One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Relapse.

Honestly, I hate this term.

I remember when I first began recovery over 3 years ago, or when I first sought help for my anxiety, around 7 years ago, I thought: this is it. The hard part is done! I’ve told my deepest darkest, most embarrassing secrets to a person older and bigger and smarter than me, and I have made it through. A weight was lifted off of my shoulders, and although I felt incredibly vulnerable and naked and weak, I felt safe. I thought that it was all smooth sailing from then on.

It’s not.

Throw in a university education, the dynamics that come with your early 20s, and a seemingly never ending pandemic, and I can’t blame my brain for reverting back to old coping mechanisms, for desperately reaching to its old comfortable solutions to keep me safe, even if I know they are not good for me.

I remind myself that the only thing I have control over are my choices every day, and sometimes (as anyone struggling with an eating disorder, or any kind of mental illness knows) it feels like I don’t even have that.

There are days where I feel like I can’t breathe, like I will never find the strength to try again, and there are days where I think I’ve finally cracked the code, like I’ve finally learned how to beat suffering. I never know what day I am going to wake up to, what feelings are going to arise and what abilities I am going to be granted by the magic mental illness fairy.

I’m not saying this to prevent anyone from seeking help, because I truly know that asking for help is the best thing I have done, and I would not be here today if I hadn’t done it (and continued to do it).

I’m saying this to the people who are deep in the trenches of their struggles, their growth, their seemingly never ending journeys - you haven’t failed because you “messed up”. In fact, the concept of “messing up,” or “relapsing” when it comes to any sort of self growth or mental health experience is entirely man made. It implies that there is something to be achieved or completed.

We normally only hear of success stories after the person has accomplished the thing, fought the demons, gone from sad to happy. Their story ends after they’ve won, and we’re left with a false sense of what progress and growth looks like. We rarely hear from someone who is actively on the battlefield, having to claw their way through mud and shit what feels like every moment (sorry for the graphic).

Relapsing from my eating disorder, my anxiety, and my depression (the mighty trio!) I have learned that the work doesn’t just end. The struggling and the challenges don’t just stop. Every single day life has a new plan for me; another page for me to read, another hurdle for me to jump, and constantly seeking the invisible gold star I imagine I am going to get at the invisible finish line is just causing me more stress and shame, and belittling my progress. Even the "RE" in relapse points to returning back to something, to a place you have already been.

The thing is, you haven't been here before. Not exactly.

Looking back on the anxiety I had at age 16, I remember waking up everyday thinking it would never end. I remember crying, hiding, dreading the thought of having to endure another day feeling that way. I look back now, and I’m not the same person I was those days. Without even realizing it, I learned, I grew, I’ve changed. We rarely take the time to look back on the things we have actually made it through, because we’re too busy beating ourselves up for the things we want to check off now. It’s like running a marathon and hating yourself for not being at the end, but never turning around to see how far you’ve already run. Just because you struggle again, doesn’t mean you’re transported back to the starting line.

I have (only very recently!) learned that growth isn’t supposed to look a specific way.

Regardless of whether I put in an extraneous effort on my hardest days, or just moped around for a while letting my darkness consume me, I know now that that was just a part of the process. The very act of living is a verb. Just like how you still have to brush your teeth today even though you did yesterday, how you still have to go to work even though you have for years, how you still have to eat dinner tonight even though you ate it last night,

your mental and emotional struggles don’t just stop because you’ve seen them before. Rather than beating yourself up for not meeting an invisible landmark, try to take a moment to get curious about where you are right now: Look back on the things that have worked before, the things that haven’t, and just try and focus on where/how you can choose the next right thing in this moment.

This may seem overwhelming to hear, but in a way, viewing life as a long, continual, nonlinear sort of mountain, it reminds me to not beat myself up on the days where those thoughts and feelings resurface, regardless of how much I thought I’d gotten rid of them.

Each day we've made it through the day before, and that is a success.

Journal exercise: Recall a time in your life when you overcame a challenge, a struggle, or a tough experience. How did it feel while you were going through it? Have you ever given yourself credit for making it through?