Dealing
with an Eating Disorder Relapse
A. David
Wall, Ph.D., Director of Psychological Services at Remuda
Ranch
The
best way to deal with relapse is prevention. Those in recovery need to
identify risky situations in advance. A suitable analogy is black ice.
When a driver encounters black ice, she skids out of control. Yet, if the
driver knows where the black ice is, she can take precautions by going
slower, driving more deliberately, or taking another route. For women and adolescents recovering from eating
disorders, black ice is anything likely to trigger the eating disorder.
Triggers are highly individualized. Often, but not always, they are the same
situations and experiences that caused the eating disorder in the first
place. Identifying these risky situations in advance allows the person to
strategize how she will cope with the thoughts and emotions associated with
her trigger situations.
If relapse occurs, the individual can:
- Be hopeful and choose
recovery again.
- Acknowledge her behavior is
destructive and will damage her life now and in the future if she
chooses to continue.
- Seek help from a healthcare
professional.
- List the pros and cons of
returning to the eating disorder. This list can re-establish the value
of recovery.
- Talk to someone rather than
choosing the eating disorder for support.
- Think about her
accomplishments and what she will lose with a relapse.
- Identify goals and activities
that relapse will prevent.
- Set small goals that can lead
back to recovery, and congratulate herself for
every success.
- Acknowledge that although her
eating disorder has advantages, she already knows of healthier and less
dangerous ways to obtain these same advantages.
- Remember her personal
rights-the right to say "no", to express her feelings and
opinions, to ask to have her needs met.
- Start a journal to help her
identify feelings, internal messages, and triggers leading to the
relapse.
- Let go of faultfinding,
blame, guilt, and shame. Focus on the present and what she can change
today.
- Ask God for guidance.
Excerpts By: A. David Wall, Ph.D., Director of Psychological
Services at Remuda Ranch.
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