My first day on an Eating Disorder Ward...
A baptism of fire would be one way to describe it… whilst I was being moved to another ward, one girl had to be force-fed, and a second girl was in hysterics, frantically attempting to crack the door code to escape. On this locked ward I was confronted with scenes of desperate people, all with one thing in common, Anorexia Nervosa.
After hours of tears I had to face up to the reality that there was no way out, no more negotiating, nothing had convinced my parents to take me back home, they had left, and I must simply get on with it. I was taken to a room to try and calm down. A nurse sat with me and explained that I needed to complete my menu for the day. As I had spent so long in such a state I missed morning snack, so first up was lunch. A delightful choice of a tuna coleslaw sandwich, cheese sandwich or a jacket potato with cottage cheese/coleslaw. Side salad, or a piece of fruit, and pudding. So ‘thick and creamy yoghurt’ it was, as it seemed the lesser of two evils. The other being a crème caramel.
It took me so long to decide what to have that before I knew it, I was being escorted (quite literally) to the lift, to get downstairs to the dining room. I’d not yet earned my stair pass you see; I soon learnt that one has to reach certain goals in order to be granted that luxury. Downstairs, there were two tables set aside for the eating disorder patients (the rest were there for addiction). One was called the transition table, where patients had proved they would eat so were granted permission to do so without a nurse watching their every mouthful. The other was the acute table, where all food was simply placed in front of you and the nurses sat ensuring every morsel was eaten in the time limit and without engaging in any disordered behaviours.
There were five of us patients on the acute table, and I remember as the plates were unwrapped everyone’s eyes darted about, analysing whose plate had more or less on, and subsequent bickering with nurses about said “uneven portion sizes” would ensue. As the nurses would have none of it, the silent terror would resume. The staff would try to make light-hearted conversation, but we were all too consumed in anorexia’s dismay to reciprocate. My first meal consisted of a cheese sandwich, a banana and that ‘thick & creamy’ yoghurt (rank). I can’t help but laugh at my naivety now, as I had never liked crusts, so I left them and moved onto the banana, only for the nurse to quickly prompt me to “eat those bits too”. I actually thought I could get away with leaving what I didn’t want. Nope, not in here Mima! I quickly learnt that preferences no longer existed, to them you lost that privilege when you were admitted.
After a few hiccups, lunch was completed, and back onto the ward I went where I was told my consultant wanted to see me. My consultant, well I won’t go into that… but let’s just say we did not see eye to eye in the slightest. Another nurse escorted me across the hospital to her large office, “What was this morning all about? I hear you had a complete tantrum as if it was your first day at nursery”… empathy was something this lady clearly lacked. I sat silently as she went through my history and the plan she proposed for me. I very quickly learnt that my opinion was of no interest to her. It was 3pm, snack time, so she quickly wrapped things up, reminding the nurse that I needed a ‘double snack’ as I missed my morning one due to my ‘tantrum’.
I went back to the ward seething, drank the tepid hot chocolate, ate the nutragrain bar, and sat waiting for the next feeding time to roll around. The ward was basically empty as the rest of the patients had gone out for snack, this I soon learnt, was another privilege I had to earn.
A lady came and talked me through my ‘Transition Therapy Programme’, a daily timetable that was said to consist of ‘mindfulness & relaxation’, ‘art therapy’ and so on. This was before the second alarm of the day went off, as a patient in the garden had absconded, requiring extra staff to intervene. I was quickly shut in a room on the acute ward, alarms going, and panic racing, as no one had told me what all these alarms mean. Shortly after this supper rolled around. The same routine as at lunch followed, though this was even worse as I had to have my ‘main meal’ and ‘main dessert’. A mountain of unseasoned green beans and chunky tomato pasta was put in front of me. Again, I stupidly thought I had a choice, so left the chunks of tomato and beans only to be threatened with fortisip if I failed to eat it all.
Just when I thought the day couldn’t get any worse, ‘poached pear pudding‘ arrived. FML.
After each meal/snack we had ‘supervision’ which was essentially where we all had to sit in the lounge, reading, doing word searches, anything, in an attempt to distract from the guilt that inevitably followed each meal/snack. Meanwhile, the nurses did obs where they would write down exactly what we were doing at the time. This lasted for an hour after each meal, and half an hour after each snack. No one could go to the loo or anything. Eventually 7:00pm arrived, and my dad was here to collect (save) me. When I saw him I instantly burst into tears, they wouldn’t stop falling all the way home. This happened every night for the weeks that followed. Only for the same to be endured the next day…
