Eating Disorder Recovery Isn’t Linear: What Setbacks Really Mean

If you've spent any time talking about eating disorder recovery, you've probably heard the phrase, “Recovery isn't a straight line.”

It's a little cliché.

And as much as we may roll our eyes at clichés sometimes, this one is true.

Recovery is hard. There will be days when things feel easier and days when old thoughts, urges, or behaviors show back up. There may be moments when you find yourself returning to a behavior you thought you had moved past.

That can feel incredibly discouraging.

It can also bring up the fear that you've somehow lost all of the progress you've made.

But you haven't suddenly lost all of the progress you've made.

Struggling Doesn't Mean You've Failed

One of the things I talk about often in eating disorder recovery is that struggling is part of recovery.

That doesn't mean we want to struggle. And it doesn't mean we should ignore behaviors when they show up. But when someone has relied on an eating disorder for years, it makes sense that old patterns can resurface when life gets hard.

Eating disorder behaviors often serve a purpose, even when that purpose isn't healthy or helpful in the long run. Maybe they helped someone feel more in control. Maybe they provided a way to cope with anxiety, overwhelm, or difficult emotions. Maybe they simply became familiar, something to reach for when everything else felt like too much.

So when life gets difficult, it isn't surprising that the brain may want to return to something it knows.

That doesn't mean recovery isn't working.

It can mean you're learning to respond differently to something that may have been a coping strategy for a very long time.

And that takes time.

Hard Moments Can Teach Us Something

Sometimes we think of setbacks as evidence that we need to try harder or be more committed to recovery.

Sometimes, though, they can give us information.

What was happening before the behavior showed up?

Were you exhausted? Stressed? Feeling disconnected? Going through a major transition? Avoiding something difficult? Noticing more body image thoughts than usual?

Paying attention to these patterns can help us identify triggers and early warning signs that we may not have recognized before. That information can actually make recovery stronger.

Maybe we realize that a particular situation tends to leave us more vulnerable. Maybe we notice that we're beginning to withdraw, become more rigid, or spend more time thinking about food and our bodies.

Those signs can become part of a stronger relapse prevention plan.

The goal isn't to create a plan that guarantees we'll never struggle again.

It's to become better at noticing when we're struggling and knowing what we can do next.

One Behavior Doesn't Erase Your Recovery

I think this is one of the hardest parts of recovery.

Someone engages in a behavior they haven't used in a long time, and suddenly it can feel like they're right back where they started.

But one behavior doesn't erase months or years of work.

It doesn't erase the meals you ate, the flexibility you practiced, the difficult conversations you had, or the ways you learned to cope differently.

Engaging in a behavior doesn't necessarily mean you've lost your recovery or returned to where you were before. There is still an opportunity to pause and decide what happens next.

This is also where all-or-nothing thinking can make a difficult moment feel even bigger. It can be easy to think, “Well, I already did it, so I've ruined everything,” or “If I'm really in recovery, I shouldn't still be struggling with this.”

That kind of thinking can turn one difficult moment into proof that recovery isn't working. It can also make it harder to choose what comes next.

This is where I often come back to a phrase I learned from a dietitian I worked with before: “What's the next best thing?”

Not, “How do I fix everything?”

Not, “How did I let this happen?”

Not, “I already messed up, so what's the point?”

Just: What's the next best thing I can do from here?

Recovery isn't about responding perfectly every time. It's about practicing a different response when you can, and sometimes that means taking things one decision at a time.

Recovery Is More Like a Road Trip

I often think about recovery like taking a road trip.

When you're driving somewhere you've never been before, you probably expect a few things to happen along the way.

You might hit traffic. There might be a detour. You could miss an exit. Maybe you realize you've been going the wrong direction for a while.

None of those things mean your car suddenly gets teleported back to your driveway.

You might have to turn around. You might have to take a different road. You might arrive later than you originally planned, but you don't lose all of the miles you've already traveled.

I think recovery works the same way.

A difficult period doesn't erase the work you've already done. A behavior doesn't erase the skills you've learned. A setback doesn't put you back at the beginning.

Sometimes you just need to spend a little more time here before continuing forward. And maybe that's one of the hardest things to accept about recovery: struggling doesn't mean you've stopped moving forward.

You will have difficult days. You may take a wrong turn. You may need to stop, reassess, and figure out where you are. And maybe our recovery road needed to look a little different than we expected, and we didn't realize it until we got there.

And sometimes, that starts with something as simple as asking yourself: What's the next best thing I can do from here?