Eating Disorders Treatment

Experts See Hope on the Horizon for People with Eating Disorders

Rader Programs — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:32:53 +0000

Just four months after April Dunlap began dieting, her parents and doctor determined that she was losing too much weight. It was determined that she was suffering from anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder characterized by a refusal to maintain a healthy body weight. She was admitted to an eating disorders program and, within 10 days she was discharged after reaching a healthy weight.

April was able to nip her eating disorder in the bud. She was in and out of treatment before she could do any lasting harm to herself. Ms. Dunlap’s story is becoming refreshingly more common.

When singer Karen Carpenter died of anorexia-induced heart failure, the American public knew very little about eating disorders. Nearly 30 years later, experts see hopeful signs that more individuals who are struggling with eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia are getting the help that they so desperately need.

More often, experts are seeing patients seeking treatment in an eating disorder program long before their disease spirals into out of control, leading to heart or kidney failure, hospitalization and numerous relapses. More patients are seeking treatment early in the course of their disease. As such, they are recovering faster.

A recent government analysis found that hospitalizations for people whose primary diagnosis is an eating disorder have plummeted 23% between 2007-2008 and 2008-2009. This amounted to the first registered decline since 1999, when the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality began tracking such hospitalizations.

Statistics like this offer experts hope. “Any little movement is significant, and this is a pretty big one,” said William Encinosa, a senior economist who worked on the report.

Another source of optimism stems from surveys conducted by The National Eating Disorders Association, which reported that Americans are more familiar with anorexia nervosa and bulimia than they were 10 years ago. The fact that more people are aware of eating disorders, and their prevalence, has helped to remove the stigma attached to seeking eating disorders treatment.

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ANOREXIA NERVOSA: FEEDING TUBE DIET…LETS GO CRAZY.

Melissa DeHart - Former Patient/Alumni Coordinator — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:55:29 +0000

Ten years ago, I was in the ICU at a major medical center in Colorado. I can’t breathe and my hands are pinned down. One nurse is holding me down and the other two are trying to shove an NG tube down my nose. The pain is incredible, my throat is repelling it and my mind is doing the same. Thirty minutes later I am lying all alone with this thing up my nose and down my throat and can’t believe it has come down to this. I swore I would never ever take it this far, and yet here I am court ordered by a judge to be tube fed until my weight stabilizes.

This is a memory I don’t like. It’s shoved in the back of my mind somewhere in that place where uncomfortable recollections dwell. This actually happened to me 3 times, where I had become so sick that there was no other choice but to feed me with liquid supplements.

I wouldn’t swear that on anybody, so you can imagine the massive sense of relief I felt when I came to Rader Programs.

We do not believe in tube feeding anybody. Instead we try to instill healthy eating habits back for our patients, and help them establish a normal relationship back with food. This is what worked for me, not relying on something else to do my digesting.

So you can also imagine the horrification I felt when I saw an article about healthy young women having this done to them on purpose in an attempt to lose weight.

Excuse me?..I swore I couldn’t have been reading it right, but there in bold print it said the newest rage with brides to be is this thing called the ”K-E diet”. Forget cabbage soup and personal trainers, these women must be going crazy. They are having doctors, or should I say paying good money to have feeding tubes inserted into them. All in an attempt to shed some pounds and a few sizes before their weddings. They swear off food, and instead rely solely on a liquid supplement that is controlled.

These women put down their designer bags and instead tote around a fancy little sack of solution, which only delivers fats, proteins, and water into their stomachs.

They are drastically losing weight and might I say in probably one of the most unhealthiest, insane methods I have ever heard of. I seriously think the world is going nuts!

A normal person would find this quite disturbing, but for somebody who suffered with severe anorexia for half my life I find it disgusting!

I can’t even begin to say how wrong this is. How can we install a healthy body image for not only young girls, but for all women in general. We have tackled the emaciation on the runway. We have protested the airbrushed model on the magazine. We have walked and spoken and gone to congress to fight the ever growing epidemic of men and women starving themselves to get thin.

What’s next? Why don’t people purposefully give themselves Aids, or Cancer? That would make you lose weight really fast. I know, why don’t we start inserting tape worms into people, or some other sort of parasite.

I just find that with all of the knowledge people have these days, they really really act stupid.

These women are only using this as a quick fix, and anybody knows that as soon as they start to eat again, their body will put the weight back on.

