Eating Disorder: What to Do When Your Treatment Plan Ends

So, your treatment plan for an eating disorder has finally come to an end, and you’re ready to go home and reconnect with family and friends in Westport, CT. However, you should know that returning to the life you left may be difficult. There may also be times that you’ll feel slipping and regressing. That’s why it’s essential that you prepare yourself.

Have your support system ready

When your treatment ends, you’ll need people you can rely on for when you feel that you’re about to fall back on bad habits. Just because you’ve ended your treatment, it doesn’t mean that you’d never have the urge to binge eat or starve yourself again. This is why you need to have a support system to help keep yourself straying from the straight path.

Your friends and family members are good candidates for your support system, of course. But you also need people who don’t belong to your inner circle. You need people who have gone through the same situation as you so that you’ll be surrounded by individuals who truly understand your pain.

Choose people whom you think will be able to listen to you without judging you. You need them whenever you feel like you’re losing control. Fortunately, most rehabilitation facilities can provide a support system for individuals who have ended their treatment plans.

Don’t aim for perfection

When you were undergoing treatment, you had to follow rules to keep you on the right path. After following those rules for so long, it might feel that strictly adhering to them is the only way to keep your self from falling off the saddle.

The problem is if you try to aim for perfection, it could only lead to lower self-esteem and perhaps an urge to binge eat or starve yourself once again. That’s because recovery is anything but perfect. You’ll have bad days and you need to make peace with that fact because if you think that after treatment your life will be an endless road of bliss and perfection, then you’d only set yourself up to fail harder.

Be gentle with yourself and know that recovery will be a rough road. When you feel that your willpower is weak and you feel bad about yourself, try doing the following exercises.

• Pause for a while and just observe what’s happening to you.

• Do some breathing exercises.

• Think about what led you to this moment of weakness.

• Remind yourself that you have control over your mind. Acknowledge the fact that you feel weak, but remind yourself that it will pass and you still have control over your next actions.

Celebrate small and big victories

The road to recovery is hard and often, you’ll feel like you’re bound to fail once more and succumb to your eating disorder. So, whenever you succeed in keeping your bad eating habits at bay, pat yourself on the back for your victories regardless if they’re big or small.

Leaving a rehabilitation facility can be difficult because it means that you’re thrown back into the wild and there’s a high risk that you’ll fail. But, as long as you seek help from your support system, you’ll be able to stay the course. And as long as you recognize your victories, big or small, you’ll be able to rebuild your self-esteem.