You’ve done the work. You’re eating enough, gaining some healthy weight back, and are trying and bringing fear foods back into the rotation. Your friends and family have noticed the difference, and are happy to see you back to your old self. You know you’ve made progress from where you were, but your recovery still has problems. Maybe you prepare to exercise after a big meal, or still keep a mental tab of healthy foods that don’t go over a certain calorie limit. On the outside, you look healthy and whole, clearly having made steps toward full recovery. But on the inside, bits of your eating disorder are still “stuck.” This spot in the eating disorder recovery journey has come to be known as “quasi-recovery.”
Stuck in Quasi-Recovery
When we use “quasi-” to describe something, it means that thing is “almost” or “nearly” there. When we talk about quasi-recovery, the same holds true: your recovery is not fully completed. It may be confusing on the outside to be at this place in your recovery, unsure if you’ve truly made it to full recovery or not. Your body has progressed and healed physically, but the mental scars of your eating disorder still lie below the surface.
Oftentimes people get caught in this stage, unable to see past the plateau that has stretched in front of their recovery. Or other times, people may confuse this place as full recovery itself, thinking that dealing with eating-disordered thoughts here and there forever is expected. Setting up quasi-recovery as the finish line instead of a checkpoint is where so many recoverers end up failing themselves, convinced that they can no longer commit to full recovery and that this is where the road ends.
Know that this point in recovery is not the end for you. Quasi-recovery is simply a stage in the process. There will always come a time when you may feel lost or stuck while in recovery, unable to overcome certain obstacles that your eating disorder spent so long building up.
Overcoming the Quasi-Recovery Plateau
There will come a time in eating disorder recovery when a plateau is inevitable. However, recognizing this plateau in progress is even more critical. It’s a place where you can stop and readdress yourself, holding yourself accountable and diving into the core rock of your fears. If you know you’re still avoiding certain foods, counting calories, or holding on to disordered thoughts about weight gain and body image, understand that you’re in quasi-recovery. And that first step is the most important because now you know what you need to do next: recommit to full recovery.
The biggest challenge when finding yourself in quasi-recovery is dealing with the false sense of security this stage can give you. It can be deceptive in that the illusion of total progress has been made, without tackling the inner emotional and psychological issues that may still linger from your old disordered days. It’s easy to think you’re recovering when, in reality, you’re just going through the motions without facing the deep fears, anxieties, and self-esteem issues at the heart of your struggle.
Understanding ED Recovery Stages
In Carolyn Costin’s book 8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder, she describes the specific stages of a person’s eating disorder recovery, with each “phase” having its own key characteristics. Phases 7-8 in particular can be seen as the quasi-recovery stages.
- I Can Stop the Behaviors, But Not My Thoughts
- I can’t stop thinking about food and bingeing all the time.
- I Keep counting calories over and over in my head and still want to lose weight.
- I Am Often Free From Behaviors and Thoughts, But Not All the Time.
- I feel fine all day, but under stress I revert back to my unhealthy behaviors.
- I was fine, but wearing a bathing suit triggered my eating disorder thoughts, and with it some related behaviors.
Imagine quasi-recovery as steps 7 and 8 on a staircase with 10 steps. You could stop here and just about reach the top, but without taking those next steps, you won’t be able to achieve full recovery and remission. And as the book describes, you cannot truly recover until you address the last remnants of eating disorder mental dialogue.
But making that jump into full recovery may be a difficult step to overcome for some people who feel quasi-recovery may be just as good as it gets for them. They may have convinced themselves that they are completely fine and totally recovered and that there is no more work to be done on their internal psyche. There may also be a fear of diving into the commitment needed for “all-in” recovery.
Fear of Full Recovery
The fear of fully committing to recovery and dealing with change can be a major roadblock to getting past quasi-recovery. Going all in on recovery often means letting go of long-held coping mechanisms and confronting painful emotions and experiences. This process can be incredibly daunting and can stir up all sorts of feelings—fear, sadness, anger, and frustration just to start. The thought of all that emotional upheaval can make the relative stability of quasi-recovery seem more appealing, even if it’s not truly fulfilling or sustainable in the long run.
