A Treatment Diamond in the Rough
Mike Kraft is a former sports journalist and member of The Emilee Connection- Adult Eating Disorder Support Group. He is intelligent, witty, kind, and determined. Mike’s talents and attributes shine through as he openly shares reflections, challenges, and victories on his healing journey.
Mike can be reached at: mkraft418@gmail.com
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
That was me when it came to seeking treatment for my eating disorder. For the better part of the last five years, I have cycled in and out of recovery and relapse. I would go into treatment, excel in the program only to return home and be right back where I started in no less than six months. And then I would go back into treatment and the same thing would happen. Every time I would enter treatment, I thought it would be different that time around. This time, I was going to rid myself of the eating disorder once and for all and finally get to start living the life I felt I deserved. And then a few months would go by and all of my progress would vanish.
Rinse. Dry. Repeat.
I would grow more and more frustrated with each relapse and my eating disorder seemed to grow stronger and stronger as a result. Treatment would seemingly sever one of the eating disorder’s limbs, but by the time I had left treatment, that limb had grown back and was now armor-platted and impenetrable. Sometimes it felt like my eating disorder learned more from treatment than I did. It would learn to become more cunning, say the things it knew it needed to say to throw doctors off the scent and make them believe that I was better and no longer needed their guidance. My eating disorder would grow frustrated when I took its control away by entering treatment and then take it out on me twice as much when it was let out of its cage following discharge.
Treatment and I have not always seen eye to eye. While I am always compliant with the rules and do everything that is asked of me, I have become more and more frustrated with the standard approach when it comes to treating eating disorders in a treatment facility. No facility seems willing to try something new. Every place you go is essentially the same, just with different doctors and nurses and menu options. Every place promises you an individualized treatment plan, but very few deliver. Are you really individualizing my treatment plan when you know I have an exercise addiction, yet at no point during my stay do you even address it despite it being something I clearly stated as something that I wanted to work on? Did they really think that having me be completely stagnant for my entire stay was somehow going to magically cure my exercise addiction and not lead to me just exercising more to make up for lost time? It frustrated me to no end and made me question whether there was truly a place that could help me.
More and more treatment facilities are becoming chains that have multiple locations across the country. They are buying up independent centers that are hard on their luck financially and converted into yet another cookie-cutter treatment facility, where all the rules and regulations and methods are the same whether it’s located in New York, California and everywhere in between. Everywhere you go you can expect rapid weight restoration techniques with little-to-no physical movement allowed, along with a rewards system that unlocks privileges that we’ve all had since we were toddlers, but stripped of the second we walked through the facility’s doors. Thank you so much for recognizing my hard work and rewarding me with the ability to use my electronics 30 minutes before you force me to go to bed hours before I would go to bed at home.
I started to lose hope after my latest relapse last year. My insurance limited my options to those I had already tried in the past and got nothing out of and my spirit was broken from having to quit a dream job and move back home with my parents. Part of me just wanted to throw in the towel and just let the eating disorder kill me. The more I deteriorated, the more that it looked like a reality. My family and I looked into palliative care. I signed a power of attorney and gave my family access to my financial accounts so none of that stuff would get held up in the court system had I passed away. I gave my mom a list of names to contact to let them know that I had passed away. The only thing left to do was expire.
I still don’t know why I did it, but in a moment of clarity, I decided to reach out for help. Not really knowing where to go because I knew that reaching out to any professional around the area would just have them recommending options I’d either explored before or options that involved one of the chain facilities around the country, I instead did a very millennial thing to do and reached out to the eating disorder community on Reddit. I created a post asking if there was a treatment facility anywhere in the country that wasn’t so fixated on cookie-cutter approaches to treatment and instead focused on harm reduction and normalizing some behaviors to improve one’s quality of life. I wasn’t looking for a facility whose only goal was to get me to that magical BMI that they all strive for before immediately throwing you out. I wanted something different. The answer I got back was Sanford Medical Center in Fargo, North Dakota. It had been right under my nose the whole time and I didn’t even see it. When I was still living in Bismarck, I was just a mere couple hours down I-94 from Sanford and was just a mere few minutes from Sanford when I was covering the North Dakota high school state volleyball tournament in Fargo in November.
