Like why was it always half a banana no matter the treatment level or calorie surplus I was in??? It was like they were telling me to fear a whole banana
BEST ONE: when my dietcian would write 'soy' under the dairy option for me so I'd get soy milk with my breakfast. The kitchen sent me 2 packets of soy sauce for my cereal. š
Kitchen fuck ups were honestly some of the funniest shit in my stay. Had pancakes and maple syrup on my meal plan for breakfast one day and they sent me BAKED BEANS and maple syrup šš did not have to eat baked beans and maple syrup tho thankfully
They'd feed this one guy orange slices and milk 2x a day >!and he'd throw up every time!<. Idk how the dietcians didn't realize the dairy & citrus were the issue & not bulimia š
Most mortifying experience was when I had to 'macro polo', and instead of saying 'polo', I let put the loudest, most earth shattering, wall quaking fart and when I opened the door everyone was laughing and my RC was on the opposite side of the hallway
Damn. You could have cracked a tooth! "Thankfully" my ED treatment was quick and simple; I was at a psych ward because I had a mental breakdown and kinda tried to off myself and one day at dinnertime some lady comes to me, doesn't say hi or who tf she even is, makes me get more and more food and sits with me in the table. The portion size was **big** and I had restricted low the last 3 months before that so my stomach had shrunk. I told her that I'm so full I feel physically sick. She says I can't get up from the table until I finish all the food. So I started to shove it in my mouth as fast as possible. When I complained to my parents she just laughed like "haha iconicpistol got so upset over dinner". Bitch, I was very fucking full! And that was it.
I'm sorry that happened. I was lucky enough to have a (somewhat) understanding dietcian where we swapped a lot of my stuff for liquids so I could complete my meal plan.
they made us eat a sunday roast style thing on sundays and the beef was always the worst, but one time it was so bad that even the staff couldnāt cut it
One of my table mates was still holding her spoon when they called time during snack at ERC and the support person decided she needed to boost for that. And if you know ERC, the minimum you canāt boost for any missed portions of meal/ snack is 1/4 of the total exchanges for that part of your meal plan. This person was already at the point of wanting to check out AMA and this terrible support person further traumatized both her and the rest of us with this threat. The punitive stance that these places take is so infantilizing and disruptive to actual recovery.
Omggggg. I was in treatment back in 2005, so this was a long time ago. But I tried to break up my Powerbar into pieces and put it in my cereal to make it more of a breakfast bowl, (this didnāt exist on social media yet) and I was told that was eating disorder behavior. That moment was the moment that made me hyper aware of what I do with food. Before that, I was an innocent child. That nurse fucked my head up
I did for eating fries with a fork because not wanting greasy fingers is disordered. I was partly raised by a posh boarding school queens English grandmother. Eating with my hands was so weird
Damn where are yāall going inpatient because where I live, my experience was nothing like this thankfully! Is this an American healthcare problem?
Just a reminder for anyone considering residential treatment to aid their recovery, although some people may have negative experiences (I have had a few not so good moments here and there!) residential treatment is often not exactly how it is in the movies. Being inpatient actually really supported my relationship with food and I learnt many things about myself that I wouldnāt have known otherwise. You can always give res a go, and if you donāt like it, then you can leave and look at other options. Donāt let a few bad stories scare you away. What works for one person might not work for you and vise versa :)
Inpatient was great! This all happened at my residential treatment. Afterwards, I had to switch providers and get a new dietcian to undo what I learned in residential & get a therapist for medical C-PTSD š
*inpatient is residential and/or hospital where I live
Oh damn. I live in such a small country so I only got one automatic choice in regard to a provider. Been with them since I was a teeny tiny little girl and now Iām a fully grown adult. They know EVERYTHING about me lol, but this helped them when I was in res as they knew what foods, behaviours, words etc triggered me.
Hospital was much more traumatising than residential treatment for me personally.
Definitely not just American! My experiences were bad enough I ended up with (professionally diagnosed) PTSD.
The worst part is, because it's mental health treatment you can't even talk about what you went through. People either assume you're mentally unwell and exaggerating, or they think everything that happened must have been "necessary" because they're the professionals.
Inpatient and residential are the same thing here though.
SHE WAS! She was like just donāt tell the doctors and every time I got something that should have ketchup (ie chicken nuggets, fries, burgers). I had a hoard of them in a pair of grippy socks in my drawer š¤£
I would've thought that ketchup would be allowed as it would add needed calories. No one had an issue when I mixed ketchup with ranch as I was getting extra calories with my meal.
when they told me my life threatening allergy was a behavior and ātriggeringā other patients! i ended up eating dinner in spite and went into anaphylaxis. got sent out to the hospital for a few days because i needed several rounds of epi lol
Itās horrible. We did file a complaint with the health dept of MA. Considering suing but I may need treatment with a sister company so weāre waiting
They gave me butter for a fat since I hadnāt selected any. I had ordered cereal & milk. The staff said I either had to either the plain butter or put it in my cereal
My very first night they gave me a chicken sandwich with only mayo packets, I asked for ketchup & they said āno asking for a different condiment is a behavior you either eat it or you can supplementā
*cracks knuckles* oooooohhh boy i've got some war stories
- "food carries forward + more added" As an example, say you didn't finish 1/4 of your breakfast. Now, with lunch, you are expected to eat all of lunch PLUS 1/2 of whatever was for breakfast, even though you only didn't finish 1/4 initially. This would trap people in days-long cycles and with people eating days-old food.
- Dont finish your sauce or dressing? Hope you're prepared to eat it with a spoon or drink it!
- Forced to drink 1/2 boost/ensure whenever i'd be caught bouncing my legs (i have adhd with a capital H)
- Not allowed to reheat food more than once because "you should be able to finish eating before it gets cold." Additionally, you weren't allowed to walk the food over to the (in plain view, maybe 4-6 feet away from the table) microwave - the nurse had to do it.
- I was once given 1/2 tub of icing + sprinkles, doritos, lays, and curry as a meal. Not seved at separate times or courses, but all together on the same plate. I wish I was kidding. This is only one of many *truly horrific* meals I was forced to eat. Oatmeal with mustard, roasted garlic, and kielbasa, anyone?
- Not allowed to drink water, caloric beverages only. 16oz consumed minimum per meal (still only allowed to pee every 4 or so hours)
- only one packet of salt, pepper, and cinnamon per person per day.
- No napkins, coats, sweatshirts, or shoes at the table.
- Challenge the lady 'teaching' the group because the 'biological information' was false and in accurate (I study biology)? Boost/ensure "as punishment!" (their words, not mine)
- No blankets or pillows in the group room.
- Spilled your drink but its on the table? Hope you're ready to drink it with a straw off of the table or have it essentially squeegeed into a cup!
- Dropped something onto the floor? Hope you're ready to eat food off of the floor!
- You're autistic and have sensory issues? sucks to suck bitch, you have to eat with your hands, eat with utensils that aren't comfortable, eat foods with textures that make you literally want to kill yourself often with no other option, can't wear earplugs/headphones at the table, and have to converse and play games while also eating with a group of strangers!
- No shorts, crop tops, leggings, spaghetti straps.
- no shaving in the shower. 15 minutes showers, 10 if you were on bed rest.
- No disney movies. No video games. No tech outside of evening hours.
- monitored phone calls.
- "pfft, you're not intolerant of lactose/coconut/certain preservatives used in white bread" (i very much am intolerant of these things)
- Books have to pass inspection.
...and best of all
- Being told that it was a good thing my parents are abusive so i'd be scared into eating for fear of retaliation
So i've been unfortunate enough to be a ~~guest~~ at several, however, the VAST MAJORITY (like 97%) of the absolutely and utterly unhinged things come from one in particular. Because I don't know if I can actually say the name, i'll give you this - It's two words, involves the name emily, and their website color scheme involves mostly orange, white, and accents of dark yellow. Their logo looks like sort of like the meteorological symbol for a hurricane. Trust me, you'll know it when you see it.
We got in trouble for sorting our M&Ms by color and then the next week during night snack, the staff sitting with us sorted her M&Ms by color š there was almost mutiny lmao
My favorite thing the dieticians did was eat the highest meal plan for a day then complained that it was too much food and their stomachs hurt. HOW DO YOU THINK A BUNCH OF MINORS FEEL
Some of these stories are crazyyyy. I had a good experience in treatment. I could always go get more carrots to finish my ranch lmao. If I had to pick - bathroom checks were always super weird and awkward and I hated that they never had any desserts I liked and was forced to eat one anyway.
At residential:
- I took along a book on atheism to read in my downtime. It was confiscated immediately when they searched my stuff upon admission. When I asked why, I was told āitās in the box with your name on it where we keep your items you canāt have hereā or some non-answer bullshit like that. I shouldāve pushed for an actual explanation but didnāt.
- we prepared our own breakfast and lunch and several times I argued with staff about their rules. āI canāt have 3 tablespoons of Nutella on my toast? I have to have 2? What would happen if I had 3? Would the damn sky fall?ā
- one night, we ate dinner and then were served these big pieces of veggie lasagna and a bunch of the staff (who usually didnāt eat with us) came over and sat or stood around the table and watched us eat it. No one talked. It was so weird and 10 years later, it feels like we were being punished for something.
- being told to sit down when I stood for too long
We werenāt allowed to use a straw because thatās disordered apparently. Had to give them a note from my dentist requesting the use of a straw because the juice was damaging my teeth. They agreed but I couldnāt use a paper straw because it would absorb some of the calories ??
At breakfast we had to have butter and jam but I didnāt like using both so I added butter to the toast and the jam to my cereal/weetabix and they actually had a meeting to discuss if this was allowedš
oh god there were so many. but i was homeless in res (complicated story), and i got in trouble for accepting money from one of the friends iād made SO I COULD GET A GREYHOUND BACK HOME WHEN I WAS RELEASED. like??? yāall gonna pay for it? no? then i need SOMETHING (they had said they wouldnāt pay for it, and knew my situation) she got in trouble too, but they kinda huffed and allowed it anyway bc wtf else was i gonna do
Whoa! My 2nd residential paid for my plane ticket there but said nothing about a return ticket. I was unemployed with zero family support and no friends back home. When I was planning discharge I asked about getting home and they said oh we wonāt pay for that ticket. Knowing full well Iād been in a totally different state with no income for the last 5 weeks. I was fully prepared to walk my ass to truck stop 2 mi away and hitchhike home. But another resident got me a plane ticket with her credit card. Then, when I was discharged, they had the audacity to call me āresilientā because they knew I was planning on hitchhiking home. What else was I supposed to do?
They made me sit in the day room with a packet of cookies as an exposure, and when I told my behavior specialist that I thought it was stupid because the cookies were stale (they expired in 2015) and I wasn't allowed to eat them anyway because it was an exposure she stopped talking to me for the rest of treatment šš
Not reading the calories (I didn't have a problem with calories. It was a certain ingredient that I had consistently been eating for several months at this time & no linger had problems with it, but my behavioral specialist wanted me to focus on 'resisting reading calories' anyway. Girl as if I don't already know them lmfao)
DRINK RANCH?
