A student who once suffered with a crippling eating disorder says he couldn't get the urgent professional help he needed as the NHS waitlist was simply too long.
Charlie, who only wanted to share his first name, says his parents had no other choice than to fund private healthcare for their son as he tried to seek NHS support for over two years.
Despite weighing just 6.7 stone at his lowest, the London-based student failed to receive an anorexia diagnosis until he resorted to private support. This, he says, only exacerbated his condition as it made it 'easier' for him to deny that he had a problem.
Reflecting on how much his health declined, the 23-year-old admits that the severity of his anorexia could have had deathly consequences.
He told the Mirror: "I have people telling me I could have died because the numbers on the scale just kept going down, and I didn't know what was happening in terms of getting help."
Charlie - who also has OCD and autism - admits that it was a 'gradual process' when coming to terms with his eating disorder. Issues around food first arose at the age of 12, but by the time he got to university things had rapidly worsened, as he was barely eating and suffering in silence.
"I got older and became more isolated and didn't have consistent support. I was left to my own devices a bit more, so was able to exacerbate the eating disorder," he explains.
Admitting he was 'really fatigued all of the time', Charlie suffered with 'super low energy' and struggled to concentrate on anything but food. His sleeping schedule was also 'all over the place', as the student would wake up at around 2am and go to bed 'really early'.
"I would go to extreme lengths to avoid that bloating feeling because it was quite uncomfortable. That would mean taking hours and hours chewing everything I ate. I'd spend hours eating, meaning I wouldn't have time to do other stuff like talk to people or study," the 23-year-old says.
Recalling his darkest moments, Charlie adds: "During Covid was probably when I was at my loneliest. I was living at uni halls at the time, and living in a city away from family and not having any friends wasn't great.
Charlie was forced to drop out of studying his Master's degree to focus on his recovery. With his physical and mental health deteriorating, the student admits that his anorexia became 'very obvious to [his] family'.
"I progressively refused to eat meals with [family] or go out for meals. I'd always want to eat stuff they'd cook me alone so it definitely had an impact on them," Charlie adds.
Charlie spent over two years trying to get NHS help for his eating disorder. Despite his GP referring him to two support services on separate occasions, he never heard back from the first, and the second service took three months to finally offer treatment, by which time he had already sought help from a private hospital.
While his family has been 'very supportive and understanding', he says: "I felt a lot of guilt for feeling like a burden on my family needing to pay for treatment as we couldn't get it soon enough on the NHS."
Shockingly, UK hospital admissions for eating disorders have increased by 84% in the last five years reaching a total of 24,268 admissions.
In the last five years alone, there has been a stark rise of 128% in boys and men with eating disorders - with many failing to seek professional help due to feelings of shame in not conforming to toxic stereotypes of someone with an eating disorder.
Charlie sought intervention from London-based Orri, a recovery-focused specialist treatment service for eating disorders in Harley Street that offers services for a range of conditions including anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder.
"Historically, eating disorders have been perceived as illnesses that affect women. In not conforming to the stereotype of someone with an eating disorder, men face a double burden," Kerrie Jones, founder and CEO or Orri, said.
"Many men with eating disorders can feel too ashamed to visit their GP due to myths and stereotypes surrounding the illness. And even if they do, when diagnosing them their GPs may not consider anorexia or bulimia. Their BMI might be normal, which can be misleading when trying to diagnose an eating disorder."
Commenting on the stigma around men with eating disorders, Charlie says: "I was the only man in my ward at the inpatient clinic I attended."
At both clinics he visited, Charlie reveals that staff got his pronouns (he/him/his) incorrect occasionally. He explains: "There was nothing personal about this either, but that was precisely the problem. In care plans and emails to my GP, members of the multidisciplinary teams said things like, 'Charlie eats his meal with supervision from staff in her bedroom', and "She is finding the 1:1 sessions helpful'.
"It made me think that the clinicians were just copying and pasting information about one patient to another and that because most patients were female they assumed I was too."
Thankfully, Charlie is now on the road to recovery, and has returned to university to complete his studies.
He says: "It's been nice to be able to share meals with my family again and it's brought us closer together. The process tested the depths of their love for me and the depths of their pockets as well.
Stressing the importance of urgent NHS support for those struggling with eating disorders, Charlie adds: "As the NHS waiting lists are long, I don't imagine everyone will be as privileged as I was to afford private healthcare."
In response to Charlie's case, Angela Boon, Associate Director of Communications and Engagement for Barnet, Enfield, and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust, said: "We are very sorry that there was a delay in Charlie getting his care plan and we would like to offer him our sincere apologies.
"Our specialist Eating Disorder Service receives, on average, 100 referrals a month from across the country and while Covid has had a negative impact on our waiting lists, we continue to make good progress in reducing waiting times with a range of measures including the recruitment of more staff."
If you're worried about your own or someone else's health, you can contact Beat, the UK’s eating disorder charity, 365 days a year on 0808 801 0433 or beateatingdisorders.org.uk
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