My Recipe for Life - Eating Disorders & Neurodivergence
I created this My Recipe for Life page to sit alongside the Eating Disorders & Neurodivergence resource and diary.
The title reflects the commonly used term or area of difficulty discussed in the accompanying resource; it is not intended to diagnose you.
This is not a food plan, meal plan or set of instructions about what you should eat. I wanted to create something that looks beyond food and reminds you that recovery and wellbeing need many different ingredients.
On the page you will find patience, compassion, curiosity, support, rest, joy, your own pace, self-trust, small steps and hope. You can think about what each of those words means to you and how you might bring a little more of it into your life.
Your recipe will not look like anybody else's. Perhaps patience means giving yourself longer at a difficult meal. Compassion might mean stopping the harsh conversation in your head. Support may be messaging somebody you trust. Rest may mean recognising that your body has had enough. A small step might simply be telling the truth about how difficult today has been.
I particularly want you to remember that recovery is about more than changing eating behaviours. It is also about rebuilding a life with room for relationships, safety, interests, humour, creativity, rest and the parts of you that an eating difficulty may have pushed into the background.
You can return to this page whenever recovery feels too focused on rules or outcomes. Add your own ingredients, cross things out, write in the margins or use it as a reminder on difficult days. There is no perfect recipe and there is no perfect recovery.
My message to you is simple: you are so much more than your struggles with food. You do not have to prove that you are struggling enough to deserve support. Please give yourself permission to move at a pace that is safe and realistic for you. Small steps matter.
This reflection page is for support and self-understanding and does not replace medical, dietetic or specialist eating-disorder care.
Warmly, Maggie
