Technically when you're driving and you see the light turn from green to yellow, you're supposed to slow down and then stop. Yeah right. I don't know about you, but many times when I see a yellow light, I hit the gas and try to cruise through before the light turns red.

For most of my eating disorder, this was how I operated. I saw the warning signs of relapse and I just hit the gas on the eating disorder. Some of this was rooted in the basic neuropsychology of an eating disorder--that whole viscious cycle thing. But some of it was the fact that I really did think I could squeak by the need for more intensive treatment and recovery work if I just timed everything right (and drank enough water before weigh-ins).

Clearly, that hasn't worked out very well.

When I wrote my previous relapse prevention plan and identified my yellow light signs, I was still rather ambivalent about recovery. So my yellow light signs should have been my red light signs and my red light signs should have been flashing lights and sirens. Besides the ambivalence about recovery, I was also a little unprepared for how easily, quickly, and strongly the eating disorder can take over. I (not very wisely) thought I knew enough about eating disorders that I didn't need to be all that worried, right?

A false sense of security is one of the EDs greatest weapons.

Yellow light signs are different than prelapse signs because they have more to do specifically with the ED. Not that they deal solely with ED behaviors, but for me, most of the upticks in ED behaviors come after a time of increased anxiety/depression (although it took me years to figure out that the uptick was in response to this increased anxiety/depression). Not always, which makes the increased anxiety more of a "prelapse" than an actual sign of relapse.

The yellow light signs are, for me, a sign I need to slow down and take a good, hard look at what is going on. They're signs that the ED is returning. If you'll forgive another car analogy, they're like the "check engine light." Your car might be running just fine, but the light is usually an indicator that something is about to go rather wrong.

My Yellow Light Signs are:

• increased paranoia about food (not trusting what others give me, etc)
• looking up nutritional information on the internet
• feeling like everyone is watching every bite I take
• exaggerating what I ate
• rigidity around exercise
• need for precision with measuring food
• extreme irritability
• gnawing doubts about my ability to recover (this is a precursor to the "F*ck recovery!" stage)
• procrastinating on returning messages
• desire to run away and/or hide from life
• urges to purge or hide food

What I found hard with identifying these signs is that my relapses tend to simply leap straight from 0 to 100 with nary a stop in between. I can go from green light signs to red light signs in less than a week. So identifying the yellow light signs is both tricky and crucial. The other issue I struggle with is identifying and acting on the warning signs. Often, I tend to downplay the seriousness of the problem even in my own mind, and so I delude myself into thinking that it will go away or that I can handle it on my own. It's hard. It's damn hard, and I'm not always super-confident in my abilities and judgement on the subject. Which means I am having to accept a big dose of humility in learning how to manage my ongoing recovery.