What Does Eating Disorder Recovery Mean When You’re Food Insecure?
Last September, it felt like my eating disorder (ED) recovery had never been in a stronger place — by every measure, I was eating consistently, intuitively, and yes, even joyfully.
And after reaching a place in recovery that I felt so sure was unshakeable, life did what it often does right when we start to get comfortable: My sh!t got shaken up like a snowglobe.
Shortly after putting down deposits to move to another state, hoping to be closer to a lifelong friend whose health was declining, there was a big layoff at my work, and I unexpectedly lost my job.
As if that wasn’t destabilizing enough, three weeks after my partner and I made it to our new city, that friend very suddenly passed away.
Sadly, while grief doesn’t take a day off, neither does capitalism. Being underemployed in a brand new city meant that I had no choice but to keep striving to get my footing, even in the throes of having lost a beloved friend of twenty years.
Our savings quickly evaporated, and while I worked just to keep the lights on, I watched as my “unshakeable” recovery became much more tenuous. Not because I refused to eat or didn’t want to eat, but by the mere fact that we couldn’t access food.
While I knew how to navigate a lapse when I had access to food, suddenly all of the tools and support I’d relied on before felt irrelevant and even alienating when we became food insecure.
This wasn’t our first experience of food insecurity, particularly as a transgender and disabled household. But it was my first experience of it in recovery, and it changed how I felt about the way our communities talk about it.
The emphasis on food as a “non-negotiable,” for example, rang hollow when the alternative might be losing my housing.
The tendency to celebrate meals and snacks eaten as measures of progress, while not eating was labeled a behavior regardless of context, made me feel defeated and like a failure.
Meal or snack support felt pointless to attempt when I already knew that what I was plating was hopelessly inadequate in the eyes of anyone familiar with recovery or a standard meal plan, and when I knew that I’d still report being hungry after.
Being encouraged to eat more when I didn’t know where our next meal would come from felt outright threatening to me in ways I wasn’t sure anyone around me would understand.
Just hearing people talk about their disdain for eating and for food in support groups, when all I wanted to do was eat, made the spaces that used to feel safe now feel frustrating and even harmful.
To be clear, that’s not to say that I didn’t relate to or understand the disdain that my peers described. I’d experienced it myself, as part of a complex and painful relationship to food and my body.
At the same time, when you’re struggling with food insecurity, hearing those same expressions of frustration and apathy — even ones that were once relatable to you and maybe still are! — can become painful reminders of an overwhelming difference in social power and one’s basic material reality.
To be food insecure and in recovery is a uniquely painful problem. At least when I was still deep in my ED, not eating felt like a relief and a solution, rather than a slow chipping away at the life I’d clawed my way back from hell to build for myself.
This is why, when our household became food insecure and my recovery became unstable, I initially stopped attending support groups and reaching out to my recovery-focused community and peers.
Part of this was motivated by the fact that most people simply aren’t equipped to sit with the discomfort of witnessing someone in such a vulnerable position.
We get tired of hearing “what about food pantries?” and “what about food stamps?” as if that wasn’t the very first thing we attempted, and as if those are quick fixes and not soggy bandaids at best.
It’s hard to balance not wanting to seem harsh when someone earnestly wants to help, while also validating for ourselves that their version of “help” can feel insulting to someone who has confronted these systemic barriers before.
The same stern truths that may motivate some folks in recovery can also be especially terrifying and even damaging to hear when you’re food insecure.
For example, the medical complications from our EDs may be a wakeup call when we’re searching for the “why” to our recovery. But these are the same complications we’ll face from prolonged food insecurity, and having them wielded as subtle threats can leave us feeling more vulnerable and powerless when we have little hope of nourishing ourselves consistently enough to combat them.
The emphasis on food being life, and connection, and culture — and the suggestion that restriction is dimming our light and our capacity for joy — can be persuasive when food is available and the primary obstacle is internalized.
But hearing these same ideas when food isn’t accessible feels like suggesting that our lives will essentially be half-empty so long as we’re in the cycle of poverty.
That’s why it felt protective to de-center food and yes, my recovery, when I became food insecure — even if doing so felt at odds with everything I’d been taught about ED recovery.
I knew that it would be more distressing to focus on something I couldn’t consistently control (my lack of access to food) than to pour what energy I still had into my survival (by working, reaching out for mutual aid, and strategizing with other folks who’d experienced poverty before).
But it also felt blasphemous to do this, because so often, recovery is spoken about as the thing we must put above all else, and recovery is often defined — at least within the dominant paradigm — through the lens of consumption and reduction of “behaviors.”
By these measures, I was technically putting my recovery last by compartmentalizing it and pushing it out of my mind. And by not eating enough, I was crossing the threshold into no longer being in “active” recovery anymore, depending on who you ask.
In a very real way, it felt like I was being punished for being food insecure by having my “eligibility” as an “actively recovering person” called into question.
And having found so much pride and belonging in pursuing recovery, there was a tremendous amount of grief, shame, and humility in realizing that my pride was partly conditional on my “success” under capitalism.
Of course, no one knocked on my door and demanded that I hand over the “Gold Star ED Recovery” badge.
But I knew these anxieties reflected something very real about the ways in which recovery is framed and talked about in our broader community, and how I inadvertently reinforced some of these ideas in my own work as an advocate.
With the rising cost of living and the acceleration of systemic catastrophes, I fear that our recovery-based communities are not prepared to support those who are most vulnerable at this historical moment.
This has always felt true to me as someone who is multiply marginalized, but becoming food insecure again gave me a much deeper appreciation for the distance we have yet to go.
While the connection between food insecurity and EDs is well-studied, and the idea of eating disorders as a social justice issue may not land as revelatory for many of us, understanding this logically and actually integrating this into our approach are two very different things.
When I think back to my experiences in recovery spaces and eating disorder treatment, I struggle to recall any conversations or support that would’ve prepared me for what I am currently facing.
When I searched for eating disorder support groups that were focused on navigating food insecurity and poverty, I found many articles and studies about us, but no easily accessible spaces designed with us specifically in mind.
It’s only my personal awareness of harm reduction approaches — which I first learned about through Nalgona Positivity Pride and my own dietitian — that made me feel even remotely confident in making the decisions I’ve needed to make for my survival, even if they seemed counter to what I’d learned as a client and an advocate in other spaces.
Most of us understand that a solid support system is everything when we’re attempting to stay tethered to something resembling “recovery.”
Yet if those support systems are held together by the presupposition that everyone in these spaces has access to food, and the struggle is purely an internal one, these spaces not only are set up to fail those most vulnerable, but they are inherently depoliticized as a result.
We shouldn’t settle for a model of ED recovery which suggests that it’s an individual responsibility to recover, or one that treats systemic barriers as merely “risk factors” to be catalogued and studied.
Folks who are struggling with food insecurity are real communities in dire need of support, here and now.
Yet outside the context of risk and research, or a performative disclaimer about accessibility, I rarely see conversations like these happening openly — and certainly not being uplifted by the organizations and institutions that claim to care about this.
I don’t have all of the answers, but when our eating disorders can feel more supportive to us during a crisis than the spaces and communities that exist to promote recovery, I think it’s fair to say we have a really big problem on our hands.
