I cannot write about my story without mentioning my awesome, resilient grandmother. She became an instant single mom at 40 years old to me. With her, we faced many obstacles including homelessness, food insecurity, and lack of financial resources. These obstacles being the same exact barriers that kept me from being diagnosed for about 6 years.
You see, partway through middle school, I mentioned to my primary care doctor about my eating disorder and how I felt I needed to keep losing weight. My doctor agreed with me about having to lose weight and did not mention anything to my grandmother in the waiting room about what I had disclosed. So I left that conversation there at 14. I mean, he’s a doctor right? At 14, I didn’t understand the system at play. I didn’t understand the racial prejudices that my provider could carry or the weight stigma he could possess that impacts my health. Also I had Medicaid insurance, a form of public assistance from a government that controls whether I am sick enough to need help or not.
Two years later, after years of destruction on my oral health, my dentist, not my doctor, observed the oral decay in my mouth and called out my eating disorder. I was diagnosed with binge eating disorder first, then bulimia nervosa. Yay, I was getting help! Sike.
Medicaid had many issues with approving any eating disorder treatment centers as they were over 2 hours away or out of state from me. I also was a “maxed out” candidate. I had recently been diagnosed that not only am I deaf in my right ear, but I am going deaf in my left ear. I had a cochlear implant by surgery installed to help with my ongoing disability which cost a lot of money for the state. My grandmother and I both knew these factors were in our way, much like a huge blockage in the road.