This is part three of a blog series that addresses healing your relationship with food, yourself, and others (I’m recording this as a podcast series as well!). If you haven’t read Part 1 and Part 2 yet, you will want to explore those prior to diving into this post because they provide foundational insights about how disordered eating can affect personal connections.

Binge eating and food restriction tend to isolate you from others, from your own needs, and from your ability to care for yourself. In the first two posts, I helped you explore the many ways that issues with relationships could be intertwined with your eating disorder. I also addressed how important it is to separate your ability to improve relationships from your ability to avoid binge eating. You want to set yourself up to be binge-free no matter how well or how poorly relationships are going, because bingeing is never the solution to relationship issues.

Creating space for connection after recovery or recovery progress

Stopping binge eating—or even just making some progress in recovery, so that food starts to take up less of your time, energy, and mental capacity—starts to create space for more connection in your life. It creates more room to focus on addressing and healing relationship issues, whether that’s with yourself or others, and that will be the focus of this post.

As I discussed in Part 1 of the series, if your relationship with food is still consuming you, it’s going to feel really hard to heal other relationships because you’re still in that survival mode. So it’s very important to get to a more stable place with food, and we have many resources to help you do that—including one-on-one coaching with me or Coach Julie, the Brain over Binge group, and my books or course.

With that in mind, this post is mostly directed toward people who are binge-free or on their way to becoming binge-free. But regardless of where you are in recovery, the ideas here could still be useful to you in a way that’s safe and feels doable right now.

Where do I even start in rebuilding relationships after binge eating?

I want to begin with a question that came up during my Q&A call with the Brain over Binge group a couple of months ago, because it serves as a helpful guidepost for everything else I’ll talk about here.

The question was basically this: “I’ve been bingeing and obsessed with food for so long that I don’t know where to start in learning how to have a friend or be a friend.”

You may be feeling this way too, and it’s also common to feel this way when it comes to your relationship with yourself—in that you aren’t sure how to be a friend to yourself. I’m going to use a lot of the advice I shared on that group call, and expand on it, to address this overarching question: How do you start learning the skills of being a friend to yourself and others? This also applies to being a partner, a family member, a coworker, or navigating any kind of relationship.

Begin with compassion and patience

Always start with compassion toward yourself and toward any friends or other relationships you may have lost or not nurtured along the way. The eating disorder took this away from you; it wasn’t your intention to neglect relationships or not to form them in the first place. Beating yourself up doesn’t help, so any amount of self-compassion you can offer is a great first step.

Next, develop a mindset of patience as you learn these new skills. If you’re more isolated right now, you likely won’t wake up tomorrow with a fulfilling social life and a great relationship with yourself. You may have been trapped in these eating issues from a very young age, and you therefore didn’t get a chance to develop these skills, so be kind and gentle with yourself. Think of it like picking up a musical instrument or a sport—you wouldn’t expect yourself to be perfect right away. You’d start with the basics and gradually build toward more advanced skills.

Notice the good in your life, within yourself, and in your relationships

Once you have self-compassion and patience, you can begin taking steps to heal your relationships and build a healthy connection with yourself. Depending on where you are now, here are some ideas about how to start this healing process. You can take what resonates with you and what you feel ready for, and use it as inspiration to think of your own ideas as well.

A good place to start is to begin noticing the good in your life and within yourself—whatever that may be. This suggestion doesn’t involve creating anything new—but just noticing what’s already there. Yes, binge eating may have taken a lot away from you, but there is still good in your life. As you go through your day, try to notice small joys and pleasures—whether that involves others or just yourself. Notice moments when you feel a positive emotion, when you think a positive thought about yourself or your abilities, when you sense a good smell, a food that tastes great, a comfortable outfit, a beautiful sight in nature, a peaceful place in your home, a piece of art or music, someone who smiles at you, a funny joke, a good conversation.

Urges to binge have a way of telling us that “nothing is good or exciting, so you might as well go back to bingeing,” so please be aware of that thought—and dismiss it. You wouldn’t tell someone else to binge eat as a solution to boredom or a lack of pleasure. You’d encourage them to seek out, cultivate, and savor what’s good, and to never return to something that’s always harmful and painful. 

This leads me to the absolute best way you can be a friend to yourself now and through the rest of your life—and that is to give yourself the gift of not binge eating. Even if other things feel a little flat right now—which is common as your dopamine and pleasure pathways are regulating—making binge eating not an option keeps you moving toward real solutions to whatever you need to heal within yourself or with others.

Part of looking for the good in your life is recognizing the connections you do have. Most binge eaters or former binge eaters aren’t completely isolated; you may have family, friends, partners, coworkers, or acquaintances. Even if it’s just one person, notice their qualities that you enjoy and notice how you feel around them. Also notice the qualities you exhibit around others that make you feel good about yourself—for example when you make someone laugh, give to people you care about, share a mutual interest, or even express an opinion or set a boundary.

This practice is something Coach Julie and I discussed in Episode 105 of the podcast—“Taking in the Good.” It’s based on the work of Dr. Rick Hanson, and it’s a researched strategy for growing your capacity to experience happiness and override the brain’s negativity bias.

