Anorexia survivor: 'The system is failing them'
Millie Thomas supporting Kyiah Kneebone, left and Haylee Blair in a Sunshine Coast facility in February 2018
Aucklander Millie Thomas lost 15 years of her life to anorexia.
Since her recovery three years ago at age 27, she has been helping people beat eating disorders here and in Australia, where she is now based.
"I felt that the system had failed me; I didn't want other people to go through what I went through."
International research shows eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, and anorexia nervosa is the third most common chronic illness for young females.
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Millie Thomas is determined to use her empathy skills to help others beat eating disorders.
The number of people with an eating disorder accessing specialist help has doubled in the past 10 years in New Zealand, due to additional Government funding in specialist services and more awareness around the condition.
Ministry of Health data shows inpatient and outpatient eating disorder services treated 588 people in 2008. The number rose to 1134 people last year.
While receiving treatment here and in Australia, Thomas felt she was treated as a number rather than an individual and was never offered a holistic approach.
"You get fed [in hospital], then shoved out the door back in the community."
Millie Thomas in Sydney in 2015 before her recovery.
Treating people in the community is great, she says, but for it to work "you need to have parents or carers who can take time off work, and a solid treatment team".
Patients often get discharged without a treatment plan in place or carers able to take time off work and ultimately end up in hospital again, Thomas says.
It becomes a cycle of admissions and discharges, with clients in and out of hospital for years.
"The system makes you feel hopeless and helpless at times. Sometimes the message I got was you had it for so long and so severely that you'll never get well and that you'll always have it with you."
Eating Disorders Association of New Zealand chair Nicki Wilson says official figures do not show the true prevalence of eating disorders in New Zealand: "We know that they are more common than is currently shown in the figures and the suffering is far greater than recognised".
Millie Thomas during her recovery.
People affected with any eating disorder – including anorexia, bulimia and binge eating – and at any level of severity need medical attention and monitoring that GPs are often not trained to deliver, she says.
People are waiting for weeks to access specialist care, when lack of nutrition has "dreadful psychological and physiological consequences".
HOLISTIC APPROACH NEEDED
Thomas says treatment options in Australia and New Zealand are "dire" and some families are so desperate they travel to the United States or Europe to access better care.
Auckland, Waikato, Hutt Valley and Canterbury District Health Boards (DHBs) have dedicated specialist eating disorders services, and all other DHBs have some dedicated eating disorders clinical resources, according to the Ministry of Health.
Wilson says the most recommended form of treatment internationally is family-based with clinical supervision but the resources required for this are often lacking.
Millie Thomas now enjoys a healthy life on the Sunshine Coast.
People in rural and remote areas are particularly under-served, she says.
More training is needed for GPs to be able to diagnose and treat patients as early as possible, which will eventually lead to reduction in need for hospital care.
"Everybody is doing their absolute best in such a difficult area. We would like to see the government to put more resources for this devastating illness."
'IT ROBBED ME OF 15 YEARS OF MY LIFE'
Thomas was 12 when anorexia "dug its claws in, softly at first so as not to startle me", she wrote in a Stuff Nation piece.
"Before I knew it I was being eaten from the inside out and all that was left was a mere shadow of my former self.
"For 15 long years my every waking minute was spent obsessing about how to avoid food and how to burn off the most calories I possibly could. Nothing else mattered.
"I willed my skeletal frame to keep running, to push through the pain and burn off as many dreaded calories as I possibly could, before the searing pain of my stress fractures became too much to bear.
"Anorexia robbed me of 15 years of my life. It brought me to within inches of its ultimate victory (my death)."
By age 27, Thomas was "a skeleton" with the bones of an 80 year old, four stress fractures, a weak heart and no menstrual cycle.
She felt defeated and like she had given up on life.
"I was beyond miserable and deeply ashamed of the burden I had become to my family, my friends, society and ultimately myself."
Hitting rock bottom was a wake-up call for Thomas, who decided she would not let anorexia win. Recovery took months and felt "excruciating", she says.
"There were many days when I bawled my eyes out for hours on end. I kicked, I screamed – I had tantrums worthy of toddlers. But no matter how many times I fell down, I always rose back up again and went back into battle."
She says moving to the Sunshine Coast and a combination of neuro-linguistic programming and hypnotherapy helped her recovery.
Now living a healthy life, she is determined to use her experience and empathy to help others.
WE'RE BUILDING A HOME
Thomas started raising awareness about anorexia by sharing her story here and overseas. She then teamed up with a family impacted by bulimia to create a charity in Australia's Sunshine Coast called EndED.
She graduated as an eating disorders recovery coach in December after a year-long course in the United States at the Carolyn Costin Institute.
She has since worked with more than 35 families in Australia and New Zealand and says she is turning people away despite working seven days a week.
The system's shortfalls motivated Thomas and her charity to work on building a private facility for eating disorders in the Sunshine Coast's hinterland.
The purpose-built facility, set on 25 acres, will include a vegetable garden, a chook-house and horses and will provide holistic care to up to 12 patients at a time.
Thomas is hoping to have it up and running within a year and will then focus on opening similar facilities in other Australian states and in New Zealand.
"Inpatient services treating people with eating disorders are often cold, clinical environments. We are building a home, where everybody will be looked at individually and we will meet their specific needs rather than take a blanket approach."
EndED is using a mix of government funding and philanthropy to fund the project and is lobbying to get treatment covered under Medicare.
All her clients usually have a dietician, a psychologist and a GP – Thomas coaches them through their day-to-day struggles with recovery.
"They can contact me anytime of the day if they are struggling because they can't eat dinner or they can't fit in any of their clothes. I'm giving them practical support.
"They are more likely to open up to me completely rather than censoring their feelings."
Wilson says coaching for eating disorders is still new here but anecdotal results are promising.
Thomas also runs an Instagram page to provide support.
She will give a free talk at Auckland Eye in Remuera with Voices of Hope on June 6.
ABOUT EATING DISORDERS:
According to the Mental Health Foundation, eating disorders are mental health problems that involve:
- always thinking about eating, or not eating
- feeling out of control around food
- using food to meet needs other than hunger
- having an obsession about food, weight and body shape.
Signs of an eating disorder could include:
- extreme concern about being too fat and thinking about food and dieting all the time
- increasing isolation from others
- secret eating and purging (vomiting or taking laxatives)
- food disappearing from the house, especially high calorie foods
- spending long periods in the toilet especially immediately after meals, sometimes with the tap running for long periods
- shoplifting food
- strenuous exercise routine, even exercising when injured or unwell
- severe weight changes
- sudden mood changes, irritability, depression, sadness, anger, difficulty in expressing feelings
- poor concentration and being unusually tired
- constant pursuit of thinness
WHERE TO GET HELP:
1737 - free call or text 24 hours a day to talk to a counsellor
Healthline - 0800 611 116, available 24/7
Eating disorders Association of NZ - 0800 2 EDANZ - Support for those with loved ones dealing with an eating disorder
If you suspect you are suffering from an eating disorder, see your GP immediately. They can refer you to one of the specialist services in your region. In an emergency, call 111.
- Stuff
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