Inpatient

Can anyone speak to having been referred to inpatient care or of having actually gone to inpatient?
My T is suggesting this, rather, really trying to get me to go, and I'm really resisting.
Just curious if anyone can speak to their experience. Also, did you think/believe it was bad enough to need it?
I feel like going inpatient is making a really big deal out of my behaviors.
I'm just looking for an alternate perspective.
Thanks

Hello NoddaProbBob: I'm sure my experience isn't what you had in mind. I've been involuntarily committed to the psych units of 2 different hospitals. Personally I never felt that either one did me any good in the end. But that's just my personal perspective. I would imagine there are other people who could offer a different view. Since you would be going in on a voluntary basis, presumably to a program designed to treat eating disorders, this might make a difference. Could you, perhaps, visit the program you might go to & learn more about what they do? This might help you to decide if inpatient treatment might be useful for you. Good luck!

I was 42 when my anorexia got so bad I lost more weight than was safe to loose. My pdoc at the time got me into an inpatient treatment center 100+ miles away from home over Thanksgiving & Christmas & through New Years that year. Honestly for me it was useless. I didn't totally understand why but I knew that the psychologist that was working with me had a preconceived notion of what anorexia was caused by & tried to convince me that was what was wrong with me. I had major depression, suicide attempts & honestly at that point I just wanted to die.....it had NOTHING to do with body image but that's all they work with......no underlying issues as to what caused the anorexia in the first place. It was a TOTAL waste of my time. For the next several years, I was in & out of the medical hospital treated with a central line & IV nutrition just to keep me alive which I really didn't want in the first place.

Somehow I managed to get through that & about 9 years later, anorexia hit again. It started with an asthma attack from a forest fire smoke then my Mom was dying of cancer & I went through a trauma with the home care person who abused my mother & threatened me. I had gained too much weight after the first time with anorexia & I lost all but a few pounds of what I had gained. I was put back in the medical hospital & again given IV nutrition. My MD & pdoc wanted me to go inpatient to a treatment center again. This time I understood what had triggered the anorexia. I called around to find out of any ED treatment center would treat anorexia that had been triggered by a trauma & left me with PTSD & the stress of it all had caused the anorexia to kick in again. There wasn't an inpatient treatment center that said that it could handle what was causing me to have the anorexia so I graciously told my MD & Pdoc that there were no qualified centers around that could treat me & explained exactly why. I didn't waste my time going or even trying to go to any of those places that said they couldn't help in the first place. It took 4 years to recover to a safe weight again after all I had gone through.

The thing is for me.....stress triggers the anorexia & then when I start loosing weight, I want to keep loosing weight almost addictively.....but it has nothing to do with body image though I love being thin when I get to the lower weight & be becomes difficult to stop loosing.

There may be some really good treatment facilities, but it depends of what the causes & the triggers of your ED are as to whether you will truly get any help out of them or not.

I find the treatment centers totally lacking because they don't even try to really find the underlying reasons for the problem in the first place. Refeeding doesn't help if you don't get to the bottom of the problem in the first place......it's like sticking your finger in a leak in a dam. Most of the time there is past abuse or past traumas that have brought the person to the place of the ED in the first place & they don't seem to care about even getting you to think or deal with the real issues. You can force a person to refeed but if they go home & back into the same environment......all the refeeding in the world isn't going to help the anorexia or ED.

So that's my experience with my anorexia treatment.

OK, I have since learned on my own that I grew up in a totally dysfunctional home with dysfunctional parents & then married a guy who I have just found out had Asperger's.....33 years of a bad marriage that was nothing but constant fighting. As soon as I left & moved far away from H & got a life of my own, the ED is now under control & I'm neither gaining nor loosing. I am able to sit at a healthy weight. My environment was the contributing factor to my anorexia big time & no one wanted to address those serious issues because they didn't seem serious to them....afterall my H was a NICE person & they seriously weren't capable of dealing with the PTSD I was dealing with after the trauma I went through with the home care person......all the important issues that needed to be dealt with for the ED to come under control.

