcast ep. 28

• Chloe Cox • Season 1 • Episode 28

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0:00 | 17:00

Episode Description

This one was unplanned. My son was in the hospital, life threw a curveball, and I had twenty minutes between sessions to record something real.

So that's what this is.

In this episode I'm sharing something I've never talked about on the podcast before — and getting honest about what life after recovery actually looks like. Not the highlight reel. The real version, where hard things still happen and you have to figure out how to keep showing up anyway.

This is a shorter one, but I think it might be one of the most honest episodes I've recorded.

In This Episode:

  • What I never expected about life after eating disorder recovery
  • Something personal I've never shared on the podcast before
  • How recovery showed up for me during one of the hardest seasons of my life
  • Why recovery doesn't mean life stops being hard — it just means you have something real to hold onto when it is
  • What it actually looks like to choose yourself when everything is falling apart
  • How to hold two completely opposite feelings at once — and why that's actually the skill
  • What recovery gives you that the eating disorder only promised

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro — a mini episode, recorded between sessions
 2:00 Why this episode looks different this week
 3:00 Something I've never shared on the podcast before
 6:00 I thought the eating disorder was my big life battle. I was wrong.
 8:00 How recovery showed up when life got really hard
 12:00 What I did in the hospital cafeteria — and why it mattered
 15:00 Recovery doesn't mean life stops being hard
 17:00 What recovery actually gives you — control, safety, presence
 19:00 How to hold hope and hardship at the same time
 22:00 Closing thoughts — sending love to everyone doing this alongside hard things

Quotes from This Episode:

"Recovery doesn't mean everything in life is solved. It just means you are able to take care of yourself through it — and not compound the suffering that's just gonna be there because we're humans."

"The eating disorder promises you control and peace and safety. Recovery actually puts you back in the driver's seat for all of those things."

"There's gonna be hard times and there's gonna be good times. That's what it means to be a person."

Resources + Connect with Me:

Keywords/Tags: life after eating disorder recovery, what recovery actually looks like, eating disorder recovery and hard times, recovered-ish podcast, chloe cox, ED recovery podcast, eating disorder therapist, holding hope in recovery, recovery and life challenges

Resources + Connect with Me:

