Help Bec fight Anorexia

The fundraising is for my adult daughter to be able to seek treatment in a residential long term facility for an illness which has lasted 18 years so far.

Before I tell my story I would like to say without the support of many professional people I would not be alive today. I am grateful for everything everyone has done and I know there has been many strategies and much advise which has helped me in many ways. This help has prepared me to take this next step in asking for help to enable a more effective and sustainable recovery.

I am now 39 years old and have suffered pain, humiliation, and emotional, physical and mental anguish for most of those years. I have lost so much financially, physically and emotionally that I am left with a skeleton of an existence.

I have suffered from Complex PTSD, Anorexia Nervosa, Anxiety, Depression, Self-Harm, Addictions and other mental disorders to varying degrees for the past 18 years. I have been an inpatient in over 13 hospitals and have been admitted to emergency departments too many times to count. I’ve sought help from so many G.P’s, Psychologist’s, Psychiatrist’s and in many different forms of therapies over these years and have been prescribed over 50 different medications. I lost my career, my house, my husband, family members, my friends, myself and much, much more. I am now medically compromised due to the Anorexia.

My story begins as a very small child at the hands of a very abusive adult. This led to a childhood of burying my feelings and of hiding the truth from my family and those close to me. I am told I was an overly sensitive, perfectionistic, talented child growing up. These traits helped to mask early signs of obsessive, dissociative and self-harming behaviours, The occurrences of these behaviours were not recognised and therefore my trauma remained hidden, shamefully for years. The pattern of abuse reoccurred in my teenage and adult years resulting in me never feeling safe, never understanding boundaries properly and and a need to jump from one or more unhealthy, anxious, coping behaviour to another just to survive. It is important to note that I consider all my coping behaviours (most chronically, my eating disorder) symptoms of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from Child And Adult Sexual Abuse.

It was not until I was 21 that I cracked under pressure and my current ‘workaholism’ stopped working for me. I needed to feel back in control of my life and my obsessive compulsion became Anorexia Nervosa. The next 18 years would be a steady demise. Help in 1996 for an eating disorder was still scattered with many different ideas with how to treat it. Most did not work, especially for adult-onset Anorexia. ….Young children and teenagers are still adaptable and can be retrained in their behaviours and their thinking. The implementation of these treatments has not been as effective in my case and other adult cases as there is so much more shame when you are an adult and we have learnt to survive by using many negative behaviours for many years. These are our controls and to remove that from us is fearful, difficult and complex.

Over recent years more research has been done in this area and some breakthroughs have occurred. The public are more aware that this disease does not discriminate between the sexes or classes. The public, however seem to hear that it mainly affects teens to young adults and treatments and fundraisers in Australia are mostly geared towards these groups. Campaigns have been run to assist the parents and educators, highlighting the signs to combat the disease before it becomes unmanageable. I think most professionals would agree that with the help of ‘hands on’ parenting and an educated society, young children and teenagers whose thought process can still so easily be changed will be helped. Having said that, I believe that sufferers with adult on-set or long-term, chronic Anorexia need a different approach.

I personally have been through the usual channels of hospitalisation, re-feeding and psychotherapy so many times but continuously find I am back in hospital before too long. I have once again buried the core issues (my CPTSD that professionals are reluctant to touch) and gone back to my dangerous behaviours, exacerbating my declining health every time. I personally find that being in a clinically controlled situation actually gives me, as an adult, the feeling of being a child, incompetent and worse, a victim once again. I am told what and when to eat, when to rest, shower, lights out etc. I admit, my surroundings are clean and calming but the feelings experienced are one of being in confined quarters, locked inside and of being punished. The nursing and auxiliary staff in all of these clinics are of quality but the problem is that they are clinics and the purpose is to get you to a state of reasonable health. They are not equipped to help you to deal with the devastating thoughts, terrors, flashbacks, nightmares and emotions that I experience 24 hours a day. It is true that I need to change my behaviours, in particular my relationship with food but I need someone at the same time to manage the horrors of PTSD and the anxiety of losing the only sense of control I believe I have left. I need a degree of monitoring my medical stats as well as a nutritionist, a psychiatrist and a psychologist to work through the trauma issues. In addition to this I need to learn who I am, how to enjoy things, to not be afraid of everyone and everything and to socialise and meet people who are not other patients. I need to learn to live without fear because right now just walking down the road to buy the newspaper is a most daunting task. I need support to shop and cook and supervision to eat because food frightens and overwhelms me. I need confidence that I will have this assistance 24 hours a day for as long as it takes be it a year or two. I need trained carers who understand the difficulties of this illness and of the trauma that has put me in this position.

My identity has become this eating disorder now and without it, who am I? To give it up feels like I am being asked to live without my head! But I want and must be rid of it as it wants me dead and I want so desperately to live! My self-esteem, self-respect, self-worth and confidence is zero. I am an adult and therefore responsible for my future but I have no idea how to live in this world. I did begin a life long ago, before Anorexia, so I’m sure I can have a future but I need some intense help.

There are a few treatment facilities in Australia that I believe are better suited to adult long term sufferers. These are semi long term residential and holistic style programs which I believe would be of great assistance in turning my illness around. They are not however covered under insurance. My Parents are helping all they can, but I still need to raise funds to be able to stay long enough to be beneficial.

There is of course no guarantee that this will cure me but I know that I will soon die if I do not give it my all and I have never shied away from committing all my energy into trying any therapy in my quest for wellness. Due to the length of time I have had this illness and what it has done to my internal body I need this help now.