Avoiding these uncomfortable feelings can make anyone reluctant to fully embrace change, keeping people stuck in the quasi-recovery limbo where they are neither fully unwell nor fully healed. Being in this state can be incredibly exhausting, making it even tougher to find the energy and resolve needed to push for full recovery.
If you’re somebody who finds yourself stuck in the quasi-recovery boat, either afraid to recover or unsure how to move forward, know that even just understanding your place in recovery takes a lot of self-awareness and honesty. It means asking yourself tough questions about your motivations, fears, and the emotional responses connected to eating and body image. It’s about looking deeper than the surface and realizing that true recovery isn’t just about eating more or weighing more; it’s about healing your mind and heart.
How to Move On Past Quasi-Recovery
To find that motivation for the final push to full recovery, first, recenter yourself and your values. Ask yourself what you want out of an “all-in” recovery. Do you:
- Want to enjoy meals with friends and family fully, with no compensatory behaviors to minimize the food you eat?
- Want to enjoy a balanced exercise routine with your body, without overdoing it?
- Want to stop the thoughts that pop into your head when you compare yourself to others?
- Want to recover your passion for life and find your purpose outside of food and harmful eating patterns?
- Want to feel the joy of new exploration, whether that’s in a different culture, different cuisine, or different mental attitude?
This list isn’t exhaustive, but it can start as a jumping point for you to land on what you truly want from recovery, and what quasi-recovery has been holding you back from. The lingering doubts and guilt for still holding on to disordered patterns of thought will not recede immediately, as this comes hand-in-hand with the quasi-recovery stage.
But being able to define who you are and what you want will help put you on a path outside of your eating disorder, knowing that addressing these personal goals and developments will help break you out of the food-centralized mindset that may still persist during your recovery plateau. Building up key aspects of your identity apart from your old maladaptive motivations will break you out of your eating disorder comfort zone, pushing you up those last few steps to full recovery.
Work with Others to Reenergize and Recommit
Going at it alone may not be helpful for some recoverers who want to achieve a full and lasting remission. You’ve gone the distance in your own recovery, but it may be time to seek out further support to elevate you out of the quasi-recovery plateau.
At the initial stages of recovery, you may have a lot of help surrounding you. This could be the guided help of healthcare professionals or therapists who work with treating and repairing your physical or mental health. Or, this could be the friends and family who showed up for you, supporting you individually as you dealt with the overt complications of your eating disorder. However, at some point, this support can seem to drop off.
As you reach a medically stable place, some people in your life might see this as your final recovery moment; that you’ve “beat” your disorder once and for all. As this is a well-intentioned thing on the outside, as you and others can see the positive changes, what many fail to understand is that just because you’re getting better doesn’t mean you no longer need any help.
Seek Support to Push Past Plateauing
We often see this in the mental health field, with patients dropping off their therapy sessions or medications once they get back to “feeling good” and feel they no longer need support or intervention. However, for those struggling with their quasi-recovery stage in eating disorder recovery, reaching out and rediscovering your support branches can help you navigate your way out of your internal rut.
Talk to your friends and family about your struggles. Reach out to a therapist or an eating disorder recovery coach who can help motivate your journey. Join online circles where you can collaborate with and embrace others who are feeling the same way as you. Building up these critical links can help your personal journey to not feel as isolated and heavy as it may feel going about it alone.
Hold Compassion for Yourself
Lastly, remember to celebrate yourself for how far you have come. Though the quasi-recovery stage may be incredibly frustrating, relish in the fact that you wouldn’t even be feeling this frustrated if you never pushed back against your eating disorder and against the harmful behaviors that controlled your life for so long. You’re feeling frustrated because you want to better yourself and want to prove that all your hard work has been meaningful. But your work has already paid off.
You’ve already achieved so much success. Just continue to work on recovering, remembering why you committed to it in the first place. Let your newfound happiness, curiosity, connection, and passion drive you forward through this rut in your journey. As long as you recognize your own hard work and the harder work of relearning coping skills and staying committed to the process, you’ll finally know what true freedom feels like.