The pitch for Sanford was its SEED (Severe and Enduring Eating Disorder) program, that focused less on getting a patient to a normal weight and more about stabilization and quality of life. It focused less on BMI and growth charts and more on values and goals. Their brochure also stated that they have an individualized approach and no two patients’ treatment would look the same. Even though I was skeptical of that claim, I decided to do an intake anyway because it did seem like something a bit different than all the other options I had tried in the past. The intake lasted roughly 45 minutes, where I was asked a number of questions about my history with the eating disorder, including how long I had been suffering from it, where I had sought treatment and what I was looking to get out of treatment at Sanford. I was not guaranteed a spot in their SEED program because you had to meet a certain criteria to qualify. In order to qualify, you had to have been diagnosed with an eating disorder for more than a decade and been in treatment programs in the past. Upon completion of the intake, the coordinator took the results to the medical team, who would make the determination as to whether I qualified. Even if I hadn’t qualified for the SEED program, they do have the standard treatment protocol that calls for weight restoration to the target BMI, just like every other facility. But the next day I was informed that I did qualify for the SEED program, although that did not bind me to that track. I could decide to go the full weight restoration route at any point during my treatment if I would like. I agreed to join the SEED program and they put me on the waiting list, which at that time stretched 8-9 weeks. I completed the intake in late May and my plan from the beginning was to begin my recovery journey by getting medically stable at Strong Memorial Hospital before venturing out to North Dakota. Being a medical hospital, Sanford had the ability to stabilize me there, but I couldn’t wait that long to receive care and I didn’t want to tax my body further by enduring a day’s worth of travel, so I admitted to Strong in the meantime.
After about a 10-day wait, I got the call from Strong that they had a bed available and two weeks later I was back at home waiting for my number to be called from Sanford. In the meantime, I had to switch insurance because they did not accept New York State Medicaid and I wasn’t about to spend $1,250 per day for treatment. It took a little bit of time, but we did get a national plan that Sanford accepted, however it didn’t go into effect until August 1 based on when we purchased the plan, so we had to wait until at least that date before I could be admitted. I was given an admission date of August 8, which was only three days away when they called. With little time to spare, we secured flights and packed our bags, only to have the airline cancel our flight 24 hours before we were scheduled to depart. Thankfully we found a last-minute flight with another airline, but the only downside was it only flew as far as Minneapolis-St. Paul, requiring us to rent a car and drive it the remaining four hours to Fargo. But we managed and we got to Fargo the afternoon prior to my admittance. We spent the night at a bowling alley/arcade/bar and had one final memorable time together before I started my treatment the following morning.
I had no idea what to expect when I walked onto the unit for the very first time. I had been given a sample schedule with all of the week’s events as well as the rules. It seemed pretty standard. There wasn’t anything that really jumped off the page. There were three meals and three snacks every day. Breakfast was at 7:45 a.m., AM snack was 9:45 a.m., lunch was noon, PM snack was 3 p.m., dinner was 5 p.m. and night snack was 8 p.m. You had 30 minutes to complete meals and 15 minutes to complete snacks or else you would be given a supplement, in which you would have five minutes to drink. The amount of supplementation you would be required to drink depended on the number of exchanges still remaining on your plate. At Sanford, the supplement of choice was Boost Plus. During meals, sleeves had to be rolled up to the elbows and all pockets had to be taped. There were three separate tables in the dining room, each with their own set of rules. The orange table was for the SEED patients. Patients at this table were allowed to eat their food in any manner they wanted, even if it was considered disordered because the goal at the SEED table was to just get the food down under any way possible. Staff did not redirect any of their habits at the table unless they were trying to discard the food or acting in a way that was disruptive to the rest of the group. The blue table was for those on the full recovery track that were either new or still struggling to meet their exchanges. At this table, patients were not allowed to engage in any eating behaviors that were considered disordered (cutting foods into tiny pieces, using silverware for finger food, odd combinations) and would be redirected immediately by a staff member. And the purple table was for those also on the full recovery track that had shown progress in their recovery and therefore had more privileges at the table, like having the ability to reheat their food and get their own water. The members of the purple table also went out on an outing every Wednesday, where they would participate in a fun activity as well as have lunch at a restaurant. On Tuesdays, members of the purple table helped cook a family-style meal that was served to the rest of the patients as well as the staff members. SEED patients were exempt from the family-style meal. Following meals, there was an hour-long observation period and following snacks, the observation period was 30 minutes. During that time, patients were required to be in the common area and were prohibited from going into their rooms. Patients could ask for the bathroom during that time period if it were an emergency, but staff were required to observe them more closely than they would have to if they were going to the bathroom outside of the observation period. Staff members were pretty good about giving patients their privacy when using the bathroom. Most would stand outside the bathroom completely, while others would be in the bathroom, but well off to the side. The bathroom consisted of four bathroom stalls and four shower stalls. There were two designated shower times: before breakfast and after the observation period was over following dinner. Those with bulimia were required to shower in the morning, while those with restrictive anorexia showered at night.
