Does DIY Eating Disorder Recovery Work?
Are you struggling with eating disorder recovery in California and thinking about doing it on your own? Well by the end of this blog, you should be able to look at the pros and cons and make a wholehearted decision about your own recovery needs.
Eating Disorder Recovery in Los Angeles
Before we jump in, it’s important for us to define what traditional eating disorder recovery looks like for the average person in the Los Angeles area. Essentially this would be going to the appropriate level of care to receive treatment such as: Residential (RTC), Partial Hospitalization (PHP), Intensive Outpatient (IOP), or Outpatient. Once completing one level, you would then titrate down until landing at Outpatient to work with a therapist like me, where we would meet once per week. The higher levels of care, especially RTC and PHP, are very time consuming, taking anywhere from 6 up to 24 hours of your day working on recovery & stabilization. While this can be necessary depending on the intensity of eating disorder behaviors, it also can create a barrier for people struggling and wanting support due to disabilities or obligations such as work, school, finances, religious practices, or supporting a family. With that in mind, people have been looking for creative ways to honor their own recovery such as creating their own Outpatient team.
Note: I will always recommend the appropriate level of care because eating disorders can become dangerous quickly, so please take into account where you or your loved one is at before declining any medical or clinical recommendations. Thanks, now let’s read on!
Getting an Eating Disorder Recovery Team
So what are you to do if traditional higher levels of eating disorder care are either not accessible or desirable to you? To that I would answer: it depends. Assuming you don’t require medical stabilization from a formal treatment center, you would make your own personalized treatment team. As an eating disorder therapist here in the Los Angeles area, I always recommend having at least three eating disorder specialized providers on your team: a Registered Dietitian, a Therapist, and a Primary Care Physician. For those able and wanting additional providers, here are more that really help round out a recovery team: an ED-informed Psychiatrist, Eating Recovery Coach, or ED support groups or skills groups.
If you are someone who is in need of medical stabilization but does not want formal treatment, this is going to be a little harder. You may still be able to find providers willing to do outpatient, but the list does drop pretty dramatically due to ethical and safety reasons. Here are two (1 & 2) resources of reputable providers, who are willing to explore this type of care at the outpatient setting.
If you are someone who struggles with finances for either a formal treatment center or making an outpatient team, I recommend taking a look at Project Heal, as they can help provide some financial relief when trying to seek care.
Pros and Cons of Self-Help Eating Disorder Recovery
If everything so far has felt both enlightening and slightly confusing, congratulations as you are experiencing the wonderful ups and downs of the healing process. There is no “correct” way to recover, as some will flourish with a robust outpatient team, whereas others credit the resiliency of their recovery to the formal treatment center they went to. So let’s review some of the pros and cons, with the hope that you will find whatever pieces resonate the most with your lived experience.
Pros of Self-Help Recovery:
Choice and flexibility: plain and simple, you are the ultimate decider of who you will work with & when you will meet for appointments. This can be especially empowering if you are wanting to work with providers with similar lived expereinces as you such as age, gender, ethnicity and so on.
Location: for those who don’t live in the metropolitan area of Los Angeles, California, finding a treatment center can be a challenge. With your own curated team of providers, this becomes far less of an issue, especially with the ongoing accessibility of Telehealth.
Cost: depending upon your personal coverage, seeing an outpatient team can be more cost effective than a formal treatment center.
Consistency: you do not have to have to pause much, if any aspect of your life. You can continue working, going to school, caring for loved ones, etc without having to sacrifice your recovery.
Cons of DIY Recovery:
Overwhelming choice: though a benefit to making your own choice for providers, it can be difficult to find the best fit right away which can feel disheartening at times. (If you haven’t seen my previous post on helping to find a therapist, check it out here)
Feelings of isolation: there is a definite lack of peer support & community when doing eating disorder recovery outside of formal treatment. In a treatment center, you would have access to peers in your milieu as well as in group therapy sessions, which is not something that is common in a DIY set-up.
Stabilization: despite best efforts that you and your outpatient team may make, sometimes eating disorders suck and your health can become compromised beyond what is safe for an outpatient setting. Just because you may choose outpatient initially, does not necessarily mean it will stay that way. After assessment, your team (as well as your own inner reflection) may deem it necessary to step you to a higher level for safety purposes.
Next Steps for Making an Eating Disorder Treatment Team
Well now that you’ve made it to the end, you should have a little more awareness around this often complex decision. Don’t worry if you are still unsure, take a moment to breathe, unclench your jaw, and know that ultimately you will figure out the right choice for yourself.
If you’d like to see if online eating disorder therapy in California is the right fit for your recovery, feel free to call or text me at (805) 292-0836 for a free 15 min consultation or click here to message me. I would love to be a part of your recovery team.
*this post is made for educational purposes and is not to be taken as medical or therapy advice.
