What Actually Pushed Me To Take Recovery Seriously...

A few days ago somebody asked me: "What was the main thing that got you into recovery, what helped you the most?"

It's a question I've been asked quite a few times and honestly my answer probably isn't what people expect. People often assume that when you're seriously ill you'll automatically want to get better, the truth for me was I didn't. It wasn't because I enjoyed being ill or I wanted my life to be controlled by an eating disorder but because my eating disorder had become my comfort. It was there when I felt alone, when people left and it was there when I didn't know how to cope. It was destroying me, but at the same time it was the one thing I ran to when everything else felt difficult.

People told me all the reasons why I needed to recover, professionals, my family and deep down I even knew they were right. But I just couldn't image who I would be without my eating disorder, it had become such a huge part of me. How do you let go of something that's hurting you when it's also the thing you've relied on for years?

The truth is, nobody could make me choose recovery until... I met Bradley. Honestly he wasn't some recovery expert, he didn't have all the answers and he didn't know the perfect things to say to me. What made such a difference was that he didn't look at me like I was broken and he didn't look see an eating disorder first... he saw me.

For the first time in a very long time, I felt like a real person rather than a diagnosis. As I spent more time with him, I started to realise just how much my eating disorder was affecting every part of my life. Things that had become normal for me suddenly didn't seem normal anymore, all the anxiety, the fears, the isolation, the purges and so much more. I started seeing glimpses of a different life, a life where I could make memories instead of spending every day surviving.

This was something I wanted for myself, that didn't mean it was easy. Recovery was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Bradley held my hand through all of it, through the fear foods, the restaurants, the relapses, the near relapses. Overtime something started to change, the more I pushed myself the more I realised that the things I was terrified of weren't actually ruining my life... my eating disorder was the one ruining it.

The more risks I took in recovery, the more my life started to feel like mine. At first, I needed someone beside me for every challenge but eventually, I started doing things on my own. I started to trust myself again and somewhere along the way, life became beautiful.

When people ask me what actually made me put my all into recovery finally, my answer isn't that somebody saved me because nobody can do recovery for you, recovery was still my choice. But what Bradley gave me was something I didn't have before, he showed me there was a life worth fighting for and what made that even more remarkable was that he never doubted me. He helped me see a version of myself beyond the eating disorder, a version of me that laughed, lived, made memories and a version of me that wasn't surviving anymore. This version of me, my eating disorder never wanted me to meet.

With Love, Niomi 🤎

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