As is the case in most treatment facilities, the first 24-48 hours are the most hectic. On my first day, I was constantly getting pulled in all directions before I even had a chance to attend my first group or meet any of the other patients. I had to have blood drawn, take a urine sample, have a skin check completed, have an EKG conducted, meet with the social worker to complete some forms, meet with the dietitian to develop a meal plan for the rest of the day, meet with my therapist for introductions and meet with the physiologist to discuss any requests for medication. It was a lot to go through on top of all the nerves that were running through my head with being in an unfamiliar setting. But I got through it and things settled down quickly after that.
The inpatient program had a maximum capacity of eight patients at a time, and they were at capacity when I arrived. When I entered, I was the only male. Sanford doesn’t separate adolescents and adults, so there were five adults and three adolescents when I started. Sanford also has a PHP program that accepts up to 10 patients at a time. The two programs have meals and snacks together, as well as two groups together (psychotherapy and patient-led group), but the rest of the time we were separated. The age range was vast. They take patients as young as 12 and there is no age maximum. During the four weeks I was there, ages ranged from 16 to 60, with every decade in between represented. And everyone was at different stages of their recovery. With Sanford being part of a medical hospital, there wasn’t anybody they wouldn’t turn away. They did not have minimum BMI requirements that residentials and PHPs have, so that means that those with the most severe cases of the eating disorder could be admitted. And they were. My stay at Sanford really showed me just how severe the disease is and what it can do to both the human body and mind. I’ve always considered my eating disorder to be of the extreme variety. I did so much damage to my body and my BMI dipped to lethal levels multiple times, yet now I am of the believe that I never truly experienced what rock bottom could look like, and I’m thankful for it. While everyone I interacted with at Sanford was lovely and they are some of the most caring people you could be around, there were many who I looked at and told myself I would never allow myself to get that severe because of how rough a shape they were in. Some could only get around by pushing a walker, something my 90-year-old grandmother has to do, and the people pushing the walker were nowhere near the age of my grandmother. In one case, one of those patients was in their early 30s. Some had to sit on cushions everywhere they sat because they had so little support. Many were reliant on a cocktail of medication to silence their anxiety and OCD tendencies as well as all the physical ailments they had endured as a result of years of malnutrition. It pained me to see them in such suffering all the time because they truly were wonderful people who did not deserve a life filled with so much physical and mental torture.
Sanford definitely practiced what they preached when they stressed that they used an individualized approach and that no treatment plan was exactly the same. My treatment plan was truly unique to me. When I first met with my team, two of the areas I stressed as being areas I wanted to work on was portion sizing and exercising. Along with isolation, I get myself into trouble when it comes to portioning out my meals and getting a handle on my exercise. Even though I eat a well-balanced diet, I have a tendency to eat smaller portions than what my body requires. Instead of having a chicken sandwich with 3 or 4 ounces of chicken, I’ll only put maybe 1.5 ounces of chicken on my sandwich. I did that with just about everything. It was my way to guard against fullness, as fullness is another thing I struggle with because I really don’t like the feeling. Exercise was the other major struggle for me. Exercise consumed me. All of my free time went to exercising, most notably walking because eventually it became the only thing my body was strong enough to do. I didn’t have the muscle strength to run or strength train, and as I grew weaker from the combination of over-exercising and restricting, my ability to walk up inclines also became too much for me. As a result, all of my exercise came in the form of walking on flat surfaces for hours each day. In the moment, I would never get tried out from all the walking. It was only after the fact that I would truly feel the exhaustion, to the point where I didn’t have the energy to do anything but sit around. Once the adrenaline wore off, my body was completely depleted. Devoting all of my free time to exercise meant never getting a chance to do anything for fun, like watching a movie or television show or playing a video game. Exercise became less of an enjoyment and more of a chore I didn’t look forward to doing but knew I had to do.
