In seventh grade, I had my first and only stint in the hospital. I was diagnosed with an eating disorder, and so began months of treatment and food monitoring. I no longer retained the right to decide what and when to put in my body.
Though my parents eased up on me throughout high school, the surveillance was constant and the questions ceaseless. I began to feel distanced from my body; it became something that needed to be taken care of for others rather than myself. This detachedness, combined with my anxiety (which is the true cause of the disorder) inevitably began to work against me and for my eating disorder.
I turned 18 in quarantine and, though my parents could still observe my habits and make suggestions, the loosening of their reigns and the chaos of the pandemic enabled the resurgence of old and unwanted habits.
The truth is, you do not simply “recover” from an eating disorder and forget about it. You must constantly be vigil, and mindful of your habits and triggers. You must constantly battle thoughts and emotions that you know have or could cause you to relapse.
Not to mention, eating disorders are psychological disorders. You cannot see an eating disorder. This fact can complicate matters further, because others may not even be aware of your suffering, so they do not know to help you.
That said, being in quarantine did not help my eating disorder. As it turns out, the same goes for thousands of others. Bryn Austin, professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director of the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders, said in a 2021 New York Times article that the demand for eating disorder treatment “is way outstretching the capacity to address it.”
Isolation, it seems, as well as the anxiety-provoking nature of the pandemic and its consequences, is conducive to eating disorders. Then it seems natural that, if anything, human interaction and the easing of restrictions might prove a salve to the opened wound of anxiety and chaos. Ironically, when the time came for me to move into the dorms at UCLA, my mom was more worried than ever.
My hypothesis, however, was ultimately correct. Between the countless alternating options in the dining halls, the easing of restrictions, the constant company at mealtimes, and the excitement of the new environment (among many other factors), I was able to naturally escape from the dusky, yet familiar caverns of my eating disorder.
That is not to say I do not revert to old tendencies, or have spouts of bad anxiety that lead to minor relapse. Rather, the point is that eating disorder recovery is, in fact, nonlinear but there are some things you can do to keep the trend as positive as possible.
For me, the community and structure of the college environment were just what I needed to maintain that slope.
If you or someone you know has an eating disorder and needs help, call the National Eating Disorders Association helpline at 1-800-931-2237, text 741741, or chat online with a Helpline volunteer here.