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How do I survive residential treatment?
My name's Blair and I'm a 16 yr old girl who happens to have ednos (a mix of anorexia and bulimia) and have a self-injury addiction. As my health has deteriorated, my shrink and doctor (with the full agreement of my family) have decided to send me to RTC. I'm very scared. I'm garunteed to be the youngest resident and the farthest away from my home and my friends. How am I gonna do this? I have to go in a week.
Much love and grattitude--
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My wife happens to work for a company that is the largest of its kind in this country. They specialize in credentialing the doctors and institutions that care for people who need help as you do.
Many of the residential treatment centers are very nice, some are almost like country clubs. Others are closer to hospital settings. One thing they all have in common is the ability to make you better.
One of the main reasons for going to a residential treatment center is not for punishment. It is to remove you from anything and everything that is enabling anything that may be causing your illness. Yes, endos is an illness. Once the enabling factors are removed the doctors and nurses can work with you and teach you how to overcome the problems that caused your illness in the first place.
Each treatment center has their own program. So don't be surprised or get upset if you are not allowed contact with parents and friends for the first week or two that you are there. This is all part of finding what the enabling factors are. You remove everything then slowly reintroduce different factors that have been proven to be enabling to your type of problem.
During this period you will be learning how to identify and deal with all the different factors that may have caused you to turn to this way of living. Just remember everything they ask of you is for your own best interest. Work with them, trust them and allow them to help you. If you have any issues, especially trust issues with any of them say something to the administrator or coordinator and they will find someone else for you to work with.
Their goal is to make you well. The more you trust them, the better you work with them, the faster you will get well and return home.
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My heart goes out to you but these types of institutions are designed for the more mentally stable, the things you see on t.v with padded rooms and the likes, they try to make it as homely as possible but it is Simpy a place where professionals can watch you closely and be fast at hand should you take a turn for the worst. The reason this happens is because your family most likely doesn't know what to really do or how to truely help, for example one theory of anorexia is that it is an attention plea which is reinforced by the amount of love and concern lavished by the mother, so by removing this aspect, the attention can not be fed and the disorder is more likely to leave, I don't mean that is why you suffer of course, but it is a theory. It also will allow them to test idea's that have high success rate, such as a certain medication, which they will need to monitor you for so they can ensure your safety, rest assured, your own safety and health is placed above anything else on their agenda, dinner times for you and the other girls will always be more important to them than their lunch breaks.
Secondly, there is likely to be a few girls your age or close enough as this is a problem that is commonly found in 13-18 year old females, once you get past 18 the chances of developing it are drastically reduced so though older patients will be present there is likely to be a handful of younger ones too.
And if there is not, part of the job of the people caring for you is to form a bond, unlike the role of doctors and patients, psychologists rely more so on a close bond between their patients so that they feel comfortable confiding in them since these are mental issues, secrets and ill feelings need to be confronted early on for progress to be made, they will treat you nicely and you should feel able to talk to them and seek their help (imagine them playing the role of your favourite teacher).
Finally, almost all hospitals have visiting times, and some allow family members to spend weekends in the same room, so your family will be able to come see you regularly, and they will not lock you away and never let you out again, their goal is to prepare you to handle yourself so you CAN go and live with your family, but as I said you must trust them and try to relax sooner rather than later to speed up the process.
I hope that helped, I just finished studying eating behaviours so I can try to help you if you would like as I'm going to study Psychology later this year at university. Best of luck and I hope you find the strength to overcome your demons :) x
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