I was rather sick yesterday (one of those 24-hour virus thingies), so the tip day post got shifted to today.  In last month's scientific random poll, one of the requested topics was how to pick yourself back up after a slip.  Ask and ye shall receive, my dearest readers.

{{Share any other ideas you might have in the comments section or drop me an email at carrie@edbites.com Because I suck at coming up with these, so help me out!}}

1. Do the next right thing.  I'm taking this line straight out of Jenni Schaefer's book Life Without Ed.  But it's what I tell myself when I slip.  Do the next right thing.  If I exercise too much, I take an extra rest day.  If I were to purge, I would drink an Ensure to make up for the calories.  If I were to binge, I would eat the next meal or snack.  Once becomes twice becomes...disaster. 

2. Respect yourself.  Yeah, yeah--the ED behaviors feel good in the short-term.  But in the long run?  They totally eat away at my self-respect.  I'm lying.  I'm bitchy.  I'm miserable.  I suck up vast sums of money first for ED behaviors and then for treatment.  My body dysmorphia may make me twitchy now--it does!--but it's nothing compared to the self-hatred of relapse.  So sing it with me: R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

3. Don't beat yourself up.  Relapse is exceedingly common.  I don't know anyone who has recovered without a relapse.  This isn't a blank check to give into urges because you're f*cked anyway (been there, done that, got the ill-fitting t-shirt), but it is to treat yourself with grace and compassion.  You screwed up.  No amount of self-flagellation is going to change that so stop wasting your time and effort.  Put your effort into tip #1.

4. Take it seriously.  It's one slip, right?  Just once.  There's no need to mention it to my therapist or doctor or support people.  They don't need to know.  Not that you have to wear a sandwich board advertising that you slipped, but you do need to be honest.  That means: telling your therapist. It also means telling your support people when they ask "How have you been?"  We all need our little secrets, but this ain't one of them.

5. Think of your therapist.  Yes, I'm Facebook friends with a former therapist, which is an odd but rather 21st-century situation.  But when I'm making a status update, I ask myself what she might think if I updated my true status rather than my most recent decline into the state of crazy cat lady (my purchases at the grocery store were cottage cheese, kitty litter, and Prozac).  There are things I'd rather not reveal--how awful my cramps are or the nasty thing that Aria coughed up the other morning--but I wouldn't go out of my way to conceal them, either.  So if I don't want my ex-therapist to know what I'm up to, then there's probably something wrong.

6. Reach out.  When I struggle, I tend to isolate.  So one of the most powerful things for me to do after a slip is to go be around people again.  It might mean seeing if a friend wants to catch a movie or grab some dinner.  As much as I preached honesty, you don't need to let the random chick from your psychology class in on all the nasty details.  You can say you're having a bad day, or you're bored, or you need to get out of the house before you lose your freaking mind.

7. De-brief yourself.  After you have gotten back on track, it can help to look at what started to go wrong and when.  Were there triggers you hadn't anticipated?  Did you have coping skills you didn't/couldn't/wouldn't use?  One of the most useful things for me is learning where I could have intervened.  At what point should I have reached out?  If I really didn't realize anything was wrong until behaviors had already unfolded, what are the signs that I missed?  Sometimes the slips seem to come out of the blue, but generally, they don't.