The worst part about nostalgia with an eating disorder is that you know you weren’t happier when you were sick. the nostalgia isn’t telling you that you were happier, it’s just telling you that you didn’t have to deal with things the way you do now in recovery.
When you were sick you could swat away these feelings and those memories and all those problems with a bag of chips or a jog on the treadmill or a few pills or a few hours more until you can eat.
You didn’t have to think about the hard things, the things that hurt you most. Yes you still felt the terrible feelings and thoughts from those terrible things, but they were numbed, subdued. It’s telling you it was easier because in a way, it WAS easier.
But that doesn’t mean it was better. And you know that, and the nostalgia knows that. But you can’t help but yearn for that subdued effect because you could “deal” with things so much easier….. by not dealing with them at all.
Recovery makes you face those things that you kept trying to numb and subdue. It’s hard and it hurts and all you want to do is turn back half the time. But you know, all the time, that it will never give you what you want and that the pain will never end there. So you either recover, or subject yourself to a life of pain.
