Do you ever really recover from an eating disorder?

It is 100% possible from personal experience.

I used to suffer from bullemia... Throughout highschool, and until I was about 24 or so. It was a long road, but I can honestly say I hardly ever think about it anymore.

Physically - yes, if no permanent damage was done. Emotionally - I think it's the same as any other psychiatric disorder or even addiction. There's no actual cure. You can be in recovery or the disease can be in remission but it never really "leaves". You learn how to manage your life in other ways and must just continue to do that, once learned.

Maybe recover,but it"s sort of like alcohol you recover but the illness is always there,I'm 55 and still obsess about food,extercice,weight,I wish it would all go away,I always think I'm to old to be worrying about this,so if there is a cure we'd all like to know.:huh:

For me, I can recover from the battles, the war will always rage on, if i'm blue i know my old frienemy will be lurking, the battles are over quicker, i had major issues cycling through bulimia to anoerexia and always back out the bulimic phase to normal eating for 12 years pretty much constant cycling, i know so much about nutrition but I still struggle some days to eat healthy meals.

I've had to lose weight for the first time since having my daughter, pregnancy gave me the only real freedom from my war but when it came to stubborn pounds that I needed off to be back at my happy weight I struggled, I've had slips back into bad habits but they have been short lived and I sourced help quickly, losing weight for me and my history is hard and I have to self preserve, depression will show through in my eating habits and the first symptom of me feeling blue is still that my eating will drop and scary for me is I can still just not eat one day and I'll not feel hunger.

Its a hard battle, and for me I will always live with it. Years ago I made the decision that I wanted to be fit and healthy and good at my sport - running, i could only achieve good results if I ate so I accepted it was fit and healthy or super skinny and ill, its that plus of course my gorgeous daughter that keeps me strong and fighting though I do have to cut out and walk away from things and people that drag me down - self preservation!

Everyone who has lived through EDs will have a different perspective and this is just my very honest one

No, there will always be phycological issues. We are studying this in my nutrition class right now. My teacher doesn't understand it. I mean she can teach it, but it's clear that she hasn't ever closely know someone with an ED. I am a former ANA. I have 5 of the 5 typical characteristics it's no wonder. Education and being self aware is the first step to maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

I think for me personally I will always have to be careful how I think about food now. I can go without the behaviours associated with the ED, but my thought patterns are always skewed from what they should be. Quieting those thoughts that are bad about myself/what I'm eating/wanting to purge is probably something I'll always deal with in some limited form.

Some do, some don't, i personally struggle every day with habits formed in the midst of an ED. I have strange habits like breaking food into certain numbers of chunks and only eating so many of them, and i have 7 college ruled-5 subject notebooks filled with every morself of food/drink i have eaten in ten years.
I also track my exercise obsessively and kind of freak out when i don't hit certain goals. Fortunately this has led to me being obsessive in a good way-making sure i'm eating enough protein as opposed to making sure i dont eat over 100 calories a day. Old habits die hard : /