I heard some words last Thursday that I haven’t heard in almost a whole year from my dietitian—the dreaded, “Did you know you lost weight?”—and I stared at my computer screen feeling like my entire world had just shattered, like every bit of progress I had made in my recovery had somehow disappeared in that one sentence.

Three weeks before a milestone in my eating disorder recovery, I got hit with a setback. And isn’t that just the way life works sometimes? You can get so close to something you’ve been working toward for so long, only to suddenly feel like you are farther away than you were before. For a moment, it can make you question whether all of the hard work has really mattered.

The milestone I’m talking about is September 26th, the day last year that I hit my goal weight and really began to see a different kind of hope for my recovery. And now I find myself three weeks away from that date again, having to remind myself that having a hard couple of weeks is not the end of the world.

It does not erase the months of work, the brave choices, the meals I’ve eaten when I didn’t want to, the conversations I’ve had when I wanted to shut down, or the ways I have fought to choose life over my eating disorder again and again.

Has it been hard? Absolutely.

Has it felt like a setback? Yes.

Does it make me sad? Absolutely.

But I also know that a hard two weeks does not automatically mean a relapse. Progress is still progress even when it doesn’t look the way I hoped it would, because no one likes feeling like they are going backward after working so hard to move forward.

I wish I could say recovery has been this beautiful, steady climb where every day feels easier than the one before, but that wouldn’t be honest. And I’m not about telling lies just to make recovery look prettier than it really is.

Recovery is hard, and it is anything but a straight path forward. Sometimes you take five steps forward and then suddenly find yourself standing in a place you thought you had already left, wondering how you got there and whether you have to start all over again.

The last two weeks have brought a lot of change, and when change comes, Mr. Eating Disorder seems to come right along with it, ready to convince me that food is pointless, that maybe I don’t need as much, that maybe I should go back to the things that used to make me feel safe.

And if that sounds exhausting, it is.

ED doesn’t exactly know how to be quiet and reasonable. He likes to create drama and make everything feel like an emergency.

There have been moments lately where I have felt completely overwhelmed by everything happening around me and everything happening inside of me. In those moments, that familiar voice of my eating disorder has tried to convince me that maybe going backward would actually be easier, that maybe I should hold onto the things I’ve been learning to let go of, and that maybe I’m not as strong as I thought I was.

And if I’m being completely honest, there is a part of me that wants to look at this dip and immediately assume it means I’m failing—that I’m losing all of my progress, that I’m doing recovery wrong, that somehow because things feel harder right now, I must be going backward.

But I’m learning that hard does not mean failure.

A difficult season does not erase the work I have already done.

One hard week doesn’t erase the brave choices I made last month, and one difficult moment doesn’t take away the progress that has taken so much courage to make.

Struggling does not mean I’m back at the beginning.

It means I’m human.

And I’m in the middle of something that is really, really hard.

There are days when I feel strong and confident in my recovery. Days when I feel tired and scared and unsure. Days when choosing recovery feels almost natural, and other days when it feels like the hardest choice in the world.

Honestly, most days I feel all of those things somewhere within the same 24 hours.

There are moments when I can clearly see how far I’ve come, and then there are moments when all I can see is how far I still have to go.

I’m learning that both can be true at the same time.

I can be incredibly grateful for how far I’ve come and still acknowledge that something feels hard right now.

I can be proud of my progress and still need support.

I can be healing and still have hard days.

I can be choosing freedom while simultaneously grieving the comfort and familiarity that my eating disorder once gave me.

Because the truth is, my eating disorder has been a safety net for a very long time. It convinced me that I needed it, that it was protecting me, that it gave me something to control when everything else in life felt out of control.

But I’m beginning to understand that something can feel safe and still be keeping you trapped.

And I don’t want to be trapped anymore.

I want my life back.

I want freedom.

I want to be present in my own life instead of constantly living in my head—calculating, analyzing, questioning, and wondering if I’m doing everything “right.”

I want to experience life without constantly measuring my worth against numbers, food, my body, or whether I have somehow earned the right to enjoy something.

I want to laugh without my eating disorder interrupting the moment.

I want to make memories without wondering if I deserve them.

I want to wake up and think about what life has to offer instead of immediately thinking about what I need to control.

I want to keep becoming the person God created me to be and live the life He has given me instead of allowing ED to keep shrinking my world.

