HfC day 10: words, words, words

The blog challenge today is to think up five words associated with the ED and five words associated with recovery. For help with this one, I asked some friends who have been supporting one another in recovery. Here's an edited version of our conversation:

Me: Today's blog challenge is a list of words. I'm no good at picking individual words so wondered if anyone could help me out! we need 5 words that describe EDs and 5 that describe recovery:
"Only Words?
Choose ten words; five of which relate to your experience of eating disorders and five of which relate to your recovery. What does each of these words mean to you? Why are they important to you? What part have they played in your illness and recovery?"

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    Friend 1: Here are my initial thoughts; I've just listed what comes to mind.
    

    EDs: darkness, emptiness, loneliness, helplessness, confusion, despair, fear, guilt
    Recovery: hope, light, opportunity, belief, friendship, love, growth, determination, self-worth, value, courage, 'daring to be daring'.
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     i might add "doubt" to recovery. Cause there's always that voice at the back of your head making you doubt whether you can - or should - recover.
  • Friend 2: The recovery words are hard, because I guess some of them are just our hopes rather than experiences...
    freedom?
    strength
    future
    (adding to Friend 1's of course!)
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     Me: I love this! Thank you both because this helps. Maybe our list for EDs should include a few words that remind us how hard it is to escape from - e.g. comfort, safety, identity, control???
  • Friend 2: good idea, because it's almost like you have to not look at it in a judgmental way, but how it makes us feel at the time... although I think for me, it is still fear, panic, failure...
    
  • Friend 1: yes definitely. Security, predictability, uniqueness, restraint.
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So there are more than 5 of each but I didn't want to cut any out because this thread of comments has all been enlightening to me and each word is a valid part of someone's experience and possibly may reflect my own experience in a way that I'm not able fully to recognise in the words that come immediately to my mind.

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