Eating Disorders & the NHS - fun experiences!

Forewarning: This is likely to become a rant. Because if anyone MENTIONS the NHS & eating disorders, I rant. And hell, you asked

I could give you pages worth, & start at the beginning & all that, but lets face it, one rambling ‘woe is meeee!’ story is much like another, so we’ll skip to the vaguely relevant points, and if anyone wants me to fill in the gaps, I’ll talk your ears off then.

So, near the beginning. Early Summer 2000, I was 14, with a BMI at the time of about 14.5-15.5. After being taken to the doctors by my mother, who was understandably less than impressed at my refusal to eat anything, I was referred to Dr K of a Child & Adolescent Mental Health Unit (I intend to send her a very, very rude letter someday). I was initially open to this. If I’m honest, the eating disorder was a calculated, fully deliberate attempt at gaining psychiatric help, for the (respectively) less believable and socially acceptable problems of depression & self injury.

Dr K was awful. She reduced every member of my family to tears at one point or another – and again we let her. All we had was the Hollywood view of shrinks – that the more they touch nerves, the more they’re helping. And eventually it’ll ‘click’, there’ll be tears & hugs & you’ll be all fixed & ride off into the sunset. Ha!

For factual evidence, her appointments were generally about 2 weeks apart with nothing in-between – she spoke of organising weekly weigh ins & a nutritionist, but these never materialised. She’d set me homework – food diaries, pros & cons of seeing your dad – and never ask to see it. She argued with my answers to open questions like ‘you realise you’ll get too thin, right?’.
And here comes rant

#1 – you simply cannot BE that goddamn slack with a young teenager, initially presenting ED symptoms!

They’re thoroughly moody & hormonal, prone to shooting themselves in the foot just to mildly piss you off, they can go downhill fast, and most of all – you have the chance to nip this in the bud. Essentially save a life. You can save them or screw them, and there’s no margin for error.

I eventually refused to see her, and ‘got better’ (i.e., ate) on my own. Obviously all parents like to believe this magical transformation is real, it’s ‘just a phase’ and now over, but this certainly wasn’t true in my case.

Scroll forward 3 years. I’ve since dropped out of college, moved in with my boyfriend (including exciting incidents such as painting the entire conservatory in my own blood after downing 1/3 bottle of vodka – I was one of the under 18s prescribed seroxat, and yeah, it makes with the crazy. Amusingly I wasn’t even sad at the time, I was having great fun. Now that is disturbing), refused to get a job & moved back home again. Cue more fun with anorexia. By now I’d started purging too, and this was my final ‘tool’ to allow for extreme weight loss. That year I got down to a BMI of 11.1, with the photos to prove it.

I was fairly convinced that I ‘wasn’t designed for life’, but just the same I got the ball rolling with Getting Help – one should always have a back up plan.

I had to give my GP the address of a specialist ED unit in Birmingham, he’d never even heard of it. After the first referral got lost and we chased things up, we were told we were outside of their catchment area. I would go to a man named M, who covered the local area. Who was the only person to cover the whole local area. Riiiight.

After much failure at finding this M geezer, we book a (privately paid for) assessment with Dr R of the QE. He comes to my house, speaks to parents & myself, and with a BMI of 12.4 at the time, labels me ‘high risk’. He tells me I must go through the normal system, but that if this doesn’t work out, to phone him, and I can see him. Excellent – a safety net. He seems a really nice guy.

Push forward a while later, and M is the invisible man – people have never heard of him. People at places where he WORKS have never heard of him. Eventually I get up the courage (and/or desperation) to phone up Dr R. Who takes out my safety net with a fucking Uzi, Arnie style. Apparently I must Go Through The System. His hands are tied by The System. I must see M first, dislike him, and from there be referred to Dr R. No queue jumping. Which is kinda hard when M is a ghost.

I make a new diet plan. 55lbs, followed by death. Deliberate suicide in May, if still lingering. Fortunately, once death is a real prospect, I notice everyone else. Being Happy. Having Lives. And decide to give it a shot (short version – I gained weight, got a job, got a horse, promptly relapsed for another year, but in the long term, the ED is no longer a huge factor in my now much improved life. The process largely sucked though).

I eventually saw M, after my mum pulled the ‘we will complain, and my husband is a local councillor’ card. Most people wouldn’t be so fortunate. The specialist nutritionist was awesome; I forget her name, but kudos to her. M was odd. He talked a lot about my poo, was very skinny himself, and mostly triggered me. Cheers dude.

On which subject, I’ve since seen a General Shrink at the same place – he wouldn’t ask me questions, and I wouldn’t volunteer information, I was so used to squashing it down. We spent 3 or 4 hour sessions in silence, with him reading a book. I fucking give up on these people, honestly.

So the overall result? Well, I’ve got A Life, and I am a Real Person. I have friends & a personality, a job and a fairly reasonable career plan, I’m doing Learn Direct courses, hoping to move out next year. The ED is pretty much in the background. That said, I’m also an on/off intravenous stimulant abuser (mostly ‘on’, if we’re honest, given the resultant lumpy nails, glandular fever & IBS) with a BMI of about 15 (and I put my current status of ‘more happy and sane than I’ve been since I was a kid’ down 100% to abusing ecstasy & hallucinogens. No word of a lie. I believe that shrinks are good for some people, but for me – what’s the point wallowing? Who gives a good god damn if daddy was mean & mommy wasn’t loving enough – how old are you, five?! You’re grown up, and that excuse is weak. You can go over it ‘til your blue in the face, ain’t no answers in the past. Suck it up & move on. Pills’ll force you to know what happiness is, and shrooms’ll put you through hell, but they’ll teach you a lot. Incidentally, I rarely touch either these days, although will always hold great affection for both. When you get the message, put down the phone) & I last cut myself about 2 months ago.

I’m definitely not ‘fixed’, and my bumbling & crazy path of ‘self help’ has definitely screwed over a good few years of my life, but I’m positive/optimistic these days, I can see myself having a normal, happy life someday, with any luck.

Gotta say though – no thanks to the NHS. I’m kinda proud that it’s ‘all me’, and that I was taught there’s no safety net – look after yourself or die, but there’s a part of me that’s still goddamn bitter as hell.

The NHS is an awesome thing, America baffles me – you fall down, break your leg, and first you gotta go through your pockets, make sure you can afford to NOT die of gangrene in the gutter?! Crazy.. But yeah, on the mental health side – they’re doing more damage than good. If my younger brother ever shows any sign of Nuttiness, I’ll be pretty scared from him.

Anyone with mentally ill children – do not fear over-reacting.. Get out some savings & go private. You want ME being your kid in a few years time? No, I thought not.