The doctor gave me a discharge date: October 3rd. By then I’ll have been in treatment for exactly fourteen weeks – that’s ninety-eight days! Ninety-eight days of supervised meals and stepping on scales, of needles and tourniquets, of talking about feelings and coping skills and how to walk into a grocery store without having a panic attack. Ninety-eight days of hard work and quiet triumphs, of tears and frustrations. Ninety-eight days of recovery.

I’m not gonna lie – I’m a little scared to leave treatment. It’s been such a safe place for me and the routine is comforting, not to mention it held me accountable for eating my meals and not acting on symptoms. I’ve had my treatment team behind me for so long now that I’m nervous about doing it alone. I’m scared that I’ll start acting on symptoms, restricting a little here and a little there until I’m knee-deep in a relapse before I even know it. I’ve relapsed before, after all.. who’s to say it won’t happen again?

I keep telling myself that I won’t be as alone as my anxieties make it out to be, because I won’t, really. After discharging, I’ll still have support: I’ll continue seeing my therapist, I’ll be attending weekly support groups, and I’ll be seeing a nutritionist. I’ve got friends from treatment, too; I’ve become close with a few women from my group, and, despite it being against hospital rules, we meet once a week or so on our own to check in and make sure we’re staying recovery-focused.

Discharging is my next step in recovery. There are no promises that things will be peachy-keen from here on out, that I’m cured as soon as I walk out of the hospital doors and that I will be able to live my life without the monkey of ED on my back. No – it’s not going to be that way. Recovery is a process, and it’s very much what you make it. So I’m going to make mine worthwhile.

I’ll still have support after discharging, it’ll just be in a new form, and I’ll still be moving forward in my recovery. I’ve still got this.

Yesterday the art therapist gave us this poem to reflect on in terms of our impending discharges:

The Door, by Adrienne Rich

Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.

If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.

If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely

but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?

The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.