Exploring what you want to bring into your life after binge eating

The next step after noticing what is already in your life is exploring what you may want to bring into your life in terms of relationships or ways to improve yourself. What connections with others do you want to nurture? Are there people already in your life that you want to make an effort to communicate with more or spend more time with? Are there people you’ve lost touch with that you want to reconnect with?

What ways do you want to improve how you care for yourself? Do you need to release some of the pressure and perfectionism you put on yourself? Do you need to add a self-care ritual, even if it’s just a few minutes in your day? Do you want to spend more time in nature or add a meditation practice? Do you need some positive daily affirmations to remind yourself that you are worthy and you deserve self-care and care from others?

Are there completely new relationships you want to think about bringing into your life? If so, what are some small steps you can take toward that goal? Do you want friends with similar interests? You can usually find local groups that connect over shared hobbies, or maybe there are classes you could take. You can start really small here—brainstorm about places where people with the qualities you are looking for in a friend might be… is it church? the gym? museums? concerts? farmers markets? coffee shops?

Challenge yourself to go to places where you feel good, and chances are if you feel good in those places, others you may have a chance to connect with will likely be there too. Even if you don’t talk to anyone right away, you can still build that healthy relationship with yourself by putting yourself in places that inspire you and give you a sense of joy or purpose.

Know that this is not easy for anyone, with or without an eating disorder history—especially as you get older and there aren’t as many natural opportunities to make new friends like there were in school—so give yourself some grace if you don’t find new connections right away. You can start with very simple actions like a smile or wave and gain more confidence over time.

It’s all about exploring, experimenting, and adapting depending on what works and what doesn’t work for you—and of course always being patient and compassionate with yourself along the way.

Rebuilding, repairing, and setting boundaries

The next step—and these aren’t really steps but suggestions—is repairing, rebuilding, or setting boundaries in relationships affected by the eating disorder or intertwined with the eating disorder.

If there are relationships you neglected, know that repair doesn’t always have to mean sharing a lot right away. It could be as simple as a text that says, “hey, I’ve missed you,” or possibly making time to meet someone for coffee—without overexplaining yourself or only explaining what you feel comfortable sharing. Start with the people who feel very safe and easy for you to reconnect with and who serve as positive influences.

You don’t have to reconnect with everyone or right away—especially if certain people introduce some toxic elements to your life as far as focusing on appearance, weight, or dieting. I also realize that some relationships with toxic elements may not be ones you can fully avoid, and maybe you can’t avoid them much at all. For various reasons, you may not be able to get out of living situations or relationships right away, and this is why it’s so important to know that you can avoid binge eating no matter what.

Don’t put pressure on yourself to make big moves or change things significantly right away. You can give yourself some time to process and adapt to your binge-free life and work on learning what you truly want and need, because you may have been out of touch with that for quite a while during the time you were distracted with the eating disorder.

Not changing anything right away also has some benefits (unless of course there is something abusive going on—and in that case it’s your absolute priority to get yourself to safety, which I addressed in Part 2 of this series), because when you keep things pretty much the same but you don’t binge anymore, it really shows you that it was never your life or your relationships causing the binges.

This was something that was a powerful lesson for me when I recovered 20 years ago. After I stopped acting on my urges, I had this mindset of “wow, this is amazing—I can have all of these problems and still not binge. I can be depressed and anxious and still not binge. I can be lonely, sad, confused, have poor self-esteem, relationship conflicts, etc.—and still not binge!”

It was truly wonderful, and I believe that mindset of almost wanting to experience negative feelings—so I could prove to myself I didn’t need to binge—was highly protective in preventing me from ever returning to the habit, and allowing me to completely disassociate my binge eating from emotions, relationships, and other problems in my life.

Understanding what was lost to my eating disorder in terms of relationships

It’s not that I didn’t face any of my feelings or problems or try to find ways to deal with them during that time of recovery. It’s just that I really didn’t change very much in my life, and I didn’t hinge stopping binge eating on how well I dealt with issues in relationships or within myself. But looking back, even though that mindset was protective as far as not bingeing, I think it held me back a bit in terms of my own personal growth. I was so excited to be done with the eating disorder that I think it made me minimize or gloss over some of the ways that being in that dark place of bingeing and overexercising for so long had affected me—and it may have kept me from really looking at what the eating disorder took from me, and what skills I didn’t develop in my life because my eating disorder consumed me for many of my teenage and young adult years.

There was a reality that needed to be faced: that I had wasted a lot of time, and I had made some bad decisions based on how badly I felt about myself because of the eating disorder. I lost people who were important to me because my binge eating took me away from love and connection. I felt like my friends I had before the eating disorder went on without me in many ways—not intentionally, but because I was just no longer very available, and I no longer responded much and no longer tried to make plans or actively reached out.

I woke up from the nightmare of binge eating—of course very excited to be done with the binge eating—but also realizing that I had become isolated in some ways, and also possibly made the wrong connections in other ways.