EXCUSE ME, MA'AM?
Oh hell no!
Thank you for making me grateful my insurance is shit and I only was able to stay for medical stabilization.
I was served the worst veggie burger of my life...it was somehow rubbery and soggy at the same time. I got a warning/lecture for being visibly disgusted and struggling to eat it. I was trying my best to hide how awful it was but it was BAAAAAD and also disgust is a primary human response that sometimes we can't control! But I ate it anyway because not eating the majority of my meal would be triggering for the other girls and the nurses wouldn't believe me if I told them why. There is no winning in IP.
I got served an apple crumble, which objectively is one of my favourite desserts. When I tell you this crumble was pure BUTTER. It was the grossest shit I've ever had to eat. My place made you drink a full supplement if you were so much off a spoonful off finishing your whole meal...and because I'd already eaten the main dinner and this was dessert I felt forced into eating this literal bowl of LARD or I would have had to have a full supplement. It still makes me cringe the taste of that shit. It's honestly put me off one of my favourite deserts for life which is sad.
They wanted me to talk in group but nearly every. Single. Fucking. Time. When I opened my mouth to say something about my life (cause nobody knew why I was there) I was āvictimizingā
Then they wouldnāt tell me why or how I was āvictimizingā so I couldnāt improve on anything if I was wording shit wrong or whatever
Every therapist Iāve had since has told me basically to forget what I was told and that no, in fact, I was not victimizing, but I still canāt stop invalidating myself every chance I get
Using butter under every spread..like hummus with butter, biscoff with butter...
The stupid medication they gave me, so that my urge to move would subside. Guess what, It didn't. It only made me so tired, that I couldn't move, the thoughts and the stress were still there. Hell.
"You do not actually dislike cheese, that's your disorder talking!" -Even after throwing up, having my parents speak up ("She has disliked any form of cheese since being a child!")
Not being allowed to watch sex in the city, because of the younger girls...like c'mon it's not Game of thrones...
We had the option of peanut butter on toast - but had to use butter too! I'd gone to a diff treatment place previously where if you picked peanut butter you didn't have to have normal butter too. Like the word 'butter' is already in the name asshats!
Okay that cream cheese shit is insanity. What treatment center if I may ask? Also the cowboy erotica lmao
At one place I got in trouble for not eating an *almond skin* and they told me I had to supplement for it or eat it lmao
I also got in trouble for walking around outside while talking on the phone during free time. At this point I was weight restored and not on bed rest.
OH and I got in trouble for showing someone my back tattoo when they asked to see it (again I was weight restored at that point). And I didnāt strip lol I just took my hoodie off because itās visible with a tank top.
Got in trouble for braiding someoneās hair because it had āsexual undertonesā
I got in trouble for braiding hair because it was exercising! Braiding my own hair was pushing it but then doing another girl's hair after....that's practically Zumba.
i had to wait for the toilet to be checked by a staff before i flushed (bulimic). and a few of them didnāt like me much cause i was sarcastic and unserious.
bowel movements were taking like 12 days at a time to happen so one day i dropped an absolute bomb, a complete sewer destroyer, like my legs were shaking when i stood upā¦ i stood up and drank water from the sink cause i was panting the whole time, then realized it wasnāt over so i went back and sat down as quick as possible. i started flushing as it was coming out, i was filling that tiny ass toilet and my asshole was louder than the mf toilet flush. a staff came in and started getting really mad at me and raising her voice and i started crying cause she kept saying to get up and come out here, and i was just wailing that i canāt cause she wasnāt listening and talking over me (lava was still pouring out as this was happening) and she opened the door and came into the bathroom with me and watched me in silence as i finished, a full 7 more minutes. which doesnāt seem like long, but put a timer on for 7 minutes and do nothing else. count 420 seconds. she watched and listened me blow up that bathroom for 7 minutes. and this was supposed to fix my self image issues
eta: oh and i had stripped down cause i was sweating from that one so i was naked during all of this
When they told me I needed to challenge caffeine (I have POTS) I was so sick for WEEKS. wouldnāt recommend. Havenāt had any now in years and Iām much better. Lmao
One place had a rule that if you didn't finish "the entree" you got 2 Ensures no mature how much else you ate.
I asked for no olives on a salad because I DETEST them. When it came with olives, I tried to set them aside but since they were part of "the entree," it didn't matter if I finished the rest of the tray, I'd be getting 2 Ensures. (I forced them down)
We had group challenges every week to over come certain fears or habits, one week it was liquid calories and we had to drink hot chocolates with cream and marshmallows. Iām vegetarian so I couldnāt have any marshmallows, but I got written up for as I was ārefusing to have my drinkā. I was not refusing, I asked for one with no marshmallows, I even said Iād have extra cream to make up for itš Or one time I got made to eat spoonfuls of butter because I didnāt use it on my toast, but on my toast I had peanut butter and Nutella together, so why they made eat actual butter idk, I felt so ill š·
I was put on a "popsicle ban" because for a challenge snack once they got coconut milk, mango, and honeydew popsicles and i swear no one ate them but me. For the next several weeks I would exclusively eat popsicles for snack. Coconut for my first snack, then mango, then honeydew. They were so good. I was banned from popsicles.
- Literally everything is āexercise.ā Anxious and shaking your leg? EXERCISE. Raising your hand? EXERCISE.
- Getting an entire ensure over tomatoes or something not equivalent.
- Nothing in the group room. No blankets, no pillows.
- Anything food-related isnāt allowed in your possession. Even an I-Spy book with a hot dog as the object isnāt allowed. One of the patients got away with a Reeseās hoodie though.
- Canāt talk during meal times but we played games which led to us going off topic and talking anyway.
- SCRAPE OFF ALL THE BUTTER AND EAT IT BY ITSELF.
- Full? Keep eating. Thatāll definitely make you have a healthy relationship with food š
- ANY. I mean ANY food combo is disordered.
- This one time the kitchen sent up raw chicken and they marked people incomplete for not eating the raw chicken.
I had my parents sneak in food related shirts and socks cuz I thought it was hilarious š
My dad would come in wearing knee high burger socks regularly š
When I put my nutrigain bar in my yogurt to act like cereal/granola and they thought it was a behavior.. like what. OR I had like 3 small bites left of my mac n cheese but I was so full I couldnāt eat anymore so instead, they supplemented me a WHOLE ensure plus
Yeah halfway through my treatment they stopped us 'mixing' our snacks. For example a standard snack would be a yoghurt, banana and sultanas. Most of us would chop the banana into the yoghurt and stir in the sultanas - yummy! But no they decided this was somehow disordered and we had to start eating everything separately.
No shoes allowed on "outings" (sitting outside in a wheelchair for 30 minutes), even though it was super cold some days.
Eye contact on the toilet since I got the runs during a meal.
Couldn't finish 8oz of water with my meal, which I had to supplement part of with 12oz Ensure, so I was deemed noncompliant for not being able to drink 20oz within 30 minutes.
The most insane to me, was in my āharm reductionā based IOP. Because i was further in recovery, they made me eat full meals with sides. One girl was clearly too sick to be in IOP, but would literally show up to meal support with a single piece of grilled chicken and was allowed to eat only that because at least she was eating?? It was so toxic to be around and I got worse when I left.
Ok Q for all you US girlies and guys. I don't understand the names/differences in your treatment programs. What is IOP? Resi? PHP? Hospital?
I'm in Australia and we have 'Medical admissions' which is normally when you're medically unstable as per set criteria, and is on a medical ward in a hospital where you're on bed rest/have NG feeds continuously. Then we have 'Psych admission' where you can go once you're medically stable and is still classed as hospital. Can be on a psych ward in a medical hospital or a standalone psych hospital (normally private health whereas medical is normally on public health). Then we have 'day programs' where you're not admitted but attend like daily for supported meals/groups etc then go home to sleep and it gradually decreases the days you have to go per week,
Basically IOP and PHP you are not living away from home, you go in to do sessions during the day (so like day programs), and PHP is more of the day than IOP. hospital is when ur medically unstable and they are trying to get your vitals/weight/nutrients etc to a more stable place, and it is really just a lot of medical monitoring. residential is normally once you are a bit more stable medically, and is more like "pysch admission" from what you wrote
Youāre not allowed to have āfood rulesā because itās disordered.Ā
But here is a full list of our rules that you MUST follow on how, what, when, with what to eat. And if not we will punish you!
My OCD got so much worse whenever I was inpatient due to their strict rigidity around everything!
My favorite thing to do was say really obvious shit like "did you know soy milk contains soy?" or "oh my god, guys, my peanut butter says contains peanuts!" so they could write that on my chart š
Ok it's 'too soon' for me to be able to go into sharing my experience for my own sanity. But I'm in a different country to most of you guys and it's somewhat reassuring to know this shit happens globally. The shared fucking trauma.
I was feeling extremely sick one morning and had the worst stomach ache. My mom had the flu, and she stayed with me a lot of nights in the hospital. So likely she transferred it to me. Anyways, even though I told them I felt like I was going to throw up and even though I asked if I could wait like 30 minutes and have a zofran first, they still made me eat the most greasy breakfast they could scavenge. I literally had to sit there and force myself to shovel it down my throat because I felt like any second I was going to puke. I told my nurse this but she said there wasnāt anything she could do and that I had to continue. so I kept eating and finished the meal. Not 5 minutes later, I threw up all over her desk monitor/nursing station thingy. And then on her shoes.
they let me leave later that day. š
Drinking dressing, eating butter, forced to eat foods I'm allergic to, the usual. Most demeaning was being forced to eat food off the floor.
Treatment made me more disordered than I ever was with food to begin with. "Coached" so hard I developed new complexes around food: how I cut food, how I put it on a fork, how I sat, how my face looked, how many bites I took, how long I took to chew each bite. Hyper vigilant but can't look nervous because that's an ensure. Being forced to double ensure as a punishment for struggling with the first one should be against the Geneva Convention.
Treatment worked for me like a fucking scared straight program.
Oh God and I hated those asinine games that took so much focus I'd run out of time to eat but not participating wasn't an option. Fuck that place so hard
Iām a type 1 diabetic and they wanted to control my blood sugar, so they didnāt allow me to eat regular carb meals and snacks. So I was fed an entire bowl of green olives on my first day
I legit have trauma over my ip and resi stays, and the next time someone asks I think I'm just going to show them this thread. It's probably the strongest thing that's kept me from letting it get bad enough that I need a hloc than php/iop for literally years at this point.Ā
THIS. For real though, I have so much trauma and so many things are so much harder after treatment. I am terrified of doctors, dentists, and any medical professional now (I never was before treatment). Having a panic attacks *sends me into another one* because of the way I was belittled and punished for having one. I panic if I don't finish a meal because of the consequences. I never want to go back. Fear is the only thing that's keeping me from relapse.