I’ve told other treatment facilities in the past about my struggles with portion control and exercise and they have said that it would be something they would address with me, but they never did. At Sanford, they actually did something about it. When it came to the portioning aspect of my treatment plan, my dietitian took time out of her schedule to meet with me once a week for 30 minutes to sit down with me and practice portioning out several different types of foods. And they weren’t just random foods she found lying around the kitchen cabinets. She asked me specifically for foods that I regularly ate at home that required portioning and made sure to have them on hand when we met. She also brought an array of plates, bowls and cups to showcase how a serving of a specific food looked like on different pieces of kitchenware. I portioned out foods like cereal, rice, chips, chicken, deli meat, potato wedges, fruit and vegetables. She’d have me portion out ½ cups of certain foods and 1 cup of others depending on their serving size and then we’d put them in each different type of kitchenware so I could get a feel for how much space each occupied. The goal was to become comfortable with eyeballing portions instead of becoming reliant on food scales because of how obsessive it can be and also it’s not something someone would typical do when preparing a meal. Food scales really should only be used when measuring out ingredients for cooking or baking, not for preparing a turkey sandwich or a bowl of cereal. I found those weekly sessions extremely beneficial, and it was something specific to my treatment plan, as no one else was doing anything like that.
Another thing Sanford did that was unique to my recovery is they put me on a two-day soft food diet to simulate what life would look like when I was to have major reconstructive dental surgery later this year. They thought it was important for me to see what the average day’s volume of food would look like that my body needed to maintain while being limited in the number of different foods I would be allowed to eat while my mouth was in a state of repair. I thought it would mean eating nothing but yogurt, pudding, ice cream, mashed potatoes and jello, but I was given a list of potential foods I could have that were available at the hospital. I was amazed by how much of a balanced diet I could still have while having food limitations. Over the course of those two days, I had French toast, pancakes, frozen yogurt, regular yogurt, jello, steamed vegetables, hummus, fish, eggs, deli meat, soft bread and even had pumpkin pie without the crust. Sure, I missed having certain food items like cereal, granola, chicken, chips and most fruit, but it was good practice and not something I think most treatment facilities would have been willing to do for me.
As far as the exercise piece, Sanford has the right idea by not prohibiting exercise but instead encouraging it. They know that several patients that come into the program struggle with some form of exercise addiction because many of them were athletes at some point. In my opinion, so many other treatment facilities make the mistake of banning all types of movement, claiming that you have to be at a healthy BMI before they would even consider allowing anyone to participate in any form of exercise. The only problem with that is that insurance tends to cut off once a patient has reached a healthy BMI and therefore the treatment facility doesn’t have time to start incorporating exercise into their daily schedule and therefore the patient is left to figure it out on their own, which never ends well. At Sanford, exercise is built into the schedule daily. There is a 30-minute leisurely walk scheduled after dinner on Wednesdays and Fridays, as well as a 30-minute leisurely walk in the afternoon on Sundays. During the nicer weather, the walks take place outside as long as the temperature doesn’t exceed 85 degrees. We go into downtown Fargo with a member of the nursing staff. Mondays are yoga and Saturday is a stretching group. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, it’s a full 45-minute gym session with the exercise physician. We’re allowed 30 minutes of cardio and the other 15 minutes can be used either strength training, stretching or yoga. There are two small fitness rooms on the unit that includes dumb bells, resistance bands, kettle bells, medicine balls, yoga mats, an elliptical, a treadmill, a rowing machine and a stationary bike. Patients also have the option to walk up and down the hallway for their cardio. In order to be eligible for fitness classes, a patient must be consistently finishing their meals and snacks or completing the supplementation. If a patient is behind on their exchanges, they aren’t allowed to participate in any of the fitness groups until they have caught up on their exchanges. After the first fitness group session, the exercise physician works with you to come up with an exercise plan that is catered to your interests. For me, it was a 30-minute cardio plan and a 30-minute strength training plan with dumb bells and resistance bands.
