EPUT patients talk about their experiences during Eating Disorder Awareness Week
This week is Eating Disorders Awareness Week (Monday 27 February until Sunday 5 March), an annual awareness week aimed at challenging myths and misunderstandings around eating disorders.
According to the charity Beat, around 1.25 million people in the UK have an eating disorder, which could be one of a range of serious mental health conditions.
Some common examples include avoiding or being restrictive with food, bulimia, binge eating disorder, and anorexia.
Eating disorders are not always related to food. It is more about how a person is feeling. They can affect anyone, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, or background.
Our specialist Eating Disorders Service assesses and treats people with moderate to severe eating disorders. It primarily helps people who are suffering with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa and variations of these eating disorders.
The team offer intensive day treatment services and specialist assessment, evidence-based psychological therapies and therapy groups.
They also provide Eating Disorders Intensive Community Treatment and FREED (First episode Rapid Early intervention for Eating Disorders).
FREED is for young people aged under 26 who have had an eating disorder for less than three years. They are contacted within 48 hours of referral, assessed within two weeks and start treatment within four weeks.
To mark Eating Disorders Awareness Week, two of our patients have shared their stories to raise awareness and encourage anyone who needs support to not be afraid to seek help.
Sara’s story
My story isn’t your typical one of someone suffering from an eating disorder.
Call me naïve, but having an eating disorder never crossed my mind. Working in the hospitality industry for over 30 years, working shifts and long days not having a regular meal routine was normal for me. I’m not in my teens or 20s, I’m in my early 50s. I don’t have a low body mass index, but since being in treatment I’ve learnt not everyone does.
I was receiving therapy for a non-related trauma, and it was my therapist who picked up on the signs. She monitored my behaviours over a period.
Talking to her and looking back I could see my behaviours and habits had been there for some time on and off, as far back as my teens. She suggested I speak with my GP. Initially my GP brushed me aside. I didn’t fit the mould. It was not going to be easy.
With the support from my therapist and a different GP, I was able to get support from the Adult Eating Disorder Services.
Recovery has not been easy. Some days are tougher than others.
Looking for the positives is hard, especially in a mind-set of feeling nothing short of perfect is good enough.
But no matter how small those positives are, they are a step in the right direction and means I’m moving forward. With regular monitoring and support from an assigned nurse and a dietician, I am making progress.
My recovery took a step backward last year when I lost my Mum suddenly. The team were great, allowing me time and space to process what had happened, but were there to nudge me to get back on track.
Currently I am completing day care with supported meal prep and lunch groups. I have group sessions to support with compulsive behaviours, emotional regulation and body image. I also have a planning group to help set manageable goals. Having the additional support and people to reach out to is great too.
When suffering from an eating disorder, you isolate yourself. It’s comforting to know you are not alone.
We are all facing our own battle, and in different stages of recovery. With small steps, recovery is possible.
Jack’s story
I’m a second year university student, studying English and Film. My life since beginning anorexia recovery has gone through peaks and troughs but it’s safe to say that at last I am finally feeling the triumph of being separated from my eating disorder.
Each day is a different battle, some good some bad, but the people around me and the people in the services have provided me with so much support and I am forever grateful for their never ceasing encouragement.
My story realistically begins as a child. As a bisexual male, I was prone to bullying and constant shaming from peers. I was often labelled by the way I looked and mocked for my flamboyant personality.
I began to see myself how others saw me and decided enough was enough and something had to change. I realised (wrongly) that the issue was I was overweight and I began skipping meals, not thinking anything of it.
For a couple of years this was how far my disorder went - skipping lunch a few times a week - but it spiralled from there.
First came the physical abuse to my body, then the restriction worsened and then the dreaded COVID, an excuse not to eat as much. The news bombarded me with the rights and wrongs of eating and so I decided to stop. Not completely, just slowly.
Potato waffles became salad, milk became water. Everything delicious and flavourful in the world was swapped out for a low calorie, boring equivalent.
And for a while it worked. I was finally being praised for my looks but then something in me shifted. I isolated myself, hid myself and pushed everyone else away. Life became a nuisance and quite simply I wanted it to end.
These feelings lasted for quite some time until one day I just had enough. My mother was driving me to sixth form and I just broke down, I couldn’t go in. The anxiety I felt as a child going into a class filled with bullies rushed back. So I rang my GP and I called out for help.
The support came surprisingly quick, something I am very much aware was rare but fortunate, but still not quick enough. I remember being asked by a nurse my weight and height over the phone. This terrified me, so I mumbled it but she still heard clearly.
She told me I had to go to A&E and that was it. I thought maybe it would just be a couple of blood, tests a pat on the back and off I go, but lo and behold an hour turned into two, which became a day, which became a couple of weeks.
I probably wouldn’t have made it through without my family and friends being just a phone call away.
At first I was left in the dark for a bit - a blood test a week and frequent weigh-ins but then I was put under child services. My position at the time was unique as I was 17, only two weeks away from adult, so child services kind of treated me like an in-betweener.
When I moved to adult services, I had frequent calls with the team who treated me with respect and offered me many programmes and classes. I declined most of them but MANTRA (Maudsley Model of Anorexia Nervosa Treatment for Adults) was one I stuck with and had an amazing experience with, meeting some amazing people who have continued to give me support and friendship since.
As I began to gain weight, weekly weigh-ins became monthly and life became normal. University began, I began a relationship with the most amazing boy, and life settled.
After a while, whilst the support and meal plan was working for me physically, I began to feel restricted by the checking of numbers to make sure I was sticking to my regime, and whilst the services have provided me with continued support that I am forever grateful for, I began to realise that I needed to separate and truly live for myself, not for the number on the scale or for the data on the sheet.
And that leads me up to now. My life feels so vastly different from when I started recovery. I live with my partner, I drive, study at university, have a job.
And food, whilst still frightening at times, is merely a secondary part of my day. I’ve learnt to listen to my body, to avoid my head and quite simply to enjoy life.
My advice for anyone who is struggling is to ask themselves what they want from life. And if an eating disorder isn’t on that list, then it’s time to let it go. It will be hard. It will be challenging. But the beauty of becoming the purest form of you shines brighter than my anorexia ever did.
To find out more about EPUT’s eating disorder services please visit: https://eput.nhs.uk/our-services/eating-disorders-service-south-essex/ or https://eput.nhs.uk/our-services/eating-disorders-service-north-east-mid-and-west-essex/