Feeling caught between not wanting to recover and wanting to recover is a normal and understandable part of many people’s experience with eating disorders. This ambivalence about recovery makes sense, given the role many people’s eating disorders play in their lives.
By: A BALANCE team member
For example, some eating disorders have helped people cope with incredibly challenging situations or emotions. At the same time, people may not yet have built up other coping mechanisms to take their place, so the eating disorder might still serve an essential purpose. The internal struggle between wanting to recover and not wanting to let go of your eating disorder is called ambivalence.
If you are in treatment, your therapist, dietitian, or doctor’s goals for you might feel misaligned or counterproductive with your way of being that is still tied to your eating disorder. Understandably, you might not want to stop using ED behaviors, gain weight, or relearn how to eat intuitively, even if you can see how it would be helpful in the long term.
All of these factors can be overwhelming, so looking at them through several different questions can be helpful when working through ambivalence.
How Do I Truly Feel About My Ambivalence? What Does Ambivalence Feel Like?
The first step is to recognize the feelings coming up and acknowledge that they are there. Try not to judge the feeling or categorize it as good or bad. It is what it is. Acknowledge it to yourself, and then try acknowledging it aloud with a supportive person, whether a friend, parent, or therapist.
How Did Your Eating Disorder Serve You?
Your eating disorder may have played an important role in your life, helping you deal with life’s difficulties. It might even be a big part of your identity. Understanding the needs that your eating disorder has helped meet can help you honor its value and its cost to move forward.
What are the Pros and Cons of Continuing Along This Path?
A simple pro-con list can help clarify the benefits and costs of your eating disorder. Remember your core values and the qualities you want to embody when building this list. This list and your values can help you decide the right move that gets you closer to where you want to be, even if it is just one step at a time.
Are You Open to Learning New Skills?
Learning new skills to help you manage complicated feelings can help to shift the burden off your eating disorder so that recovery can feel more feasible. Working with a therapist to identify and practice new coping methods can be very helpful.
Most likely, even after you move through these processes, you will still feel some degree of ambivalence, and that is okay. If you continue down the path of recovery, ambivalence will pop up at new junctures, sometimes even for no identifiable reason. Simply acknowledge that these feelings are part of the process and ask what they might be trying to tell you. And as you do, keep practicing new skills, connecting with people, and exploring how things might have changed since you started this journey.
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