HfC 31 Reflection

The prompt is: "Reflections
Think back/look back over the previous thirty days. How did you find this challenge? Did
you find anything difficult? Were you pleasantly surprised in some way? Did you learn
anything from your writing? Did you read other people’s blogs? Did you learn anything
from others? If you could write one sentence to express what you want people to know
most of all about eating disorders and recovery from this blog challenge what would it be?
And why?"

This challenge literally was a challenge for me: it forced me to try to articulate my current state both with recovery and with the anorexia, which, in turn, helped me to think about why certain aspects of recovery are hard for me; it asked for a regular commitment to blogging which I've never previously achieved; it helped me overcome my reluctance to write about ED stuff in a public forum and (unbelievably for me) it prompted me to share one blog post with my facebook friends. The incredible response from friends is something that I will always treasure: both through personal messages and through comments on the link that I posted.

Reading blogs from a selected few other participants has been particularly valuable in re-igniting my hope that full recovery is possible. Some bloggers are inspiring in sharing their recovery and that is helpful to *all* of us with EDs, given the likelihood that the people we meet again and again in treatment are not the individuals who have achieved successful recovery - and therefore it often seems as though there are no recovered anorexics.

The one thing I'd like people to take away from the challenge is that all of the bloggers are very different, just as it's impossible to stereotype or pigeonhole people with EDs: we're all individuals. We experience illness in different ways and recover in different ways. The most important thing is to start to redefine experiences that seem like set-backs as just another step on the long journey. Eventually we will get there. We must hold on to hope.