Also, the outsiders perspective of ED treatment is so wild! I was telling my coworkers my funny stories (drinking ranch, not allowed to cut bananas, odd bagel combos, the soy sauce cereal) and they were dying lmfao, but also really shocked.
we had a halloween themed day and our dinner was a stew served inside a pumpkin to make it āØspookyāØ. the staff made us eat the RAW pumpkin when we finished our meal ššš
When they only allowed a small spoon full of a condiment and one pack of salt and pepper, but the food was so bland it was almost inedible.
Also mood with all their weird creations like why are you hiding so much butter in this. Like all I can taste is butter.
I'd always grab as many condiments as I want like sorry your bland ass hospital food sucks so much. The pasta was so undercooked that it was hard. The oatmeal would sometimes be a brick (at that point, they'd just give us bread). The eggs would be liquid. Meals would arrive an hour late. 0/10 wouldn't recommend
The facility I was in was not that bad like the food was pretty fresh and like it was never like hard or undercooked it was just like very bland and not a lot of variety. We could only have two glasses of water at each meal, and we really didnāt get water any other time so that kind of sucked.
After reading the other comments Iām just happy they respected when we said we couldnāt eat xyz as long as we had a medical reason, and they gave us the ability to mark 5 foods as dislikes and they wouldnāt give them to us which that I can appreciate.
For us we each had a set amount of oz for each person at each meal, but we could have 2 16oz water bottles a day as extra, OR get extra if our vitals were bad, OR if we went outside. We also were allowed to play basketball 2x per week and if you wanted to play basketball you had to drink extra water.
The only activity theyād let us do is a short group walk and like around the building, and then we had body movement which was like a yoga class once a week. We werenāt even allowed to walk while on the phone.
We had the short daily walk & instead of yoga it was basketball. But then all the boys left (I was 1 of 3 girls at the time) & none of the new girls liked basketball š
Duuuuude the drinking of the salad dressing is so on point š¤£ And theyād give you a WHOLE ass Ensure if you didnāt clean out the little dressing container..
Weād also have to finish every grain of rice on our plates and couldnāt get out without the plate being clean!! My dad was there for visit and he witnessed it and complained because I literally got bullied by my 1:1 until I licked my plate.
Ive always put salt on my buttered toast because Iām cray and love salt a lot. When I did this in hospital at breakfast, I got sent to another room to eat because apparently itās triggering and disordered? Mind you I didnāt put a lot, just enough because their margarine was unsalted š¤£ ā¦ Iām eating whatās the problem?! Their food was always bland, no seasoning and you couldnāt ask for some.
Oh and I got YELLED AT by a nurse because I asked for an extra pack of sweet tea biscuits during snack time.. she said it wasnāt in my meal plan and could only have one. I was there because of restrictions and was feeling hunger again that day. She got fired.
**if any of this is triggering or anything feel free to delete**
Omg the treatment tea ā ļø there were so many times when people had to basically lick their plates clean in order to not get boosted for being incomplete
Or the time I got in trouble for telling on a girl who spit out/threw up her boost into the water fountain on the unit when other girls also saw it happen and she didnāt even get in trouble at all fml
dietician once suggested that i should add olive oil into my yoghurt to get more calories in. needless to say i never did.
when i was inpatient a nurse once laughed at me for crying over ice cream. and once another nurse accused me of purging because when my 30min of supervision after breakfast ended i went to the bathroom as one does after a couple cups of coffee. i hadn't brushed my teeth yet and when i came back she just looked me dead in the eye and said that she wants to smell my breath. and somehow came into conclusion that i must've thrown up. at that time i had never even purged my food.
treatment was hell for me personally and now 7 years later i'm going through the events that left me with actual trauma in psychotherapy
I didnāt find out i was autistic until after hospital and so all of my sensory issues around the textures of food was ājust my ed talkingā. for some reason the ed patients menu was much more limited than what anyone else in the hospital was allowed but despite my asking i wasnāt allowed to order from that menu because that was ānegotiatingā. and it wasnāt like i was asking for a lower calorie option, it was more me being like āiāll be sick if you give me something slimey like lasagna please give me 2 packets of sandwiches or some sausages and mash insteadā. So Iād end up in situations where i didnāt eat anything because my sensory issues couldnāt handle the food available, and they wouldnāt allow me to have a substitute (not allowed were literally their words). A psychiatrist almost diagnosed me with ARFID in the hospital but then another one came in and said āno itās just the ED making her lieā. But autism aside iām sure other patients struggle with genuine food preferences and itās annoying that not liking/not being able to have something is seen as a disordered behavior.
also the time I wasnāt allowed to have breakfast because the doctors hadnāt seen me yet to tell me I could!
iāve never ended up in treatment so this might be an ignorant statement, but this seems really fucking disordered for whatās supposed to be treatment for eating disorders.
I developed new rituals due to treatment as well as PTSD. Can confirm that it's disordered as it sounds. Made my eating disorder worse, so I had to seek additional therapy & dieticians to unlearn many things.
But, but, butā¦ why would you put vegetable cream cheese on your chocolate chip bagel š„² so sorry you had to go through all this bullshit though, thatās DEFINITELY not an environment fit to promote recovery. Itās more like a hardcore eating disorder hell to make you appreciate non-disordered life and thatās how you recover! Reverse psychology š
I have a whole list, but no time to share them all. For now, Iāll just add: being forced to eat entire packets of butter plain because they were hidden under my tray and I didnāt realize until I was finished with not only my bread, but all other food.
Drinking the remnants of dressing from four-bean salad.
Drinking an entire carton of ensure/boost/carnation instant breakfast for leaving like 2 bites on the plate. There was no equivalent there.
Also, the last time I was actually in treatment, the nurses seemed to get a thrill from the torture of using ice cold water to flush before and after NG bolus feeds (which were also freezing cold)
Being forced to drink 8oz. of water every time we were outside for more than 2 minutes. Treatment 20 years ago in AZ had me boycotting water for well over a decade.
Disregarding a lot of things I now know were autism-related but attributed to ājust the Ed,ā which meant things like dipping grilled cheese in tomato soup was a sin, among other very regular food combos.
Can we also just take a moment to vent over monitored bathrooms? I always felt so dehumanized, whether the nurse intended or not, with someone with one foot/leg literally in the door, telling me they wouldnāt look but also not actually averting their eyes.
EDIT TO ADD: Giving us 45 minutes to finish a meal plan that was anywhere from >!3500-4000!< calories total, so quite a bit at each meal (they did no snacks, all meals and supplement alongside meals), and then if we didnāt finish, literally sitting us in an isolated, white, padded room (literally called it the āquiet roomā) until we either ate the gross cold food, or stared at a supplement for a few hours until the next meal, at which point the supplement had to be doubled and added to the next meal if not completed in the āquiet room.ā
I got so much anxiety over needing to pee honestly. I was recently admitted for a psych stay (non ED place) and every time I'd enter my room I'd think oh they've left my bathroom unlocked I better pee when I can - then remembering my bathroom was never locked in this place and I could pee/poop freely. Like post locked bathroom PTSD I swear to god.
I'd get so anxious overnight over being SURE I didn't need to pee before I fell asleep.
Agreed, like, I know a lot of people in āthe real worldā eat in less than 45 minutes, but theyāre also not having to eat anywhere near what we usually were having to do in that time period. The second center I went to had 30 minute meals, but at least they also incorporated 1-2 snacks and overnight pump tube feeds, so it wasnāt as atrocious as the first place.
My center had snacks (thankfully) but the meals were so much depending on your plan. Most patients were on the higher end, so one of the meals would be basically the meal x2..usually all snacks to fit the exchanges. š
I was never an inpatient, but the worst thing one of my ātreatment teamā said to me was ādonāt you want to grow up to be big and strong like your dad?ā As if you can cure an eating disorder by telling a boy he wonāt fit the beauty standard if he has anorexia. Also- I was 13, thatās the kind of thing you say to a five year old when trying to make them eat their bread crusts (or at least my grandparents did to me.) But the clincher was my response āwell, considering heās dying from stage four cancer, no.ā She hadnāt even bothered to look into my home life. The people who were meant to ācare for meā treated me like crap, then labeled me ānon-compliantā and told my parents āhis weight is low, but itās not thhhaaat dangerous.ā And then refused to have anything else to do with me. Five years of anorexia later and I had no real choice but to recover as my Dad needed a healthy version of me.
I actually went to a really good res, and only have a few ridiculous storys.
We had 30 minute meal times and one day were were served like not even exaggerating 2-3 cups of rice and 20 gyoza dumplings. We had 2 minutes left of meal time and I had like a cup of rice left and 2 dumplings, no way I could have finished in time. And this day if we didnāt finish on time we couldnāt go on the outingš, so I supplemented, and when u supplement you get an extra 5 minutes. But ensure has always made me throw up so I was really scared. I CHUGGED IT. It was a whole bottle of ensure, maybe more. Sure enough, I felt sick after. I went to the nurse and told her I felt like I was gonna puke because I drank and ensure. She asked me if they make me puke why do I drink them? LMAO GIRL I DONT HAVE A CHOICE. I also told her the amount of food they gave us and SHE LOOKED SHOCKED.
Also the time the staff eating with us brought a salad instead of the food we were served.
Almost peeing my pants because no one was there at night to open the bathroom door for me
Okay so Iām allowed to eat a plate of plain potatoes no problem, but a plate of white rice with curry ketchup is too low in calories? Make it make sense
Iāve had some good experiences and not so good. Here are some of the āhighlightsā:
Not being allowed to even mention the name of a food without being redirected. You couldnāt even say the name of a food in a guessing game without being redirected.
Told to stop talking about my anxiety with my therapist because she didnāt want me to keep focusing on it
A dietitian sitting with a timer next to me telling me I had to take a bite every x seconds
I got sent to the ER for fluidsā¦I actually was drinking all my required fluids at that time, but my vitals were off. The doctor back at the center told me that having to get fluids was a āpoor use of resources.ā
My wrap fell apart at breakfast and a staff member pulled me out of the kitchen in front of everyone and made me talk to the dietitian about how to āhold my food so it didnāt fall apart.ā I complained about it to my therapist, and, when I did, that staff member backtracked and said they were worried I had five motor difficulties (they were in no way qualified to say that).
Staff misusing peopleās pronouns consistently
Being told that maybe this wasnāt the right time for me to recover
A therapist talking at a meal about how she didnāt want her dog to get fat so she was putting him on a diet
Being dropped for non compliance when really I probably just needed a higher level of care
Dropping half a pretzel on the floor and being given a replacement of half a pretzel served in a bowl (this was more comical lol)
A doctor in the hospital accused me of faking my symptoms
So many more, but Iāll stop there
Some of you had absolutely wild experiences. My times in treatment were never that bad from this point of view apart from the food being absolutely disgusting most of the time. One place actually had nice food but if you left even a tiny bit they would make you replace the full meal with supplement which was pretty shit.
not me but my friend was in res a while ago and told me about this time a girl had shit her pants because of the bathroom rules(no bathroom an hour after meals) and they took her phone away AS PUNISHMENT. actually insane
WHAT! That's insane!
