In the eating disorder world, the term used for getting better or banishing symptoms is “recovery.”  Recovery has many definitions but the most relevant I found was in the Merriam-Webster dictionary and is as follows:  “the act or process of returning to a normal state after a period of difficulty.”

I’ve always been uncomfortable using the word recovery to refer to my journey through the dark world of my eating disorder.  Truthfully, I felt stupid using the term and wondered why, hence, my look up of the actual definition.  I now understand why I don’t like the term because I don’t want to get back to normal.  I don’t even remember what my normal was since I’ve been struggling with this for 30 out of my 41 years…did I even develop a normal?  I want to define a new and fabulous normal where “returning” to anything isn’t on the agenda because moving forward is the way to healing.

So, I’ve decided that I’m going to use the word “transformation” to describe my journey which means “to change (something) completely and usually in a good way.”  Although daunting, it’s more fun to re-invent than to return back to something, isn’t it?