Speaking during eating disorder awareness week, a York student has told of her experiences of being admitted to hospital twice for treatment for anorexia and her battle to recover.
REBECCA doesn't like to say how much she weighed when she was at her lowest.
And she won't say what she ate or how much she exercised to get to the stage that she was hospitalised for anorexia at The Retreat in York, only conceding that her weight had fallen to the stage that "other people considered extremely low".
Her exercise regime could also have been classed as obsessive, she says carefully.
Now continuing to work toward recovery from an eating disorder which has consumed her life since she was a teenager, Rebecca is careful with her language as she doesn't want others to see her comments as a trigger in the same way she used to; a prompt to feel bad that she wasn't thin enough or a clue to another way of controlling her weight.
With the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder, anorexia can be devastating, but it is possible to recover, with research suggesting that around 46 per cent of anorexia patients fully recover, 33 per cent improve, but 20 per cent remain chronically ill.
"It's just always there batting away in my head and I do just want it to go away," Rebecca, a student at the University of York said.
"There's an unrealistic hope this would never have happened and I could move forward. I guess I dream and hope I will get to a point where it's just part of my past and I can move on and I'm able to deal with things in a better way. I know it will always be a potential vulnerability.
"I want a family at some point and to do a job I'm passionate about and help other people and do all the things I've missed out on."
It's been a long path to a recovery which is still ongoing for Rebecca.
Her eating disorder came to the fore when she was about 17 and her best friend approached her about her worrying weight loss. She was being very controlling about food, restricting it to the degree that her diminishing weight had become obvious. The intervention led to the involvement of her parents, who she lived with at the time in their family home in the Midlands.
"It was probably in my later teens I became really aware that's what I was doing," Rebecca said, "There was a definite stressful lead up to a sudden surge in eating disorder behaviour and needing control because everything around me seemed out of control."
Soon after completing her A-levels, Rebecca was taken into hospital near her home where the focus was mainly to get her weight up to an agreed BMI and not to tackle the underlying psychological trauma which she believes triggered the eating disorder.
"I kept my weight in the healthy range for a month after I left and then it was just very small steps down," Rebecca said, "That happened quickly after I left. I was getting back to the way things used to be."
Moving to university that autumn she described herself as stuck, mentally and physically.
Her weight continued to drop but NHS guidelines said Rebecca's weight was too low to get help from psychological services but not quite low enough to be admitted to hospital.
She managed to find privately funded psychological help at The Tuke Centre, which is part of The Retreat, before being admitted to The Retreat's specialist eating disorder unit under NHS funding.
"My experience was much more positive than it had been previously, it was about how you are psychologically and your relationship with food and yourself," Rebecca said.
"All the behaviour is just a symptom, it's not about how much you weigh, what you eat it's about what's going on to cause you to do these things.
"I always had body image issues but the more you engage with the eating disorder, the more you become preoccupied with it."
She underwent intensive treatment at The Retreat's Naomi unit (The Retreat is pictured below), with peer support groups, psychological support groups, and occupational therapy.
Rebecca's eating disorder meant she had become isolated and she subsequently began to develop new interests; switching her degree, joining a church and running a feedback group at the hospital.
"It really enabled me to find out who I was, especially as it wasn't weight focused at The Retreat. I tried to engage in enjoyment of food. Because I was there a long time, I felt I could do the work around building my own identity and preparing for leaving.
"You become compassionate towards people with the same issues as you and it's helpful to think 'this is how I feel about this person and actually what if she's in the same position that I'm in'. You can try and use that compassion towards yourself."
After year Rebecca returned to her life and has since sustained a healthy weight for the longest time since she was a teenager with psychological and dietetic support from the Tuke Centre.
"I guess life doesn't have to be like this, you don't have to be trapped and to live in fear of food," Rebecca said, adding for the benefit of others with eating disorders: "You don't have to live in the hell that it is. No matter what weight you are or behaviours you're using you can get support and it's so important to get support, the earlier the better. The longer it goes on, the more entrenched it will become."
- If you have concerns about your eating behaviours you can call for a complimentary, confidential conversation with a specialist therapist at the Tuke Centre on 01904 430370
* Rebecca's name has been changed to protect her identity
Factfile
- Eating disorders (ED) are mental disorders characterised by a preoccupation with food and/or weight and body shape and harmful eating habits.
- If untreated an eating disorder will begin to dominate a person's life, impact on psychological functioning, physical health, social wellbeing, education and employment and relationships.
- People with ED often have other mental health conditions such as mood disorders, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and personality disorders.
- An estimated 1.5million EU citizens suffer from anorexia or bulimia, with a cost of illness estimate of 800 million Euros per annum.
- Men get eating disorders too - men are treated at the Tuke Centre. 1/250 females and 1/2000 males will present to services with anorexia
- Eating disorders can be classed as:
Anorexia nervosa - Restrictive eating which results in severe weight loss. It's diagnosed when body mass index is 17.5 or less
Bulimia nervosa - Characterised as the consumption of large amounts of food accompanied by a sense of lack of control over eating alternating with compensatory behaviours such as self induced vomiting, exercise, laxatives and diet pills. Bulimia is also associated with increased mortality due to the onset of heart problems.
Binge eating disorder - binge eating without "compensatory behaviours". As a consequence people with binge eating disorder are often overweight or obese
Other specified feeding and eating disorders- When the general symptoms of eating disorders exist but don't fit in a particular category
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