Why Control Can Be a Struggle After Eating Disorder Recovery
When we talk about eating disorders, the word control gets thrown around constantly. But I’m not sure we all mean the same thing when we use it.
When I speak about control, I’m not just talking about food rules, body monitoring, or rigid routines. I’m talking about something deeper: the attempt to outrun the naturally unpredictable and somewhat mystical nature of life on earth. As we grow up, we slowly realize that no one actually has this fully figured out. No one has ultimate authority over life. And that realization can feel destabilizing. In the context of eating disorder, sometimes we’ve experienced something that really rocked our sense of choice or safety, and we reach for something to grasp onto for solid ground.
Eating Disorders and the Illusion of Control
This isn’t only about eating disorders. Our world runs on predictability, productivity, safety, and certainty. We are rewarded for appearing in control; however, life itself is inherently unpredictable. There’s often a painful contradiction here: We exhaust ourselves trying to control things that are not within our control, while feeling helpless in areas where we actually do have agency.
For many people struggling with eating disorders, food and the body become the arena where this tension plays out. Controlling meals, weight, or exercise can create the illusion of certainty in an uncertain world. And that illusion can feel stabilizing, though only temporarily.
Surrender as a Transferable Skill in Eating Disorder Recovery
This is where the idea of surrender can feel overwhelming or even frightening. I am not suggesting you surrender to everything. But I often describe eating disorder recovery as a transferable skill. In early recovery, surrender might look like giving over control to a treatment team. You may recognize that your current behaviors are harming you, even if part of you doesn’t fully believe that yet. If you enter inpatient or day treatment, you surrender to structure. You allow someone else to help guide the process. Later, a different kind of surrender can emerge (I know surrender can be a big word, stay with me here).
You begin to experiment with surrendering to your body. You consider that your body might hold wisdom. You explore the possibility that you don’t need to micromanage every meal if you can come back into a relationship with your internal cues. But this only becomes possible when safety is established. We humans often forget we are also animals. If we do not feel safe, we cannot sense subtle cues. So, recovery requires compassion, softness, grace, and time. This is why depth-oriented eating disorder therapy is not only about meal plans. It is about building internal safety.
Control Beyond Food: Life After an Eating Disorder
As recovery progresses, the focus often expands beyond food. You may begin to notice other areas of life where control is operating quietly in the background:
Trying to ensure a relationship never changes or ends
Hustling to secure outcomes that can never be fully certain
Grasping for guarantees that do not exist
We cling because we want to feel safe. Sometimes the simple awareness is powerful:
I am hustling to control things that are not within my control as a human being. And at the same time, I may be giving away control in areas where I could step in more fully.
Recovery invites a more nuanced relationship with agency and surrender. Neither rigid control nor passive collapse, rather, something more alive and responsive.
You Cannot Hate Yourself Into Health
From a foundation of compassion, we begin to work with this pattern. We cannot hate ourselves into loving ourselves. We cannot shame ourselves into health or well-being.
It does not work. And it does not last.
If you are berating yourself into “getting healthy,” that is not health. It is simply another version of control.
True eating disorder recovery is not about perfect regulation. It is about building enough safety to tolerate uncertainty, in your body, in relationships, and in life itself.