It is about the food. It’s not about the food.

When recovering from an eating disorder, abstinence isn’t a solution. The very thing that is causing distress in one way or another — food — needs to be consumed in order to recover. There’s something so very obvious about this, yet it is still not fully appreciated by those who have never experienced an eating disorder.

Unlike many other conditions, recovery cannot be achieved by removing the trigger. We cannot step away from food, avoid it indefinitely, or “cut it out” while we heal. Food is essential for life. And so the very place where the eating disorder lives is also the place where recovery must happen.

I believe that finding a way through difficulties with food is both one of the deepest conflicts of eating disorder recovery and also its greatest gift. We have to eat to be well. And so, in order to recover — and to truly be well — we need to engage with the very thing that has felt unsafe, overwhelming, or unbearable. People do recover from eating disorders, and go on to have a healthy, relaxed, enjoyable relationship with food that causes them no distress whatsoever. So it is possible. But that doesn’t mean it’s simple.

As someone who is fully recovered and able to look back on both my eating disorder and my recovery, I feel a deep gratitude that food is something we need in our lives and that I was required to learn how to navigate it. I believe this process forced me to look at parts of myself — my emotions, my relationships, my patterns of coping — that I may never have examined if abstinence had been an option.

At times, recovery felt like being repeatedly asked to face the enemy when all I wanted was to walk quietly down another street, untouched and unseen. There were moments where it felt unfair, exhausting, and relentless. But through that process I developed a resilience and a deep internal knowing that I wouldn’t have found otherwise. This, for me, is the gift of recovery: a strength that comes from knowing what I have lived through, and a clearer understanding of who I am beneath the coping strategies.

My eating disorder was not about food. Food was the language it used. The disorder existed because I was trying to cope with things I felt unable to cope with — feelings that felt too big, too messy, too unsafe. Recovery did not simply mean “eating normally”. It meant developing an entirely new toolkit of coping strategies that allowed me to meet life without needing the eating disorder to buffer, numb, control, or contain my experience.

I often hear clients say that they wish they were recovering from drink or drug addiction. “It would be easier if I could just cut it out.” I don’t share this to dismiss the immense challenge of sobriety — addiction recovery is profound and complex — but rather to acknowledge an important difference. With eating disorders, we cannot remove the substance. We have to learn how to be in relationship with it.

An eating disorder is a coping strategy. And because food must remain in the equation, that coping strategy cannot be taken away overnight. Instead, recovery becomes a gradual loosening. As other ways of coping are developed — emotional regulation, boundaries, self-trust, support — the eating disorder slowly loses its function and its grip.

This naturally creates different phases and definitions of recovery. Eating disorder recovery is rarely linear. Pauses and plateaus are not only common, they are often necessary. For example, someone may reach a point where bingeing occurs far less frequently, or purging has stopped altogether. Rather than immediately pushing toward the next “goal”, there can be enormous value in staying there for a while — in strengthening that phase and allowing the nervous system to settle.

These pauses create a tangibility to recovery that is so often missing in eating disorder healing. There is no neat “xx days sober” milestone to point to. There is no obvious marker that others can easily understand. In fact, what is often perceived by outsiders as tangible evidence of recovery — weight changes, portion sizes, what or how someone is eating — is frequently a complete red herring. These external signs tell us very little about the internal stability, safety, or resilience of someone’s recovery.

Eating disorders involve powerful fusions between feelings and eating. Hunger can become fused with fear. Fullness with shame. Eating with danger. Restriction with safety. Recovery requires gently untangling these fusions and redefining what a “healthy relationship with food” actually means — not in abstract terms, but for that individual, in their body, in their life.

This is why recovery looks different for everyone. There is no single definition of success. For some, recovery is eating regularly without distress. For others, it is no longer using food to manage emotions. For many, it is the quiet absence of obsession — the space where food simply becomes food again.

Recovering from an eating disorder requires immense strength. Yet this strength is often invisible. From the outside, people may say, “Well, you just eat.” As though that is the whole story. What they don’t see are the hundreds of moments of choice, the internal negotiations, the courage required to sit with discomfort rather than escape it. Recovery is hidden work. It happens internally, quietly, and often without applause.

And yet, those who recover carry something profound with them: a deep understanding of themselves, an earned trust in their ability to cope, and a resilience that cannot be taught — only lived.

That, too, deserves to be seen.