This is really dangerous territory, because when a woman starts to lose and gain weight like that, obsessive thoughts and extreme weight control methods could evolve.

To me this is playing with fire, and I wonder how many of these young women will develop eating disorders if they haven’t already have because of it?

All I have to say is that it has taken me 17 years to finally realize that a healthy lifestyle is the key to success. If a woman is confident with who she is, she doesn’t have to take such desperate measure to try to change herself.

Millions of men and women die because of an Eating Disorder. People need to realize that this disease eats stuff like this up, and grows bigger and bigger because of it.

As far as I am concerned this should be illegal. Doctors should lose their licenses for doing it. These people are GOING MENTAL and should have their heads checked.

This isn’t a K-E diet this is a B-S diet and I hope people realize that things like this contribute to men and women having to RIP.

PRINCE–LETS GO CRAZY ARSENIO HALL SHOW

Prince – Let’s Go Crazy / Kiss [Live] by Vilosophe

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Eating Disorders and the Media: Brandy Suffered From an Eating Disorder

Rader Programs — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:44:01 +0000

Back in the 90s Brandy Norwood (better known simply as Brandy) appeared to be on top of the world. She had hit records and was the star of her own sitcom, UPN’s Moesha. Though the show was instrumental in promoting Brandy’s R&B music career, it also placed her in front of millions of viewers each week, making her one of the most recognizable teenagers in the world. The pressure to look thin mounted, as Brandy recently revealed in an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music.

During Brandy’s tenure on Moesha she learned a hurtful lesson: when you are a teen celebrity, the public expects you to look thin at all times. The pressure to conform to the media’s perception of perfection led Brandy to drastic measures that are familiar to many young women.

“I wanted to be so thin.” the singer revealed. “So I started not taking care of myself — not eating properly, not eating at all, diet pills, regurgitating, and all those things that girls do.”

The fact that Brandy sees eating disordered behavior as “those things that girls do” is saddening, but it also speaks to our culture. It is far too common for young women to feel pressured into adopting extreme measures in order to fit into the mold of a skinny teenager.

Though Brandy is a mother now and—barring her recent new duet with Monica—she has largely retreated from the spotlight, the singer and actresses’ candor on Behind the music will hopefully raise awareness to the fact that no young women are immune to eating disorders, even if they are celebrities.

“People don’t understand that being the hottest star or making the most money does not mean anything.”

It would be nice if we could look back upon the waif-thin ideal of beauty, prevalent in the late nineties as gruesomely outdated. However, models are still as thin as always and often made to look even thinner with computer graphics. Perhaps celebrities like Brandy and Demi Lovato revealing that they had an eating disorder will help young women realize the price that many teen idols pay to appear “perfect”.

Eating Disorders Treatment brought to you by RaderPrograms.com

Is Facebook Fueling Weight Obsession Disorders?

Dr. Jonathan Rader — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:39:57 +0000

If spending time on Facebook is causing you to have a negative perception of your body, you are apparently not alone. A new study from an Eating Disorders program in Maryland has determined that Facebook is fueling a culture of weight obsession.

The study surveyed 600 Facebook users between the ages of 16 and 40. More than half of those surveyed admitted that Facebook makes them more self-conscious about their bodies and weight. Some of those with the most negative feelings toward Facebook were men, which goes against the perception that only women obsess over their weight. While more women admitted to wanting to lose weight than men, twice as many men had posted negative Facebook comments about their bodies.

One of the study’s architect’s, told TechNewsDaily that Facebook makes people more continually aware of their appearance. “A common reaction is, ‘I need to be thinner’. And it’s that kind of thinking that can lead to Hazardous dieting.”

When people are feeling self-conscious about their looks, many people can avoid scales and mirrors. However, Facebook since Facebook is ubiquitous in our society, it’s getting harder to avoid. In fact, Facebook’s new timeline feature makes it easier than ever to compare the way you look now to the way you looked several years ago. The results can be disparaging and cause people to obsess about their weight, in hopes of looking the way they did earlier in their timeline.

The increasing prevalence of smart phones with cameras are making it more and more likely that when someone goes out, pictures of them will end up tagged in their timeline.

Facebook is fueling a mentality where one always has to be ready for the cameras. People look at Facebook before important public events and choose not to go. Instead, they compare themselves with their former selves and determine that they don’t look good enough.

