Posts Tagged "stigma"

How Stigma Keeps Us Sick

Posted by on Oct 30, 2014 in Insurance Issues, Published Writings | 0 comments

How Stigma Keeps Us Sick

Stigma. It exists and it impacts all of us who are affected by mental illness. I’m sure this isn’t new information, but a reminder now and then about the dangers of stigma doesn’t hurt. Plus, I’m feeling rather irate after the week I’ve just had. As you might know from reading my last few posts, my battle against Blue Cross Blue Shield, thankfully, ended well. Ultimately, I got (mostly) what I needed: I was granted 10 more days in treatment. But it came at a cost. During my week without treatment, my eating disorder was constantly at my heels. In order to build my case...

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National Suicide Prevention Week: An Open Letter to a Survivor

Posted by on Sep 12, 2014 in ED Basics, EDs and the Media, Letters | 0 comments

National Suicide Prevention Week: An Open Letter to a Survivor

This week is the 2014 National Suicide Prevention Week. Suicide is a topic that has been hitting home lately, having experienced three brushes with suicide among friends and acquaintances this year, two of which were successful. Suicide is a difficult topic to talk about, because it spotlights what most of us try to run from — our mortality. For me, trying to fathom the literally unimaginable moment I cease to exist brings up something akin to horror. To then grapple with the startling truth that we each have the capacity (and occasionally the impulse) to deliberately launch ourselves into...

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Midway Through Recovery: What Do I Need?

Posted by on Aug 18, 2014 in ED Basics, My Story | 2 comments

Midway Through Recovery: What Do I Need?

Throughout recovery from an eating disorder, you need different things at different points of the process. Early on, your needs may be very concrete: you need encouragement during meals, regular check-ins with your support system, a shoulder for the copious tears that accompany recovery. I’ve always found it difficult to articulate my needs; it has been even more difficult to come up with an answer now that I’m here in the middle ground. My needs are less concrete now, because my task is to gradually take responsibility for my own recovery. I need to bring myself to follow my meal plan, even...

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Dispelling Eating Disorder Stereotypes

Posted by on Aug 5, 2014 in ED Basics, EDs and the Media, Published Writings | 0 comments

Dispelling Eating Disorder Stereotypes

White teenage female. Private school student in an upper middle-class suburb. Inveterate perfectionist. Anorexic. At age 14, I typified the so-called eating disorder stereotype. These illnesses have long been associated with middle- to upper-class young white women, even among the most sympathetic professionals. (Hilde Bruch, a pioneering eating disorder practitioner, said in her 1978 book The Golden Cage: The Enigma of Anorexia Nervosa that anorexia primarily affects girls raised in “privileged, even luxurious circumstances.”) Unfortunately, stereotypes still prevail, in part because eating...

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Part 2 — Insurance: The Greatest Barrier to Recovery

Posted by on Jun 20, 2014 in ED Basics, Insurance Issues, My Story, Published Writings | 0 comments

Part 2 — Insurance: The Greatest Barrier to Recovery

If I eat and gain weight, will I be considered “too healthy”? If I don’t eat and lose weight, will I be considered “noncompliant”? One reason why eating disorders are so difficult to treat is because, in addition to addressing symptoms, you must first convince the patient that he or she is actually sick. She might deny that she has any problem whatsoever with her eating habits and other behaviors. Or, even if she admits to struggling, she might insist that she is nowhere near as sick (i.e., as thin) as other patients. So, imagine the ED patient’s confusion and distress when, after...

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