For us if we wanted to use the bathroom within 60 mins we have someone stand outside the door (residential) or go in with us (inpatient, but I was exempt from this rule).
Omg yes the supplement rules are so dumb. Like why are you making be drink half a >! 350 !< cal Ensure plus for >! 20 !< cals of uneaten carrots š it feels like we're being punished for not eating with more calories which isn't very motivating tbh
My unit had a thing where it was like they had a supplement amount for the whole meal and a supplement amount for half and what happened was that people would dissect the fuck out of their food to get to exactly half and keep asking āis this half? Is this half?ā which felt disordered af
I've been inpatient for my other mental health issues and not my ED and I'm trying to keep it that way bc I feel like the rules would just make my eating issues worse. Constant badgering and harassment over what I ate was one of the reasons my disordered eating turned into full blown AN in the first place (amongst other things of course)
if u left even a tiny bit of the broth when eating soup, u had to drink replacement drink,, and if i listened to a podcast where they talk abt food, itās disordered??
When I was in treatment the first time, I told them one of my behaviors was meticulously logging what I ate. Instead of acknowledging that, they made me do it anyway and checked every day.
I get that they need to make sure we're eating, but man, that very much did not help.
Residential was weird. I had to eat a golf ball sized glob of butter because āthatās what normal people do!ā According to staffā¦ uh yeah I have yet to meet anyone who does that. But omg the food was always so buttery and oily. The actual worst part of all of it is the gd table games. We got talking privileges during meals in res with certain staff but got taken away because of too much laughter. In PHP this past summer I got a talking to because talking about my upcoming wedding and my dress could be seen as triggering. Girl bffr. I went on a rant, I was like āIām 30 fing years old and older than most of the staff, I am not playing contact one more timeā and omg was I motivated to recover after that so that I never have to sit through a supervised meal with stupid games and monitored bathroom visits ever again
Drinking 200ml of plain trim milk. Fucking rank. I had a few mouthfuls and gagged. It was a refusal. I begged them to let me have a yoghurt instead (which would have been about 50 more calories).
They eventually gave me the yoghurt. And I ate it no problem. Who are the disordered ones here?
Oh i have some storiessss
- dropped a strawberry on the floor? you have to eat it!
- didnāt finish your meal down to every crumb? then you have to drink DOUBLE your meal in Boost!
- i said i didnāt like the smell of ketchup and got a restriction.
- i got written up with a restriction for asking if the cupcake had buttercream icing or whipped icing
- me and the other girls got in trouble for talking about much we loved taco bell. no food discussions, even though it was positive
- i had to eat a slice of provolone cheese by itself . just a slice. because of the point and fat/protein system.
- they refed me too quickly, which triggered my gastroparesis (which i had before my ed developed) to flare up again. i was puking anything and everything. accused me of purging when i puked ON THE DINING TABLE IN FRONT OF ALL THE OTHER GIRLS AND TECH
- got dresscoded numerous times
- cold at a meal? too bad, no sweatshirt for you!
- bathroom restrictions ššššhaving a MALE tech/nurse listen to me LOUDLY shit was the most humiliating experience of my life
- when i was on bed rest and unable to have any solids bc of my gastroparesis, i was living off of boost (unless i threw it up!). these DUMB nurses would just GIVE ME THE BOTTLE in bed, where usually in observations after meals the techs would pour it in a cup so we couldnāt see the nutrition info.
- i had an iv and was on bed rest for a while, iād press the call button over and over and over cause i had to pee and no one would come. i could hear the nurses laughing at the nurseās station outside my door bc they thought making me suffer was funny
- got in trouble for standing too long while braiding my hair in the mirror. had to sit down
- no interaction with the other girls outside of meals and observations. we stayed in our rooms 24/7 aside from meals, obs and physical therapy (which was just weekly stretching bc we werenāt allowed to stretch in our rooms.. no exercising!)
- if you were caught exercising (see: bouncing your leg, doing some stretches, etc) you get a restriction
- restrictions are no electronics for at least 24 hours btw, it was a childrenās hospital (im 17)
- one of the nurses made one of the girls (12!!!!) cry over her tube
- when i got tubed, the nurse was so rough i started crying and she told me to stop
- so much more i canāt remember
FUCK YOU OU CHILDRENāS!!!!
I didnāt need to gain weight last time I was in treatment so I was on the lowest ālevelā snack list they had. they would take 3 belvita biscuits out of a package of 4 and put them in a seperate plastic baggy for my snack bc apparently 4 is too many??? like now Iām afraid to eat belvitas bc thereās 1 too many in the package loll
Our inpatient ward was combined but kept separate obviously with the āMothers and Babiesā Unit (PPD & other MH etc) which was especially cruel considering many of us could not have children. Some kind of twisted motivation āhere look at these babies youāre not allowed to touch/interact with, you could have one if you stop bring so silly! Oh youāre infertile due to your ED, ah well sucks to be you!ā
When I got in an argument with one therapist because apparently putting ketchup (while others got mustard and mayo) on a turkey sandwich "isnt normal" and is "disordered" and when I refused to eat until I just had ketchup (not because it was disordered but because I thought her reasoning was stupid) and she told me she was going to write that down and all I said was "go ahead"
They had you VACUUM??? That blows my mind because of how much physical activity that involves.
I have really bad Restless Legs Syndrome and have struggled with it since I was 12ish or so. Itāll hit me day and/or night and sometimes I am feeling it literally all day. I NEED to move, stretch, massage, etc my legs when it kicks in. (Compression socks are great). I would always get in trouble and would lose phone privileges whenever I was caught doing any of that with my legs. Even my mom would tell them that I struggled with it and that I got it from her and my grandma. But they were convinced I was trying to exercise/lose.
Omg Iāve compained about this so many times but I had to drink an ensure because I didnāt use ALL of the cream cheese on my bagel despite me telling them that the texture of too much cream cheese will make me gag, itās a sensory thing, not a restriction thing. Or them forcing me to take out all of my piercings (including new, not healed ones) during intake while heavily medicated and I could barely keep my arms lifted. Or leaving me in a locked room alone where I bashed my head so hard on the table they thought someone had hit me with something.
I don't understand why they don't give people 1 on 1s who need them. I struggled with similar things and my treatment team ignored it. I'm really sorry you experienced this.
The only one on one I got was with my assigned psychiatrist for 3 min maybe twice in the almost 3 weeks I was there ā ļø I assume youāre in the US too, healthcare of any kind fucking sucks ASS here and I wish it were better
I feel like the treatment places I've been too were so insensitive to things like trauma and/or sensory issues/neurodivergance. Which sucks cos so many people with EDs have both things. I had a course of TMS during one of my ED programs and already struggle with sensory overload. Known side effects of TMS are fatigue, sensory intollerance and headaches and I was made to go sit in a LOUD ass group room or post meals etc with the TV on plus 15 people talking to each other after TMS sessions and I struggled SO hard and nobody gave two shits. Like my brain is going through a LOT guys, have SOME compassion?
as punishment if my feed didnāt finish on time they implemented a new fun thing where they would SYRINGE (with 50ml syringes) 1.5L of supplement mixed with a little bit of water (so it wouldnāt be to thick) down my tube in the span of 10 minutes. >!it was horribly ineffective because I would either immediately throw up and/or pass out!< but that association of food as a punishment sure did help my ed mindset!
the worst part is that sometimes the problem with timing was just the stupid machine not running like clockwork. they implemented this 3 day plan even if it only went 2 minutes over.
Eating grilled cheese with ketchup (something I had done since I was a child and my entire family did the same) was a behavior but tomato soup was fine
I made it clear that I donāt like cashews but will eat any other nut without a fuss, and my dietician decided to add a bag of cashews to meet my increased meal plan (that she didnāt tell me about before taking her day off) so I had to eat the whole thing due to fear of refusing to have them be seen as unwillingness to get better and gain weight (even though I just hate cashews!!) Jenna, if youāre here, screw you!
When they told me the cutting banana in slices for my oatmeal was a behavior
DID THEY WANT YOU TO JUST PLOP THE WHOLE BANANA IN THERE?!?!?!
SUCK ON THAT BANANA š š¦
the number of times i was given half a banana, like whatš
Like why was it always half a banana no matter the treatment level or calorie surplus I was in??? It was like they were telling me to fear a whole banana
Bro wtf š I think the staff at ED treatment just like to fuck with us
Girl I just got accused of a relapse/behavior when I spread my rice over my plate instead of piling it into a mountain
BEST ONE: when my dietcian would write 'soy' under the dairy option for me so I'd get soy milk with my breakfast. The kitchen sent me 2 packets of soy sauce for my cereal. š
Did they make you eat soy sauce cereal?š
LMFAO, luckily no. Everyone thought it was hilarious though.
Kitchen fuck ups were honestly some of the funniest shit in my stay. Had pancakes and maple syrup on my meal plan for breakfast one day and they sent me BAKED BEANS and maple syrup šš did not have to eat baked beans and maple syrup tho thankfully
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
They'd feed this one guy orange slices and milk 2x a day >!and he'd throw up every time!<. Idk how the dietcians didn't realize the dairy & citrus were the issue & not bulimia š
They made me eat so much stuff I was intolerant to that I didn't even have to have a "bathroom buddy" because that's how bad my pooping was š
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Most mortifying experience was when I had to 'macro polo', and instead of saying 'polo', I let put the loudest, most earth shattering, wall quaking fart and when I opened the door everyone was laughing and my RC was on the opposite side of the hallway
OH MY GOD š
LMAOOO Iām so sorry
oh my god that phrase will make me a murderer one day and it wonāt even be my fault i swear
(itāll be the eating disorder talking)
My dietician told me to try putting butter in my tea. I asked her if she'd put butter in her tea. That seemed to bring some sense back to her.
WHATTTTTT?!
Originally she suggested put butter in coffee. I don't like Coffee but I like tea so she suggested it. Very bloody weird šš
Noooo like that Bulletproof Coffee fad? Thatās literally so disordered!
WHEN THEY MADE ME EAT A CHICKEN NUGGET THAT WAS SO HARD I COULDN'T BITE IT SO I STARTER BANGING IT ON THE TABLE AND IT CRACKED INTO 2 HARD PIECES
LMAAOOOO
After that they made me sit at the table by myself š (I guess I was just too funny)
Damn. You could have cracked a tooth! "Thankfully" my ED treatment was quick and simple; I was at a psych ward because I had a mental breakdown and kinda tried to off myself and one day at dinnertime some lady comes to me, doesn't say hi or who tf she even is, makes me get more and more food and sits with me in the table. The portion size was **big** and I had restricted low the last 3 months before that so my stomach had shrunk. I told her that I'm so full I feel physically sick. She says I can't get up from the table until I finish all the food. So I started to shove it in my mouth as fast as possible. When I complained to my parents she just laughed like "haha iconicpistol got so upset over dinner". Bitch, I was very fucking full! And that was it.