SPEAKER_00

I guess I'm telling you this. I didn't even expect to be telling you this today, but I guess I'm telling you this because life is hard in an eating disorder and life is hard beyond an eating disorder. It doesn't just get magically perfect. You're listening to the Recovered-Ish 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, here we are. This is the next episode of Recovered Ish, which is a little bit chaotic, everyone. I am popping in here in the 20 minutes that I have between now and my next session because I did want to still get something out this week. If you didn't see my Instagram story, last week did not go according to plan. I am not somebody that plans my podcast very far in advance. I usually just record the week ahead to concurrent with what you all are needing and asking me for. So had planned to record Wednesday as I normally do, but life throws you curveballs. And if you all have listened to the show previously, you probably already know this. But my son has a very rare genetic condition that requires us to essentially go to the hospital for several days every time he gets sick, even a little bit sick. Sometimes we are in the hospital for several days. And that is exactly what happened. My son got sick. Um, luckily, my husband responded super fast. So he got in there very quickly, got the attention and care that he needed to, but that meant that I was out of work for a few days. I was out of the office. I did not have a chance to record the episode that I had planned, which was supposed to be the episode on dating. And I was so, so, so excited about it. This I'm recording just two days before you all will be listening to it, uh, because I am back in office now and I did just want to get something out. But it's gonna be a mini sode, um, recovered-ish snack, shall we say? But thanks for bearing with me. Life is is is unpredictable at times. And for somebody that likes to have all her ducks in a row and lets things on schedules or else they fall away and never get accomplished. When that comes up, it can be kind of hard. But it got me thinking about what I wanted to say today in this short span of time that we have. And I was thinking a lot about, first of all, just how hard it can be to maintain recovery when life gets hard, when life gets stressful. And even more than that, how hard it can be to maintain hope. Because life is actually pretty hard. Whether you're in your eating disorder or not, it can be really hard. And that's a lesson that I learned many times over since I recovered however many years ago now, or first entered treatment. I kind of had this idea that this was the big problem in my life, the eating disorder. And once it was solved, then everything else would fall into place. And in a lot of ways, it did. I figured a lot of stuff out. I figured out what I wanted to do with my life, and at least for the time being, I figured out what I wanted to study and figured out where I wanted to be in the world and learned a lot about my own self-worth. And that was a journey over several years, but I did think this was my big life battle. Done. Easy. Wow, how convenient. I got that out of the way before I was even in my mid-20s. Great, awesome. I got this idea that we all have a challenge in our life, and that was my challenge. And so it kind of shocked me when that wasn't it. There are other things that have happened in my life that I haven't shared on the podcast. One of them being uh that my husband was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer when married a year yet when we got that diagnosis. And that was the reason I don't, it's still really hard for me to talk about. He's doing miraculously well now. His primary tumor is gone. He's got an amazing prognosis thanks to where medicine has progressed in recent years. But we didn't know that for years, we didn't know if he was going to be okay. And so that's one of those things that I was like, wait, what the heck? I thought the hard times were done. I thought that this was my happy ending. And I thought it was his too. He's been through so much that I was just mad at the universe and mad at the world and just mad at life of why are you doing this again? Like I thought that the hard things were finished, and now what I thought was my happy ending is about to be ripped from me. And so in those moments, it's like, how do you not go back to the eating disorder? How do you not go back to the thing that brought you comfort and control? Because in the grand scheme, I think about that battle that I went through with my husband, and I think about the things that I was going through when I was in my eating disorder. And I'm like, man, I feel like what I went through with my husband was a lot harder than what 16, 17, 18, 19-year-old me was going through that led to the disorder. It's all relative, but thinking about that, I'm like, wow, that would have been a perfect time for my eating disorder to swoop back in and save me. And it didn't. And looking back on it now, I don't even really know why. Um, I think part of it is when something so challenging and traumatic honestly happens that the world just stops. And I didn't have any light or energy left in me to even reach for that as a solution. I think, I guess now that I'm talking about it out loud, depression at that time was where I fell into for a bit. And the thought of the eating disorder was not so much there. But I also think going through that forced me to look at what is actually gonna sustain me long term if things don't go well. And I had learned at that point that my eating disorder was not one of those things. So as I was treading water, essentially waiting to figure out what was gonna happen with my husband's health, I knew that me tanking was not gonna work. I had to figure out what I could do instead to survive. And I think that what I came to was just focusing on today and what was good about today. And back then, what was good about today was that my husband was still there with me. I was just starting to build my business. I focused so much on that. I leaned a lot on the idea of radical acceptance. This is something so far out of my control. There's nothing I can do about it other than be there for my husband. And I just had to accept that. I leaned on a gentle movement practice. I made sure that we were getting outside. We got really into doing evening walks together. I just had to pull my resources so I wasn't always falling apart. And while there were whisperings of this would be a great time to just wither away in the eating disorder, I could not do that. I had to pull from a completely different part of myself. But the point is, I did survive that. And I guess I'm telling you this. I didn't even expect to be telling you this today. But I guess I'm telling you this because life is hard in an eating disorder, and life is hard beyond an eating disorder. It doesn't just get magically perfect. And what we see online is here's the picture of me sick and struggling, and here's the picture of me thriving and having an ice cream cone. And like wonderful, great, so glad. And I also have pictures of me thriving, having an ice cream cone. But that is so not the full picture of a person's life. And that's so not the full picture of recovery. Recovery doesn't mean that everything in life is solved, it just means you are able to take care of yourself now through it and not compound the suffering that just is gonna be there because we're humans. And I think that's the big takeaway is when you get to a solid point in recovery, you can show up for yourself and you can show up for the people in your life that need you. It's like a protective layer where the eating disorder felt like it was that, recovery is actually that. And that gives me hope when I think about the other things that are hard in life. Just a couple years after that, we had our son, and uh, as all of you listening to my relapse episode, that experience was not the same. And I think that it's probably because it had a lot more to do with me and my body. I found it really hard to resist the eating disorder then when things got very difficult, and