faulker053

Yes, I'm direct. Today I heard reference to me and how I practice, shared by a patient, spoken by a therapist.  "She's extreme", the therapist reportedly said, referring, no doubt to my reaction to my new patient's eating disorder behaviors and her severely restrictive intake. I bypassed the "let's just wait and see" approach after a mere couple of visits, after noting the wac-a-mole pattern to her "recovery". Stop the laxatives, increase the purging, increase the food, double the exercise. And there weren't the necessary supports at home to help implement change and ensure her safety and her progress.  It's not the first time strong descriptives have been used about me and my management of eating disorders. I've been called  "tough" and "not easy". It's a wonder anyone would choose to come to see me. I sound so scary, no? So let me fess up. It's all true.  My stand against eating disorder behaviors ...

If you share my frustration please share this post with those that need to see it. Dear Insurance Company, I wish you could see what I see. I wish you could know how much work it requires to motivate an adult living with an eating disorder to trust enough to agree to enter a program. Everything is against their entering treatment—taking time off from work if their job will even allow it, getting coverage for their kids, telling people they know when their eating disorder is often their own secret, and enduring the shame of acknowledging that they are actually struggling with this disease—the shame of feeling that they ought to be over this by now. And the shame that comes with not fitting into society’s skewed perspective of what someone with an eating disorder looks like—because even those of normal weight and BMI can live silently with an eating disorder. Image what it’s like to then have your patient dumped from program. Sound harsh? Well that’s how it feels, both to them and to us ...