Life without Anorexia

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Tuesday, October 18, 2016

My time at a kids psychiatric hospital - memories

This evening while on youtube i stumbled across a documentary about kids in a psychiatric hospital in England. I only got 15 minutes into the documentary before i found that it was too much and i was flooded with too many memories and found it difficult to watch anymore. It is so strange to think that just 6 years ago i was in a psychiatric hospital, 6 years ago i was being watched 24/7 and had tube feeding because i wouldnt eat or drink and 5 years ago i was being told that i was a helpless case and couldnt be helped. 6 years is a long time, and truth be told from 2009 to the end of 2012 is pretty much just a blur from me. .Random memories stick out, mostly the negative ones and the times i locked myself away in a bathroom or the time i tried to run away from Mando or the nights i spent crying at Mando.

I've written about my time at the psychiatric hospital HERE, but seeing the documentary just reminded me about my time there. How lonely i was. I wasnt allowed a phone or any internet access and only allowed a short 20-30 minute call to my family every second day or so. My mum lived 2 hours away from the hospital and she tried to visit me as often as she could, but whenever she visited me either i would cry and beg her to take me home or i would sit silent and hate her for making me stay at the hospital. My dad also visited me more often as he lived closer, and he kept talking about how the two of us should just escape and move away... start life somewhere else.
My days at the psychiatric hospital were mostly spent on bedrest, i wasnt even allowed to read or watch a film while on bedrest, it was complete stillness. And i had a bed that made noise each time i moved or tried to get out of bed. At random times i was allowed to the common room where the other patients were, but i would sit there in absaloute silence, dreading the minutes until my next meal and most of all wishing i could disappear. Staying at the psychiatric hospital did nothing but make me worse and hate myself and hate life even more. I cried in the shower each time i was allowed to shower, i sat silent almost 24/7 and i refused to take my medication or drink water or eat. I had different nurses ask me why i wouldnt eat, why i was the way i was... they blamed me and told me i was stupid, they told me i wouldnt live if i didnt change my ways. I was asked why i was so scared of eating or gaining weight and the only thing i could reply with was "i would rather be dead than be fat". And i truly believed that for many years of my life... i was so scared of weight gain or being fat. When i was finally discharged from the psychiatric unit as i was moving country with my mum, i was given my journal and all the notes taken from the hospital and all the nurses, therapist and doctors just wrote that i was hopeless, i was getting worse and they didnt know what to do with me. I was lifeless according to them, and that was very true. I WAS lifeless. I was basically just an outer shell with so much hate and anxiety and guilt inside of me.

Being at the psychiatric unit didnt help me in anyway, it just made me worse and scarred me in many ways. The hospital used punishing techniques on me to get me to eat. For example if i didnt eat or didnt gain weight i wasnt allowed phone calls to my family and my family werent allowed to visit. Those techniques were far from useful, they just made me feel more depressed and didnt make me more excited to eat.

When i think back on the past it is so strange to think that that was me. That MY past was/is actually my past... that its me who has been through all the hospital visits. In a way it wasnt me though, because i wasnt in control... i wasnt in control of my actions or my thoughts. It wasnt until i began fighting for my recovery that it was actually me in control... i think thats why it feels so strange, because so much of it is a blur due to my lack of nutrition and not being in control of myself.

What i have gone through has made me stronger and made me who i am today, so i dont regret it. Would i change it? Well of course i would have preffered if i didnt suffer from mental illnesses growing up and that i didnt have to deal with depression still. But i have grown and i dont know who i would be otherwise? I wouldnt have this blog, i wouldnt be able to help others and i dont even know if i would live in Sweden if i hadnt become sick with an eating disorder (that sentence makes it sound like its an infection or a virus.... so sorry for the bad phrasing).

I dont often think about the past, instead i look into the future and want to continue creating my happy and healthy life. But sometimes you need to look into the past to see how far you have come. To realise how much you have grown and changed, how much life has changed. Its crazy to think how far i have come and how much i have been through. I mean just 6 months ago i was considering suicide, but here i am now in a new university living away from home again and doing just fine. 6 months ago i didnt even think that was possible as i was so deep in my depression, but time flies by and its about making choices towards recovery. Because either the illness controls and consumes you, and the illness takes over, orYOU take control over your life and realise that time will pass and its up to you to make the best of it. I.e in 6 months from now you could be in a much better mental state/better life situation, or 6 months from now you could be in a worse place or in the same situation as now... its about YOU making a change.

I could have given up 6 years ago (or well, i pretty much had given up), but i kept fighting even if i was forced to keep going. Its not always easy but it is worth it. Sure i have some scars from my past such as i still get nightmares about being locked in a hospital, and going to the hospital still fills me with fear and anxiety, but i am a much stronger and healthier person now because of everythingi have been through.

If you are struggling right now or in hospital, know that it is up to YOU to make it better. I do believe that inpatient and hospital treatment helps, no matter how scary it is. I dont know how many times in my life i have been told by a doctor that i have to be inpatient and each time it is like someone has put a knife in my stomach and i am filled with fear and anxiety, but each time i have gotten through my inpatient stay, and my last inpatient stay in 2011 i said "never again" and that is how it will hopefully be. (Well, apart from inpatient stays due to my CF or emergency visits, such as when i had an inflamed pancreas).

