What Goes Up and Never Comes Down: Age, Recovery, and Learning to Choose Myself
**Content warning: This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences in recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms. Please use your discretion when reading and speak with your support system as needed.
Danielle Dow, MA, LPC, NCC, is a licensed professional counselor specializing in eating disorder recovery, trauma, and self-compassion. Drawing on both training and lived experience, she supports adolescents, adults, and families with curiosity and care. She finds joy in flowers, long walks, and her beloved dog, Joy. Instagram: @daniedow.counseling.
In third grade, my teacher asked a riddle: “What goes up and never comes down?”
As I fiddled with my bangs and tugged on my Cheetah Girls-inspired sweatpants that had gotten too tight, I had an answer ready—our weight.
Of course, the correct answer was age. But that moment stayed with me because it revealed how, even at eight years old, I was already thinking about weight as something that defined me. It was telling, and it would quietly shape how I saw myself for years to come.
Growing Up With Ana
By middle school, my relationship with food and my body had shifted into something I can now recognize as my eating disorder. At the time, I didn’t have that language. I simply thought of it as a private project, a voice in my head I retrospectively call Ana (anorexia).
Ana was my constant whisper: shrink more, control more, hide more.
I remember walking into the lunchroom in eighth grade, lunchbox in hand, my palms damp with sweat. My friends were laughing about a TV show from the night before, but all I could hear was Ana calculating, warning, critiquing. To everyone else, it was just lunch. To me, it was a battlefield I had to survive without anyone noticing.
The hardest part was that no one around me saw Ana. Eating disorders weren’t well understood in my world, and I became skilled at hiding her. On the outside, I looked “fine.” On the inside, I was exhausted, ashamed, and terrified that someone would discover the truth.
I didn’t receive formal therapeutic support. Looking back, I should have. But at the time, Ana convinced me to keep it all inside. I coped by pouring myself into schoolwork, friendships, and creativity. Those things kept me tethered to life, but they weren’t healing. They were distractions.
The Loneliness of Silence
Eating disorders are notoriously hard to explain. How do you tell someone that food feels both like your greatest fear and your greatest obsession? How do you explain the hatred you feel toward your own reflection?
It’s embarrassing. It’s isolating. And in my case, it kept me quiet.
I wanted desperately to be seen and understood, but I also wanted to protect Ana. In some warped way, she gave me a sense of identity. Even as I began to step into recovery, that duality — craving freedom while fearing it — was constant.
Learning Body Neutrality
What eventually began to help me wasn’t a sudden wave of self-love or confidence. It was something quieter: neutrality.
For years, I moved through periods of deep disconnection from my body. My mind criticized and judged while my body was simply trying to carry me through the day. At times, I didn’t even realize the mind–body connection existed — it felt like two separate parts of me at war.
Body neutrality gave me a way to begin stitching that connection back together. It isn’t about forcing yourself to adore every curve or angle, and it isn’t about continuing to hate them either. It’s about saying: This is my body. It exists. It carries me through the world in the way it can. And that is enough.
For me, one place I first felt this shift was in weight lifting. I started to enjoy the rhythm of building strength — not because of how my body was changing, but because I loved experiencing what my body could do at that time. That was my doorway into neutrality. For someone else, that doorway might look completely different — through walking, art, breathwork, or simply resting without guilt.
It also shows up in quieter, everyday moments. When I share pizza with friends, I don’t spiral into questioning if I “should” eat it. When my partner rests a hand on my stomach, I don’t flinch or tense up. I let myself be seen. I let myself belong.
That’s what body neutrality feels like to me: not loving, not loathing, but inhabiting my body with less judgment and more presence. It’s proof that the mind–body connection can work quietly, steadily, and beautifully — not in loud declarations of self-love, but in the gentle freedom of just being.
Recovery Is Not Linear
I want to be transparent: my recovery hasn’t been neat or linear.
I’ve had long stretches where I moved forward — eating freely, treating my body with respect, embracing body neutrality. And I’ve had setbacks.
In adulthood, Ana didn’t disappear. She simply changed disguises. Instead of calories and clothing sizes, she showed up in new cultural pressures: the wave of “bounce back” procedures after pregnancy, the ads promising a thinner body with medications like Ozempic, the social media feeds filled with Botox and filler.
And yes — I’ve felt the pull of those cultural pressures. I’ve tried things to change or “enhance” my appearance, telling myself it was empowerment, when in truth, sometimes it was Ana in disguise.
