and feel very, very sorry for myself. But optimists recuperate faster so I’m going to pretend I’m an optimist.
Wish me luck!
The NHS is main publicly funded healthcare service in the United Kingdom. Each system operates independantly, and is accountable to its relevant government who make the major decisions in its running.
It appears to me that for some unknown reason we believe everything they say and seem to automatically take their services as the best available, or the right ones for us, unless anything shows us otherwise via experience. I however question this, question whether just because it is the main healthcare provider, just because it is government funded, does this really mean I am best placed in their services? Are they always right?
I have been in the NHS Mental Health services for nearly five years now albeit the Child and Adolescent Mental Health services (CAMHS), the Recovery teams or the Eating Disorder teams. I have been both an inpatient and an outpatient and I have seen a broad range of different mental health professionals. Currently I am supported solely by the Anorexia Nervosa Service.
This service has recently opened my eyes to a few things.
At first I thought you know, the whole NHS Mental Health Service is awful, and not meeting the degree of care it should be, but then after some negotiating with myself I realised that this is a slightly unfair statement to be making. I have concluded that from my personal experiences, the Anorexia Nervosa (AN) service I use has some major faults, as does all other mental health teams.
The AN teams problem is they fail to see the bigger picture. They say that food isn’t the problem, that its what is beyond it and yet they seem to be uninterested in any problems occuring alongside an eating disorder.
I find it interesting that an eating disorder is given such focus as an individual disorder when things such as self harm aren’t. You don’t get the self harm service or the anxiety service or the OCD service. And so what happens when someone like comes a long with an eating disorder alongside depression, self harm and other symptoms? They refer you to one team for one thing, and to another for something else. But how’s that going to work? Two different teams dealing with what is essentially the same thing.
You’re expected to discuss one problem with one team, and a different problem with another team but end up lost and confused trying to work out what belongs in which sessions and come to the conclusion it’s best to say nothing at all.
They talk and deal with the symptoms of your ED and what caused that. But they don’t want to talk about the past and they don’t realise that the thing that needs dealing with is actually what underlies everything because actually you’ve got one main problem, not two or three. You skim over your past, the things that have shaped over you. You talk about them in your first sessions like they are some tiny part. And then you focus on how much you are eating and exercising or how often you self-harm, or what you spend your day doing, and you start eating more, and exercising less, cutting less, or going out more because that is what you know you have to do, and you go along with it.
Problem is its not changing the underlying problems. All these mental disorders lie with depression. Depression is the base, the foundations. And so you deal with the self harm and the eating and whatever else, but that foundation is still there so it finds another way to come out. One problem is dealt with, for another to arise because nobody is dealing with the core issues. The self-harm might stop, and be replaced, or it might go away for a while and return some time later and you will blame yourself. You ask ‘why is this happening again?’ when the truth is, its not happening again, you never dealt with it before. Not properly.
They don’t have time for you if you are not ready to change. You have a few bad weeks and you lose some weight, cut or whatever and your made to feel like you’ve done something dreadful. And it looks like theyre going to give up on you for a bit because you hear the words let’s take a therapeutic break.
Therapeutic? I would not call being left alone with your problem, where you are struggling, therapeutic. If you struggle with feeling abandoned, to be left like that, hurts. And so in an attempt to make whoever happy and to make it so they will see you again, you eat, and get you weight back up, or and write a letter about how much better you feel. Or you say you’ve stopped self-harming even if you haven’t. You say you’ve been out and done X, Y and Z when really you’ve stayed in all week. You do it for them and not you. And then you feel this huge pressure to be doing well and to hide the part of you that isn’t.
They leave you when you need them most.
They don’t ask enough questions. They don’t link things. They take things on surface value and god, if you want to end everything, well, they don’t want to know. They say its your choice. Like its what you want. Like its easy to change. Easy to want to live when you don’t. They want to be there when you want to change, they say you have to want their help. Is it not possible to want their help in a supportive way, as a person to trust and to talk to, to try keep you hanging on in there, without necessarily wanting to change or do this and that. Perhaps they need to remember you are a human. And you need someone just to be there. That everything they do and say sticks with you. You take parts personally, that you take things they say deeply.
Hey guys.
I’m one of those people who likes to read all the latest in health, diet, fitness, beauty, and style. Lately, I keep finding many posts about cleanses to help eliminate toxins and rejuvenate the body. Who wouldn’t want to do one?
The thing is, there are SO many cleanses out there! There are 30 day, 2 week, 10 day, 5 day, and even 3 day ones. And the limitations for food/beverage consumption varies among them all too.
Where do you begin??
I knew I didn’t want something that sounded unbearable to eat/drink (Master Cleanse’s cayenne pepper, lemon, and maple syrup just seems awful!), so I looked at Whole Foods to find an all-natural, and most of all, healthy, short cleanse.
I settled on Enzymatic’s Quick Renewal 5-Day Cleanse. It comes with 18 tablets and 4 packets of “Fiber Fusion daily cleansing fiber”. The best part of this? You can still eat during it! I plan to eat small, healthy meals today (I have a sushi date tonight, so I want to earn that.) and exercise, per usual, as well. I began the cleanse last night, which calls for 4 tablets with 8 oz of water at bedtime. The tablets don’t have any aftertaste or nasty flavor, so that part was easy.
I’ll keep you posted on any side effects, weight/emotion changes, or hunger cravings I experience. I’ll also let you know what exercise I’m doing and the meals I’m taking.
*If you’ve found a cleanse that works for you (or one that was terrible), tell me about your experience.
-Sirena
Quicklink: www.hispanictips.com/?p=134585
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Thursday June 9/2011
50 Min Cardio-10 Min Run, 10 Min Stairs, 10 Min Bike, 20 Min Elliptical
3 sets:
