When you have an eating disorder in college, maintaining your recovery on summer break from school can be uniquely challenging. Summer break often brings hopes of excitement, sun-filled fun, and a diversion from the mundanity of the school year. However, even if you were in a strong place with recovery, it’s possible that you may find yourself thrown off. There may be triggers that you didn’t necessarily anticipate.

There are a handful of big changes that take place during the summer that have the potential to make things a bit messy with eating disorder recovery. One of the primary differences is likely a pretty big departure from your day-to-day schedule and often the less structured time that comes along with that. Lack of structure can be challenging if you’ve established a strong recovery routine when it comes to things like meals and supports.

Perhaps you’ll be traveling, attending camp, relocating for an internship, or other summer activities that will take you away from your usual environment.  Being in a different environment might mean you no longer have your home and recovery environment set up in a way that has been the most successful for you.  Travel typically means more meals on-the-go and potentially less access to foods and meals to which you’ve become accustomed.

On top of that, the weather is warm, which can mean wearing less and often more body-conscious clothing. This typically leads even people without eating disorders to develop a heightened sense of body image concerns during the summer.

In recovery from an eating disorder, body image challenges during the summer may feel particularly strong.

So, we know that recovery on summer break can bring some challenges when you have an eating disorder in college. However, it’s entirely possible to plan for these potential triggers and look after your eating disorder recovery. Keep reading for my tips on maintaining your eating disorder recovery on summer vacation so you are ready to take on the school year come fall.

3 Tips for Looking After Your Eating Disorder Recovery During the Summer Vacation

# 1 Prioritize Your Recovery

With the excitement of summer – the parties, the vacations, and the freedom – it can be easy to lose focus.  It can be tempting to allow yourself to get off-track with your commitment to treatment. Of course, the amount of flexibility that your recovery can withstand depends on a lot of different factors. However, it’s really best to continue therapy and nutrition visits as regularly as you have been during the school year when you have an eating disorder in college.

If you are going to be traveling or in a different environment than the one you are used to, make a plan for how you are going to manage that shift.  Check out whether it’s possible to continue to meet with your current providers virtually, or let them help get you connected with a team in your new area.

Planning ahead also means taking a look at how meals are going to be handled while traveling.  The temptation may be to ‘wing it’ but that’s rarely a good idea for eating disorder recovery.  Be as realistic as possible and try to plan for triggers that might arise in the most proactive way possible.

#2 Be Protective of Your Recovery

It’s likely that as summer kicks off, you may find yourself in situations that cause you to really question how strongly you are motivated to recover from your eating disorder. Sometimes truly being honest with yourself about what’s in the best interest of your recovery might mean turning down plans that could leave you in jeopardy.

For example, perhaps you are invited on a weekend trip with friends, but you know that you’ll be spending a lot of time with a friend who is triggering.  Maybe this friend is struggling with an eating disorder in college – which is very common – and hasn’t yet sought recovery.  This is a situation in which you might actually have to decide that saying no to that plan is really what’s in the best interest of your recovery.

Protecting your eating disorder recovery often means making difficult choices, sometimes saying no, and taking the chance of letting other people down.

However, this is where you’ll need to keep your eye on the prize.  Being protective of what might be your fragile eating disorder recovery right now is hopefully only temporary and can pave the way to more freedom in the future.

# 3 Maintain or Enhance Your Recovery Support

Your initial inclination might be to ease up on treatment during the summer months and get back to things come fall. However, summer months often present a great opportunity to better bolster your recovery toolbox. As we discussed earlier, fight the urge to cut down on therapy or nutrition appointments, you’ll need the support more than ever to help manage the challenges of eating disorder recovery on summer break.

It might even be the case that summer is the perfect time to add in an outpatient program or group support.  Maybe you’ve been putting off participating in more intensive treatment during the school year for fear of missing school.  Summer can be the perfect time to really double down on your eating disorder treatment.

Lastly, since professional support is often the key, I’m happy to connect and talk with you about how I can help support your eating disorder recovery on summer break.  As an eating disorder and body image therapist for nearly a decade, I work with clients at my office in Agoura Hills, CA and provide online therapy in California and New York. I’ve helped many women recover from their eating disorder college.  Give me a call now or click on the button below to get in touch to schedule your free 15-minute phone consultation.