When You're Not Quite Ready to Recover From Your Eating Disorder

10 Aug

Maybe one part of you wants recovery.

You are exhausted by thinking about food all day. You are tired of cancelling plans, negotiating with yourself about meals, checking your body or feeling like your eating disorder has slowly taken over more of your life.

But another part of you is not ready to let it go.

Perhaps your eating disorder helps you feel safe, gives you a sense of control, numbs difficult emotions or has become so intertwined with your identity that imagining life without it feels frightening.

If this sounds familiar, you are not failing at recovery.

Ambivalence- wanting change and not wanting change at the same time- is incredibly common in eating disorder recovery. Eating Disorders Victoria describes ambivalence as a normal part of recovery and highlights that motivation can fluctuate rather than appearing all at once. Read more about ambivalence in eating disorder recovery through Eating Disorders Victoria.

You do not need to arrive at therapy completely ready to recover. Sometimes therapy is where readiness begins.

Why would part of me want to keep my eating disorder?

Eating disorders can cause enormous distress while simultaneously serving important psychological functions.

Your eating disorder may help you:

feel more in control when life feels unpredictable
regulate or avoid overwhelming emotions
create rules when uncertainty feels intolerable
communicate distress that has been difficult to put into words
feel successful or disciplined
cope with trauma or difficult relationships
manage perfectionism
feel connected to an identity
avoid body-related fears
experience temporary relief from anxiety

This is one reason someone can understand intellectually that their eating disorder is harming them while still feeling terrified of recovery.

The eating disorder may be causing the problem and feel like the thing helping you survive the problem.

Therapy can make space for both truths.

You don't have to convince yourself that you want recovery

Sometimes people delay treatment because they believe: “There is no point seeing a psychologist until I actually want to change.”

But motivation is not usually a switch that suddenly turns on.

It may look more like: “I don't want to keep living like this, but I'm scared of what recovery means.”

“I want fewer thoughts about food, but I don't want my body to change.”

“I want my relationships back, but I'm not ready to stop all my behaviours.”

“I know something needs to change. I just don't know whether I can do it yet.”

These are not reasons to avoid therapy.

They are exactly the kinds of conversations therapy can help with.

How MANTRA can help when you're unsure about recovery

The Maudsley Model of Anorexia Nervosa Treatment for Adults (MANTRA) is an evidence-based psychological treatment specifically developed for adults experiencing anorexia nervosa. It is particularly well suited to working with the complex relationship someone may have with their eating disorder. MANTRA is recommended internationally as a psychological treatment for adults with anorexia nervosa, and research supports its effectiveness, although outcomes are broadly comparable with other specialist treatments. Learn more about MANTRA.

Rather than treating the eating disorder as something irrational that simply needs to be removed, MANTRA asks:

What keeps the eating disorder going, and what does it provide for you?

The model considers several factors that may maintain anorexia, including thinking style, emotional and social processes, positive beliefs about the eating disorder and responses from people around you. Read about the MANTRA model.

This can be especially helpful if part of you still values aspects of the eating disorder.

Exploring what the eating disorder gives you

In MANTRA, therapy might explore both sides of your relationship with the eating disorder.

You might recognise that restriction gives you a sense of control, while also recognising that it has reduced your ability to concentrate, socialise or enjoy life. The goal is not for your therapist to argue with you until recovery wins.

Instead, therapy helps you become curious about the discrepancy between what the eating disorder promises and what it is actually costing you.

Over time, this can allow your own reasons for change to become clearer.

Schema Therapy asks a slightly different question

Sometimes an eating disorder makes more sense when we understand what came before it.

Schema Therapy explores deeply established patterns, or schemas, about yourself, other people and relationships. These patterns can develop when important emotional needs have repeatedly gone unmet.

For example, someone may carry beliefs such as:

“I am only worthwhile when I achieve.”
“My needs are too much.”
“If I lose control, everything will fall apart.”
“People will reject me if they see who I really am.”
“I have to be perfect to be accepted.”
“My body determines whether I am good enough.”

An eating disorder may become one way of coping with these painful beliefs.

Research into Schema Therapy for eating disorders is still developing. A systematic review found promising but preliminary evidence, particularly for people with more complex or longstanding eating difficulties, while also emphasising the need for larger and stronger studies.

That distinction matters: Schema Therapy may be clinically useful for some people, but it should not be presented as having the same established evidence base as first-line eating disorder treatments.

Understanding the different "parts" of you

Schema Therapy for Eating Disorders can also help when it feels as though different parts of you are fighting each other.

One part might say: “I want my life back.”

Another responds: “But gaining weight isn't safe.”

Another says: “You should be able to recover perfectly.”

And somewhere underneath all of this might be a frightened part that simply wants reassurance, acceptance or protection.

