'Licking the bowl'

While you are recovering, there are some big achievements that you need to make in order to recover, but there are also some little things, that really show that you are recovering and making progress too. These little everyday things would seem rather insignificant to most people, but to someone who has suffered from a restrictive eating disorder, they are signs that you are on your way to getting your life back.

I have finally reached the stage in my recovery whereby I am comfortable enough to have little bits of extra food when I feel like it. This could be a couple of grapes whilst I pack my lunch box of a morning or a slice of cheese whilst I make myself a sandwich. But the best example of this is being able to lick my fingers, the spoon and the bowl while I am baking cakes and puddings. 

I can rememeber back to a stage in my illness when I liked to bake for the rest of my family, although I obviously never ate anything I made. One day, without even thinking about it I accidently licked some raw chocolate cake mix off of my finger. The second It hit the tastebuds on my tongue I realised what I had done and instantly panicked. I ran to the sink and spat it into the sink. I then swished large mouthfuls of water around my mouth before spitting that out too. 

I spent the rest of the day feeling terrible for what I had done, as if I had committed a serious offence. It wasnt long after this time that I stopped baking even for my family because I believed I might make the same mistake again. I was also paranoid that I could accidently breathe in the dry ingredients such as icing sugar or flour If they floated into the airNwhicg shows just how unhealthy my thinking was.

Up until quite recently I have been terrified of eating even a gram extra of food then what I had planned to eat, so to now be able to quite comfortably eat extras like cake batter while baking shows that I am making good progress. To me, this is an example of how my relationship with food is starting to normalise, as 'licking the bowl' is seen as a relatively normal behaviour for most people.

While I still do not feel as though I could spontaneously eat a large food item that is not included as one of my daily meals, I know that I am getting closer to being able to do this everyday. I know that if I keep fighting I will be able to eat completely spontaneously one day but until then, I will just be proud of the progress I have already managed to make.