again, so out of my control. So it's not black or white either. I'm certainly not perfect. There are moments when I can pull on the resources that make me stronger, and there are times when I don't have it in me to do that or it hits too deeply. And the eating disorder felt really attractive at that time. But I will say every time I go through something hard, I learn just how quickly I'm able to adapt to challenge now. And that's something that I think started with the first hurdle of the eating disorder, and probably even before then, but really that was the first time I had to save myself. And so getting through this battle with my husband, another time that I was like, wow, that was so devastating. And I adapted so quickly to figuring out just how to move forward because you have to. And then again, with my son, something so out of left field that we did not see coming that was just so impactful, especially in the beginning of his life. And now, still, of course, as you all know, affects me every single day, some days more than others, but you quickly learn how to keep going, but you can't keep going unless you keep yourself going. And that's where recovery comes in. This weekend, for example, I was in a session when my husband called and told me that they were on their way to the hospital. I didn't see until after my session. It was lunchtime. I was like, oh my God. But I rushed straight there to the emergency room to be with them. And I was really hungry. And I was sure that my husband hadn't eaten yet either. And so once I got there and just we established what was going on, what was the plan. My ha my son was locked up to his IV and we were just waiting to see his test results and all of that. Not a lot was going on. So I made the executive decision to go to the cafeteria and get us food to make sure that we were still okay because he needed us to be okay. Perfect opportunity for me to skip lunch. I could not do that to myself. And I could not do that to my son because he needed me to be at my full wits. Couldn't do it to my husband either, who was just carrying the load all by himself until I got there. Also couldn't do that to the baby that's growing in my bris at this time. She also needs nourishment. So you do that. You figure it out, you do that. It was it the perfect lunch? No. Was it the lunch that I really wanted to have? No. But actually, it was pretty darn good. I had a quesadilla. Shortly after that, we figured out he's gonna be admitted. We moved to his room. I'm so grateful for my parents because they make sure that we're fed while we're in the hospital. They brought us dinner that evening, which was so, so nice. And I just knew that if I was not taking care of myself, those days in the hospital would have been a lot rockier because sleep wasn't happening. So I had to make sure at least nourishment was. And I'm proud of myself for that. That recovery still shows up for me now in moments where I could so easily revert back to the eating disorder so easily. I talk a lot about how the eating disorder always or tends to serve a function for us. It does something for us. And I know for me, a lot of my eating disorder was surviving and figuring out how to get through a situation that wasn't right for me, how to escape. And I talk a lot about needing to find a way to put the eating disorder out of a job. And if that's its job to help you survive, we have to find something else that is gonna help you survive. And plainly, my recovery is that because recovery is not just eating the food, it's also knowing yourself, taking care of yourself, feeling deserving of taking care of yourself. It's connecting to all the different parts of you, even the ones that you're ashamed of. It means leaning on your community, it means connecting with others, it means staying with yourself in the good and the bad, not abandoning that. And a lot of it actually does come down to real, true control of your life. Where the eating disorder promises you that it gives you control and peace and safety. Recovery actually puts you back in the driver's seat for all of those things. Control, power, safety, security, all of that is actually something recovery gives you. You actually get to choose. Your eating disorder is not choosing anymore. Your nervous system is not choosing anymore. You're choosing what's right for your nervous system. The script completely flips. And I think that's how, in its simplest terms, you can continue to remain in recovery throughout life being hard. Because now I'm no longer naive. I know that life will continue to be difficult at times. It's not always going to be beautiful and easy. This thing that happened with my son's health is going to continue to be something that he deals with for the rest of his life and for the rest of his childhood and his whole life, how will that be there to support him through it? But I know that this isn't the end for me. There are so many, I'm only 31 years old. There's absolutely going to be other challenges that come up in my life that I need to support myself through. And it's interesting because sitting with the heaviness of what is hard right now, I really feel it as I'm talking to you all. I also hold it next to a feeling of total gratitude that I can be there for myself through it and hope that anyone who's listening to this and wondering if they can too, I have so much hope that you can. And I guess the other piece of how do we hold on to hope when it gets hard, whether that's in your recovery or beyond, I think a lot of that comes down to the ability to hold both things at once. A dialectic, if you will, if you're familiar with DBT, knowing that you can hold two things that seem completely opposite at the same time. I look back at my treatment experience, even, and it was one of the hardest things I've ever been through. And I have so many fond memories at the same time. Looking back at a period of time where I didn't know if my husband was going to be okay with his cancer. I was honestly at the lowest point ever. And also, I remember we were trying to just be present with each other every single day. And that summer, we went to the beach twice a week, every week, and we had so much fun being with each other. We took trips because we didn't know how much time we had. And I'm so glad that we did. And my God, I'm so glad that he's still around. And even in the hospital over the last week with my husband and my son, I was just thinking, like, there's nobody else I would rather be doing this with, and there's no other kid that I would rather have. I did not expect to get emotional today. There's gonna be hard times, and there's gonna be good times, and that's what it means to be a person. It's not always gonna feel good, and recovery doesn't always feel good, but it all does feel really worth it. I think rich is the experience of life, and rich is the experience of recovery that has a lot of different flavors and textures and colors. It's not one thing, but it's something that I'm grateful to be experiencing. So I guess this mini-sode, I will wrap up with saying we just gotta go along for the ride when it comes to recovery. Take the hard feelings, take the moments of hope, hold them all at once. Because you are all humans listening to this, I know that you have hard things in your life within the eating disorder and beyond it. And so I guess I'm just sending you my compassion person to person as we all do this together. Gonna go cry now for a second before I go see a client. Thanks everybody for understanding the shorter episode this week. I really appreciate this community. So much love for you all. Maybe this is a week to go back and re-listen to an episode that really hit you. Let me know if you do. I'd love to know which episodes are your favorite. Always would appreciate that review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, subscribe to my YouTube, give it a thumbs up, all the usual stuff. But we will be back for that dating and intimacy episode next week, a full episode, and I'm very excited to record it. So we will chat then. Thanks for hanging in there with me. Eat your food. Bye.