The Loneliness of Eating Disorder Recovery That No One Talks About
- May Khine
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
When people hear that someone is “in recovery,” the reaction is usually relief. There is an assumption that things are getting better, lighter, and easier. Social media does not help either; it often presents recovery as an upward, empowering journey filled with before-and-after photos, glow-ups, and captions about self-love.
What rarely gets discussed is how messy, difficult, and non-linear eating disorder recovery actually is.
People in eating disorder recovery often move through periods of feeling lonely, scared, and—most importantly—grief-stricken. Recovery is not just about changing behaviors around food. It is also about dismantling something that once felt like safety, control, and identity. That process can be deeply isolating.
The Loneliness No One Prepares You For
Eating disorder recovery is lonely because the battle is not occasional; it is constant. Food and water are unavoidable. Unlike drugs or alcohol, there is no option to abstain. You have to face the very thing that scares you multiple times a day, every day, often while trying to appear “normal” to the world around you.
Recovery is also isolating because many people do not truly understand what is happening internally. From the outside, eating more, eating less, or gaining weight can look like progress. On the inside, it can feel like chaos, panic, and grief all at once.
When people say things like “but you are doing better now” or “you look healthier,” it can create distance rather than comfort. Even well-intentioned comments can feel invalidating or triggering, as individuals with eating disorders frequently report that remarks about appearance or eating behaviors intensify distress rather than reduce it (Treasure, Duarte, & Schmidt, 2020). Instead of feeling supported, many people in recovery end up feeling misunderstood—and ultimately, more alone.
Progress in recovery is not linear, yet there is often unspoken pressure to feel better once you have committed to recovery. Friends and family may mean well, but their expectations can make honesty feel risky. When you struggle or regress, it can feel unsafe to share, as though you are disappointing people. So you keep it to yourself. And that is where the loneliness deepens.
The Fear That Comes With Change
Recovery is also terrifying.
For both anorexia and binge eating disorders, weight changes are often unavoidable. No matter your body size, regaining weight—or even the possibility of weight gain—can feel unbearable. For some, it means giving up the pursuit of losing weight. For others, it means breaking a painful cycle of restriction and regaining that feels endless.
What makes this fear so intense is not just the number on the scale—it is the loss of control.
Eating disorders often function as a way to manage emotions, uncertainty, and pain. When recovery asks you to loosen rigid rules, numbers, or behaviors, it can feel like standing without armor. You are no longer numbing or controlling in the same way, and that vulnerability can feel overwhelming.
Recovery also asks you to sit with emotions you may have been avoiding for years—anxiety, grief, anger, emptiness. That emotional exposure can feel more frightening than the disorder itself.
The Grief No One Warns You About
One of the least talked-about parts of eating disorder recovery is grief.
Recovering often means saying goodbye to a part of yourself you relied on for emotional survival. The eating disorder may have been medically harmful, but it also protected you in some way. It soothed you. It gave you structure. It offered a sense of identity when everything else felt unstable. Letting go of that can feel like losing a long relationship—or a version of yourself that once kept you safe.
There is grief in giving up an identity. Grief in no longer being “the disciplined one” or “the skinny one.” There is also grief in losing the comfort or emotional relief food once provided. For many people with binge eating struggles, eating served as a source of emotional regulation or connection; in recovery, food can become layered with guilt and shame as it becomes moralized rather than neutral (Puhl & Suh, 2015).
Even when recovery is necessary, these losses can hurt deeply.
Grief does not mean you do not want recovery. It means that part of you may still miss the eating disorder, long for it, or struggle to let it go—while still choosing, again and again, to move forward without it. You can grieve what the eating disorder gave you and still know that it was costing you too much. Both truths can exist at the same time.
Making Space for the Whole Truth
Eating disorder recovery is a long and arduous journey—one that deserves honesty, patience, and compassion. Talking openly about the non-linear and uncomfortable parts of recovery is not meant to be discouraging, but to make space for the truth.
Naming these difficult emotions helps people feel less blindsided and less alone in experiences that are so often kept silent.
References
Puhl, R. M., & Suh, Y. (2015). Health consequences of weight stigma: Implications for obesity prevention and treatment. Current Obesity Reports, 4(2), 182–190.
Treasure, J., Duarte, T. A., & Schmidt, U. (2020). Eating disorders. The Lancet, 395(10227), 899–911. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30059-3