Anna Recovery

Knowing When You Have Lapsed, or Instead Relapsed- 

With eating disorders, your urges to engage in ED actions will increase with certain triggers or events going on. If being around a lot of people results in you restricting, purging, or binging, then you can see that this occurrence is a trigger for you. Then, you might slip up and for a short period of time, a meal, a snack, or a day, you act on EDB's (eating disorder behaviors.) 

This time of engaging in those behaviors would be a lapse in recovery. You end up screwing up for a short while, but after this lapse you gather your inner thoughts up, debunk those thoughts of doing EDB's, and go back to the correct path. This path being recovery. 

A relapse is when something changes. You may not even think to much about the change, but something happens, where thoughts of being happy with yourself and eating your meals and being healthy, switch. You think so much about the positives of ultimately making yourself sick and unhappy, that you say," F' it. This way of binging, purging, or restricting, will help me feel better. I will start doing that again." 

This way of thinking gets you into a relapse, where you do those behaviors for a long time, or until someone or something changes in that way of thinking. This relapse were you don't bounce back into a positive and rational state of mind is a relapse. 

I know relapse very well. I have done this many of times, and it is so detramental that you go back to recovery, ask for help, or someone stops you from this deadly action.

Think of a lapse as a normal part of recovery. You can mess up for a short time, control those horrible thoughts and actions, and go back to real happiness. Relapse is what you have to be careful with. By going by this definition from google, "return to (a less active or a worse state)," you are getting lost. No control, no rationality, and if continues, no real happiness again. 


So by reading this I hope you learned the difference by lapsing and relapsing. If you are going through a relapse, get help, and also if you are going through a time of lapsing, talk to someone you know and trust well. Express all the thoughts going through your head. 


Stay strong, 

Alexis