My old t used to pressure me into going inpatient. I refused. Then eventually, i did go on my own.that made me wish i had gone years earlier when i had the chance. I wasted too many years of my life sick.

I went inpatient not for anorexia but for bulimia 5 1/2 years ago. It was not my decision; I was 17 at the time and my parents made the decision and I fought it every step of the way. I now see that my lack of influence was a blessing in disguise. I was so caught up in my addiction, depressed, and ashamed that I felt like hiding rather than reaching out for help.

Going to the treatment center permitted me to be happy again and be able to focus on other things. All that energy that was being devoted to the bulimia - mentally and physically - became available to me to do with as I chose. I wish you the best; you can find freedom from anorexia, even if that means reaching out for some extra support.

Hi NoddaProbBob,

I would be happy to be a resource for you as I have been to many eating disorder treatment centers (inpatient through iop) all across the country. I have found inpatient "ed" treatment to be like any kind of inpatient treatment, it's triage, it's best for people who are severally physically compromised or very underweight or whose symptoms are so pervasive that they need 24/7 intense monitoring to stop. My experience and that of so many of my friends in recovery is that residential treatment is the most healing level. It usually involves a stay of approx. 30-90 days unlike a very quick inpatient hosp. It's still 24/7 care but there is a little more freedom and is usually in a more home-like environment. There is extensive individual and group therapy and a very structured schedule. There is a psychiatrist and a doc to manage med and physical symptoms. There is a nutritionist who leads groups and works individually to help you adjust to a meal plan. Sometimes there are even cooking groups to simulate the outside world. There are also outings and individual passes in residential to help you assimilate back into the real world slowly.

So depending on your situation, I would look into somewhere that offers multiple levels of care. Id be happy to advise you on specific centers and give you any more information on what treatment looks like. It helps me too, because I feel like everything I've gone through was for something.

Kindly,

runningonresilience

I almost dropped my iPad reading this, Eskie! I felt like you were describing me. I've never gone IP for my anorexia for the reasons you stated. I feel like I have a fair handle on it now and I know prolonged stress and trauma triggers it. So I just self-manage. My crumbling marriage to a narcissist started me on the ED path. That was a long time ago but stress and other traumas have me fighting my ED daily. It is a seductive, scary thing.

To the OP, I hope you get the help you need and we are here to support you. xo

I've been through the whole system- OP/IOP/PHP/RTC/IP multiple times.

I can say it is incredibly helpful and has saved my life. I've got a fair list of recommendations feel free to PM me.

I can also say it's easy to get stuck in the "revolving door" once entering anytime of residential or inpatient treatment. Not guaranteed but certainly easy to start seeking comfort in the space and safety of a residential environment. This is NOT to say that RTC/IP is detrimental, it's seriously what saved my life and was the catalyst in my recovery, but it does have it's down sides (though just similar to only staying OP and stuck in your ED...)

<3 Hugs <3

My therapist strongly pushed residential for about a year. I would do all the work to admit and set a date even and then back out. Now looking back I wish I would have gone. It would've been great to have that 24/7 monitoring to help me stop behaviors and have therapists and docs to help me get through the rough parts of stopping.

I've been in residential three times and Day hospital three times as well (and IOP four times). I agree it's easy to get stuck in the revolving door. My personal advice would be not to go until you're ready to commit to recovery - I think going half heartedly can cause the cycle of going in an out of treatment. Is there an IOP program available to you? You could be assessed to see if you're eligible for one, and then see if you should step up to more intensive treatment. It's definitely something worth exploring (all of it, including residential) - I do know several people who consider themselves fully recovered after residential/Day/IOP. I, myself, have definitely benefitted from some of my treatments, though only when I decided I was going to jump into it and actually do the work. I'm not recovered, but am at a better place than before treatment.