And that is why this bump matters.

Not because it means I’m failing, but because it gives me another opportunity to choose differently.

I can give up and go backward, or I can tell my ED to zip it, eat some ice cream, and keep fighting.

Because while my eating disorder is screaming, “Let’s go back,” God is reminding me, “It’s not worth going back there.”

I know where that road leads.

And I have lived enough of it to know that I don’t want to go there again.

God is not only present when I’m doing well. He isn’t only with me when I feel strong, confident, and victorious.

He is with me here, too.

Right in the messy middle.

Right in the uncertainty.

Right in the moments when I’m scared.

Right in the moments when I don’t know what the next step looks like.

Right in the moments when I feel like I should have this figured out by now.

That’s where faith becomes real—not when everything makes sense and the road is easy to see, but when I choose to trust God even when I don’t understand what He is doing, even when I don’t know how everything is going to work out, and even when I have to take the next step without knowing what comes after it.

I don’t know exactly what these next three weeks will look like.

I don’t know what challenges might come or how many more bumps there will be along the way.

But I do know this:

I don’t want to turn around.

I don’t want to go back to the place I fought so hard to leave, and I don’t want to let one difficult season convince me that freedom isn’t worth fighting for.

I don’t want to confuse discomfort with danger.

I don’t want to let fear make my decisions anymore.

So today, I’m choosing recovery.

Not perfectly.

Not without fear.

And certainly not because I suddenly have everything figured out.

I’m choosing recovery because I know where I want to go, and I know where I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go back.

This bump is just a part of my story. It is not the ending.

God is still here. He is still working. He is still leading me.

And I am still choosing recovery, even on the days when choosing recovery feels hard.

Maybe that’s what progress looks like sometimes. Not feeling strong, but choosing the right thing even when I don’t feel strong.

Getting back up when I fall.

Reaching out instead of isolating.

Sitting down at the dinner table with my favorite people and enjoying every minute.

Taking the next right step without needing to know where the entire road leads.

Reminding myself that I don’t have to win the entire battle today. I just have to keep choosing the next right thing.

It is saying:

“I’m scared, but I’m still here.”

“It’s hard, but I’m not giving up.”

“I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I trust God with it.”

So I’m taking this one day at a time, one choice at a time, one prayer at a time, one step at a time, and yes, one meal at a time.

And when September 26th comes around, I will still be here. And I will still celebrate how far I’ve come. Not because recovery has been perfect. Not because I never struggled along the way.

But because I kept choosing recovery even when it was hard, even when ED got loud, even when fear told me to turn around, and even when taking another step forward felt easier said than done.

Maybe the biggest milestone isn’t a number on a scale or a date on a calendar. Maybe it’s realizing that I have a life worth fighting for, and that I am finally willing to fight for it.

I know where going backward leads. I know what it costs me. And I refuse to romanticize a place that took so much of my life from me just because it feels familiar.

ED may still have a voice, but he doesn’t get the final say anymore. Fear may show up, but fear doesn’t get to make my decisions.

A hard season may knock me down, but it does not get to convince me that I belong on the ground.

I am not starting over. I am not back at day zero.

I am still the girl who has fought, who has healed, who has grown, who has learned, who has chosen herself and her life over and over again.

One difficult season cannot erase that.

I am facing this bump in the road with my people beside me, with God leading me, and with the reminder that I don’t have to be fearless to keep moving forward.

I just have to keep choosing.

Choosing the meal.
Choosing the support.
Choosing the uncomfortable thing.
Choosing the life I want.
Choosing freedom.
Choosing God.

Because I am done letting ED convince me that staying stuck is safer than becoming free. I’m done letting fear make my world smaller. I’m done believing that I have to earn the right to live, eat, laugh, rest, enjoy, celebrate, and take up space.

So here I am, three weeks from a milestone, standing in the middle of a hard season, and instead of turning around, I’m putting one foot in front of the other and continuing forward.

I’m scared. I’m tired. And I don’t know exactly what the road looks like.

But I’m still here.

And I’m not going back.

God is still writing my story, and this bump is not the ending. It’s just another place where I get to decide if I choose recovery.

And I choose it.

Today, tomorrow, and every day after that, until freedom isn’t something I’m fighting for anymore, but simply the life I’m living.

– Taylor Kate