Why Eating Disorder Recovery Can Stall Even When You’re Doing Everything Right

Many people enter eating disorder recovery believing that effort guarantees progress. Follow the meal plan. Use the coping skills. Stay consistent. When recovery still feels stuck, shame often follows. This episode explores a different truth. Recovery can stall even when you are doing everything right, and stalled progress usually reflects misalignment rather than failure.

Dr. Marianne examines the hidden reasons eating disorder recovery plateaus, including nervous system overload, limited capacity, chronic stress, trauma history, neurodivergence, and lack of structural support. She explains why compliance without regulation rarely leads to sustainable healing and why recovery models that ignore real-world context can unintentionally increase distress.

This conversation also centers intersectionality. Systems of oppression such as racism, anti-fat bias, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and medical discrimination shape both eating disorder development and recovery access. When treatment ignores these realities, people may feel blamed for struggles that are deeply structural. Understanding this context can transform how stalled recovery is interpreted and supported.

Listeners will gain a more compassionate and clinically grounded framework for understanding recovery plateaus, along with language that reduces shame and opens space for more humane, sustainable healing paths.

In This Episode

Dr. Marianne explores why motivation does not equal capacity and why nervous system regulation must accompany behavior change. She discusses how grief, identity shifts, and emotional exposure often emerge during recovery and can be mistaken for failure. She also explains why neurodivergent people frequently experience recovery mismatch due to sensory, executive functioning, and interoceptive differences that traditional treatment overlooks.

The episode highlights the emotional toll of constant self-monitoring, the importance of therapeutic fit, and the role of intersectional stress in shaping recovery progress. Most importantly, it reframes stalled recovery as meaningful clinical information rather than personal weakness.

Who This Episode Is For

This episode is for people who feel stuck in eating disorder recovery despite working hard. It is also for clinicians, loved ones, and advocates seeking a more intersectional, nervous-system-informed understanding of recovery plateaus.

Related Episodes

“Slips” in Eating Disorder Recovery in 2026: Why Setbacks Are Part of Progress, Not Failure (With Mallary Tenore Tarpley, MFA) on Apple and Spotify.

The Middle Place in Eating Disorder Recovery: How Slips Can Be Stepping Stones With Mallary Tenore Tarpley, MFA @mallarytenoretarpley on Apple and Spotify.

Slips, Setbacks, & Relapses in Eating Disorder Recovery on Apple and Spotify.

Work With Dr. Marianne Miller

If recovery feels confusing, stalled, or misaligned, you do not have to navigate it alone. Dr. Marianne Miller is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in eating disorder recovery through a neurodivergent-affirming, trauma-informed, and liberation-oriented lens. Learn more about therapy, coaching, virtual courses, and recovery support at her website drmariannemiller.com.