Tag Archives: eating disorder

What is sick enough?

January 28th, 2018

What is sick enough?  Is sick enough a meaningless number or stupid hospital band?  Is sick enough the size of your thighs? Or that dead look in your eyes?

Is sick enough really what we are trying to achieve? What even is “sick enough” besides some bullshit phrase our eating disorders engrave into us?

I can tell you one thing, I have never felt “sick enough.” Even when I was on my death bed I still didn’t feel sick enough. And why? Because sick enough isn’t real, there will always be another demand from the disorder, inpatient or not, weight loss or not, there will always be more.

Take a moment to think about the stigma around eating disorders.  What does a stereotypical eating disorder sufferer look like, both in society, with this idea of an underweight cis-gendered white woman even within the recovery community and with professionals who deem the severity of this mental illness through the severity of the physical side effects shown on someone’s body. If there is one thing I’ve learned through my various hospital admissions it is that how someone looks has very little to do with what’s going on within their body and mind. Someone may look healthy and can still be severely ill, and gender means absolutely nothing.

That some false measure of “sick enough” exists is engraved into our heads the moment the eating disorder comes in.  And even when we open ourselves up to treatment, many people fear reaching out to ask for help because they are concerned they won’t be taken seriously. The eating disorder and frankly, some treatment providers intentionally or not, preach this idea that in order to be sick enough you have to reach some sort of bullshit status. Whether that be inpatient, a diagnosis, or a weight range this idea of sick enough manifests in various ways. When in reality it doesn’t really exist and everyone is “sick enough” to deserve help.

To go a little further, I’m now going to swim into the pool of treatment centers, how do you get into treatment for your eating disorder? Through a mental but primarily physical exam, which is a whole different issue in itself. If you’re lucky you’re in, assuming providers decide that you are “sick enough”. But what happens when you have an eating disorder plus other mental health issues? How can you receive help for both? Unfortunately overlapping help is often not accessible, so people are treated for one thing or the other, but rarely both. I’ve been turned away from receiving treatment for my eating disorder due to my other mental health disorders and I’ve also been turned away from treatment for my other mental health disorders due to my eating disorder. There is always a major fear factor when treatment centers are faced with multiple issues within a patient, so these other issues are commonly ignored.

Something providers lack is the knowledge that these mental illnesses are completely intertwined. With an eating disorder there is a lot of anxiety and OCD and eating disorder behaviors can be extremely connected. Underneath the eating disorder there are surrounding issues. Eating disorders are often avoidance behaviors, meaning that there is an underlying issue, but when turned away from help for these underlying issues due to fear from providers; what’s left is a lack of coping tools.

The solution, while hard to achieve, is entirely possible.  It’s a more collaborative approach. Because these illnesses are very connected it is valuable to have treatment that is unified. In my opinion, the line between treatment for psychiatric disorders and eating disorders is much thicker than necessary since both disorders are mental disorders.

Emily is a young adult who uses art and social media to express emotion, educate and provide support and hope for peers struggling with eating disorders and mental health challenges.  Follow her on Instagram @ reconstructingemily

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