“Are you feeling okay?” my husband curiously asked after I told the server my order. “That’s something you don’t typically order?”  “I know,” I said with quiet confidence. “I just felt like eating something different this time.”

This was a brief exchange I had on a recent date with my husband in a “new to us” restaurant.

Over 30 years ago, my struggle with an eating disorder began. I learned early on in my battle that most restaurants had “safe-for-me-to-eat” items I could order, which meant I could eat out with anyone, anywhere. I could usually find something on the menu that met the requirements to satisfy my strict eating disorder rules and keep the guilt-ridden internal accusations at bay.

My eating disorder began during my sophomore year of high school in 1993. When I married my husband in 2005, I had certainly made headway in my recovery from my eating disorder, but I was by no means free from diet culture lies. My husband had only known me to order the same 3-4 items off a...

One of my go-to coping mechanisms is rules. As my daughter has been in recovery, I’ve learned all about food rules and how many I still follow, despite my own “recovery” years ago at age 14. 

Even though I’ve come a long way with food rules, as I was doing my devotions the other day, I was struck by something else. My brain made a connection, and it said to me, “WAIT A MINUTE. I’ve seen this pattern before and it didn’t have to do with food. Where else are there unnecessary rules in my life?” 

And I thought about when I first got married; how obsessed I was with making our small basement apartment neat and tidy. One of the habits I tried to develop was to finish every little bit of laundry (even ironing napkins!) EVERY WEEK. I felt I had to keep up the ritual of being tidy so I could consider myself a competent wife (I have a lifelong habit of being messy). I wanted to erase my feeling of inadequacy by turning over a new leaf and keeping a pristine house for my new hubby.  

After...