My hearing aid for anon:
I can hear when I have my hearing aids in, otherwise I’m pretty deaf.
What happened was: At the time I was severely anorexic,and as a result I had no immune system so I caught every cold going around, and one of those colds came with an ear infection. I never thought anything of it, then one day I woke up and I couldn’t hear anything at all. I took myself to the ER in a complete panic. They said that the infection went to my inner ear and caused nerve damage and that I’d be lucky if I ever got my hearing back.
I am lucky, my hearing came back some. So with my hearing aids I can hear much better. Still not 100%, the tests showed 85% which is pretty damn good considering they told me not to hold out hope on getting it back.
***Feel free to reblog this. I would actually appreciate if you did because I think this shows the harsh reality***
(via nutrientnatalie)
(◕‿◕❀) ✌: The average recovery time for an eating disorder is between 2 and 7 years.
You are going to mess up, ‘relapse’, fail, cry, starve, take two steps forward and one back.
You can get there.
Don’t ask yourself if you want to recover.
Ask yourself if you want to be on this earth in 10 years.
Do you?
Because you could be, you could even be here smiling,…
Eating Disorder Treatment Options
When beginning to research treatment options for eating disorders, most people, if not all, have little or no familiarity with the terminology. As discussions begin, professionals hit you with terms like IOP, IP, PHP and others. Not only do they not understand the abbreviations, they also are not certain of the differences between them. Here is a brief overview for the uninitiated concerning treatment options, what they mean and when they are appropriate.
1 – Inpatient (IP)
This is usually the most intense and serious of the treatment options. Inpatient usually means in a hospital setting but there treatment centers that meet the definition of inpatient for insurance purposes that are look more like a college dorm setting than a hospital. Inpatient is 24 on-site monitoring by nurses, medical doctors, therapists and a psychiatrist. Inpatient can last from 30 days or more depending on the severity of the eating disorder and the progression of recovery. It is not uncommon to be in inpatient for 3 to 5 months.2 – Residential
This is the hardest type of facility to get insurance to cover. Residential means a facility that has similar care as the inpatient but is in a more relaxed, home-like setting. These facilities normal can care for to 60 patients at any one time depending on size and staff. Most residential facilities can not provide care for those who are in the most serious stages of an eating disorder. Many require that the patient be medically stable and be above a minimum weight for their body. If insurance will not cover residential treatment, be sure to check the plans definition of “residential.” Many times the insurance definition will not match what the residential treatment facility provides.3 – Partial Hospitalization (PHP)
PHP is often provided by facilities that also provide inpatient or residential treatment but not always. This level of care basically means that you are medically-stable but are still in serious need of treatment. Basically, being in treatment becomes your job. PHP treatment can be anywhere from 3 to 7 days of care for 4 to 8 hours a day. The patient does not stay overnight and may need to arrange breakfast and/or dinner on their own. This can also be a step-down level for some who have been in IP or Residential treatment. Basically, this is residential or inpatient treatment without the lodging.4 – Intensive Outpatient (IOP)
Intensive Outpatient is very similar to PHP but is usually 2-4 days a week and may only consist of 2 to 4 hours each day. Many facilities offer an evening IOP option for those who are in school or have a job. This can be an important treatment option for those in the early stages of an eating disorder who need more than once a week outpatient treatment. This is also another step-down option for those in a higher level of treatment.5 – Outpatient
This option is where most people start. This would normally be a visit to a therapist once or twice a week for an hour. Nutritional Therapy would also be included here. When people return from higher levels of treatment, outpatient treatment is to be continued on a regular basis to continue the recovery process. Usually, this is the easiest level of treatment to be covered by insurance but are often limited to 20 to 40 mental health visits per year depending on your plan.6 – Transitional
There are some facilities that offer transitional care for those leaving treatment and returning to normal life. These facilities continue to offer counseling services and the patient works at a job or school or some other activity during the day and returns to the transitional program at night.7 – Support Group
This is the most basic but often a very helpful level of treatment. This is an entry-level treatment for those looking for answers and support. Here they meet others who are struggling or in recovery and can see they are not in this alone. Support groups are an important part of a patients aftercare program as well. Contact your therapist or local hospitals for information on support groups in your area.(Source: http://www.eatingdisordertreatmentreview.com/blog/eating-disorder-treatment-options-2)
(Source: , via recoveryisbeautiful)
I know its hard,but it will get better,: Someone take the pain away , Stop me from hating myself, I just want...
