Help Lucy get Eating Disorder help
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Hey everyone. My name is Lucy, and I'm making this today to ask for some help. I consider myself to be prideful and honestly embarrassed over these sorts of things but I'm exhausting my options so I figured I might as well try. Also, just to get it out of the way: I know I'm asking for a lot of money, and I don't expect to make it all... but it's better than not trying! On to my story:
I've been pretty much silently dealing with an eating disorder since I was a kid. I was really secretive about it, because I felt like I was defective/doing something wrong, and I didn't understand what was going on. When I was 17, I was diagnosed with EDNOS (also known as Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified - it's not a diagnosis anymore. Now it's called OSFED). This diagnosis later transformed into bulimia, then binge eating disorder, then anorexia nervosa, etc.. as you can see, it's been a vicious cycle. This cycle has been slowly destroying my body for some time now, and leaves me with 0 energy.
In late 2016, I was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa during an extremely dark time in my life. I was still keeping this secret and living away from my family and friends, so it was kind of easy to not tell anyone. I moved back home (also in late 2016) and made a huge effort to get better. The ups and downs were extreme, my weight fluctuating, my body malfunctioning. I didn't have health care for most of 2017.
In March 2017, a close friend of mine passed away, and then a string of deaths of people I knew and traumatic events sent me into a spiraling existential crisis. My depression got worse, and even though it's getting a bit better now, my eating disorder still thrives on my negative feelings.
I have been dealing with this for so long and I just want help and to heal.
Now... on to why I'm asking for so much money... lol
I live in Rhode Island, and eating disorder treatment is extremely limited. My local psychiatric hospital got rid of their eating disorder program. There's an outpatient program at a general hospital that I went to that actually made me worse and further into the rabbit hole of my ED. I am on medicaid and unemployed currently due to mental illness and physical inability to do much.
My medicaid options for hospitalization are extremely limited.. the few places that actually take medicaid either
1. Don't have the level of care I need (residential or live-in partial hospital program with apartments), only inpatient which will basically be around 2 weeks of care and then back to normal life.
2. I have read so many horror stories about. I can't bear to go... people getting their meds messed with so badly that they ended up in the hospital, employees violating HIPAA laws and posting about the patients on twitter, and force feeding to the point of patients vomiting involuntarily, then blaming it on bulimia and keeping them longer. Stuff like that. Just a million horrible one star reviews. For every single one I found....
So, all the amazing programs I found don't take medicaid.. typical. They want 30 days of payment for treatment UP FRONT the day of admission. The quote I got for all of these places is the same: $27,000-30,000. It's outrageous, but I want to try. I know I probably won't make this kind of money. So what I plan to do with whatever I make, is bite the bullet and go back to my local outpatient facility. I'll be able to pay for this, lab testing, other testing I need (i know i have a lot of unresolved medical issues), whatever supplements/medications they want me to go on, and whatever else I can manage. I want to go back to a partial hospital program at my local psychiatric hospital again (not ED specific) or try for a place in Boston with hopefully more support, despite the low ratings. This will also hopefully cover a new therapist, because most ED specialist therapists are not in network. Whatever amount I make, I'll be able to make some kind of progress. This help I need is urgent, because of my recent behaviors leaning further into anorexia again. When I restrict my food intake, I have problems with my heart and even more stomach problems than normal. I just want to get better.
It's so hard to get help with this affliction, despite it being the most deadly mental illness. I've been so often ignored when I try to tell people about it because I usually "look normal" ... so to the people out there who hear me + other ED patients who don't look like the typical emaciated anorexia patients (or any ED patients at all) thank you so much.
Thanks for reading <3
I've been pretty much silently dealing with an eating disorder since I was a kid. I was really secretive about it, because I felt like I was defective/doing something wrong, and I didn't understand what was going on. When I was 17, I was diagnosed with EDNOS (also known as Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified - it's not a diagnosis anymore. Now it's called OSFED). This diagnosis later transformed into bulimia, then binge eating disorder, then anorexia nervosa, etc.. as you can see, it's been a vicious cycle. This cycle has been slowly destroying my body for some time now, and leaves me with 0 energy.
In late 2016, I was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa during an extremely dark time in my life. I was still keeping this secret and living away from my family and friends, so it was kind of easy to not tell anyone. I moved back home (also in late 2016) and made a huge effort to get better. The ups and downs were extreme, my weight fluctuating, my body malfunctioning. I didn't have health care for most of 2017.
In March 2017, a close friend of mine passed away, and then a string of deaths of people I knew and traumatic events sent me into a spiraling existential crisis. My depression got worse, and even though it's getting a bit better now, my eating disorder still thrives on my negative feelings.
I have been dealing with this for so long and I just want help and to heal.
Now... on to why I'm asking for so much money... lol
I live in Rhode Island, and eating disorder treatment is extremely limited. My local psychiatric hospital got rid of their eating disorder program. There's an outpatient program at a general hospital that I went to that actually made me worse and further into the rabbit hole of my ED. I am on medicaid and unemployed currently due to mental illness and physical inability to do much.
My medicaid options for hospitalization are extremely limited.. the few places that actually take medicaid either
1. Don't have the level of care I need (residential or live-in partial hospital program with apartments), only inpatient which will basically be around 2 weeks of care and then back to normal life.
2. I have read so many horror stories about. I can't bear to go... people getting their meds messed with so badly that they ended up in the hospital, employees violating HIPAA laws and posting about the patients on twitter, and force feeding to the point of patients vomiting involuntarily, then blaming it on bulimia and keeping them longer. Stuff like that. Just a million horrible one star reviews. For every single one I found....
So, all the amazing programs I found don't take medicaid.. typical. They want 30 days of payment for treatment UP FRONT the day of admission. The quote I got for all of these places is the same: $27,000-30,000. It's outrageous, but I want to try. I know I probably won't make this kind of money. So what I plan to do with whatever I make, is bite the bullet and go back to my local outpatient facility. I'll be able to pay for this, lab testing, other testing I need (i know i have a lot of unresolved medical issues), whatever supplements/medications they want me to go on, and whatever else I can manage. I want to go back to a partial hospital program at my local psychiatric hospital again (not ED specific) or try for a place in Boston with hopefully more support, despite the low ratings. This will also hopefully cover a new therapist, because most ED specialist therapists are not in network. Whatever amount I make, I'll be able to make some kind of progress. This help I need is urgent, because of my recent behaviors leaning further into anorexia again. When I restrict my food intake, I have problems with my heart and even more stomach problems than normal. I just want to get better.
It's so hard to get help with this affliction, despite it being the most deadly mental illness. I've been so often ignored when I try to tell people about it because I usually "look normal" ... so to the people out there who hear me + other ED patients who don't look like the typical emaciated anorexia patients (or any ED patients at all) thank you so much.
Thanks for reading <3
Organizer
Louie Bee
Organizer
Providence, RI