I remember sitting in the chair before one of those procedures. The lights were bright, the air smelled faintly of antiseptic and lavender, and Ana’s voice crept back in: You’re finally fixing what’s wrong.
The truth is, there was nothing wrong. But in that moment, I couldn’t always tell the difference between making a choice from self-compassion and making one from old fear. That’s the accountability I carry now — to keep asking myself why I’m choosing something, and whether it brings me closer to freedom or back toward Ana.
Reclaiming Choice
Body neutrality has become my compass for these decisions. When I think about cultural pressures or cosmetic options, I ask myself:
Am I doing this because it empowers me, or because I feel I need it to be worthy?
Does this bring me closer to freedom, or back toward Ana?
Am I treating my body as an object to fix, or as a partner to respect?
This doesn’t mean I’ll never make another choice about my appearance. It means those choices now come with mindfulness. If I do them, I want them to come from a place of curiosity or expression — not pressure or shame.
Acknowledging Privilege and Broadening the Lens
As I reflect on my own recovery, I also want to pause and acknowledge the lens I bring. I am a white, cisgender woman, and the reality is that my journey with an eating disorder was both shaped and cushioned by that privilege. I had the benefit of eventually finding resources, education, and communities that recognized my experience — something that far too many people are denied.
Eating disorders do not discriminate. They impact people of every race, gender identity, sexuality, body size, and socioeconomic background. And yet, for too long, the stereotype of who “looks like” they have an eating disorder has been limited to a very narrow image: thin, white, and female. That narrative is not only inaccurate — it’s dangerous. It keeps people in marginalized communities from being seen, believed, and supported.
The same is true for body neutrality and body liberation. Long before I encountered these concepts, Black and Brown activists, disabled creators, and fat liberation leaders were challenging appearance-based worth and fighting for body acceptance. Their voices shaped the groundwork for movements that I now find so central to my healing.
Holding that truth matters. My recovery is my truth, but it is not the truth. If body neutrality has taught me anything, it’s that the mind–body connection flourishes when we make space for complexity, for different ways of living in and with our bodies. And that means listening to — and amplifying — the voices that have been historically silenced in this space.
Why I Do This Work
Today, I’m a Licensed Professional Counselor specializing in eating disorders, self-compassion, and trauma recovery. One of the driving reasons I chose this path is simple: I wanted to become the therapist I needed as a teenager.
I know how isolating it feels to struggle in silence. I know what it’s like to hide Ana so well that no one suspects a thing. And I know how desperately I wished for someone to meet me with understanding rather than judgment.
Now, I offer that to my clients. I remind them that body neutrality is an option. That you don’t have to love your body to begin respecting it. That progress can include setbacks, and setbacks don’t erase progress. And for parents who sit across from me, worried about their child, I remind them: fear is normal. But children need curiosity and compassion, not shame.
Redefining the Answer
When I think back to that riddle from third grade, I see the irony now. The answer was never “our weight.” The answer is age—and with age has come healing, wisdom, and the ability to reclaim my voice.
At eight years old, I was too shy to raise my hand. At twenty, I was too entangled in shame to speak my truth. But today, I share my story openly—not as a cautionary tale, but as proof that recovery is possible, even when Ana still tries to whisper.
Recovery has taught me that we are more than numbers, more than procedures, more than cultural expectations. We are more than our bodies. And the work is not to erase Ana completely, but to learn to recognize her voice—and choose our own instead.
And this time, I know the right answer.
But I also know my story is just one story. Recovery doesn’t look the same for everyone, and it can’t — because our bodies, identities, and lived realities are not the same. Eating disorders don’t discriminate, and the work of body neutrality and body liberation was paved long before me by voices from communities that deserve to be heard and uplifted. My hope is that by sharing honestly, I not only claim my own healing but also make more space for the many paths of recovery that exist alongside mine.
If You’re Struggling
If any of this resonates with you, please know you’re not alone. Eating disorders thrive in silence, but recovery is possible. It’s not easy, and it’s not linear — but it is worth it.
And if you’re a parent, know that responding with compassion instead of fear can make all the difference.
Healing isn’t about perfection. It’s about reclaiming your voice, your body, and your life.
We want to hear your voice of recovery! If you are interested in participating in our Recovery Conversation series, please email blog@emilyprogram.com to learn more.
If you or a loved one is experiencing an eating disorder, help is available. Reach out to The Emily Program today by calling 1-888-364-5977 or completing our online form.