It seems highly plausible that Facebook can fuel serious eating disorders, a fact that is alarming considering that photo sharing social media sites seem to only be getting more and more popular.

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EATING DISORDERS….THE SMALLER THE APPETITE, THE BIGGER THE VICTIM.

Melissa DeHart - Former Patient/Alumni Coordinator — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:19:54 +0000

There was a time believe it not when MTV aired music videos, and not programs about teenagers who were conceiving. As a matter of fact when I was growing up the show would not be called 16 and pregnant, but “Oh my god, my life is screwed.”

Today however it’s just considered normal. Our younger generation has completely lost its innocence. There seems to be no childhoods anymore, just very early adulthood.

The pressure to be thin and beautiful is now being pounded into the heads and shoved into the faces of our little girls and boys.

Forget girl-scouts, sleep overs, and Friday night dances. Say hello to low body image,low self-esteem, and full blown anorexia and bulimia.

It just makes me sick how many calls I get from parents looking to get treatment for their daughters who are between the ages of 10 and 17.

At those ages you shouldn’t be even worrying about diets, fat cells, and designer sizes. However it can not help but be noticed how many children and teenagers are developing eating disorders.

Nearly half of this nation’s little girls are unhappy with their bodies. It has been recently reported by the Centers for disease control, that ten out of every hundred American girls have eating disorders, and more than 50 percent of today’s teenagers are on diets or using some sort of unhealthy ways to control their weight.

Who can blame them, just look at what they are up against.

Society has nobody to blame but themselves. Thin and beautiful is plastered, stamped, and tattooed on every single magazine cover. Air brushed models and actresses all promoting to the world that in order to be successful in this world you have to weigh a size 2.

Little girls are growing up in a world where a woman isn’t noticed for what she can do, but more of what she weighs.

We have stopped teaching them to be individuals, and more of how to go with the mainstream.

Unfortunately I relate all to well. I myself was raised in a household that focused on the body and not the brains. I was dieting by the age of 13 and can’t name a year after that I wasn’t obsessed with numbers on the scale and tags on the inside of my jeans.

Teenage girls are the most vulnerable, and the rules and regulations older woman have created for themselves have seeped it’s way slowly into the minds of our adolescents.

Little girls come in all shapes and sizes and if they are not the size that has been deemed acceptable by what they see on a billboard, it will severely start to effect their sense of self and inner worth.

This epidemic is spreading like wildfire, and I certainly see no action being taken by reality TV shows, the red carpet, or the runway.

Turn on the TV and you enter into a world of Botox, lip injections, tummy tucks, and breast augmentation.

Little girls are being taught that if they don’t like something about their bodies, it an be nipped, tucked, sucked, or plucked.

Little girls no longer want to be doctors or lawyers, they want to be that girl in the reality TV show who looks like Malibu Barbie.

Girls are very observant of their mothers, and if their mothers start acting crazy with their weight and food, chances are their daughters will too.

I am sorry to say that if we don’t start teaching little girls not to play with matches, they are going to start a full blown fire.

Teach them that it’s not about what you look like but who you are, and it’s not about who you aspire to look like but who you aspire to be. Its all about making a difference, and not making an appearance. It’s about letting little girls be little girls, and teaching them there will be plenty of time to be a woman.

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE–OLIVE’S ICE CREAM

Olive’s Ice Cream

Little Miss Sunshine

— MOVIECLIPS.com

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EATING DISORDER RECOVERY—-WHEN ARE YOU JUST GOING TO HAVE SOME FUN?

Melissa DeHart - Former Patient/Alumni Coordinator — Thu, 10 May 2012 10:43:14 +0000

When was the last time you let loose? When was the last time you let your hair down? When was the last time you went on a road-trip? When was the last time you painted you toes red or wore a sexy little black dress? When was the last time you baked something for just you?

When was was the last time you went to the beach and put your toes in the sand? When was the last time you wore red lipstick just to go buy milk? When was the last time you told somebody off, because they were in the wrong? When was the last time you turned your phone off? When was the last time you stopped to smell the roses?

When was the last-time you twirled?

When was the last time you told your boyfriend you loved him? When was the last time you went shopping for a fabulous pair of shoes? When was the lastime you called in sick to work,even though you only were just sick of work? When was he time you called a friend..not back, but just because? When was the last time you sent somebody flowers?