Someone take the pain away ,
Stop me from hating myself,
I just want to eat cookie cake, and i can’t even eat a bite without
having a melt down … no cookie cake for me ,
Why must i live my life like this ,
scared to eat, always thinking of food, panicking ,
scared to gain , that isnt a…
(via masksofperfectionnn)
Eating disorders aren’t always the skeletons wondering around the streets who haven’t eaten in days. Sometimes they are the people (both boys and girls) locked in their rooms who are lost deep within a disorder confined to their minds.
This is Haylee. I met her online recently and was given permission to share her story. Shes 16 years old and has been suffering with Anorexia Nervosa (binge purge subtype) for 10 years now. She has permanent heart problems, shes has 2 heart attacks since January, and was in a coma in March. Shes constantly in the hospital due to her eating disorder, and shes spent 7 months in the hospital this year. It’s come to my attention that there are a lot of people on tumblr with “pro-anorexic” blogs who seem to WANT this disease and give “tips” to their followers to “become anorexic”. I want you to look at this photo, at this young girl who has wasted 10 years of her life in agony and ask yourself, how can you be pro this? How can you encourage others to do this to themselves? Please reblog this and help it get around to other blogs to show the reality of eating disorders and the pain they cause and put a stop to “pro anorexia” blogs.
(Source: xmischief-always-wins-the-warx)
‘Eating Disorder Hierarchy’
Binge-eating disorder (and bulimia, although less often) tend to get pushed down and dismissed as illnesses of the ‘greedy’ or ‘lazy’. Bullshit.
See this post by healthiie, which describes living with BED: it’s beautifully written and made me cry first time I read it. [x]
No, anorexia is not ‘better’ than bulimia. An anorexic of a BMI of 15 is not ‘stronger’ or ‘better’ than an anorexic of a BMI 17. Atypical anorexia (EDNOS) is not ‘better’ than purging disorder (EDNOS). Purging disorder is not ‘better’ than bulimia. Bulimia is not ‘better’ than BED. - sadly, from what I read about eating disorders in the press, this seems to be the opinion of the ignorant public. A friend of mine suffering from severe bulimia got told that ‘at least you don’t have anorexia, so don’t worry’.
I recently read ‘Eating Disorders for Dummies’ (out of curiosity) and, guess what, the author there also (although indirectly) places eating disorders in ‘categories of seriousness’, with, of course, anorexia being ‘the most serious’. Ha, ha. Bullshit. They are all deadly serious and fatal if left untreated in their own right.
I hear so many people say that they’re too heavy to have anorexia (when they’re suffering from EDNOS), or are too ‘weak’ to binge / purge regularly enough to have bulimia, as opposed to purging disorder / binge-eating disorder. You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Anorexia is not some sort of holy grail. It’s a disorder, an illness, that stupidly, is sometimes presented as a good thing, God knows why. (You know the kind - ‘oh it would be so nice to have anorexia, I eat too many muffins’). I’ve seen so many ‘anorexia tips’ Twitter accounts; never ‘binge-eating disorder tips’. Idiots. If you’re so ‘keen’ on having an eating disorder, why be picky about which one you get? Huh?
No eating disorder is more serious than another. If you’re suffering, that’s enough. We should never strive to achieve in eating disorders. Christ. We should strive to ‘fail’ at eating disorders, and therefore succeed in life.
