Why it's so hard to get help for an eating disorder

Quote of the day~ "My darling, you hold so much sadness in your eyes, I can almost touch the scars of your soul and cry."

~Ernest Hemingway

When I first moved to campus in January 2021, my anxiety was through the roof. There were so many fast food options on campus, and all I could think about for weeks before leaving my childhood home was what I could feasibly eat. My parents have always been "health freaks," and growing up, I took a daily vitamin cocktail in addition to eating mostly healthy, home cooked meals.

What scared me the most about leaving home was that I would suddenly be thrusted into a world where the healthy meals I grew up eating most nights would be inaccessible to me. In a sense, college would be like a food desert where well-rounded meals would be replaced with greasy restaurant food.

I remember arriving on campus and having a panic attack within my first week about having eaten fast food every day without a gym workout to balance it out. I settled into a new regimen where I would go to the gym for at least one hour each weekend. In addition to my weekend workouts, I made sure to take the long route to each of my classes and the Student Publications office.

Seeing how many miles I could walk each day without passing out had become a game to me; I was obsessed. If I walked four miles one day, I'd walk five the next, then six, then seven, then eight. The ways in which my eating disorder pronounced itself were endless.

My intrusive thoughts also ran wild at this time, and I believed eating food on campus every day would inevitably lead me to develop chunky thighs. I told several friends about my struggle, and how I felt as if I'd soon gain 400 pounds and star on My 600 Pound Life, a show that sees morbidly obese people try to change their eating habits before they die.

I realized I was being overdramatic per usual and that my thought processes were the antithesis of normal. I also acknowledged that I genuinely needed help.

After a particularly awful flare up with my eating disorder shortly before January 2020, I made a promise to myself that I would look into therapy and recovery options upon moving to campus. I followed through on my promise and contacted the campus dietician.

I've always been open about my experience living with an eating disorder, and as such, I ended up discussing my ill habits with some of the editors at the Talisman during my freshman year. While writing my article on COVID-19's effects on eating disorder recovery, I consulted our magazine's selection of previously written articles concerning similar subjects. I ran across one the illustration editor had written, and in it, she listed the contact information for WKU's campus dietician.

I followed through on my promise and contacted the dietician, beginning first by drafting and and sending email. This step felt like the biggest thing I'd done in my entire life.

I was anxious about the idea of getting help and all it would entail, but deep down I knew that it was necessary and inevitable. Contacting the dietician meant I'd be able to discuss my eating disorder with someone in the position to point in me in the right direction of recovery.

The campus dietician's response came fast, which I was grateful for. Over email he told me frankly that I had disordered eating habits and that there was nothing he could do to help me. My situation didn't fall in line with his expertise, so he said I should immediately check myself into an in-patient treatment facility in Nashville.

Feeling hopeless, I begged a consultation to discuss my fears in moving to campus without access to any food options that instigated thoughts resemblant of my disordered eating habits. It seemed he begrudgingly agreed.

My virtual Zoom appointment wasn't much better than our conversation via email. I was told, again, that there was nothing WKU could offer me and that I should commit myself to in-patient treatment.

Through tears, I again wondered how I could feasibly access help for my eating disorder on campus without scaring my parents. I still haven't figured out the answer to this question, but I have timers set to remind myself to eat and friends who check on my constantly to mitigate their anxieties as witnesses to my disorder.

Why is it so hard to get help for an eating disorder? I won't pretend I have an answer, but I suppose this is the reason I am writing this blog.