For years, I never questioned the stark difference between surviving and healing. To survive Anorexia, my body had stayed alive. I had gained weight. I could partake in life and convince everyone, including myself, that I was better. But beneath the surface, I was still living from the same wounded place. Yes, anorexia had loosened its grip, but the need to escape, to numb, to seek validation, and to outrun myself simply found new disguises. Survival kept me functioning; healing asked me to stop running.
Healing didn't begin when I survived the surface-level expressions of the eating disorder. It began 8 years later when I finally left the life that kept my wounds alive. It was marked by a destructive implosion where I lost what I thought was everything. In that period between, the chaos, the constant distractions, the drinking, the endless chasing of external fulfilment— all of it delayed the inevitable meeting with myself. So when I was forced to choose sobriety, every place I used to hide was now laid bare. There was nowhere left to escape except inward. It was there, in the quiet I had spent years avoiding, that I met the girl who had never actually been healed. She didn't need another diet, another achievement, another relationship, or another drink. She was tired of the chaos, destruction, masking and the shallow confines that life had created. She needed to be deeply seen, grieved, forgiven, and loved.
Looking back, I realise surviving is about learning to function around your pain. Healing is what happens when you finally turn toward it. One keeps you moving through the world. The other quietly returns you to yourself. Because surviving without the deeper work keeps you caught in the same cycle, just in different forms.
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