I am disgusted by the amount of people who think that suffering from eating disordered behaviour is a desirable thing.
Rant over.
(Source: fyoured)
I figure I would edit this and put a caption. My words may not help anyone but I can at least try. And I must stress that I’m in now way trying to be triggering, I only wish to share my experience and all I have learned and try and help. It’s quite sad in all honestly, my eating had been disordered for quite some time before this. Until I got so tired of trying to overcome it, I gave up. Literally, in every single sense of the word. I wasn’t going to live - Final. I was so done with being alive, getting up and falling on my face time and time again. It was , exhausting. I don’t think I can put into the words what was going on at all, when I look back it feels as if it is a whole life time away, which is perhaps what scares me the most. It’d be so easy to fall into that place again. So easy. Maybe things wouldn’t have gotten to that stage If I had kept a single thing down (other than diet drinks) but I couldn’t. When things were really quite bad I had to stop brushing my teeth or the guilt would be quite overwhelming. I remember a distinct conversation with a nurse in which I said “No I can’t have it, I’ve already eaten! I’ve brushed my teeth!”. Or when I was in the general hospital writing in my journal (There was not much else to do) and writing all the calories I’d consumed. Diet coke, 5. Brushing teeth, 25. However that drip you see there had potassium and glucose - needless to say I was not impressed. I cried so much, I was in a nightmare and the only person who could make me up was myself. Yet I couldn’t at the same time , too loud, too much guilt. I was in quite a lot of pain physically , but mentally everything was unbearable. I had so much support, yet i’d never felt so alone in my whole entire life. Every time I was left alone I just wanted to get away from everything. Rip it out of my arm, because calories were inside me. They were digesting and I couldn’t even get them out. Every time I was left alone it just consumed me, every single thing hit me so much harder. How alone I really was. So powerless. I wonder what I would have been like if it wasn’t for vast amount of diet coke I was drinking - 3 litres a day. However all that caffeine led me to only have about 2 hours sleep, so of course all the hours would be thinking about - calories. And how as soon as I was out (How wrong I was) it’d be right back to the same thing. Binging and purging , not eating , constantly. I believed with everything I had that I would have been going home, and I guess the saddest thing is even though I was ill, and i’m slowly trying to get my head around that, I still don’t think I was that ill, you know?
Ill enough doesn’t exist, it really doesn’t. If you believe it does, then I’m telling you it’s a lie to keep you trapped. The only thing I got from this illness was misery, and oblivion of course (Your eating disorder, does despite all the negatives have positives for you, even if it’s just a different kind of pain.) Now looking back it’s so crazy. I wasn’t allowed off the ward even in a wheel chair, in case I had a heart attack. Which would have happened in two days according to the ECG. Was going to be moved into intensive care if my potassium levels didn’t increase. 24/7 bed rest. Not being able to move and only ever hearing your disordered head, and nothing more. Not allowed to shower. Now having gone to extremes in not eating, and eating excessively and getting rid of it , I fail to see why one disorder would be better than the other. It’s all the same hell and not a single person deserves it. I still fail to see that I was in fact , very ill. I just know it was a fact - inpatient places don’t come cheap. The biggest struggle is, never feeling sick enough. Ever. I never felt once like such a thing. Because it is in fact a non existent goal you search for so you can finally stop the pain. I wish someone would have helped me before things got that bad, but I was after all dead set on one thing. I wanted to lose weight and I had to lose weight and I did. The more my eating disorder progressed, the more lost I became. I didn’t know what I was doing , just that I had to do it. I’m sick to death of always trying to reach the same place. Sick of it. It gets tiring.