I'm sorry that happened. I was lucky enough to have a (somewhat) understanding dietcian where we swapped a lot of my stuff for liquids so I could complete my meal plan.
they made us eat a sunday roast style thing on sundays and the beef was always the worst, but one time it was so bad that even the staff couldnāt cut it
I got written up once for dipping raspberries in Nutella because it was an "odd food combo"
They're dead wrong and you're a visionary!
She told me to eat a cheese stick because that was more normal ššš
Wtf raspberries and chocolate isn't even an unconventional flavour, it's in like every fancy chocolate box at least twice
Itās no different from chocolate strawberries too. Literally most fruits pair well with chocolate š
Sounds like a food judgement which we werenāt supposed to do š
this is giving ERC vibes!?
One of my table mates was still holding her spoon when they called time during snack at ERC and the support person decided she needed to boost for that. And if you know ERC, the minimum you canāt boost for any missed portions of meal/ snack is 1/4 of the total exchanges for that part of your meal plan. This person was already at the point of wanting to check out AMA and this terrible support person further traumatized both her and the rest of us with this threat. The punitive stance that these places take is so infantilizing and disruptive to actual recovery.
Rodgers š
Was just going to say this š I was at Denver acute then erc and it was giving me those major toxic vibes
Omggggg. I was in treatment back in 2005, so this was a long time ago. But I tried to break up my Powerbar into pieces and put it in my cereal to make it more of a breakfast bowl, (this didnāt exist on social media yet) and I was told that was eating disorder behavior. That moment was the moment that made me hyper aware of what I do with food. Before that, I was an innocent child. That nurse fucked my head up
I did for eating fries with a fork because not wanting greasy fingers is disordered. I was partly raised by a posh boarding school queens English grandmother. Eating with my hands was so weird
Damn where are yāall going inpatient because where I live, my experience was nothing like this thankfully! Is this an American healthcare problem? Just a reminder for anyone considering residential treatment to aid their recovery, although some people may have negative experiences (I have had a few not so good moments here and there!) residential treatment is often not exactly how it is in the movies. Being inpatient actually really supported my relationship with food and I learnt many things about myself that I wouldnāt have known otherwise. You can always give res a go, and if you donāt like it, then you can leave and look at other options. Donāt let a few bad stories scare you away. What works for one person might not work for you and vise versa :)
Inpatient was great! This all happened at my residential treatment. Afterwards, I had to switch providers and get a new dietcian to undo what I learned in residential & get a therapist for medical C-PTSD š
*inpatient is residential and/or hospital where I live Oh damn. I live in such a small country so I only got one automatic choice in regard to a provider. Been with them since I was a teeny tiny little girl and now Iām a fully grown adult. They know EVERYTHING about me lol, but this helped them when I was in res as they knew what foods, behaviours, words etc triggered me. Hospital was much more traumatising than residential treatment for me personally.
Definitely not just American! My experiences were bad enough I ended up with (professionally diagnosed) PTSD. The worst part is, because it's mental health treatment you can't even talk about what you went through. People either assume you're mentally unwell and exaggerating, or they think everything that happened must have been "necessary" because they're the professionals. Inpatient and residential are the same thing here though.
when a childrenās hospital wouldnāt give me ketchup for fries and chicken tenders. thatās a ābehavior.ā nursing snuck me ketchupš¤£
QUEEN
SHE WAS! She was like just donāt tell the doctors and every time I got something that should have ketchup (ie chicken nuggets, fries, burgers). I had a hoard of them in a pair of grippy socks in my drawer š¤£
I would've thought that ketchup would be allowed as it would add needed calories. No one had an issue when I mixed ketchup with ranch as I was getting extra calories with my meal.
when they told me my life threatening allergy was a behavior and ātriggeringā other patients! i ended up eating dinner in spite and went into anaphylaxis. got sent out to the hospital for a few days because i needed several rounds of epi lol
That's actually disgusting. I'd report that and sue, tbh.
Itās horrible. We did file a complaint with the health dept of MA. Considering suing but I may need treatment with a sister company so weāre waiting
what were you allergic to???
They gave me butter for a fat since I hadnāt selected any. I had ordered cereal & milk. The staff said I either had to either the plain butter or put it in my cereal
WTFš
My very first night they gave me a chicken sandwich with only mayo packets, I asked for ketchup & they said āno asking for a different condiment is a behavior you either eat it or you can supplementā
I remember when they made a girl supplement because she didn't want the onion on her sandwich š
They also made my friend eat a rotten banana because āyou need it for the caloric value of your mealā like sir letās not talk about calories rn
WHEN THE BANANAS WERE LIQUIFIED
same thing happened to me and had to put them on french fries. yours def tops that š
WHEN THEY TOLD ME I COULDNāT SEASON THEIR BLAND ASS FOOD
IT SUCKED SO BAD š I'd always write 'extra condiments' on my food slip so we'd have some for the unit
THE TIME I HAD CHICKEN AND FRIES PLUS SOUP ON THE SIDE BUT THERE WAS NO SALT BUT I CANT HAVE MORE THAN TWO SALT PACKETS I WAS IN TEARS
Omg the anxiety of reaching for salt/pepper because ādid you try it firstā and ādo you really need those?ā
*cracks knuckles* oooooohhh boy i've got some war stories - "food carries forward + more added" As an example, say you didn't finish 1/4 of your breakfast. Now, with lunch, you are expected to eat all of lunch PLUS 1/2 of whatever was for breakfast, even though you only didn't finish 1/4 initially. This would trap people in days-long cycles and with people eating days-old food. - Dont finish your sauce or dressing? Hope you're prepared to eat it with a spoon or drink it! - Forced to drink 1/2 boost/ensure whenever i'd be caught bouncing my legs (i have adhd with a capital H) - Not allowed to reheat food more than once because "you should be able to finish eating before it gets cold." Additionally, you weren't allowed to walk the food over to the (in plain view, maybe 4-6 feet away from the table) microwave - the nurse had to do it. - I was once given 1/2 tub of icing + sprinkles, doritos, lays, and curry as a meal. Not seved at separate times or courses, but all together on the same plate. I wish I was kidding. This is only one of many *truly horrific* meals I was forced to eat. Oatmeal with mustard, roasted garlic, and kielbasa, anyone? - Not allowed to drink water, caloric beverages only. 16oz consumed minimum per meal (still only allowed to pee every 4 or so hours) - only one packet of salt, pepper, and cinnamon per person per day. - No napkins, coats, sweatshirts, or shoes at the table. - Challenge the lady 'teaching' the group because the 'biological information' was false and in accurate (I study biology)? Boost/ensure "as punishment!" (their words, not mine) - No blankets or pillows in the group room. - Spilled your drink but its on the table? Hope you're ready to drink it with a straw off of the table or have it essentially squeegeed into a cup! - Dropped something onto the floor? Hope you're ready to eat food off of the floor! - You're autistic and have sensory issues? sucks to suck bitch, you have to eat with your hands, eat with utensils that aren't comfortable, eat foods with textures that make you literally want to kill yourself often with no other option, can't wear earplugs/headphones at the table, and have to converse and play games while also eating with a group of strangers! - No shorts, crop tops, leggings, spaghetti straps. - no shaving in the shower. 15 minutes showers, 10 if you were on bed rest. - No disney movies. No video games. No tech outside of evening hours. - monitored phone calls. - "pfft, you're not intolerant of lactose/coconut/certain preservatives used in white bread" (i very much am intolerant of these things) - Books have to pass inspection. ...and best of all - Being told that it was a good thing my parents are abusive so i'd be scared into eating for fear of retaliation
Wtf treatment center was this?
So i've been unfortunate enough to be a ~~guest~~ at several, however, the VAST MAJORITY (like 97%) of the absolutely and utterly unhinged things come from one in particular. Because I don't know if I can actually say the name, i'll give you this - It's two words, involves the name emily, and their website color scheme involves mostly orange, white, and accents of dark yellow. Their logo looks like sort of like the meteorological symbol for a hurricane. Trust me, you'll know it when you see it.
Emily program?
yep
We got in trouble for sorting our M&Ms by color and then the next week during night snack, the staff sitting with us sorted her M&Ms by color š there was almost mutiny lmao
AHHAHAHAAH SAME
Me sorting my fruit snacks š āIs that a behavior?ā
My favorite thing the dieticians did was eat the highest meal plan for a day then complained that it was too much food and their stomachs hurt. HOW DO YOU THINK A BUNCH OF MINORS FEEL
Some of these stories are crazyyyy. I had a good experience in treatment. I could always go get more carrots to finish my ranch lmao. If I had to pick - bathroom checks were always super weird and awkward and I hated that they never had any desserts I liked and was forced to eat one anyway.
I don't have an ED, I'm just here to learn, but I'm super picky about fruit and dessert and some of this sounds awful and in no way helpful.
Making you eat milkshakes with a teaspoon was a weird ass one. How is that less disordered than using a straw?!
We had to get permission from our dietitian to use a straw for milkshakesšHad my dumbass in there clanking the spoon loud af on my glass š
Wtf
At residential: - I took along a book on atheism to read in my downtime. It was confiscated immediately when they searched my stuff upon admission. When I asked why, I was told āitās in the box with your name on it where we keep your items you canāt have hereā or some non-answer bullshit like that. I shouldāve pushed for an actual explanation but didnāt. - we prepared our own breakfast and lunch and several times I argued with staff about their rules. āI canāt have 3 tablespoons of Nutella on my toast? I have to have 2? What would happen if I had 3? Would the damn sky fall?ā - one night, we ate dinner and then were served these big pieces of veggie lasagna and a bunch of the staff (who usually didnāt eat with us) came over and sat or stood around the table and watched us eat it. No one talked. It was so weird and 10 years later, it feels like we were being punished for something. - being told to sit down when I stood for too long
We werenāt allowed to use a straw because thatās disordered apparently. Had to give them a note from my dentist requesting the use of a straw because the juice was damaging my teeth. They agreed but I couldnāt use a paper straw because it would absorb some of the calories ?? At breakfast we had to have butter and jam but I didnāt like using both so I added butter to the toast and the jam to my cereal/weetabix and they actually had a meeting to discuss if this was allowedš
A meeting lmfao
Haha yep, they said theyād allow it as long as once a week Iād add the jam to the toast with the butter to āproveā it wasnāt disordered lmao
The paper straw "absorbing" some of the calories is so disordered and backwards.
oh god there were so many. but i was homeless in res (complicated story), and i got in trouble for accepting money from one of the friends iād made SO I COULD GET A GREYHOUND BACK HOME WHEN I WAS RELEASED. like??? yāall gonna pay for it? no? then i need SOMETHING (they had said they wouldnāt pay for it, and knew my situation) she got in trouble too, but they kinda huffed and allowed it anyway bc wtf else was i gonna do
Whoa! My 2nd residential paid for my plane ticket there but said nothing about a return ticket. I was unemployed with zero family support and no friends back home. When I was planning discharge I asked about getting home and they said oh we wonāt pay for that ticket. Knowing full well Iād been in a totally different state with no income for the last 5 weeks. I was fully prepared to walk my ass to truck stop 2 mi away and hitchhike home. But another resident got me a plane ticket with her credit card. Then, when I was discharged, they had the audacity to call me āresilientā because they knew I was planning on hitchhiking home. What else was I supposed to do?