When was the last time you went to Vegas?…oh sorry I forgot what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas. When was the last time you kept a secret? When was the last time you hid your favorite treat in the back of the fridge so nobody can find it? When was the time you yelled at somebody and then went back and told them you were wrong?

When was the last time you ordered take-out” because cooking…come on? Speaking of, when was the last time the best thing you made was reservations? When was the last time you offered to pay the bill?..and he gave you a look…like come on…but hey you offered.

When was the last time you watched the Notebook and then cried at the end.

When was the last time you watched Sixteen Candles and then laughed?

When was the last time you had tea, because coffee just wasn’t appealing?

When was the time you told somebody you loved them, and when was the last time somebody told you they loved you? When was the last time you didn’t use spell check, and actually did your own math?

When was the last time you stuck your whole hand down a box of Lucky Charms just to get the prize?

When was the last time you tore a tag of a pillow, and then got a little paranoid?

When was the last time you went on a blind date?

When was the last time you had a midnight snack?

When was the time you baked some toll house cookies and told everybody else you baked them from scratch?

When was the last time you cuddled with your kids?

When was the last time you stopped keeping up with the Kardasians?

When was the last time you worked like you didn’t need the money, danced like nobody was watching, and lived as though Heaven where on Earth?

When was the last time you stopped reading a silly blog to actually take all this advice and and go dance around your house in your underwear?

TOM CRUISE RISKY BUSINESS—UNDERWEAR DANCE

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Recovering from an Eating Disorder: Take Flight or Prepare to Stand By

Melissa DeHart - Former Patient/Alumni Coordinator — Thu, 10 May 2012 09:44:38 +0000

I always have always been able to run long distances. It’s something I used to hate, but have actually learned to love. The key to running distance, is you have to keep a good pace. You can’t try to run really hard, as you will tire too fast, you can’t run really slow or you will lag behind or get bored. Once a runner gets in his or her zone, they are actually able to stay there, and this is what I believe is called endurance.

I truly think the same is for somebody in recovery from any addiction or quite frankly just a not so good point in your life. When you decide to lace up your shoes, instead of just talking about it, is when you know this is serious. This is no skip, no frolic in the forest, no 50 yard dash, no false starts. This is the real thing, and quite honestly I am here to tell you once you start, and I mean really start, no matter how much you want to, you can never turn back.

That can be really scary for a lot of people. To actually commit to the race. The race that if run correctly can take you to places beyond your belief. That’s why I always ended up going nowhere, is because for a really long time I wasn’t serious about running. I was not even walking or crawling for that matter…I wanted to run, but I had lost the use of both my legs.

It’s easy to stand still, and it’s even easier to fall back. There is no finish line in the past, and you are not going to succeed at anything by taking constant steps in that direction. I know from experience, that you also are not going to get anywhere if every time you start to get a little tired, you sit down and just plain give up.

Recovery takes “endurance” it takes getting in your zone and not letting anything stand in your way.

People ask me all the time how I keep my head above water and I will tell you one thing..it all boils down to consistency. I am consistent with being in a good place, and although I may get tired and have to chug some water , or take a couple of deep breaths, or even slow it down a bit, I never turn back, and I never stop running.

I knew when I was ready to get better that I had to commit, I knew I had to face every single fear, every single obstacle, every single hurdle that was standing in my way. I knew I had to take “try” out of my vocabulary, and replace it with “do”. I knew I had to stop seeing myself as a damn Nike commercial, and actually become that Nike commercial.

Starting something is easy, keeping it up is the hard part.

At first its exciting. You are all pumped up, your muscles are fresh, your mind is sharp, your breath is steady. That gun goes off in our head, and what happens so often is we start running way too fast, only to tire very quickly. We realize..”hey wait a second..I don’t like this very much..this is harder than I thought..I think I’ll just stop running and slowly walk on back to my miserable little life.” Perhaps maybe you don’t even do that and just plop yourself down in the middle of the track while everybody else in the world continues to run by you.

For seventeen years I would do exactly those two things, and after awhile the only thing I was tired at was failing.

When I finally had had enough, I quickly realized the key to my success was going to be finding my “pace”, finding my zone.

I had to find that place where I wasn’t too comfortable and I wasn’t too tired.

It’s tough as anything, and believe me sometimes I really want to just take a little break. However, I know just one little break might just be enough to either slow me down considerably, or make me stop running all together. This is a chance I am not willing to take, as I do not want to have to hitch a ride back to Hell.