My life consisted of food and vomit (sorry for the disgraceful pictures, I’m so disgusted with myself…
I never ever ever want to go back to that. Ever, but the future is not set in stone. I’ve wasted so much time. That could have been spent doing so much more, but back then it didn’t matter. I was going to die and I was extremely set on the idea. All my life had became was - Food and how I could get it so I could purge my brains out. Acid , blood. Didn’t matter. Keep going you fat cow. Eating disorders are extremely degrading. Unblocking the toilet with your hand because the vomit wont flush, blocking the sink on Christmas Eve. Binging and purging no matter what.
Bear in mind I wrote this whilst hooked up to a heart monitor and drip.”But i’m not ill, never will be. I’m always stable. I get quite confused when the nurses ask what i’ve drank I try and remember but it’s so so hard. I need to binge and purge soon, but I don’t want to eat, I cannot not in this hospital. Please discharge me or let me home, just for a day. I need to do something, weigh myself. Binge and purge… anything. I need this even if it kills me. Please shutup…
I want to be healthy and eat but I can’t and it kills me. Kills me in my head. Maybe I’m throwing up my brain cells. It is now x days without food or brushing my teeth. I hate this fear. Stuck, oh well. Things are getting worse than ever, no choice. Just don’t take the laxatives.”
Diary entry from inpatient ” Fat. I should kill myself. Fat, eat my meals faster? Why! So everyone can see how much of a fat greedy fucking worthless bitch I am. I’m tired. I wish I could go home and throw up my guts. Guilt. Guilt, rotting. I’m a guilty fat bitch. I don’t need to be here, there’s sicker iller people.”
Why could I not see and why can I still not see. Eating disorders are madness, even when the physical symptoms have gone, it’s all still their in that messed up head. And all I can say is, when you see the first signs, please tell someone. I’m begging you. Don’t wait until you feel sick enough because it’s a lie. It always is. Get out before you stop seeing a way out. All I wanted was for it to stop, and had I of spoken up sooner, I probably could’ve have prevented possibly getting myself into such a state and always wondering if things will ever be like that again. Not every eating disordered person is the same, some gain when they binge and purge, some don’t. I had no reason to stop - I was going to die and weight loss was just part of the deal. Don’t compare your symptoms to others, your weight, treatment, anything. It doesn’t matter, if you’re struggling then it’s final and you deserve to speak up and get the help you need and deserve. Because there’s a life to live, but to really live. Not just survive, to actually experience some sense of something good for such a long time. You deserve that.
I’m extremely worried about this being triggering and I guess it probably will be, but mostly to people already trapped in this illness and the crazy beliefs that go with it. So I guess this is irrelevant to them and I hope they do not read it. I’ve had two people say to me , (who both had disordered eating at the time) that they stopped talking to me because they couldn’t stand to see what I was doing and not being able to help. Somehow they stopped and I couldn’t and maybe that’s because they had to idly stand by as I lost myself even more. So this isn’t really for people with eating disorders, it’s more for people who may be developing one, please talk to someone. Anyone you trust, do what you think is needed to get better and if you can choose the right thing, I promise that will be worth it and not losing weight. Losing weight is stupid, when your heads gone to shit you don’t even see. You’re as fat as you were 40 pounds ago even if you were in fact not fat. It’s the mindset that needs the work, not your body. I want to live but I’m terrified of living, it is the scariest thing. But right now I want to live more than I want to die, and I truly hope I never end up like that again. But eating disorders and deceiving and cunning and you’re never allowed to see the truth, you just sit in the background and get silenced. You’re just watching as someone you used to know kills their self. But you are that person, yet you’re so … disconnected from it all. Like it’s happening to someone else. When I stopped drinking it didn’t matter, I literally thought “I’m fine, it’s not happening to me.” This was after about a month of complying with everything, the food etc. Shows how to cure an eating disorder you can’t just give the patient food. If you could cure people simply by feeding them then you’d line them up and give them some. Nobody wants the hell , and that is all it is. Everyday, one you either fight or you don’t.
But here’s a tip - Fight. It’ll be worth it. There has to be more , but you’ll never find it if you give up. There’s hope for recovery and I believe in you.
Read <3
