To all the doctors, dietitians, medical professionals, and parents
Imagine you are in a dark, scary place. Your mind is playing tricks on you so you don’t know what is real and what is not. You have lost what truth means or write your own truth. You are terribly insecure, sad, and have no hope. You know you are sliding into a deep hole but are powerless to stop it. You hate yourself and feel so weird around others you isolate yourself. Your emotions and life are just numb and you prefer to just ‘disappear’. It would be better to hide. You have obsessions that you can’t control, that just take over your body and mind. It is like being on a treadmill that you can’t stop, but gets faster and faster. Until you are out of control and desperately want help, but are terrified to ask for it. Giving up on life completely seems a better option.
Would you like to live like this everyday for months or years?
This is the basis of what it is to live with an eating disorder. It is a mental health illness that needs treatment not ignorance.
How much educational awareness, media coverage, research etc will it take for you to realize eating disorders are serious. Or worse, they actually exist and will not go away just because you don’t want to understand or treat the disorder.
How many sufferers are condemned to getting sicker because you don’t believe they have an eating disorder or are not critical enough? Your brush off and lack of care or support silences the voice of the sufferer. Imagine having finally reached out to someone because you are desperate for help only to be told you don’t rate enough to get help.
Where do you get the idea that ‘just eat’ will work or ‘I know you can eat so get over this’. Why would you use medication to increase the appetite when you aren’t treating the mind or emotions? Who decides who is critical enough to warrant the attention of a psychologist or psychiatrist? Who decides that an eating disorder has ‘levels’ of diagnosis? Cancer is cancer not almost cancer. An eating disorder is the same and demands the same instant attention and treatment.
EATING DISORDERS ARE NOT ATTENTION SEEKING BEHAVIOUR
EATING DISORDERS ARE NOT A MINOR ILLNESS THAT YOU GIVE A BANDAID FOR
EATING DISORDERS ARE NOT A FOOD OR WEIGHT PROBLEM
EATING DISORDERS ARE NOT THE LATEST SOCIAL CRAZE AND MUST HAVE
There is no excuse apart from ignorance to treat people with an eating disorder as unimportant or stupid. Information is widely available including research. No one wants their loved one to have an eating disorder, but to bury your head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t exist will only make the eating disorder worse. It will get a stronger grip and you will end up with someone who is very sick. Early intervention and treatment is the key and so much research and statistics prove this point. And follow up support after treatment is also essential. You just don’t drop and run.
When you are an adult sufferer you can at least keep pursuing the challenge to find appropriate support/medical professionals to help you recover. It is a challenge that should NOT be there. Public health systems, medical insurers make the task of finding appropriate help a nightmare. Any other illness is a straight forward approach, but eating disorders still have not made even made it to basic level.
For those under adult age and are reliant on a parent getting them help they need it is heartbreaking. Not having a parent who understands or wants to take the time to learn what an eating disorder is only adds to the strength of the illness and the entrenchment of the illness. It won’t go away conveniently for you and yes it will cost money and time. Ignoring the illness and your child adds guilt, shame and denial of self to your child. They don’t need that – it just feeds the illness. I will be the first to put my hand up and say the journey over the last 4 years has been hell at times. But it has been worth it to see my daughter now.
I know I have vented before, and have said a lot of this before too. But I get sooooooo frustrated and angry when I get emails with desperate cries of help because families and the medical establishment remain blissfully ignorant.
