I was recently moved to tears by the story of the very inspiring Sofia Benbahmed. She was forced to leave treatment for her eating disorder after her insurance company refused to continue to cover her stay. For somebody who has not suffered from an eating disorder, it might seem that any stay in a treatment facility should be some help. People who have sat on the other side of the eating disorder fence know differently. When I read Sofia's updates I hear how badly she wants to get better, but there is so much to recovery besides a desire to succeed. Treatment is a place that not only physically prevents us from acting out on unhealthy thoughts, creating a new behavior pattern, but also teaches us new ways of coping with our emotions. We can do that first bit on our own, for a while at least. But as soon as those pesky emotions and stresses in our daily lives start creeping up on us, we slip back into our familiar, destructive coping mechanisms. The longer we have been depending on our eating disorder for support, the harder it is for us to support ourselves in other ways on our own. I liken it to a CD that is stuck on repeat (Yes, a "CD" I am an old fart). The longer we have been listening to the same song, the harder it is for us to listen to a different song. We need a helpful treatment specialist to keep pushing that "FORWARD" button until we are healthy enough to do it on our own. It might take us a while to realize that there are other ways of coping (or songs on the CD) that we can use but for most of us it takes a while before we can use them consistently.
I too had my share of insurance woes when I decided to go to treatment. Despite having what my boyfriend jokingly calls "insurance worth it's weight in gold", (both of my parents are government employees in California, you cannot get better coverage than I had) getting my health insurance company to pay up when I need inpatient treatment was a nightmare. Treatment is expensive; that's no joke. I stayed in treatment for two weeks. With the amount of forms that I had to fill out, you would have thought I was trying to go on a space shuttle trip to the moon. The first week of treatment was paid for without incident. It wasn't until I received a bill for almost four thousand dollars a month later that I realized that my insurance had not covered my second week of treatment. When I called the company to question why they had not paid the bill yet, I was met with almost open hostility from a very rude customer service representative. He demanded to know "exactly what I was being treated for" and kept grumbling something "pre-authorization". At that point I refused to talk to him anymore and requested a supervisor. It might sound like a perfectly normal response, but it was an I'm-gonna-stand-up-for-myself-and-not-take-anymore-BS-from-you reaction that I never would have considered before I went to treatment. Without even knowing it, my insurance company's employee was giving me one of my first examples in why treatment was so vital in teaching me how to respect myself, not just stop purging.
Eventually my insurance company ponied up the cash, but the stress of being constantly reminded about treatment when I was doing my best to move on with my life was not particularly helpful. So in case you insurance peeps are out there, here's a clue: Finding the desire to get healthy should be the most difficult part of eating disorder recovery, not finding the access to help.
♥ Donate and help get Sofia back into treatment at: http://www.giveforward.org/sofias-eating-disorder-treatment-fund ♥
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