No matter how tough it gets, and believe me it will, you have to push through it. Believe me at first it’s the hardest as your mind is not used to flexing. It will cramp, it will get tired, it will feel withered and deflated. However after time, after you just keep running, your mind starts to grow stronger. It starts to feel powerful, it starts to feel determined, it gets in its zone.

Endurance, Consistency, and Determination. Those three things are all required in order for you to find that zone.

My only advice, is to not give up, to not sit down, and to never ever give up.

Whenever I start to feel tired, I think of that scene in “Chariots of Fire”, where they are all running on the Beach. The music combined with just the purity of those athletes who desire nothing less than to feel that sense of freedom underneath the soles of their feet. I honestly feel that man does not run for the win, he runs for the want.

There is actually no finish line when it comes to recovery. There isn’t going to be a point where you just stop, splash some gatorade on your face, collect a medal, and are done. Nope, take it from an experienced runner, that this is a race is one you will run for the rest of your life. However, that being said, once you do find your mojo, your rhythm, your pace and your zone, I promise you will never ever ever wanna stop!

CHARIOTS OF FIRE–OPENING SCENE

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EATING DISORDER TREATMENT….THE PRINCESS AND THE PROGRAM

Melissa DeHart - Former Patient/Alumni Coordinator — Wed, 09 May 2012 23:29:40 +0000

I’ll never forget the first time I was looking into eating disorder treatment. I was about 27 and didn’t have a clue what to do.
I had denied the fact that I needed help for 5 years, despite that I knew deep down inside I was pretty screwed up.

Choosing treatment to me wasn’t based on anything else except the fact that I was trusting wherever I went the people knew what they were doing. I was trusting they could make my problem go away.
Back then I wasn’t connecting that my problem with food was connected to my feelings. I simply thought I had no self control, no power, and was weak to the forces that were my disorder.

I did end up going somewhere that quite honestly was not a place somebody in my state should have gone. I ‘m not bashing the program, but their way of doing things was based more on treating somebody with alcoholism and drug addiction.

My eating disorder took control, and I ended up going AWOL my second month, scaling a fence, and hitching it to the nearest Burger King.

After that I was thrown into a plethora of various treatment centers. I was in some of what was considered some of the best, and I was in what is considered what you would consider the worst.
I have to say that honestly neither one of them mattered, because all of them were lacking one thing…my desire to get better.

It honestly didn’t really matter where I was at when I decided to throw in the towel, for obvious reasons I am really glad that place was Rader, because once I was ready to let go I knew I would. That being said, I also think that being in a place that doesn’t make your disease softer by making it comfy is pretty essential.

I think it’s kind of interesting these days, quite honestly this is purely by observation, that treatment is being treated like getting into an Ivy league school or going to a spa.

I know girls whose parents based their treatment program off of who else was in the program with them. Basically was the majority of the patient populated educated, young, nice.
They examined program after program with a fine tuned comb, touring the grounds of each facility,not even really taking into consideration of how their daughters really felt.

I know other patients who have taken a different route and somewhat based their decisions off of accommodations and luxuries.

Was there a pool, massages, personal chef? Were the towels fluffy, could they bring their pet poodles,how often were shopping visits to Saks 5th Avenue?

I don’t know whether to sit back and laugh, or go take a gallon of pepto-bismo.

Treatment is not an excuse for your disease to get a facials time for your disease to get it’s face slapped.

It’s not getting into Princeton, it’s getting your act together.
I understand people want to be comfortable, but if you want to go to a four star hotel, I hear the Waldorf Astoria is lovely.

I think that there is also a fine line. You don’t want to be getting treatment in the slums of Beverly Hills.

You honestly have to look at it like boot camp.
When a soldier is going through boot camp they don’t treat him fancy.

They don’t do their dry cleaning and serve them butter cookies.

Why?? because they know that the harder they push a recruit the harder he or she will perform.

That’s what treatment should be like, and I don’t think you have to go to any extreme, but you do have to take away any kind of anything that will distract you from working on yourself.

When I was on TV they threw all that at me while I was in a program. I had a DVD player in my room, a personal chef, my personal microwave, an espresso machine.

Ya…well ask all those producers where that got me and them. It totally backfired and it made my desire to stay sick sink in deeper.

You can sugarcoat a lemon, but it still won’t take out the sour.

