Patient Testimonials from the Center for Eating Disorders

"I have struggled with an eating disorder for over twenty years, actually most of my life. In the beginning I tried very hard to keep my illness from my parents and doctors; all the while becoming sicker and sicker. Eventually it became obvious that I needed help and that my very life was in danger.  At this point I began to seek treatment. I tried many different types of programs including inpatient hospitalization, partial hospitalization, and residential.  All of this treatment helped me to move towards recovery but nothing lasted. Relapse began to seem inevitable. 

This continued throughout my young adulthood and has in fact been the dominant pattern throughout my life. I became very discouraged and hopeless about any possibility of recovery and even stopped seeking help for years. Having a long-termed, entrenched eating disorder came to characterize my very identity. I have, for much of my life, believed that anorexia defined me and all that life had compromised. I reluctantly returned to treatment, knowing that at some point I would have to place my trust in my treatment team in order to heal at all from this devastating disease and ultimately to help keep me alive. 

In 2006, I entered the Eating Disorders Program at Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital where I met Dr. Delia Aldridge and the rest of the program staff. The nurses, counselors, and dietitians proved to be exceedingly skilled in this field and treated me with great compassion and understanding. While in the care of Alexian Brothers Eating Disorders Program, I felt the encouragement of the staff and persistent belief in me that I could recover. It was this along with their therapeutic approach that helped me to finally see that perhaps I did not have to live in the prison of anorexia nervosa and that life had more to offer than the suffering that it had brought me. During my course of treatment at Alexian Brothers I learned to see myself as someone with inherent worth and dignity and the idea of me leading a life worth living was opening up for me. At last, the possibilities of hope and joy! After being sick for so many years, recovery does not come over night and I still have a long way to go. But for the first time in my life, I find myself dreaming about a future I never thought possible." 

-Judy M.

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