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Hello - I'm Rosie, a 20 year old girl from England and I have been suffering from Anorexia Nervosa and Depression for 4 years. My eating disorder has seen me through emergency hospital admissions, specialised inpatient units and has stolen my late teenage years from me. I used to be a bright, independent student, a high achiever in college and a creative, imaginative person. Anorexia reduced me down to an exhausted, hopeless shell of who I used to be. I had to be taken out of full time education for my physical safety and abandon all forms of activity, swapping normal life for blood tests, heart monitors and constant nutritional support.
I have tried different forms of therapy and treatment over the years but I finally feel like I have found what works for me. Since April, I have been attending an outpatient clinic twice a week where I can receive the level of support and care I desperately need to maintain and develop my health and happiness. It has also allowed me to embed myself within a community of fellow patients and make long-lasting, healing bonds with people who truly understand me and the problems I face on a day-to-day basis. Through my struggles, I have lost countless friends and my life overall has shrunk drastically. This service has been a lifeline for me and I have made real progress in my recovery while attending regular sessions there.
However, this treatment doesn't come without a price. The NHS have funded my sessions up to this point but they have recently made it clear that they do not want to fund another block of sessions for me. This leaves me with 3 sessions to use before I am left to my own devices and if I wanted to continue attending clinic then I would have to pay my own way. For such an intensive, specialised clinic, the cost is high and I am under no illusion that I could be at a stage to actually manage and maintain recovery on my own. I still have a long way to go and the thought of leaving therapy fills me with dread that a relapse is likely. Eating disorders thrive in secrecy and isolation and when I have been in this position in the past, my health has rapidly declined. I want to avoid this happening at all costs. I want to give myself the best chance possible of reaching full recovery and getting my life back but I simply can't do it on my own.
With the few sessions I have left, I could be leaving clinic and dropped in the deep end as soon as the 10th of October. With the funds raised through this page, I would have that option of being able to secure further crucial therapy sessions for myself to give me a proper fighting chance of getting the real me back.
One thing I have gained through the difficult years I have battled with my mental health, is a real insight and self-awareness into my illness and I am not ashamed to say that if I am unable to continue these sessions I find so beneficial, it would pose such an overwhelming risk to my life that I am just completely unprepared to take.
If I were lucky enough to have a surplus of funds, I am committed to doing everything I possibly can to spread awareness and take action against the glaring issue that is the state of funding and availability of adequate eating disorder treatments across the UK. I am quite frankly blessed to have had the funding I did get compared to some areas of the country that allocate no funding whatsoever for the services like the clinic I attend. As it was for me, such treatment could be a matter of life or death for someone struggling with an eating disorder and more needs to be done to ensure that sufferers have access to this level of care. There are too many cases of people being refused help by their practitioners for not being 'ill enough' or 'thin enough' for treatment. The consequences of such a reckless attitude towards health and wellbeing are endless and unacceptable. Funding should not come with conditions based on numbers and a checklist dictating who is deserving enough for treatment. Anyone suffering is worthy of treatment, no matter what.
So I plead to anyone reading this to give whatever they can if they are able, to look into the issues surrounding funding and availability of eating disorder therapy across the UK and be sure to share this with at least one person you know. If this page were only to amount to helping to spread awareness then I know I have at least made a difference and can make peace with that.
Thank you so much for your consideration.
Resources:
Personal testimony:
An Honest conversation About Eating Disorders:
Part 1
Part 2
Articles about eating disorders, funding, and treatment:
Useful information, help and support:
Beat
NEDA
NHS