I just wanted to give a quick update about the status of my return to treatment, since I wrote a couple days ago that I hadn’t had much luck.
Fortunately, after a month of trying to get into a treatment program, I started the IOP program at Monte Nido last night. This is actually a really cool opportunity for me. It was a year ago that I read Carolyn Costin’s book 8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder (covered with newspaper so that I could read it on the subway to and from work). The book was pivotal for me, and ended up being what started me down the road to recovery.
Not long after I’d finished it for a second time, I heard that Carolyn was going to be sharing her own recovery story in a teleconference with Shannon Cutts of MentorCONNECT. (They have some pretty awesome events, by the way — I encourage you to check them out.) As they were discussing how to take that first step toward recovery, Shannon said something I’ll never forget:
“You don’t have to understand why you got sick or even why you want to get better. You’re not supposed to know how to do it right, or know that it’s going to be worth it. You just have to know you don’t want to live another day or another hour the way you are right now.”
And that was it. That was the sentence that changed everything. Within a week, I’d scheduled an intake at the Renfrew Center and began treatment shortly thereafter.
It has now been nine and a half months since my first day of treatment on December 11, and I’m closer to recovery than I’ve ever been. I get a strange feeling thinking back to that night of the teleconference. I had no idea that, a year from then, the Monte Nido I’d read about would open a site in NYC and I would be continuing my healing process there. And I certainly had no idea that I would be on my way to recovery after living with an eating disorder for more than a decade. These ideas were inconceivable.
But here I am. And here I go. Let the next phase of recovery begin. I don’t care how long it takes or what I have to do — I WILL recover.
I'm a writer, a mental health activist, and a 20-something in recovery from an eating disorder. This blog chronicles my journey through the middle ground toward full recovery.
