The Myth of Non-Compliance
CW/TW: Mention of treatment trauma
It is no secret that eating disorder treatment centers have turned into a revolving door for many patients seeking care. Often, patients find themselves stuck in a devastating, cyclical pattern of being admitted and then discharged — sometimes much too soon — and then ending up back in treatment again. For some, this lasts years — or even decades.
In the treatment world, compliance is thrown around as a clinical term.
Often, the most vulnerable patients are met with labels such as “non-compliant” or “revolving door patients.”
I can empathize with others who have been through this because I have been one of those revolving door clients; the ones who return each year, who bounce between treatment centers. Having suffered years of abuse at the hands of treatment facilities and witnessed countless others experiencing the same during my time receiving “care”, I decided to share my personal story. In this process I have connected with many people across the United States who sought treatment and also suffered tremendously. While this is my story, I know I am not alone. Many others are speaking up or are in their own stages of coming to terms with what can occur within the walls of far too many treatment centers.
This begs the question: how do we end this cycle of traumatizing “care” when lives are on the line?
And beyond that, how do we ensure treatment facilities provide the appropriate level of care without making determinations of a patient’s worthiness of or capacity for recovery?
My friend Sofia Benbahmed, who identifies as a psychiatric survivor put it this way: “The impetus is on the treatment to be effective, and, obviously, if so many people are continuously relapsing, it's not the clients that are failing the treatment, it's treatment failing so many of its clients.”
While I don’t mean to dismiss the many who have found treatment helpful, it is also vitally important to hold institutions accountable and demand acknowledgment of the systems of shame, abuse, and oppression that exist.
It is also imperative to shed light on the many ways in which some facilities cater their services to the most privileged, while perpetrating harm on those who are the most vulnerable. We can recover. But we need support and understanding, not more feelings of shame which we already harbor so many of.