An Eater’s Agreement
Yesterday I turned 26. Being a pretty sentimental person, birthdays for me are always cause for reflection — I take stock of the last year, of the last decade, and of my life up to this point. I thought about where I was and what I was doing one year ago on my 25th birthday, just two months away from starting down the road to recovery (although I didn’t know that yet). I remember being on the train to Pennsylvania to visit my mother. I was reading the final pages of Carolyn Costin’s book 8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder. At the end of the book were examples from something Carolyn...
Read MoreBlue Cross Blue Shield Violates Mental Health Parity… Again
This week and yesterday in particular, I experienced a sudden upsurge in eating disorder thoughts. Their abrupt appearance frightened me — why, if I am doing well, is this terrible illness still a part of me? I made a plan to talk to my therapist later that night at treatment. Unfortunately, that never happened. Halfway through the day, my therapist called me to inform me that my insurance company, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, had denied any further treatment in the intensive outpatient program (IOP). The decision was going to a “doc to doc” session, in which the consulting...
Read More- Treatment Update 2: Hiatus -
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I returned to an intensive outpatient (IOP) treatment program at Monte Nido at the end of August. I had been starting to struggle again since finishing a different program at the end of June, so I felt I needed to return to an intensive program and pick up where I left off, rather than wait for things to get worse. It turns out that returning to IOP was exactly what I needed. The program at Monte Nido is phenomenal — the staff are genuine, the patients are motivated, and the environment as a whole is very positive and encouraging. One of the things I...
Read MoreWhat Does Recovery Feel Like?
“Recovery often seemed to us like the Polaris: We saw that it existed, and we kept our eyes fixed on its steady light, but no matter how long we trekked through the dark, it seemed to never draw closer.” It wasn’t the first time this worry had come up. On the verge of tears, Eileen confessed in group therapy this weekend that she was beginning to doubt she would ever recover from her long history of an eating disorder. She had been assured over and over again that recovery takes time, but all she felt was defeated. Much like the eating disorder, recovery is both a gradual...
Read More- Treatment Update -
I just wanted to give a quick update about the status of my return to treatment, since I wrote a couple days ago that I hadn’t had much luck. Fortunately, after a month of trying to get into a treatment program, I started the IOP program at Monte Nido last night. This is actually a really cool opportunity for me. It was a year ago that I read Carolyn Costin’s book 8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder (covered with newspaper so that I could read it on the subway to and from work). The book was pivotal for me, and ended up being what started me down the road to recovery. Not...
Read MoreI Went Through Treatment — Why Aren’t I Recovered?
I’ve been out of treatment for more than two months now. And yet it feels as though I’m no closer to recovery than I was this spring. My therapist and nutritionist have each in turn recommended different groups and programs to try — one of them being Anorexics and Bulimics Anonymous (ABA). I’m at my strongest when I’m among peers, they both reminded me — not isolated. I’ve attended other kinds of This-or-That Anonymous meetings, but I’ve never been able to connect with the ironclad 12-step model or the insistence on giving oneself over to a “higher power” (albeit, in...
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