My Year of Treatment

I've spent the past year doing intensive treatment for an eating disorder. I have OSFED, also known as Other Unspecified Eating Disorder. This eating disorder isn't always concerned with weight or shape, but mine was. I also have issues with the color, texture, scent, and taste of foods.

Typical treatment for an eating disorder is as follows, depending on the severity of malnutrition, you either begin with inpatient or residential. I've done both. Both of these are 24/7 care at some type of facility. Then, when you're ready, you step down to a partial hospitalization program or a PHP. This is five days a week for eight hours. I've done three partial hospitalization programs. When you're ready, you step down again to intensive outpatient programming (IOP), which is three days a week for 3 hours.

Now here's how my treatment process went - inpatient for 1 week until I signed out against medical advice (AMA) for reasons a bit too complex for this blog post. Then, I did PHP for 4 months and IOP for 2 more months. Then I did your typical outpatient services, therapy, psychiatry, and registered dietician. And I relapsed. So, I went to a new PHP and was there for about 5 weeks before they kicked me out for attendance issues and recommended residential. I went to residential for 3 weeks before insurance gave me a big thumbs down and said "She's doing too good, we're not covering this anymore". So I stepped down to another PHP and was there for about 4 weeks.

Now I'm back home and doing regular old outpatient services. Trying to get my life back together.

Financially, I am incredibly privileged to be able to afford services such as these. I know many people would not be able to afford any sort of eating disorder treatment.

During all this time, I've been on unpaid medical leave from work and the credit card debt is entirely my fault, but still a huge issue.

Eating disorders are almost like addictions. They come with urges and compulsions. You use them to cope with all your life stressors. For me, my urge is to restrict what I'm eating. I never counted calories I simply skipped all my meals.

When I first went into inpatient, I was severely underweight. I had multiple nutrient deficiencies, had made myself anemic, and was experiencing syncope. I had also messed up my heart and I still deal with a heart rate that is just a bit too fast.

I would restrict when sad, angry, anxious, happy, confident; really any emotion led to restriction. A big part of the treatment was learning to cope with uncomfortable emotions. Treatment consisted of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). So basically a crap ton of therapy.

Treatment also consisted of three meals and 3 snacks daily. If you didn't complete your food, you were given a nutritional beverage. If you didn't drink your nutritional beverage, you ran the risk of being given a feeding tube. Except for the treatment in Ohio, they weren't allowed to administer feeding tubes.

We also did a lot of yoga. Not your typical yoga, the yoga we did involved holding poses for multiple minutes and none of the inversion poses because we ran the risk of passing out.

They really stressed the importance of being in connection with your body, being in the present moment. So, we utilized a lot of mindfulness.

After all the treatment, I am weight restored and eating 3 meals a day. Surfing through urges to restrict and body check, my day revolves around making sure I eat and preparing to go to work again.

At this point in my recovery, I feel stable. However, relapses happen and having a relapse plan is key. I have a plan in case of worst-case scenario and I take it one bite at a time.