Recovery Illusion?

Thank you for the support you gave me with yesterday's post. I'm not ready to think/talk more about it today, but might come back to it at some point.

I want to talk about recovery right now.

Lately, I've been feeling like recovery isn't really more than an illusion. Something people talk about, but nobody really defines- people I *thought* were recovered, I discovered really aren't at all. There struggles may be more under control, but are very much present in their day to day lives.

This raises two questions in my mind:

1) are people, on the whole, just messed up and all have issues?

or,

2) is complete freedom from anorexia really just not possible?

I've generally maintained the idea that a full recovery IS possible for everyone. That's not to say that everyone will recover, but that there is nobody out there who doesn't stand the same chance of being free from this. I built this belief for two reasons: firstly, I need to believe that a 100% recovery is possible. I don't want to contemplate the notion that I may NOT be fully recovered one day (because that leads me to the type of thinking present last week), but also because I thought I had seen it.

I have met a lot of people in treatment over the years- some I knew continued to struggle to a huge extent, some appeared to be doing well, some drifted away and I never heard anything else. I hoped, perhaps naively, that this was a positive sign- that they had moved beyond anorexia completely and didn't want it to be a part of their lives anymore. Some I kept in touch with- I guess it all comes down to a personal definition of what recovery actually is, but after talking more and more to people who consider themselves in recovery, I realise that they are still struggling. Not to the same extent, but they definitely aren't in the place I am striving for.

Which raises another question...

is what I am striving for completely unattainable/unrealistic?..

I have a LOT of respect and admiration for the friends I have who are doing well, and I do NOT want to be construed as knocking their recoveries. It takes a hell of a lot of hard work to get to a point where you are managing things well enough to move beyond this- to break free once and for all though is maybe not realistic. I like to THINK it's going to happen, but I don't feel it on an emotional level. For a myriad of reasons.

I am just trying to climb back into the head space I was in a few weeks ago and am starting to see the connection between my depression and the feeling that this recovery ideal I held in my head falling to pieces. I guess when you put people on pedestals, you are taking the risk that one day they might fall, and then what?..