Preparing for the Holidays in Eating Disorder Recovery
Getting through the holiday season with an eating disorder can be debilitating. The weeks approaching the holidays are often more nerve-wracking than anything else. While one day or dinner does not define your recovery state, your actions in the weeks preceding the holidays are critical in your journey.
By: Samreen Khan
In previous years, your Novembers and Decembers may have been filled with guilt and dread as you awaited the holidays. There is no immediate solution to alleviating this unease, but learning to cope with these feelings in non-disordered ways will allow you to forge ahead through the holidays.
Spend Mindful Time with Yourself
It is important to remember that you are entitled to take time for yourself this time of year. Eating disorders tend to alter one’s perspective of their body into a vessel solely defined by eating practices, exercise routines, and external appearance. Spending time alone can amplify the inner dialogue of inadequacies you believe your body possesses. This is why mindful alone time is crucial in recovery; make an effort to focus on the existence of your body beyond the factors your eating disorder fixates on. Practice living in your body, not just your mind, by recognizing how your body feels as you move through the day. Focus on appreciating what you can do instead of fixating on your perceived flaws. And cultivate curiosity instead of judgment for yourself and your experiences.
Lean on Your Loved Ones for Distraction
While allowing yourself to rest and recharge can reduce the number of extraneous worries, it can also provide ample room to ruminate on what already plagues you. Keeping to yourself can amplify your anxiety, which makes it challenging to create effective distractions on your own. Meeting up with friends or family allows you to lean on your support system and offers respite from dealing with the stress alone. Even if you do not disclose your anxieties or urges to them, creating a distraction from your thoughts can be shared with your loved ones.
Unpack Your Emotions with a Trusted Individual
Distraction is a temporary solution to a problem that will persist if it is not faced. Talking through your feelings with people you can be honest with is essential to overcoming the dread that the holidays often bring. Although many anxieties created by eating disorders are irrational, that relentlessly enduring voice makes it challenging to disrupt disordered thinking on your own. Beliefs that seem resolute to you often result from biases and misconceptions caused by negative past experiences. These can be unpacked with someone like your therapist or in a support group. Reflecting on past holiday seasons can be triggering, and revisiting history is not for everyone. But for many, working through past holiday experiences creates an opportunity to work through emotions that arise every year and prepare for the upcoming holiday more effectively.
Indulge in Simple Comforts
During these phases of recovery, the least you can do for yourself is partake in the simple things that bring you happiness. Allowing yourself to watch your childhood comfort movie, buy your favorite fall drink, or even dress in your coziest sweater can go a long way. Relieving stress in even the most seemingly trivial ways is key to persevering through recovery.
The last few months of the year are undoubtedly demanding, but staying mindful in your recovery can ease the weight on your shoulders. Care for yourself like you would a loved one, and allow your loved ones to care for you. You do not have to bear the burden of the holidays alone.
While the holidays are supposed to be a time of togetherness, tradition, and merriment, it can feel stressful and isolating for those with an eating disorder. Let BALANCE help you navigate the holidays and set the stage for lasting recovery. Our 12-day winter intensive program can help you jump-start your recovery. Our exclusive winter eating disorder treatment program fits conveniently within your winter break schedule, allowing you to invest in transformative care. Connect with our admissions team and learn more about our 12-day winter intensive program here.
This post was written by BALANCE Blog Contributor, Samreen Khan (she/her/he/him).
Samreen is a high school graduate with an ardent drive to de-stigmatize mental illness and eating disorders. Born and raised in the Bay Area, she experienced the harmful effects of “fitspo” culture firsthand for most of her childhood. Throughout her own recovery journey, she became passionate about deconstructing diet culture and raising awareness about eating disorders in her everyday life. Samreen began extending her own ideology of intuitive eating and body neutrality to others by publishing her own writing online when she was fourteen, and has since received several awards for her prose and poetry. She has conducted research on the biological and evolutionary implications of familial mental illness, and is currently taking college-level Sociology and Psychology courses with hopes to delve further into the social and cultural constructs that bolster disordered eating, especially within marginalized communities. She’s grateful for the opportunity to combine two of her strongest passions — writing and mental health — by working with BALANCE!