So if you are indeed looking for treatment, or looking at one for your son and daughter, I don’t recommend basing your choice on one with all the trimmings. Instead focus on what they have to offer at the core of their program. Are they dedicated to their patients, do they provide the necessary structure, will they make you focus on the problem at hand and get to the bottom of what is really going on.

I know for me Rader programs did that for me, and yes I may be bias, but I have good reason to be. If they wouldn’t have pushed and shoved me towards my recovery I would have never gotten where I am today.

Just color yourself Goldilocks and go for a program that isn’t too hot or isn’t too cold, go for a program that is ”just right.”

FULL METAL JACKET–KICK ASS MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peRA28m9uzY

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FAMILY AND EATING DISORDERS–WHOEVER SAID BLOOD WAS THICKER THAN WATER WAS NOT RELATED TO ME.

Melissa DeHart - Former Patient/Alumni Coordinator — Mon, 07 May 2012 18:11:23 +0000

I was driving to work today, and I saw something that gave me a quick flashback of my childhood. It was a station wagon, and in the back were 3 little girls. My two younger sisters and I spent more time in the back of my Mom’s Blue Ford Station wagon then I can remember.

I didn’t have a dad growing up so my Grandfather was the one who looked over our safety and finances. He bought my mother that car, so she would be safe. Well let me tell you, that thing was the size of the Titanic, and it could have probably hit an iceberg and lived to tell about it.

It was the most god awful looking thing you have ever seen, and as I grew older I began to loathe it, and die of embarrassment every time I got in it. I think I spent my whole junior high years in the fetal position in the back seat.

However it tickled me to think back to those times, but after that came a sharp pain. A pain that I try to avoid, but cannot as it haunts me everywhere I go. It is the pain knowing that I don’t have my grandparents anymore coated with the fact that I have very little connection to my immediate family.

Here I am driving to work, Melissa DeHart..the daughter, granddaughter, sister, and niece who was one step away from the grave, and now I am on my way to a full time job, in California, in a brand new Fiat, and most importantly a healthy weight and in full-blown Recovery.

I am so grateful for my life, and there is a little chunk of me who wishes my family could see me now and recognize my achievements.

I have worked so hard to get where I am at, and on top of that have completely transformed myself as a person.

I think I would be a pretty awesome daughter, sister, and niece these days, and it’s a shame none of that can see that.

So at his point in my blog, I already have huge tears in my eyes, and giant lump in my throat.

OK, so silly isn’t that just writing a few words like that can make a big girl who isn’t supposed to cry crumble.

I know there is part of me that should just let it go, appreciate what I have, but sorry sometimes …IT JUST SUCKS.

They live in the past and I live in the future…I really wish they would just hurry up and join this Century.

It’s not the year 2000 anymore, I don’t look like a medical cadaver anymore people.

I am not starving myself anymore, my head isn’t down the toilet, I haven’t been at the gym for 6 hours.

I am not lying to you, stealing from you, or screaming horrible things to your face.

I know it’s hard to forgive and forget, and I don’t expect that.

What I wish for my family is that they would give up on the hope that the past can be changed.

I just don’t see how a father can see his two other daughters, but have nothing to do with his first born.

The one who’s middle name is his, whose eyes are his, and who shares his same overly sensitive personality.

I also don’t see how a mother can completely ban her daughter from her life, all based on the fact that I don’t share her same point of view on weight and food anymore, and that I don’t want to be part of her religious faith.

I don’t know how I was not wanted at my little sister’s wedding by certain family members, so I didn’t get to go, and how she just gave birth to two sweet little baby girls, and I have yet to meet them.

This all is stuff I stuff, it’s stuff I bury away, because if I try to think about it I get very sad.

I will also tell you that a lot of people are in the same boat as me, and although it’s not a very pretty one when it comes to this, it is something that sometimes we just can’t control.

Just because you change, other people do not.

You cannot control anyone else’s behavior but your own.

That being said, I don’t use it as an excuse to act out in my eating disorder. I don’t starve myself, or stick my head down the toilet anymore to numb the pain. I have accepted the facts as they are, and all I care about is moving on with my future, and not living in the past anymore.

I don’t feel sorry for myself, but I do feel sorry for my family that they can’t see what a cool person I actually turned out to be.

JOHN MAYER–DAUGHTERS

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EATING DISORDERS AND TREATMENT…..ANOREXICS GONE WILD.