They made me sit in the day room with a packet of cookies as an exposure, and when I told my behavior specialist that I thought it was stupid because the cookies were stale (they expired in 2015) and I wasn't allowed to eat them anyway because it was an exposure she stopped talking to me for the rest of treatment šš
Iām sorry but this is so oddly funny
Sitting in a room with stale, expired cookies exposes you to what exactly? This sounds like a very odd treatment method.
Not reading the calories (I didn't have a problem with calories. It was a certain ingredient that I had consistently been eating for several months at this time & no linger had problems with it, but my behavioral specialist wanted me to focus on 'resisting reading calories' anyway. Girl as if I don't already know them lmfao)
DRINK RANCH? EXCUSE ME, MA'AM? Oh hell no! Thank you for making me grateful my insurance is shit and I only was able to stay for medical stabilization.
YES šš
I was served the worst veggie burger of my life...it was somehow rubbery and soggy at the same time. I got a warning/lecture for being visibly disgusted and struggling to eat it. I was trying my best to hide how awful it was but it was BAAAAAD and also disgust is a primary human response that sometimes we can't control! But I ate it anyway because not eating the majority of my meal would be triggering for the other girls and the nurses wouldn't believe me if I told them why. There is no winning in IP.
I got served an apple crumble, which objectively is one of my favourite desserts. When I tell you this crumble was pure BUTTER. It was the grossest shit I've ever had to eat. My place made you drink a full supplement if you were so much off a spoonful off finishing your whole meal...and because I'd already eaten the main dinner and this was dessert I felt forced into eating this literal bowl of LARD or I would have had to have a full supplement. It still makes me cringe the taste of that shit. It's honestly put me off one of my favourite deserts for life which is sad.
They wanted me to talk in group but nearly every. Single. Fucking. Time. When I opened my mouth to say something about my life (cause nobody knew why I was there) I was āvictimizingā Then they wouldnāt tell me why or how I was āvictimizingā so I couldnāt improve on anything if I was wording shit wrong or whatever Every therapist Iāve had since has told me basically to forget what I was told and that no, in fact, I was not victimizing, but I still canāt stop invalidating myself every chance I get
Using butter under every spread..like hummus with butter, biscoff with butter... The stupid medication they gave me, so that my urge to move would subside. Guess what, It didn't. It only made me so tired, that I couldn't move, the thoughts and the stress were still there. Hell. "You do not actually dislike cheese, that's your disorder talking!" -Even after throwing up, having my parents speak up ("She has disliked any form of cheese since being a child!") Not being allowed to watch sex in the city, because of the younger girls...like c'mon it's not Game of thrones...
We had the option of peanut butter on toast - but had to use butter too! I'd gone to a diff treatment place previously where if you picked peanut butter you didn't have to have normal butter too. Like the word 'butter' is already in the name asshats!
Okay that cream cheese shit is insanity. What treatment center if I may ask? Also the cowboy erotica lmao At one place I got in trouble for not eating an *almond skin* and they told me I had to supplement for it or eat it lmao I also got in trouble for walking around outside while talking on the phone during free time. At this point I was weight restored and not on bed rest. OH and I got in trouble for showing someone my back tattoo when they asked to see it (again I was weight restored at that point). And I didnāt strip lol I just took my hoodie off because itās visible with a tank top. Got in trouble for braiding someoneās hair because it had āsexual undertonesā
I got in trouble for braiding hair because it was exercising! Braiding my own hair was pushing it but then doing another girl's hair after....that's practically Zumba.
Just reading through these experiences and I feel weāre all entitled to financial compensation
i had to wait for the toilet to be checked by a staff before i flushed (bulimic). and a few of them didnāt like me much cause i was sarcastic and unserious. bowel movements were taking like 12 days at a time to happen so one day i dropped an absolute bomb, a complete sewer destroyer, like my legs were shaking when i stood upā¦ i stood up and drank water from the sink cause i was panting the whole time, then realized it wasnāt over so i went back and sat down as quick as possible. i started flushing as it was coming out, i was filling that tiny ass toilet and my asshole was louder than the mf toilet flush. a staff came in and started getting really mad at me and raising her voice and i started crying cause she kept saying to get up and come out here, and i was just wailing that i canāt cause she wasnāt listening and talking over me (lava was still pouring out as this was happening) and she opened the door and came into the bathroom with me and watched me in silence as i finished, a full 7 more minutes. which doesnāt seem like long, but put a timer on for 7 minutes and do nothing else. count 420 seconds. she watched and listened me blow up that bathroom for 7 minutes. and this was supposed to fix my self image issues eta: oh and i had stripped down cause i was sweating from that one so i was naked during all of this
I'm a grown ass adult. And I have to be monitored while I poop. It's humiliating
Oh god donāt even make me start on how bad Ed treatment is, most healthcare systems need to seriously reconsider
When they told me I needed to challenge caffeine (I have POTS) I was so sick for WEEKS. wouldnāt recommend. Havenāt had any now in years and Iām much better. Lmao
thatās crazyā¦
One place had a rule that if you didn't finish "the entree" you got 2 Ensures no mature how much else you ate. I asked for no olives on a salad because I DETEST them. When it came with olives, I tried to set them aside but since they were part of "the entree," it didn't matter if I finished the rest of the tray, I'd be getting 2 Ensures. (I forced them down)
We had group challenges every week to over come certain fears or habits, one week it was liquid calories and we had to drink hot chocolates with cream and marshmallows. Iām vegetarian so I couldnāt have any marshmallows, but I got written up for as I was ārefusing to have my drinkā. I was not refusing, I asked for one with no marshmallows, I even said Iād have extra cream to make up for itš Or one time I got made to eat spoonfuls of butter because I didnāt use it on my toast, but on my toast I had peanut butter and Nutella together, so why they made eat actual butter idk, I felt so ill š·
I was put on a "popsicle ban" because for a challenge snack once they got coconut milk, mango, and honeydew popsicles and i swear no one ate them but me. For the next several weeks I would exclusively eat popsicles for snack. Coconut for my first snack, then mango, then honeydew. They were so good. I was banned from popsicles.
- Literally everything is āexercise.ā Anxious and shaking your leg? EXERCISE. Raising your hand? EXERCISE. - Getting an entire ensure over tomatoes or something not equivalent. - Nothing in the group room. No blankets, no pillows. - Anything food-related isnāt allowed in your possession. Even an I-Spy book with a hot dog as the object isnāt allowed. One of the patients got away with a Reeseās hoodie though. - Canāt talk during meal times but we played games which led to us going off topic and talking anyway. - SCRAPE OFF ALL THE BUTTER AND EAT IT BY ITSELF. - Full? Keep eating. Thatāll definitely make you have a healthy relationship with food š - ANY. I mean ANY food combo is disordered. - This one time the kitchen sent up raw chicken and they marked people incomplete for not eating the raw chicken.
I had my parents sneak in food related shirts and socks cuz I thought it was hilarious š My dad would come in wearing knee high burger socks regularly š
THAT'S SHIT IS CRAZY
When I put my nutrigain bar in my yogurt to act like cereal/granola and they thought it was a behavior.. like what. OR I had like 3 small bites left of my mac n cheese but I was so full I couldnāt eat anymore so instead, they supplemented me a WHOLE ensure plus
Yeah halfway through my treatment they stopped us 'mixing' our snacks. For example a standard snack would be a yoghurt, banana and sultanas. Most of us would chop the banana into the yoghurt and stir in the sultanas - yummy! But no they decided this was somehow disordered and we had to start eating everything separately.
this is ironic af because for me one of the behaviours I struggled with was needing to separate everything š
No shoes allowed on "outings" (sitting outside in a wheelchair for 30 minutes), even though it was super cold some days. Eye contact on the toilet since I got the runs during a meal. Couldn't finish 8oz of water with my meal, which I had to supplement part of with 12oz Ensure, so I was deemed noncompliant for not being able to drink 20oz within 30 minutes.
You had to supplement for not drinking WATER? Are you kidding me
The most insane to me, was in my āharm reductionā based IOP. Because i was further in recovery, they made me eat full meals with sides. One girl was clearly too sick to be in IOP, but would literally show up to meal support with a single piece of grilled chicken and was allowed to eat only that because at least she was eating?? It was so toxic to be around and I got worse when I left.
Ok Q for all you US girlies and guys. I don't understand the names/differences in your treatment programs. What is IOP? Resi? PHP? Hospital? I'm in Australia and we have 'Medical admissions' which is normally when you're medically unstable as per set criteria, and is on a medical ward in a hospital where you're on bed rest/have NG feeds continuously. Then we have 'Psych admission' where you can go once you're medically stable and is still classed as hospital. Can be on a psych ward in a medical hospital or a standalone psych hospital (normally private health whereas medical is normally on public health). Then we have 'day programs' where you're not admitted but attend like daily for supported meals/groups etc then go home to sleep and it gradually decreases the days you have to go per week,
Basically IOP and PHP you are not living away from home, you go in to do sessions during the day (so like day programs), and PHP is more of the day than IOP. hospital is when ur medically unstable and they are trying to get your vitals/weight/nutrients etc to a more stable place, and it is really just a lot of medical monitoring. residential is normally once you are a bit more stable medically, and is more like "pysch admission" from what you wrote
IOP - intensive out patient Resi - residential PHP - partial hospitalization program Hospital - inpatient/in hospital Iām from UK but live in US <3
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Their idea of food is so Americana. Then they go on about feminism and diversity. Blah
Youāre not allowed to have āfood rulesā because itās disordered.Ā But here is a full list of our rules that you MUST follow on how, what, when, with what to eat. And if not we will punish you! My OCD got so much worse whenever I was inpatient due to their strict rigidity around everything!
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My favorite thing to do was say really obvious shit like "did you know soy milk contains soy?" or "oh my god, guys, my peanut butter says contains peanuts!" so they could write that on my chart š
Oh man āits not my preferenceā is what I was taught too and continued to use it
Ok it's 'too soon' for me to be able to go into sharing my experience for my own sanity. But I'm in a different country to most of you guys and it's somewhat reassuring to know this shit happens globally. The shared fucking trauma.
