Inpatient Treatment for Anorexia - a Day in the Life
7:30am
Get woken up at the crack of dawn by a HCA or nurse knocking on your bedroom door, announcing “Morning!” far too cheerily for 7:30 am. Promptly attempt to fall back asleep, only to be rudely interrupted by another staff member calling for meds. Shove some clothes on, normally something that vaguely resembles pyjamas, and plod down the corridor in your slippers to the clinic room. Wait for the nurse to get your meds, willing her to hurry up so you can go for a wee. Take meds with miniscule amount of water, and attempt to ignore the horrible taste of thiamine in your mouth. Go for a wee and stare at yourself in the tiny mirror until you feel slightly more awake. Walk back to your room and wait to be called for breakfast.
8:30am
Hear “Tables 1, 2, and 3!” shouted down the corridor until everyone has gathered enough energy to walk into the dining area. Sit down at your designated table (but only when a member of staff is there) and stare at your food. Eat. Make insignificant conversation to mask how odd it is to be sat in a room full of anorexics, all eating mechanically like robots. Check the time and internally panic that you are eating too quickly/too slowly. When you’re done, sit in the lounge area feeling full and bloated, watching the top 40 music videos which always seem to be playing on repeat.
11am
Hear “Tables 1, 2, and 3!” shouted down the corridor until everyone has gathered enough energy to walk into the dining area. Sit down at your designated table (but only when a member of staff is there) and stare at your food. Eat. Make insignificant conversation to mask how odd it is to be sat in a room full of anorexics, all eating mechanically like robots. Check the time and internally panic that you are eating too quickly/too slowly. When you’re done, sit in the lounge area feeling full and bloated, watching the top 40 music videos which always seem to be playing on repeat.
11am
When your supervision time is up, do something crafty, or if
you’re feeling too tired to concentrate, sit curled up on your
phone/tablet/laptop until someone mentions “walks” and everyone stirs at the
mention of freedom (and exercise). Take off your slippers and replace them with
actual shoes, wrap yourself up in a coat and head outside (but not before
signing out with a member of staff.) Walk. Appreciate the grey sky and the
sound of the wind because you know you’ll soon be back inside the unit which is
always too hot or too cold.
12:15pm
Return to the unit, put your slippers back on and go back to silently wasting time on technology until the next meal, lunch. Repeat process- eat, converse, check time, eat slower, check time, eat faster, ignore the HCA who tells you not to pick apart your food, finish.
12:15pm
Return to the unit, put your slippers back on and go back to silently wasting time on technology until the next meal, lunch. Repeat process- eat, converse, check time, eat slower, check time, eat faster, ignore the HCA who tells you not to pick apart your food, finish.
6pm
Sit in the lounge or your room feeling bored, unless
something ever-so-exciting needs to happen like blood tests (such fun.) Go and
join in with “stretch and tone” because at least it’s something to keep you
occupied instead of going actually 110% loco crazy. Lift leg, 2 3, this is
boring, 4, 5, hold, 2, 3, 4, why am I doing this, 5, lower, 2, 3, 4, 5. Repeat
until dinner is called. Eat. Think about how, when you were at home, you would've been able to have a coffee and toast for dinner. Eat. Realise that most of the things on the cook
chill menu have the same taste. Eat. Try and convince yourself that you aren’t
gaining weight, “you’re gaining life”. Eat. Wish that you could recover without being made to consume copious amounts of yogurt. Finish.
9pm
Sit around some more, watching cooking programmes on the television until you can’t stay awake any longer. Go to bed. Repeat every day for weeks on end until you are deemed healthy enough to go back out into the real world.
9pm
Sit around some more, watching cooking programmes on the television until you can’t stay awake any longer. Go to bed. Repeat every day for weeks on end until you are deemed healthy enough to go back out into the real world.
(This post makes being inpatient sound miserable and boring, which at times it definitely is. But it also a building full of teenagers living together and trying not to go crazy from boredom so we have some fun at times! We still all do "normal" things like do each others hair, play mario kart, make forts, have nerf gun wars, complain about the unit rules, sing along to the noughties feel-good songs on the telly, etc. The staff are all lovely and try to make our time here as entertaining and as useful as possible. I felt like doing a post in this way was a good way of not romanticising or sugar coating the experience of being inpatient.)