Melissa DeHart - Former Patient/Alumni Coordinator — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:12:16 +0000

~There was a little girl, who had a little curl smack in the middle of her forehead, and when she was good she was very very good, but when she was bad she was horrid.~

I was severely into my eating disorder for 17 years and when I wasn’t skadoodaling around like a crazy girl, I was in and out of many various treatment centers and hospitals. I think If you added them all up it would be well into the hundreds. I am also quite notorious in almost all of them for being one of the most difficult patients in the universe.

See just because you go to get help doesn’t mean you are going to take it.

For years and years treatment was just a place I went to drive doctors, nurses, orderlies, and kitchen staff bonkers.

I can’t think of one treatment center except Rader that I didn’t raise havoc in.

I spent most of my time figuring out how to manipulate staff, lie to them, hide from them, and basically show them very little respect.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people got close to me as well,because when I wasn’t being Melissarexic, I was being Melissasweet, Melissafunny, and Melissainnocent.

When I was at my sickest they hired somebody to be with me 24/7 sometimes and so I became very attached to my babysitters.

I did however probably cause many a person to lose there hair or go into rehab themselves after dealing with me.

I would scale counters and steal my records, I would hoard all the equal, salt, mustard, any condiments I could. Anorexics love to hoard these..a.because we are starving, and b..because they control it by only giving you a few. Anorexics hate to be controlled, we rebel against it. I once walked into the kitchen of one of the places I was at, and when they weren’t looking walked out with a Costco sized box of like 400 Equal packets. To this day I bet there are still some hidden in the room I was in. I had become the master of deceit, and I loved it.

I could hide a whole turkey down my pants without somebody seeing it.

I could look you in the eye and swear up and down I wasn’t cheeking my meds, while 6 xanax were hiding behind my tongue.

They would take something away, and I would somehow manage to come up with another.

I had friends smuggling me in Tylenol P.M, and other contraband.

I got kicked out of several places for going into other patients rooms and just taking stuff.

I was so out of it at that weight, half the time I didn’t even know what I was doing, but none of it was good.

I would find a way to binge and purge. Stealing other peoples food, hoarding my own, or bribing somebody to give it to me.

Once I for some reason got a hold of some coffee grounds and was literally brewing coffee in my bathtub.

I got kicked out for stealing 2 boxes of laxatives on an outing to Target.

I ran away several times, sending people out on wild goose chases for a crazy skinny ass white chick.

I got kicked out for non-compliance, reckless behavior, and a danger to others.

OK..OK..before somebody freaks out and starts throwing the word “trigger” around I for the record am saying this behavior is not acceptable.

Treatment is a place to get better not to stay sick.

I am by no means proud of this, and if anything look at is an example of what not to become.

Treatment isn’t a place to just go and become a chameleon, adapt to your environment and then live in your eating disorder.

That’s what drives me crazy now. I see so many people come into treatment and all they do is play games.

It’s pretty hard to bullshit a bullshitter…see I wrote the book on bad.

I can see what you are doing before you even do it, and that’s why some patients don’t like it when I work. I ‘ll put them on blast when they start mixing peanut butter with their green beans or disecting their turkey sandwich into tiny tiny pieces. I’m like “hey would you do that on a date”. They look at me and don’t know what to say.

Sorry but treatment is an effort to get you healthy again, not to help you stay sick.

If you continue to try to take back all the control, fight the system, and be non compliant then why are you here?

If you lie in bed all day and play Sudoku, or Facebook instead of going to your groups, again, why are you here?

I call treatment “dress rehearsal for real life”. This is your opportunity to take back your life, and you have so many people there to help you on your journey.

I am not going to massage your disease. I love my patients, but I am tough, because I know what it was like to get away with being sick.

Hey I am like “Mother Theresa with combat boots on”. When you are in treatment, it’s time to “build a bridge and get over it.”

If you are in treatment, ask yourself, do I really want to be here? Am I willing to work hard and push through the pain?..am I going to let go of the control? Do I want to really get better?

If you answered no to any of those questions then I would say go home until you have a yes to all of them.

The best advice I ever received was right before I came to Rader Programs. My caseworker , who is now a great friend of mine told me..”Melissa you know everything in the world there is to know about Anorexia and Bulimia, but you know jackshit about being a patient. Why don’t you try being that for a change.”

And the rest is history…bottaboombottabang!

GIRL INTERRUPTED–LISA

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