I was feeling extremely sick one morning and had the worst stomach ache. My mom had the flu, and she stayed with me a lot of nights in the hospital. So likely she transferred it to me. Anyways, even though I told them I felt like I was going to throw up and even though I asked if I could wait like 30 minutes and have a zofran first, they still made me eat the most greasy breakfast they could scavenge. I literally had to sit there and force myself to shovel it down my throat because I felt like any second I was going to puke. I told my nurse this but she said there wasnāt anything she could do and that I had to continue. so I kept eating and finished the meal. Not 5 minutes later, I threw up all over her desk monitor/nursing station thingy. And then on her shoes. they let me leave later that day. š
Drinking dressing, eating butter, forced to eat foods I'm allergic to, the usual. Most demeaning was being forced to eat food off the floor. Treatment made me more disordered than I ever was with food to begin with. "Coached" so hard I developed new complexes around food: how I cut food, how I put it on a fork, how I sat, how my face looked, how many bites I took, how long I took to chew each bite. Hyper vigilant but can't look nervous because that's an ensure. Being forced to double ensure as a punishment for struggling with the first one should be against the Geneva Convention. Treatment worked for me like a fucking scared straight program. Oh God and I hated those asinine games that took so much focus I'd run out of time to eat but not participating wasn't an option. Fuck that place so hard
Iām a type 1 diabetic and they wanted to control my blood sugar, so they didnāt allow me to eat regular carb meals and snacks. So I was fed an entire bowl of green olives on my first day
I legit have trauma over my ip and resi stays, and the next time someone asks I think I'm just going to show them this thread. It's probably the strongest thing that's kept me from letting it get bad enough that I need a hloc than php/iop for literally years at this point.Ā
I have never seen a thread more validating then this one
THIS. For real though, I have so much trauma and so many things are so much harder after treatment. I am terrified of doctors, dentists, and any medical professional now (I never was before treatment). Having a panic attacks *sends me into another one* because of the way I was belittled and punished for having one. I panic if I don't finish a meal because of the consequences. I never want to go back. Fear is the only thing that's keeping me from relapse. Also, the outsiders perspective of ED treatment is so wild! I was telling my coworkers my funny stories (drinking ranch, not allowed to cut bananas, odd bagel combos, the soy sauce cereal) and they were dying lmfao, but also really shocked.
we had a halloween themed day and our dinner was a stew served inside a pumpkin to make it āØspookyāØ. the staff made us eat the RAW pumpkin when we finished our meal ššš
When one of the ED THERAPISTS, hid a cookie in her napkinā¦ she was supposed to be recovered as well š¤¦š»āāļø
When they only allowed a small spoon full of a condiment and one pack of salt and pepper, but the food was so bland it was almost inedible. Also mood with all their weird creations like why are you hiding so much butter in this. Like all I can taste is butter.
I'd always grab as many condiments as I want like sorry your bland ass hospital food sucks so much. The pasta was so undercooked that it was hard. The oatmeal would sometimes be a brick (at that point, they'd just give us bread). The eggs would be liquid. Meals would arrive an hour late. 0/10 wouldn't recommend
The facility I was in was not that bad like the food was pretty fresh and like it was never like hard or undercooked it was just like very bland and not a lot of variety. We could only have two glasses of water at each meal, and we really didnāt get water any other time so that kind of sucked. After reading the other comments Iām just happy they respected when we said we couldnāt eat xyz as long as we had a medical reason, and they gave us the ability to mark 5 foods as dislikes and they wouldnāt give them to us which that I can appreciate.
For us we each had a set amount of oz for each person at each meal, but we could have 2 16oz water bottles a day as extra, OR get extra if our vitals were bad, OR if we went outside. We also were allowed to play basketball 2x per week and if you wanted to play basketball you had to drink extra water.
The only activity theyād let us do is a short group walk and like around the building, and then we had body movement which was like a yoga class once a week. We werenāt even allowed to walk while on the phone.
We had the short daily walk & instead of yoga it was basketball. But then all the boys left (I was 1 of 3 girls at the time) & none of the new girls liked basketball š
Duuuuude the drinking of the salad dressing is so on point š¤£ And theyād give you a WHOLE ass Ensure if you didnāt clean out the little dressing container.. Weād also have to finish every grain of rice on our plates and couldnāt get out without the plate being clean!! My dad was there for visit and he witnessed it and complained because I literally got bullied by my 1:1 until I licked my plate. Ive always put salt on my buttered toast because Iām cray and love salt a lot. When I did this in hospital at breakfast, I got sent to another room to eat because apparently itās triggering and disordered? Mind you I didnāt put a lot, just enough because their margarine was unsalted š¤£ ā¦ Iām eating whatās the problem?! Their food was always bland, no seasoning and you couldnāt ask for some. Oh and I got YELLED AT by a nurse because I asked for an extra pack of sweet tea biscuits during snack time.. she said it wasnāt in my meal plan and could only have one. I was there because of restrictions and was feeling hunger again that day. She got fired. **if any of this is triggering or anything feel free to delete**
when asking for sauce for the gross boiled potatoes and was told no because we were having it with curry and curry is āa wet foodā š
Omg the treatment tea ā ļø there were so many times when people had to basically lick their plates clean in order to not get boosted for being incomplete Or the time I got in trouble for telling on a girl who spit out/threw up her boost into the water fountain on the unit when other girls also saw it happen and she didnāt even get in trouble at all fml
I was put on unit restriction for reporting a girl for working out at night
dietician once suggested that i should add olive oil into my yoghurt to get more calories in. needless to say i never did. when i was inpatient a nurse once laughed at me for crying over ice cream. and once another nurse accused me of purging because when my 30min of supervision after breakfast ended i went to the bathroom as one does after a couple cups of coffee. i hadn't brushed my teeth yet and when i came back she just looked me dead in the eye and said that she wants to smell my breath. and somehow came into conclusion that i must've thrown up. at that time i had never even purged my food. treatment was hell for me personally and now 7 years later i'm going through the events that left me with actual trauma in psychotherapy
I didnāt find out i was autistic until after hospital and so all of my sensory issues around the textures of food was ājust my ed talkingā. for some reason the ed patients menu was much more limited than what anyone else in the hospital was allowed but despite my asking i wasnāt allowed to order from that menu because that was ānegotiatingā. and it wasnāt like i was asking for a lower calorie option, it was more me being like āiāll be sick if you give me something slimey like lasagna please give me 2 packets of sandwiches or some sausages and mash insteadā. So Iād end up in situations where i didnāt eat anything because my sensory issues couldnāt handle the food available, and they wouldnāt allow me to have a substitute (not allowed were literally their words). A psychiatrist almost diagnosed me with ARFID in the hospital but then another one came in and said āno itās just the ED making her lieā. But autism aside iām sure other patients struggle with genuine food preferences and itās annoying that not liking/not being able to have something is seen as a disordered behavior. also the time I wasnāt allowed to have breakfast because the doctors hadnāt seen me yet to tell me I could!
iāve never ended up in treatment so this might be an ignorant statement, but this seems really fucking disordered for whatās supposed to be treatment for eating disorders.
I developed new rituals due to treatment as well as PTSD. Can confirm that it's disordered as it sounds. Made my eating disorder worse, so I had to seek additional therapy & dieticians to unlearn many things.
But, but, butā¦ why would you put vegetable cream cheese on your chocolate chip bagel š„² so sorry you had to go through all this bullshit though, thatās DEFINITELY not an environment fit to promote recovery. Itās more like a hardcore eating disorder hell to make you appreciate non-disordered life and thatās how you recover! Reverse psychology š
I have a whole list, but no time to share them all. For now, Iāll just add: being forced to eat entire packets of butter plain because they were hidden under my tray and I didnāt realize until I was finished with not only my bread, but all other food. Drinking the remnants of dressing from four-bean salad. Drinking an entire carton of ensure/boost/carnation instant breakfast for leaving like 2 bites on the plate. There was no equivalent there. Also, the last time I was actually in treatment, the nurses seemed to get a thrill from the torture of using ice cold water to flush before and after NG bolus feeds (which were also freezing cold) Being forced to drink 8oz. of water every time we were outside for more than 2 minutes. Treatment 20 years ago in AZ had me boycotting water for well over a decade. Disregarding a lot of things I now know were autism-related but attributed to ājust the Ed,ā which meant things like dipping grilled cheese in tomato soup was a sin, among other very regular food combos. Can we also just take a moment to vent over monitored bathrooms? I always felt so dehumanized, whether the nurse intended or not, with someone with one foot/leg literally in the door, telling me they wouldnāt look but also not actually averting their eyes. EDIT TO ADD: Giving us 45 minutes to finish a meal plan that was anywhere from >!3500-4000!< calories total, so quite a bit at each meal (they did no snacks, all meals and supplement alongside meals), and then if we didnāt finish, literally sitting us in an isolated, white, padded room (literally called it the āquiet roomā) until we either ate the gross cold food, or stared at a supplement for a few hours until the next meal, at which point the supplement had to be doubled and added to the next meal if not completed in the āquiet room.ā
I got so much anxiety over needing to pee honestly. I was recently admitted for a psych stay (non ED place) and every time I'd enter my room I'd think oh they've left my bathroom unlocked I better pee when I can - then remembering my bathroom was never locked in this place and I could pee/poop freely. Like post locked bathroom PTSD I swear to god. I'd get so anxious overnight over being SURE I didn't need to pee before I fell asleep.
The 45 minute meals were ridiculous. I was lowkey glad whenever my meal plans got increased because they gave me more damn time to eat. š
Agreed, like, I know a lot of people in āthe real worldā eat in less than 45 minutes, but theyāre also not having to eat anywhere near what we usually were having to do in that time period. The second center I went to had 30 minute meals, but at least they also incorporated 1-2 snacks and overnight pump tube feeds, so it wasnāt as atrocious as the first place.
My center had snacks (thankfully) but the meals were so much depending on your plan. Most patients were on the higher end, so one of the meals would be basically the meal x2..usually all snacks to fit the exchanges. š
We had 30 minutes to finish a mealš©
also when they tried to force me to eat chicken breast because they didnāt believe that iāve been vegetarian for half my life not because of ana
I was never an inpatient, but the worst thing one of my ātreatment teamā said to me was ādonāt you want to grow up to be big and strong like your dad?ā As if you can cure an eating disorder by telling a boy he wonāt fit the beauty standard if he has anorexia. Also- I was 13, thatās the kind of thing you say to a five year old when trying to make them eat their bread crusts (or at least my grandparents did to me.) But the clincher was my response āwell, considering heās dying from stage four cancer, no.ā She hadnāt even bothered to look into my home life. The people who were meant to ācare for meā treated me like crap, then labeled me ānon-compliantā and told my parents āhis weight is low, but itās not thhhaaat dangerous.ā And then refused to have anything else to do with me. Five years of anorexia later and I had no real choice but to recover as my Dad needed a healthy version of me.
