DID YOU HAVE ANY DREAMS?: HEALING HINDERED BY CORPORATE GREED
Written by Halley Marie Shaw
Even after four months, I still have no words.
Since I was eleven years old, I have loved writing. I gave up on every other aspiration from fashion design to acting to bring my wild patterns and my wilder dialogues to a happier life.
One of the greatest blows I tend to take from the eating disorder bully at any stage—recovered, relapsed, and wavering—is every moment that my untold stories are replaced with non-stop obsessions.
I was hoping after a third round of treatment to find a better story inside of me.
In July 2021, I had gotten the sickest that I had ever gotten with my twenty-plus-year history of eating disorders. My past experiences with both a day-program and a PHP program left me feeling jaded and defeated. It was easier to stay stuck in the eating disorder because the disorder gave me a sense of measure whereas centers too often treat patients like numbers.
In 2021, I believed that my illness was beyond therapy and beyond any doctor. Still, as my condition got worse, I knew that I owed my partner, my family, and my beloved kitty much better. In spite of my reservations, I entered treatment.
After tedious rounds of phone tag, I got into a residential program. Yes, I will be the first to admit to being a chick flick cliche. The bratty, arty one who wanted to fight their way back home. (I spent the first few days trying to see if I could transfer to a different program.) Then this same brat quickly changed their tune, falling back in love with hummus and starting to make letter block necklaces with the friends that they made. I felt like I was making progress rather than just going through the maze to clean pellets off of small dishes.
I sometimes joke that when we ask the universe, we will receive...a dagger. My dagger came in the form of my amazing therapist stealing me from a group to talk to me in a quiet room.
Two weeks into treatment, my therapist told me that I never received clearance for a single-case agreement from my insurance company. Unfortunately, the person who I had been networking with from their admissions office told me otherwise.
In time, the said universal daggers are eliminated painlessly. But coming home to Atlanta to find letters from my insurance that stated they only approved fourteen days just prolonged the dagger.
When I followed up with my therapist in Georgia, she insisted on her supervisor being present for our session. We discussed recent events; he educated me about what should have happened with my treatment and what could have happened to me. Eating disorder centers that are struggling to extend a patient's stay are supposed to hold utilization meetings with the patient's insurance provider. We then talked about how I was still at risk of refeeding syndrome.
Sending me home without advocating for an extension of coverage was not only inconsiderate; their lacking efforts made for a good old-fashioned case of negligence.
In short, here I am now with another anticlimactic story. But to quote my former creative non-fiction instructor (and greatest inspiration), "Should it end here?” I say f*ck no.
I can't utter a perfect closing statement. I'm not going to seal it with hopeful song lyrics. I'm not going to repress my anger.
I'm going to tell this story as it happened in hopes no treatment center will ever do this to someone else.
I will not stay silent. I made it out alive. I want to stay on this planet to nourish my next story and fight for those who may be put through this same hell.
H.M. Shaw (she/her) was born in the suburbs of Syracuse, New York. She sometimes writes weird things about places that only exist in her head and she glues things to other things.
Now at the age of thirty-five, she has rediscovered that overusing glitter is a form of meditation. She resides in Atlanta, Georgia with her partner, her beloved kitty, and their sweet dog with a thousand names.