THINGS I'VE LEARNT IN RECOVERY
- Luka
- Dec 27, 2025
- 5 min read
For the past 3 weeks, I've been in recovery, again, from anorexia nervosa, the life-threatening illness that I've been battling with since the age of nine. In recovery, you come to learn many new things about yourself and the world because when you're in starvation mode, you close yourself off from those two things, whether you do it intentionally or not. Anorexia convinces you of many things that aren't true; things about yourself, your body, your purpose, your morals, and your experiences. So, this is what I've learned in recovery: my new truths, my new goals, & my new love for life.
Gaining weight is not the enemy.
Gaining weight is hard and scary when, for so long, that number on the scale has meant absolutely everything. I have seen numbers that would've made me cry and scream with hysteria just a few weeks ago. And it is not that gaining this weight isn't still terrifying, but now, when I look at those higher numbers, I am proud of myself because I know the mental strength I endured to get there. But more importantly, I understand the joy and freedom I felt during the process, and more importantly than that, the relief and delight it gave those who love and support me. I've come to understand and learn that gaining weight becomes so much more about the weight being gained, and more so, about the possibility of experiencing life, liberty, and real control.
You get an 'aura' back, my mum calls it my inner light.
My mum calls the aura I retrieve in recovery my inner light, and this fact is incredibly significant to me, considering my name means 'light', a purposeful choice from my mum who has always described my presence and place in the world as being a light. I see it when I look at myself in the mirror or in live video that I have a golden tinge on my face, where there was once a lonely, black shadow cast upon it. My mum is so careful with the things she says to me, and that is why I love this term, because it has absolutely nothing to do with my body. It isn't about my body. It isn't about anybody's body. It is the joy from within that's been repressed in a box for so many years, coming out, capturing my soul as it does so, and allowing me to become a part of something so much more, instead of being isolated in the trap of anorexia. It's hard to explain this, and I hope my explanation isn't too ambiguous and aloft. It is difficult because this concept isn't mathematical. It isn't that you eat x amount of calories or you put on x amount of weight, and everything is fine. Because weight gain can be forced upon you in hospital settings, but you aren't mentally recovering. Whereas when you start mentally recovering and experiencing freedom, choice, connection, and love, it becomes inevitable that your inner light that's been hidden for so long, begging to be seen, begins to be heard, nurtured, and begins flourishing. It's a beautiful thing when you commence the process of finding yourself, and I've learnt that as I begin to get my aura back, I feel beautiful for the first time, despite the fear, weight gain, and loss of anorexia's control. I always thought that recovery would make me feel immensely insecure and ugly. But this inner light is a different type of beauty. It's natural and sincere. And nothing is more beautiful than individualism, honesty, and rawness.
You have the physical energy to run, dance and sing.
For the first time in years, this morning, I danced. I heard a song come on and I danced in the kitchen by myself, in the best way they say, like nobody was watching. It felt beautiful to allow my body to feel so free. It was more than just about having physical energy, and more about the mental lack of rigidity that allowed me to find the freedom in my body. I've been physically further along in hospital settings, but because my mental recovery hasn't occurred, I never wanted to dance. But today I did. And that felt like the best thing in the world - to want to do something I had forgotten was a part of LUKA, something I used to do so effortlessly.
You'll do anything to fight for life when you once did everything to hide from it.
Not only do you hide from life, but you also willingly slowly kill yourself and choose to ignore it.
But the harsh reality, Dolls, is that every moment in that you are not recovering, you are dying.
And now, when I don't want to eat, I am more connected to the beauty that is being alive, so I allow myself to do the thing that comes so naturally to everybody else. For it is not a choice to eat: it is a critical and fundamental component of being alive, a must, and an undecidable act that has no negative connotation other than without it, you cannot live a life at all, and certainly not one that is meaningful or abundant. I once did everything to avoid it because that felt right. But after regaining some mental stability through recovery, I am so much more in tune with the part of me that is a living and surviving animal. I've spent so many years feeling better than people and finding a sense of achievement in my ability to do something that others find so hard. But it does not make me more successful despite what some sick people have attested to. I do not owe myself to those people who do not have my best interest at heart. I am not more worthy when I engage with anorexia: nobody is more worthy for harming others, so how could one be more worthy for harming themself? I treat life as something precious now. Life is something I want to be a part of. Calories do not rule me; instead, I choose to find comfort in being a part of company and experiences that I have been on the outskirts of for far too long.
I feel joyous when I am apart of, not when I am not apart of.
You smile more. You laugh more.
Because now, your life is swinging like a pendulum towards sunshine and rainbows and not towards hell and back. How the fuck could you not be smiling and laughing more, living your life this way when you've only known darkness for so very long? So yes, you smile and laugh more because you begin to swing towards being alive when you've been chasing death. Even the slightest move towards recovery, instead of towards not recovering, feels incredibly elating and empowering. You begin to see reasons to smile and laugh that you were blinded by because you were so caught up in survival mode that all you could see was the reflection in the mirror that told you you weren't worthy of experiencing nice things.
Suddenly, your life will open up like a beautiful flower, and it will feel so ridiculously good that you'll be scared of living any other way again, instead of being at the opposite end of the pendulum, in which your brain lies to you and tells you that the only scary thing is recovery.
Recovery is a term that my family and I can be hesitant to use, considering the pressure the term holds in the community. Recovery is a big term, and sometimes the most important parts of recovering are the seemingly smallest things you find yourself doing effortlessly that you once found impossible. Recovery, to me, isn’t a word. Recovery, to me, isn’t about perfection. Recovery, to me, isn’t about pressure. Recovery, to me, is about change in a positive direction, so positive that the joy in your life grows and exists more frequently. Recovery is the most beautiful thing in the world. Recovery is finding yourself again.
Kisses,
COS x
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