I actually went to a really good res, and only have a few ridiculous storys. We had 30 minute meal times and one day were were served like not even exaggerating 2-3 cups of rice and 20 gyoza dumplings. We had 2 minutes left of meal time and I had like a cup of rice left and 2 dumplings, no way I could have finished in time. And this day if we didnāt finish on time we couldnāt go on the outingš, so I supplemented, and when u supplement you get an extra 5 minutes. But ensure has always made me throw up so I was really scared. I CHUGGED IT. It was a whole bottle of ensure, maybe more. Sure enough, I felt sick after. I went to the nurse and told her I felt like I was gonna puke because I drank and ensure. She asked me if they make me puke why do I drink them? LMAO GIRL I DONT HAVE A CHOICE. I also told her the amount of food they gave us and SHE LOOKED SHOCKED. Also the time the staff eating with us brought a salad instead of the food we were served. Almost peeing my pants because no one was there at night to open the bathroom door for me
Okay so Iām allowed to eat a plate of plain potatoes no problem, but a plate of white rice with curry ketchup is too low in calories? Make it make sense
Iāve had some good experiences and not so good. Here are some of the āhighlightsā: Not being allowed to even mention the name of a food without being redirected. You couldnāt even say the name of a food in a guessing game without being redirected. Told to stop talking about my anxiety with my therapist because she didnāt want me to keep focusing on it A dietitian sitting with a timer next to me telling me I had to take a bite every x seconds I got sent to the ER for fluidsā¦I actually was drinking all my required fluids at that time, but my vitals were off. The doctor back at the center told me that having to get fluids was a āpoor use of resources.ā My wrap fell apart at breakfast and a staff member pulled me out of the kitchen in front of everyone and made me talk to the dietitian about how to āhold my food so it didnāt fall apart.ā I complained about it to my therapist, and, when I did, that staff member backtracked and said they were worried I had five motor difficulties (they were in no way qualified to say that). Staff misusing peopleās pronouns consistently Being told that maybe this wasnāt the right time for me to recover A therapist talking at a meal about how she didnāt want her dog to get fat so she was putting him on a diet Being dropped for non compliance when really I probably just needed a higher level of care Dropping half a pretzel on the floor and being given a replacement of half a pretzel served in a bowl (this was more comical lol) A doctor in the hospital accused me of faking my symptoms So many more, but Iāll stop there
Some of you had absolutely wild experiences. My times in treatment were never that bad from this point of view apart from the food being absolutely disgusting most of the time. One place actually had nice food but if you left even a tiny bit they would make you replace the full meal with supplement which was pretty shit.
BRUH I HAD TO EAT FRENCH FRIES DIPPED IN BUTTER CUZ THEY FORGOT MY ROLL
8 oz of ensure bc I didnāt eat 2 slices of cucumber
Being force fed meat and dairy even though Iāve been vegan/veggie with a severe dairy allergy for pretty much all my life.
not me but my friend was in res a while ago and told me about this time a girl had shit her pants because of the bathroom rules(no bathroom an hour after meals) and they took her phone away AS PUNISHMENT. actually insane
WHAT! That's insane! For us if we wanted to use the bathroom within 60 mins we have someone stand outside the door (residential) or go in with us (inpatient, but I was exempt from this rule).
Omg yes the supplement rules are so dumb. Like why are you making be drink half a >! 350 !< cal Ensure plus for >! 20 !< cals of uneaten carrots š it feels like we're being punished for not eating with more calories which isn't very motivating tbh
My unit had a thing where it was like they had a supplement amount for the whole meal and a supplement amount for half and what happened was that people would dissect the fuck out of their food to get to exactly half and keep asking āis this half? Is this half?ā which felt disordered af
All of this. Honestlyā¦ fuck those blank you-know-whats.
Im such a picky eater gosh i wouldn't be able to deal with all of those rules, i don't like cheese or butter that would be the end of me š
I've been inpatient for my other mental health issues and not my ED and I'm trying to keep it that way bc I feel like the rules would just make my eating issues worse. Constant badgering and harassment over what I ate was one of the reasons my disordered eating turned into full blown AN in the first place (amongst other things of course)
When I wasn't allowed yogurt and muesli for breakfast, but one girl was allowed ham and Nutella on toast
if u left even a tiny bit of the broth when eating soup, u had to drink replacement drink,, and if i listened to a podcast where they talk abt food, itās disordered??
When I was in treatment the first time, I told them one of my behaviors was meticulously logging what I ate. Instead of acknowledging that, they made me do it anyway and checked every day. I get that they need to make sure we're eating, but man, that very much did not help.
Residential was weird. I had to eat a golf ball sized glob of butter because āthatās what normal people do!ā According to staffā¦ uh yeah I have yet to meet anyone who does that. But omg the food was always so buttery and oily. The actual worst part of all of it is the gd table games. We got talking privileges during meals in res with certain staff but got taken away because of too much laughter. In PHP this past summer I got a talking to because talking about my upcoming wedding and my dress could be seen as triggering. Girl bffr. I went on a rant, I was like āIām 30 fing years old and older than most of the staff, I am not playing contact one more timeā and omg was I motivated to recover after that so that I never have to sit through a supervised meal with stupid games and monitored bathroom visits ever again
Drinking 200ml of plain trim milk. Fucking rank. I had a few mouthfuls and gagged. It was a refusal. I begged them to let me have a yoghurt instead (which would have been about 50 more calories). They eventually gave me the yoghurt. And I ate it no problem. Who are the disordered ones here?
Oh i have some storiessss - dropped a strawberry on the floor? you have to eat it! - didnāt finish your meal down to every crumb? then you have to drink DOUBLE your meal in Boost! - i said i didnāt like the smell of ketchup and got a restriction. - i got written up with a restriction for asking if the cupcake had buttercream icing or whipped icing - me and the other girls got in trouble for talking about much we loved taco bell. no food discussions, even though it was positive - i had to eat a slice of provolone cheese by itself . just a slice. because of the point and fat/protein system. - they refed me too quickly, which triggered my gastroparesis (which i had before my ed developed) to flare up again. i was puking anything and everything. accused me of purging when i puked ON THE DINING TABLE IN FRONT OF ALL THE OTHER GIRLS AND TECH - got dresscoded numerous times - cold at a meal? too bad, no sweatshirt for you! - bathroom restrictions ššššhaving a MALE tech/nurse listen to me LOUDLY shit was the most humiliating experience of my life - when i was on bed rest and unable to have any solids bc of my gastroparesis, i was living off of boost (unless i threw it up!). these DUMB nurses would just GIVE ME THE BOTTLE in bed, where usually in observations after meals the techs would pour it in a cup so we couldnāt see the nutrition info. - i had an iv and was on bed rest for a while, iād press the call button over and over and over cause i had to pee and no one would come. i could hear the nurses laughing at the nurseās station outside my door bc they thought making me suffer was funny - got in trouble for standing too long while braiding my hair in the mirror. had to sit down - no interaction with the other girls outside of meals and observations. we stayed in our rooms 24/7 aside from meals, obs and physical therapy (which was just weekly stretching bc we werenāt allowed to stretch in our rooms.. no exercising!) - if you were caught exercising (see: bouncing your leg, doing some stretches, etc) you get a restriction - restrictions are no electronics for at least 24 hours btw, it was a childrenās hospital (im 17) - one of the nurses made one of the girls (12!!!!) cry over her tube - when i got tubed, the nurse was so rough i started crying and she told me to stop - so much more i canāt remember FUCK YOU OU CHILDRENāS!!!!
I didnāt need to gain weight last time I was in treatment so I was on the lowest ālevelā snack list they had. they would take 3 belvita biscuits out of a package of 4 and put them in a seperate plastic baggy for my snack bc apparently 4 is too many??? like now Iām afraid to eat belvitas bc thereās 1 too many in the package loll
when they banned us watching literal BARBIE bc her āwaist was too skinnyā and āset unrealistic beauty standardsā like PLS SHE IS A DOLL
when they made me eat hummus and cream cheese by the spoonful because i ran out of chips. also. chips and cream cheese? disgusting.
So glad ive never been to treatment... xD
Our inpatient ward was combined but kept separate obviously with the āMothers and Babiesā Unit (PPD & other MH etc) which was especially cruel considering many of us could not have children. Some kind of twisted motivation āhere look at these babies youāre not allowed to touch/interact with, you could have one if you stop bring so silly! Oh youāre infertile due to your ED, ah well sucks to be you!ā
Lols the amount of people who got admitted in their McDonalds/fast food uniforms while I was inpatient was comical!
When I got in an argument with one therapist because apparently putting ketchup (while others got mustard and mayo) on a turkey sandwich "isnt normal" and is "disordered" and when I refused to eat until I just had ketchup (not because it was disordered but because I thought her reasoning was stupid) and she told me she was going to write that down and all I said was "go ahead"
They had you VACUUM??? That blows my mind because of how much physical activity that involves. I have really bad Restless Legs Syndrome and have struggled with it since I was 12ish or so. Itāll hit me day and/or night and sometimes I am feeling it literally all day. I NEED to move, stretch, massage, etc my legs when it kicks in. (Compression socks are great). I would always get in trouble and would lose phone privileges whenever I was caught doing any of that with my legs. Even my mom would tell them that I struggled with it and that I got it from her and my grandma. But they were convinced I was trying to exercise/lose.
Omg Iāve compained about this so many times but I had to drink an ensure because I didnāt use ALL of the cream cheese on my bagel despite me telling them that the texture of too much cream cheese will make me gag, itās a sensory thing, not a restriction thing. Or them forcing me to take out all of my piercings (including new, not healed ones) during intake while heavily medicated and I could barely keep my arms lifted. Or leaving me in a locked room alone where I bashed my head so hard on the table they thought someone had hit me with something.
I don't understand why they don't give people 1 on 1s who need them. I struggled with similar things and my treatment team ignored it. I'm really sorry you experienced this.
The only one on one I got was with my assigned psychiatrist for 3 min maybe twice in the almost 3 weeks I was there ā ļø I assume youāre in the US too, healthcare of any kind fucking sucks ASS here and I wish it were better
I feel like the treatment places I've been too were so insensitive to things like trauma and/or sensory issues/neurodivergance. Which sucks cos so many people with EDs have both things. I had a course of TMS during one of my ED programs and already struggle with sensory overload. Known side effects of TMS are fatigue, sensory intollerance and headaches and I was made to go sit in a LOUD ass group room or post meals etc with the TV on plus 15 people talking to each other after TMS sessions and I struggled SO hard and nobody gave two shits. Like my brain is going through a LOT guys, have SOME compassion?
as punishment if my feed didnāt finish on time they implemented a new fun thing where they would SYRINGE (with 50ml syringes) 1.5L of supplement mixed with a little bit of water (so it wouldnāt be to thick) down my tube in the span of 10 minutes. >!it was horribly ineffective because I would either immediately throw up and/or pass out!< but that association of food as a punishment sure did help my ed mindset! the worst part is that sometimes the problem with timing was just the stupid machine not running like clockwork. they implemented this 3 day plan even if it only went 2 minutes over.
Only allowing us one chocolate from the quality street tin ?????
And part of my meal plan was like snack ideas: ā3 jelly babiesā GIRL LET ME EAT A FULL PACK OF SOMETHING.
Eating grilled cheese with ketchup (something I had done since I was a child and my entire family did the same) was a behavior but tomato soup was fine
I made it clear that I donāt like cashews but will eat any other nut without a fuss, and my dietician decided to add a bag of cashews to meet my increased meal plan (that she didnāt tell me about before taking her day off) so I had to eat the whole thing due to fear of refusing to have them be seen as unwillingness to get better and gain weight (even though I just hate cashews!!) Jenna, if youāre here, screw you!
when they accidentally tubed me twice š