Anyway, this is a long post and i could keep writing about it. But the documentary triggered all these thoughts and memories and i just needed to write them out. But also to remind you all that if you are in hospital, you will get out one day. But its not just about getting out... its about making changes and making your life better. Because otherwise you will just go in and out of hospital... you need ot make changes and want to get better. Some people find a comfort in being an inpatient, they can avoid real life, but that is not a life... you need to be out and living, creating a life and being happy. You need to want to live life, see the beauty in life and not hide behind four walls or hide behind yourillness. You need to take control over your life and know that living is worth it, even if it doesnt always feel that way.

Its so sad to see how tiny i was... and these photos i wasnt even at my lowest weight (NOT THAT THAT MATTERS!!!). But it just shows how distorted body image can be. I see those photos and just see a lifeless, tony and hopeless girl. But i remember how i felt so extremely fat and would cry after seeing photos taken of me because i felt so huge.... I was so scared of fat gain, so scared of weight gain... but all my body needed was food and weight gain.


  1. Omg Izzy this post made me cry:( I am just so happy that you won a battle with anorexia and depression! I am also struggling with anorexia and a person who made me to start thinking in the other way, in the healthy way, was you. So thank you thank you sooo much for your posts and your help. THANK YOU. You are beautiful, you are inspiring, never give up. Hugs<3

  2. This was a really intense post Izzy. Absolutely hit me and makes me feel really emotional.. Gets me thinking back of these past 6 years for me too. It' s just that I've been sick the same years as you have been with the same kind of things and we' re the same age (anorexia, exercise addiction, suicidal etc.) So it' s all extremely relatable for me. As well as having a chronic illness besides being anorexic and now being depressed for a long time already. Completely get you that it's too triggering to watch those kind of documentaries! Scenes like that or topics on tv etc. i'm not able to watch either. But you are so right that it's so good to look back now and again to see how far you've come! You are truly amazing Izzy :)

  3. I'm so proud of how far you've come! Could you remember a particular moment that you chose to recover?

  4. I am sooo glad you are feeling better today <3 Your post made me think about my own journey.. I've had 5 compulsory admissions just this year, but unlike your experiences, mine has been really helpful. My doctors always listened to me and were really supportive and the nurses... God the nurses! I have NEVER met such wonderful people in my life! They were the best thing that could ever happen to me. They woke me up from every nightmare and hugged me so that I would fall asleep in their arms, we had long chats everyday, and even though I at times yelled at them and hated them, they still took care of me as if I were their own child <3 They were sooo inspiring and they even made me want to become a nurse myself!
    Anyways, I'm so proud of you for choosing recovery (I know it must have been a really tough decision) and I really hope that the rest of your life will be everything you want it to be :)

  5. I think you are really brave to revisit your emotions and write this post Izzy, it must have been very painful for you remembering all what you went through in hospital. When I was hospitalised due to my depression it too was awful - I was in a locked ward and only taken outside at certain times of the day and by a staff member, all my personal belongings were taken from me and placed in a locker and I only had access to it at those same certain times of the day when a group of us was allowed off the ward for some fresh air outside with a member of staff. meal times were horrid, the food wasn't good and we ate alone many of us on separate tables in what they called the dining room, which in itself was pretty dire place. At night the staff made checks on you by shining a torch in your face - why they did this I don`t know - and when you went to take a bath/shower the door was unlocked and a staff member would periodically shout at you through the door as to what you were doing all not a restful place to be for one suffering from depression. There were many other very sick ( with other psychiatric illnesses) patients and it was at times really scary. Whilst I was there I vowed i would make sure that when i got out i would never be in the position whereby i had to be admitted again - but in all i was to go through it another two times before i finally began to get better. The threat of a section was for ever hanging over you and the staff constantly reminded me off this. It was terrifying - and that was me as an adult, so goodness knows what you yourself went through emotionally being that you were just a child having to go through the ordeal of hospital. I feel so sad that you had to go through what you did and experience such terror, your post made me feel so emotional for you.
    I hope that you are able to put the past behind you and know that none of this was your fault, you didn't choose to be sick and you certainly did not do anything to cause you to be treated in this way. I hope that in todays world child psychiatric settings are better and actually beneficial to to patient than what they were, but i don`t know about this. Hopefully they are.
    Thankyou for sharing your story on here and i`m glad you got some release from your feelings by writing it all out. You are so right about certain programmes being triggering, i find that to be the case myself sometimes.
    I think you have travelled an amazing journey and achieved so much. You should be so very proud of yourself about all that you have achieved, for all your hard work, your strength of spirit and determination to overcome your ed. And you continue to do so - yes you have your rough patches but always your determination, drive and positivity sees you through and i think you are amazing. Believe me, what you do is an inspiration that has no doubt touched many people in your life and on here and i really feel incredibly lucky that i myself have had the good fortune to make contact with you, although not personally but through your blog. And for being who you are and doing what you do i thankyou xxx