My Eating Disorder Evaluation Experience...
18:08
This post is going to be discussing what happened during my evaluation at the eating disorder clinic that my GP referred me to. I hope that by sharing my experiences it will help to push other people to seek help if they need it.
On the day of my evaluation I was extremely nervous and was convinced that they would not believe me because I wasn't skeletal. My mum came into the hospital and sat in the waiting room with me and stayed there whilst I had my evaluation. I was sat in the waiting room for what felt like forever and my mind was racing with too many thoughts to even make sense of. I was sat shaking, nearly crying and I felt like I was going to have a panic attack. Im shocked that I didn't actually walk out at any point.
On the day of my evaluation I was extremely nervous and was convinced that they would not believe me because I wasn't skeletal. My mum came into the hospital and sat in the waiting room with me and stayed there whilst I had my evaluation. I was sat in the waiting room for what felt like forever and my mind was racing with too many thoughts to even make sense of. I was sat shaking, nearly crying and I felt like I was going to have a panic attack. Im shocked that I didn't actually walk out at any point.
My name was called and I got taken to the counselling rooms which ended up being just a basic room with three chairs and a coffee table but the room also had a weighing scale and a height measuring scale with posters that showed how to work out your BMI. There was also tissues on the table for in case I cried which I did.
The lady introduced herself and then asked me the basic questions about myself like my age and name and where I lived. She read me the email that my GP had sent her and asked her if everything in the email sounded like what I had explained to the GP which it did. She then gave me a couple of different questionnaires one which was a scale from 0-10 that asked me to answer things about how ready I was for recovery and then another one that went into more detail about the kind of behaviours I was using and how often I was using them, what I felt about myself and my body and then things about my fears.
After I had filled in the questionnaires she said that she had to weigh me and measure me as they had to keep on track of it if I was going to be given therapy. I was not happy about having to be weighed but said that she could do it, as long as I didn't know what it said because it would make me feel worse.
She said that she had to ask me questions about if I had ever self harmed, thought about suicide, thought about hurting others or if I had ever been sexually assaulted. She also asked about my home life and my friendships/relationships and I think this was so they had a background on me for later on when I needed to identify what may have caused my eating disorder.
The evaluation lasted about an hour and afterwards she explained that they would accept me into their services and that the first stage would be group therapy sessions and they assigned me a case manager and she said that she would be writing up what we discussed in the evaluation and that she would be sending it to the GP and that I would get a copy in the post along with information about when my group therapy would start and she also told me that I would have to go to my local GP monthly for ecg test and blood tests so that they could monitor my potassium levels and heart rate.
It was a very nerve racking experience but once you start to open up about it, it feels so much better.
From this one evaluation it meant that I was offered group therapy, EMDR therapy, CBT therapy, nutritional guidance, my mum was given support and I was given the nicest therapist ever, who helped me so much! So as I said in my last post and will continue to say on all this weeks posts please seek help if you need it!
Lorna
xxx
2 comments
Good for you for being brave enough to seek help at a clinic and knowing your current state. I honestly think that you will fully recover and hopefully your blog will inspire others to seek help for their loved ones, or encourage ones that are hit with the disorder as well.
ReplyDeleteThank you! and I hope so, thats what I am aiming to do :) x
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