(69) to "gain", or to "restore"?

19 Mar, 2026

the phrasing and framing of one's own thoughts forms a pivotal part of recovering from, and actively combating, the insidious grasp an eating disorder has over its host's mind.

for years and years now, i have viewed weight "gain" as the enemy. a concept without a conclusion, a "goal" set by doctors and psychologists who deemed that, at the time, engaging in any meaningful psychological therapy until said "weight is restored" was pointless. whether this was due to my age, the "stage of recovery" i was at, or simply (and most likely) just the model of treatment we were bound by (FBT... a model literally built around the idea that "...a child cannot think clearly or make good decisions until they are weight restored"), it did not work at all for me, and was actually more damaging (notably regarding my relationships with my family & managing my ED) than anything else.

And when such a weight "goal" was set at an arbitrary point which, you guessed it, was entirely decided by (the laughably outdated & inadequate metric of) BMI, with little to no consideration given to the individual's own genetic profile, historical pre-ED weight/eating history/growth patterns/setpoint, etc. etc... you wonder why I felt not motivated by this "goal", but "trapped" instead.

the intense focus on weight, the number each week, and the constant evaluation of "progress" alongside the punitive give/take tactics that came with that, contributed to the belief that i was working towards an arbitrary point to please others. to "get them off my back", instead of actually working towards finding where my body naturally settles (based on when i am consistently practicing normal and healthy eating patterns), whether it's above or below the weight "prescribed" to me.

so to me, that approach was weight "gain". i have been attempting to compartmentalise all of that trauma—the demotivation i felt after weeks on end of appointments tinged with deceit, manipulation, conflict, and the constant back-and-forth, push-and-pull, punish-and-reward—and wrap the sordid gift box with a bow of misaligned intentions.

now that i am an adult. after (unfortunately) living within my ED's parasitic realm of influence for over 9 years. i am fed up with following the arbitrary rulebooks of others, and am at a stage where i both understand what is and isn't helpful or conducive to my unique recovery and (importantly) what works and/or doesn't work for me. relapses have not been because i don't know these things. they're because i cannot act on them, despite actively knowing what i'm doing is illogical and nonsensical when coming from my "wise mind" (and sometimes also when within my "crazy mind"!).

so i am taking agency back, from both those who have designed & structured my care in the past, as well as my eating disorder. tous les deux, en même temps.

i will not just "gain" weight. i will "restore" weight - meaning, I will achieve a medical baseline whilst focusing primarily on rewiring & re-developing healthy & normal eating behaviours/habits, so that i can practice them more and more naturally within the outside world. and measure my success based not on what my weight does - whether it dips below or above that "medical baseline", but rather my behaviours around food & the role it plays in my life.

because as evidenced time and time again throughout my remissions and "slipbacks", when things are "getting bad", it is almost always immediately accompanied by a profound and distinct narrowing of my world view and overall outlook on both life and food. a distinctive tunnelling of my thoughts into a single-threaded task: constant and perpetual analysis of both my obsession and greatest fear: food.

success should not be measured by a number alone. and i will no longer use that as a definitive yardstick, nor be shoehorned into models of care or recovery that rely on it as such. you can have an eating disorder at any weight.

and whilst you cannot "recover" at just any weight ("too low" is, quite evidently, quite a real thing and a semi-complex distinction to tackle on a per-case basis), you do not need to be at a specific weight to recover.

i choose not to "gain weight". but to "restore" not only weight, but my life. to return to & reclaim the person that i was (holistically) before my mind and body were ravaged by this parasitic illness.

here's to a concerted restoration of a former self, and life.

~ juni.

quotes:

I suppose what I want to say is: we can do many traditionally meritorius activities as a form of avoidance and perhaps reap some benefits out of it, but at the end of the day it doesn't change the fact that we're avoiding something. Maybe for me it's reading. Maybe for you it's spinning yarn. Maybe for some it's gardening.

I'm not getting younger, I can't just kill my senses whenever things don't go my way. Sure, I get things done. People like it. I get to where I am. But I keep feeling the absence left by the holes in my memories, my heart mourning for something I couldn't remember losing.