Rather than deciding that one of these parts is irrational or difficult, therapy can help you understand where they came from and what they are trying to accomplish.

The eating disorder may have developed as a coping strategy long before you had safer ways to meet those needs.

Recovery can involve building those alternatives.

What if my eating disorder feels like part of who I am?

This can be one of the hardest parts of recovery.

When you have lived with an eating disorder for years, it may have shaped:

your daily routine
friendships and relationships
how you manage emotions
your sense of achievement
your identity
how you understand your body
what makes you feel safe

So when someone says, “Just let go of the eating disorder,” the question may quietly become:

Who am I without it?

Therapy can help you begin exploring an identity that becomes bigger than the eating disorder.

Not by suddenly removing it, but by gradually creating more room for other things: relationships, values, creativity, interests, pleasure, work, culture, connection and parts of yourself that may have become quieter while the eating disorder became louder.

You can start with curiosity rather than commitment

You do not necessarily have to walk into your first therapy session saying:

“I am 100% committed to full recovery.”

You might begin with:

“I know this isn't sustainable.”
“I want to understand why I keep doing this.”
“I want my thoughts about food to take up less space.”
“I don't know whether I want recovery, but I want to talk about it.”
That is enough to start a conversation.

Therapy can help you explore what changing would mean, what you fear losing and what you might gain.

Readiness can grow through treatment

There is a common idea that someone must “want recovery badly enough” before treatment can work.

That can place an enormous burden on the person who is unwell.

In reality, eating disorders themselves can reinforce behaviours and beliefs that make change difficult. Ambivalence should therefore be understood and worked with rather than interpreted simply as resistance or lack of motivation. Eating Disorders Victoria specifically recognises that people may experience conflicting feelings about giving up their eating disorder during recovery.

Sometimes motivation follows action rather than preceding it.

You may attend therapy before you feel ready.

You may practise one small change while still feeling frightened.

You may discover that something you feared becomes more manageable.

Then another possibility opens.

Recovery can grow gradually.

What might early therapy look like?

If you are ambivalent about recovery, your first sessions do not need to involve immediately challenging every eating disorder behaviour.

Depending on your medical safety and individual circumstances, therapy might initially focus on:

understanding how your eating disorder developed
identifying what it currently provides for you
exploring what life has become like with the eating disorder
clarifying your values and hopes outside food and weight
identifying fears about recovery
understanding perfectionism or self-criticism
exploring relationships and unmet emotional needs
strengthening alternative coping strategies
increasing medical and nutritional safety
identifying one small change you are willing to experiment with

The pace should be compassionate, but compassionate treatment also needs to take eating disorder risk seriously. Eating disorders can have significant physical and psychological consequences, so medical monitoring and nutritional support will still be necessary even when you feel uncertain about behavioural change. InsideOut Institute is Australia's national institute for eating disorder research and clinical excellence and provides evidence-based information about treatment and support. Explore InsideOut Institute.

You cannot be shamed into recovery

Being told to “just eat,” frightened with worst-case scenarios or repeatedly reminded that you should want recovery can sometimes increase shame and defensiveness. Compassionate eating disorder treatment can still be clear about risk while remaining curious about why change feels frightening.

A helpful therapeutic relationship might sound more like:

What would you be afraid might happen if you gave this behaviour up?

What does the eating disorder help you manage?

What has it cost you?

What would you want more room for if the eating disorder took up less space?

These questions allow recovery to become personally meaningful rather than something you are doing simply because everyone else tells you that you should.

You don't need to be ready. You need somewhere to start.

If one part of you wants recovery and another part desperately wants things to stay the same, both parts can come to therapy.

At recoverED Clinic, we provide compassionate, trauma-informed and neuroaffirming eating disorder therapy. Approaches such as MANTRA and Schema Therapy can help us explore not only the eating disorder behaviours themselves, but also the emotional needs, beliefs, relationships and experiences that may sit underneath them.

We will not expect you to arrive perfectly motivated.

Sometimes the first goal is simply understanding your eating disorder differently.

And from there, we can begin asking what a life with a little more freedom might look like.

You don't have to feel ready for the whole recovery journey to take the first step.

Disclaimer

This blog is for general educational purposes only and does not constitute medical, psychological, diagnostic, or therapeutic advice. It should not be relied upon as a substitute for personalised care from a qualified health professional.

Reading this blog does not create a psychologist–client relationship with recoverED Clinic or its clinicians. If you have concerns about your mental health, eating behaviours, physical health, or safety, please seek professional support. In an emergency, call 000 or attend your nearest emergency department. You can access a list of Australian crisis Helpines here.

This blog was created with the support of AI tools for clarity and structure and has been reviewed and edited by our team.

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