Navigating Eating Disorder Recovery: A Male's Perspective
Guest Blog Post By Brian Kearney
During my 5-year battle with an eating disorder starting about 10 years ago, there was one obstacle that some would say prolonged my sickness and kept me in the depths of the disease. This obstacle wasn’t the cost of treatment or my willingness to seek help, but rather the availability of treatment itself for a male suffering from an eating disorder.
A quick Google search will reveal a plethora of treatment center options for individuals suffering from eating disorders, which in itself is something to celebrate. During my battle years ago, there weren’t as many options as there are now. However, some more in-depth research into these organizations will reveal the program, whether it be inpatient, outpatient or other level of care, is only for women and girls.
As I’m writing this piece and Googling these treatment centers with locations across the nation serving only females, I can recall that intense feeling of shame I felt as a male suffering with an eating disorder years ago.
The stigma that eating disorders is limited only to the female experience still remains. I will say, however, that it is getting better.
I remember my mother frantically researching and calling inpatient treatment centers from our New Jersey home one weekend while I was still deep in the disease. One facility after another gave the unfortunate news that the program was not offered to men. The intense guilt I felt for putting my mother through this never-ending search for help was debilitating, and that guilt only fueled my desire to use my eating disorder behaviors.
Eventually we did find inpatient facilities that accepted men, but the problem was then waiting for a bed to open up in a room located in a section of the eating disorders unit specified for male patients. Being in a treatment program as the only male among 30 women can come with a sense of shame and feeling of disconnect. Among my 3 inpatient stays at treatment centers and months of outpatient at each facility, I only encountered one other male.
It may seem like this piece is a bitter recollection of my recovery journey and how men are treated unfairly by treatment centers, but it’s far from that.
To the treatment centers that do accept men, and to the three I personally encountered in my recovery, I want to thank you. Research into men with eating disorders is severely lacking, so you can imagine what that research was like 10 years ago. With further research and the development of programs and special training for mental health providers in these facilities specifically for men suffering from eating disorders, we can truly move toward a society free from disordered eating.
To the treatment facilities with locations across the nation that still only offer its program to females, I urge you to be part of this necessary conversation and movement towards helping other minority groups recover from this deadly disease. Your impact on the communities you serve is commendable, and just think of how many others you can help. And I know this will take time, but the time is now.
About Brian: Brian Kearney is 28 years old and lives in Nashville, TN. He works in digital marketing and enjoys reading, going to concerts, exploring local breweries, and volunteering in his free time.