Roberts says part of the problem is the spillover from the public sector. "It was just becoming a bit long for us as clinicians, to be honest, to manage the waitlist well." It's reopened since then, but waits can still be long. "At the end of last year, we actually closed our waitlist," says practice director and clinical psychologist Dr Marion Roberts, who also teaches at the University of Auckland. Across the city in Parnell, Nurture Psychology is experiencing a similar level of demand. It's not just Geary's practice that's overwhelmed by need. Several times last year the list had to be closed completely. At present, the waiting list to see one of the four psychologists at Geary's Shelly Beach Practice, in Auckland's Herne Bay, is four months. ![]() As was the case with Alice, an illness like anorexia can develop fast and access to care can be unattainable until physical symptoms are so well advanced they require hospitalisation.Įven private practitioners - which are unaffordable for many - are struggling with demand. Once those behaviours become entrenched and habituated, they can be very difficult to shift."īut with an under-pressure public health system, such early intervention is easier said than done. "Within the first few months it's so much easier to turn it around. Within the first three years is good, but she prefers to see people much earlier. I mean, the research is unequivocal", says clinical psychologist Dr Jan Geary, who specialises in disordered eating. But it's best to nip them in the bud when they first start to develop. Last year, double the number of 10 to 15-year-olds with eating disorders, or suspected eating disorders, were admitted to Auckland's Starship Children's' hospital Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-FarrellyĮating disorders are curable at any stage. Yet it wasn't until she collapsed and was hospitalised that she got an appointment with her region's eating disorder service. Her mum took time off work to care for her and slept beside her in bed, for fear Alice would die in the night. Within six months, she had lost more than half her body weight and dropped out of nursing school.īy the time she moved home to her parents' place, she'd stopped eating and drinking completely. In response to gaining weight, she began calorie counting, which led to cutting out whole food groups, excessively exercising and isolating herself from friends and family. It's a mindset that can be exacerbated by the difficulty people with eating disorders face when trying to get help through the public health system.Īlice was diagnosed with anorexia in her first year at university. "Sometimes you get into that, 'It won't happen to me', which I think is a really common feeling, that, 'I'm not sick enough'." ![]() Yet the nature of the mental illness makes it hard for Alice to accept that she's unwell enough - almost as if she thinks she's not good enough at starving herself to death. It's unlikely, even with a full recovery, that she'll ever be able to have children. Because of the illness, parts of her body - like her heart and her bones - are irreparably damaged, leaving her physically as well as emotionally exhausted. ![]() She's going through what she describes as a "tough patch" at the moment, which is very much an understatement. She sounds listless each word is a hybrid of a whisper and a sigh. People with the condition are about five times more likely to die than their peers without it and the rate is much higher than for illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Warning: This story discusses eating disorders and suicide.Īs she gets older, more and more people Alice* knows die, which, at face value, seems strange given she only turns 34 in April.īut she has anorexia nervosa and so do the people who keep dying - she guesses there have been about 10 so far - either from medical complications of their eating disorder, or by suicide.Ī statistic that's often bandied about is that anorexia is the most fatal mental illness.
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