How well do you feel your eating disorder has been treated or managed?

[ABC-]

[littlemissyeahbut]

When I was in the early stages of my ED I found it awfully hard to be taken seriously as a Bulimic. I was not underweight and on more than one occasion was told by doctors to lose weight to get help. I was furious as it had taken everything I had to ask for help. I withdrew for the next 10 years. Looking back I should have asked for a second opinion as many years later I asked again and was placed in a residential unit. The unit changed my life, it showed me I WAS ill (which I had convinced myself I wasn't) but I COULD get better. It was a long hard journey but I am now married, have a beautiful baby and can honestly say recovered. I think if I had looked a bit harder the help would have been there sooner but I did find it hard. I saw the help as being for Anorexics not me but now I know otherwise. There is help for EVERYONE, you just have to ask.

[Pointeless]

To start with - BADLY. on visiting the first dr I saw I was told to go away and eat another cracker (all I was managing for lunch at the time) and that I wasn't underweight enough to be significantly worried just yet...

Well needless to say I continued to lose weight until I was dangerously very low weight by which time i'd had to throw the towel in at uni and return home.

However once I was back in the system at home it was managed alot better. I was put on meds, given CBT, given the chance to control my treatment by being given numerous chances to stay out of hospital when reallybelow the BMI admission threshold because they knew that it wouldn't help me to have control taken away from me when all I had been trying to achieve was just that. The CBT was helpful and the meds were too.

Unfortunately the day services weren't specialist for ED's and nobody there really knew how to support me and when in a dreadful state before reaching day hospital the crisis team were largely worse than useless.

When very distressed one night the on call doctor gave me a shot of anti-pycotics instead of just a sedative and I had a severe allergic reaction that left me in hospital the next evening.

My GP now is very insensitive and will say things like 'yes you've filled out well now' or 'you've out on alot of weight that's good' but I'm fortunately MOST the time strong enough to handle it.

BUT he always listens.

I have found immense support through abcs publications and one of their trustees who works at the International Eating Disoder centre in aylesbury depite having not attended there myself

I agree with the above, help is out there, you may have to keep asking, but be brave, you know deep down when things aren;t right,deep down you know you need things to change,