Jaden's story - The Urge to Cling to Suffering

“Starting is the hardest part.”

I heard this a lot when I first began recovery. I was told that committing to getting better, and taking those first few steps, would be the biggest hurdle I’d encounter - after which, it would get easier.

There was lots of truth to this. I’d spent the entirety of my adolescence in what felt like total entrapment, in some massive, desolate pit that I couldn’t (and didn’t really want to) climb out of. I was deeply depressed, cycling between anorexia and bulimia, escalating self-harm, and consumed by the exhaustion of masking undiagnosed neurodivergence every single day. I had to muster a great deal of bravery to finally choose recovery. Once I tackled that behemoth of a mountain, though, the terrain definitely smoothed out.

However, there was another mountain in the trek I wasn’t quite prepared for.

It hit me once I began to find my “groove” in my recovery, so to speak. I felt happier, healthier, and the things that were once so unbearably difficult came to me with more ease.

But there was this gnawing, angry part of me that I couldn’t ignore.

I wanted to hold on to being unwell. I couldn’t delete old pictures of myself at my lowest points. I grieved at the physical indications of my illnesses fading away. And I looked back at my most painful memories with a certain fondness I couldn’t explain.

I couldn’t put it behind me. I began to wonder, could it all have been for nothing? What was all that suffering for?

Whilst I was unwell, there was a pervasive sense of urgency around me. Fire-after-fire needing to be put out, my health rapidly deteriorating, fear, anguish - it was extreme. And I think this same sense of extremity persisted when I began recovery, but flipped on its back.

Instead of intense worry, I was showered with an outpour of praise and support. Every positive step I took was this massive victory that was met with standing ovations. Others beamed at the colour returning to my cheeks and the sparkle returning to my eyes. That old agony had been replaced with a grand triumphance, instead.

Both extremes validated the significance of my struggles. It reinforced that what I went through was, well, a massive deal. That, yes, things were bad, really bad: and that’s why I had to recover.

But suddenly, I had neither of those. There was no longer a constant possibility of me relapsing at every opportunity, nor was I flooded with applause whenever I engaged in my recovery.

This terrified me. I wasn’t used to not being in some kind of extreme. And it seemed like my past had just been forgotten, like it was nothing. But it absolutely was not nothing. It was life-altering. How could I just leave it behind me without looking back?

So I clung to it. I didn’t want to forget, and I didn’t want anyone else to forget, either. It was a part of my life - a part of me - that was just too big to let go of. I would be doing a massive disservice if I released it from my grip. And I still needed to prove something.

My insistence on holding on to old pain manifested in many ways. At first, I had my heart set on studying psychology at university, and eventually specialising in eating disorder treatment. I also regularly posted recovery content on social media, wanting to raise awareness and try to support others. This wasn’t inherently problematic - often, it’s those who’ve been so intimately entangled with despair, and hauled themselves out of it, who go on to develop a kind of empathy and wisdom that can’t be taught ordinarily. They can make a positive, large-scale impact, and this can certainly be done in a healthy way.

But the problem for me was that there was nothing else in my life that brought me fulfilment and satisfaction, apart from constantly revisiting the past. I wasn’t actively unwell, but my identity was still shaped around sickness. I needed the same grandeur of my illness to be present in my recovery.

I also started to think, since I’m so much better now, maybe it wasn’t all that bad before. I still needed to prove that I was extreme enough to be deserving of recovery, to both myself and others. I was grappling with a constant internal battle – questioning, reminiscing, romanticising.

And I don’t think I even saw this as a hurdle at the time. After all, the hardest part was over, right? I successfully made it out the other side. But the truth is, I hadn’t, until I let go.

Something I had to accept was that letting go did not mean forgetting. It wasn’t just pretending nothing happened. I’m not who I was before my eating disorder, or any of my other struggles, and that’s just a fact. My experiences moulded me into the person I am today.

But I’ve learnt that that person isn’t just “someone who was sick, who is now no longer sick”. This ‘new me’ was so, so much more than that. Letting go meant getting to know her.

If I thought of identity like a pie chart, mental health struggles would definitely be on mine. But not the massive chunk it once was. In order to let go, it needed to simply be a slice, out of many other slices, that made up who I am: my values, my closest relationships, my hobbies, ambitions. The strengths I gained from recovery – empathy, wisdom, kindness – I needed to use and build on those across all areas of my life. They didn’t have to be confined to the past.

It was ridiculously difficult to build this new identity after having my life revolve around one thing for nearly a decade. I questioned who I was without it, and whether I was even good at anything other than being sick.

So I had to learn about myself. Even if it felt like I was trying to get to know a total stranger.

Begrudgingly, I got to work.

Two weeks before the UCAS deadline, I realised my real passion was literature. I now study English at university, and could not be more grateful to my past self. I regained my love for the piano. I learned that I really like building LEGO sets. I decided I want to become a teacher. And I built friendships with the kind of people I prayed for as a teenager.

That feeling of freedom - the ability to look forward instead of living in the past - is simply indescribable. I’ll forever acknowledge how my history shaped me. I’ll still struggle at times. But I can do all of those things, and still have let go.

The people who are the most healed are the ones that have let go. Even those who go into psychology, advocacy, or similar fields after recovering, could only succeed in doing so because they look forward. They have taken the wisdom and strengths they gained from their pasts, built on them, and used them to help people – without the desire to seek validation or prove themselves.

Their experiences are never forgotten. But they live in the now. And their gazes stay fixed towards the light.

I could never have healed if I kept clinging to suffering. I had to let go. I had to realise that I was safe in stability, and that I have nothing to prove.

The resilience, the kindness, and the immense strength that I built through my journey – they will stay with me forever. That’s all the proof I need.

There was so much more to me than I could ever have imagined.

The same goes for you. It’s okay to let go.

I promise.