A few years ago, Thanksgiving was mainly a holiday of stress and anxiety for me. It was a reminder of how far I had to go until I felt normal again and how much control my eating disorder (ED) still had on me. My eating disorder always had a way of diverting my mind from what I had to be grateful for and instead had me focusing on the endless struggle to reach my destination of recovery. The triggers were seemingly endless and the lies of my eating disorder telling me I had nothing to be thankful for…all made Thanksgiving almost unbearable.
No matter where you are with your eating disorder, Thanksgiving can be stressful. For me, I saw the entire holiday mainly focused around eating the very foods that usually scared me and all centered around the theme of thankfulness. While going through my eating disorder, something so traditional and familiar, like turkey and all of the sides that came with it, became a lot to handle.
I am three years into my recovery now and Thanksgiving still stresses me out to an extent. I have learned over the years that ED would like to continue to turn my attention away from the good and have me focus on the pain. ED will still attempt to block my view of freedom and thankfulness, while trying to make me stay in a perpetual state of dependence on my eating disorder, but I’ve thankfully learned to not let ED have complete control over me.
This Thanksgiving, I urge you…Find 10 things you are thankful for and focus on it. On Thursday, let this list be the motivation of the day. Do not lose sight of all the many things we have to be thankful for this year.
This Thanksgiving I am thankful for…
- The love and support of my family, friends, and boyfriend
- My job
- The highs of this year and being able to learn from the lows
- An amazing ED-free life ahead of me
- My body and health
- What’s in store for my future
- My daily coffee
- Fall weather and the beautiful changing leaves
- Pets, especially dogs, who give us free and unconditional love (Who isn’t thankful for dogs?)