The other night my friend and I drove around listening to the song “Hurricane Drunk” by Florence and the Machine: I brace myself cos I know it’s going to hurt, but I like to think at least things can’t get any worse..

“I love this song, it’s very much how I feel right now,” my friend said, turning her eyes from the road to look at me. “Standing in a hurricane, no walls to protect you from the rain coming at you from all sides.. that’s what recovery feels like sometimes.”

I nodded: at this point in recovery, it feels like I’m standing in that hurricane, too. Everything is coming at me at once, and without the eating disorder to “protect” me or numb me out, I’ve got no choice but to face things as they are. Like my body image. The doctors say that’s the last thing to change, and although I don’t expect seven years of poor body image and low self-worth to go away in just a few weeks, I’m getting impatient. The weight that I’ve gained in treatment is making it worse, and the eating disordered voice in my head is shouting louder: “You’re gaining so much weight – you look disgusting. The hospital’s meal plan is making you fat. You shouldn’t go outside looking the way that you do. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”

So here I am in this hurricane. It’s a clash of the ED thoughts and the new recovery-minded ones, and I’m standing in the midst of it with my umbrella turned inside-out. The important thing is that I’m still standing, though, no matter how loud the winds get. I’m still here.

No hope, don’t want shelter. No calm, nothing to keep me from the storm, and you can’t hold me down cos I belong to the hurricane. It’s going to blow this all away..