A personal example of the long-term effects of eating-disorder-related isolation 

Shortly before I was writing this Part 3 blog post, I got a call from one of my old childhood friends—the only friend from my high school that I keep in touch with in any capacity today. She said this in a much more tactful way than I’m going to say it, but she called to let me know that our old friend group from high school had planned a big girls’ trip, and it had been in the works for a long time, and all the plans were made, and the rooms were booked—but she remembered me last minute and wanted to reach out to apologize for not including me and to invite me.

I thought it was amazingly sweet that even one friend from high school remembered me—even at the tail end of this planning, but I also thought it was a good example of the residual effects of the eating disorder even today. It was so telling in terms of the mistakes I made along the way in not doing enough to reestablish connections.

I didn’t go on the trip because it would have been too challenging to leave my kids so last minute, but it made me reflect a bit on ways I need to be a better friend even today. It’s not only eating disorders that take us away from connections—I’ve had a hard time with finding time for connection since having kids and putting so much time into my work, and I’m sure there are things in your own life that distract from relationships.

The lessons you learn from reestablishing or sustaining connections through or after an eating disorder can be valuable through the rest of your life—to maintain relationships even through difficult times.

An invitation to begin healing relationships—when you’re ready

There is no pressure to get right back out there and start being social all of the time, but I do want to encourage you to put some conscious effort into connection after recovery—whenever you feel ready, and in a way that feels safe for you. I know how easy it is to let the days, weeks, months, and even years go by and let responsibilities take over and to let friendships slip away or never form.

This isn’t to push you or make you fear that if you don’t do this now, you’re going to wake up at 43 years old and be forgotten for a girls’ trip. You’re allowed to protect your energy and peace if that’s what feels right to you now—and maybe that’s what felt right for me then too. This is an individual journey, and you get to decide what your next steps are.

When eating disorder recovery brings relationship clarity

Another related shift that can happen after recovery is realizing that you’re no longer the same version of yourself who chose for certain people to be in your life—and I feel like this comes up most often in terms of romantic relationships.

When you’re in the thick of binge eating or food/weight obsession, you may not be in touch with who you really are and what you truly want and need in romantic relationships. You may have chosen a partner during a time when your self-worth was really low and your shame was really high, and that’s rarely a good time to make clear and aligned choices about who is truly right for you or how you deserve to be treated.

After recovery and adapting to being binge-free, you may look around and feel like something no longer fits. Maybe you feel like your partner doesn’t support your growth, or the relationship was built around you not being well or not being the best version of yourself, or maybe it now just feels like you’ve outgrown it based on the changes you’ve made.

There are so many ways this could play out, but know that you’re not alone. When people make major changes in their lives—like stopping a terrible habit or addiction—it’s like waking up to reality after a long time of being clouded. You may come to painful realizations, but it’s important to be honest with yourself about who you are now and how the people around you fit with that new version of yourself.

It doesn’t mean you did anything wrong in the past—you made the best decisions you could from the place you were in, and you don’t need to spend time in regret—but you are now seeing things more clearly or from a different perspective, and you can go forward from there.

If you find yourself in this situation, know that you don’t have to make any sudden decisions. You can start by getting curious, and asking yourself how you feel around this person now? Can you be your authentic self in this relationship as a recovered person, or do you see the possibility that you could be your authentic self in the future—if you both work on it? Does this relationship help or hinder the life you’re building after recovery, or do you see the possibility that this relationship could be a fit in your recovered life—again if you both work on it?

Growth after binge eating recovery isn’t always comfortable—but it’s worth it

You don’t need all of the answers right away, but it’s okay to admit to yourself that things have shifted. Give yourself permission to begin to explore what that means for your future. If the relationship can grow and adapt with you, then that’s a beautiful thing. But if it can’t, that doesn’t mean recovery broke something—it means recovery made you into a healthier version of you who can now learn to have the clarity and strength to choose what’s truly right for you now.

Try to see this as an opportunity and not as a crisis. When food is no longer the main struggle, you get the chance to explore all of this, and even if some of it is painful, I want you to see it (as much as possible) as a way that you are growing in a positive direction. Try not to see it as something that is daunting or that you have to do perfectly—because there are no perfect decisions when it comes to relationships.

You can learn to care for others, build and repair connections, while also protecting and caring for yourself. You’re not broken if this feels awkward or slow. You can take all of the time you need, and keep asking yourself what you want your life to look like and who you want beside you on this path.

Go to Part IV of this blog series

Support is available if you want to talk about this

If you want guidance as you explore any of these issues in your own life, Coach Julie and I are here to help you. As I’ve mentioned in the previous relationship posts, I am now a certified relationship coach as well, to better help people in this area. When you book your coaching session—if you do want to talk about relationship issues—just mention it in the brief intake questionnaire. You can book either a 20-minute laser session or a full 45-minute session with me or Coach Julie at brainoverbinge.com/one-on-one-coaching. 

The Brain over Binge group is also a great place to get support in this area, because everyone there understands what you are dealing with and faces similar struggles in their own lives.