Exercise became fun and enjoyable again. I looked forward to Tuesdays and Thursdays the most because of how much I enjoyed the strength training. I grew stronger as the weeks went on and the exercise physician noticed as well and would often comment on my progress. While I’m still nowhere close to winning the next Mr. Universe title, I definitely feel stronger. And the amount of exercise I’m doing feels right. I’m tired by the end of it, but when it is time to stop, I never feel like I want to keep going and really tax my body further. I understand the importance of rest and how over-exercising just leads to the potential for injury as well as unhappiness. It opens up my day to be able to include other enjoyable things. More treatment facilities need to consider building exercise into their programs because it allows patients the opportunity to learn what healthy exercise looks like in a controlled environment. One of the packets my exercise physician gave me stated that when the body and mind are healthy, the desire to over-exercise actually goes down and when the body and mind are in a weakened state, the desire to over-exercise increases. I didn’t believe that until I experienced it first hand. I currently don’t have that impulse to constantly be moving around like I once did. There are times where I’m perfectly content with sitting on the couch for a couple hours to watch a movie or play a game. In the past, I couldn’t sit still for more than 30 minutes without feeling like I needed to be up and doing something.
The 1-on-1 therapy is by far the strongest aspect of the program at Sanford, and I feel like I lucked out when it came to the therapist that was assigned to me. There are four therapists in the program that are randomly assigned to patients. All four therapists lead at least one of the groups, so I had the chance of meeting all of them, but the one I felt the most comfortable with was the one that ended up being my therapist. All the therapists were nice, but I felt the biggest connection to the one I was assigned to.
We met three times a week for an hour each session. We focused a lot of our time on relapse prevention and pinning down the reasoning for why I struggled to maintain my progress when leaving a treatment facility. There were many tiny factors, like the everyday stressors that come with daily life that everyone experiences, but the main two culprits were the over-exercising, which I was more than aware of, and also isolation. I tend to be more of a reserved individual, so I’m not one that is going to pick up the phone and make plans with other people. I’m more of the one that waits around for a phone call. As a result, I spent a lot of my time alone not interacting with the rest of the world and therefore turn to exercise to pass the time. As a result, my therapist had me create a thorough list of all the things I could do to pass the time. She wanted me to come up with specific events that would get me out of the house and into the public. I ended up creating a list that had more than 30 items on it before the end of the calendar year. It helps that the holidays are coming up and there are plenty of events happening around the area from September through December to keep me occupied. We also discussed me helping my dad coach basketball this winter, which has been something that I’ve been interested in exploring.
My therapist also had me create a helpful graphic of what my life looked like when I was doing well in my recovery, when things were beginning to slide, and when things had completely collapsed. We called it the “GYR” of relapse prevention, with the G standing for green, the Y standing for yellow, and the R standing for red. She even went the extra mile to get it laminated and added color and traffic lights to spruce it up a bit.
We spent quite a bit of time hammering down what values were most important to me and which ones I should be focusing on during my recovery. I have to admit that values are not something I’ve ever really paid much attention to. Everyone has their own set of values they view are important to them, but I guess I’ve never really stopped to think which ones I value over others. That’s one of the exercises we dedicated an entire session to. My therapist had small sheets of paper with about 80 different values written on them that she wanted me to sort into three categories: not important, somewhat important and very important. It took some thinking, but in the end I ended up putting about 15 values into the not important category, and the rest were split evenly between somewhat important and very important. From there, she had me pick out six from the very important category that stuck out to me the most. I ended up going with purpose, stability, mindfulness, independence, comfort and autonomy. Purpose, stability, independence and autonomy all go along with getting a job and being able to stay healthy enough to hold it down. Comfort had more to do with finances and making enough money where I could afford the things I needed to have while also having some money off to the side that I could use for fun and enjoyment. And mindfulness to me means taking the time to take in the current situation and be able to reflect instead of just letting the time go by without appreciating anything going on in the moment.
While I loved my time at Sanford, I guess I should also write that it may not be for everyone. You have to go in there with the right mindset and know exactly what you want to get out of recovery, because if you are on the SEED track, your recovery can look however you want it to look. No one on the SEED track is required to weight restore. The only rule they have is that patients cannot lose weight while in the program and a patient’s exchanges will be adjusted to ensure that it doesn’t happen. But if you’re severely underweight on the SEED track and don’t feel like you are ready to weight restore and instead just want to maintain and start to develop a healthy relationship with food, they will accommodate that and won’t try to push you in another direction unless you direct them to. They do blood work every Monday, monitor your weight every morning and check vitals a couple times every day. The psychiatrist will prescribe medication to address any issues the blood work may detect and you also have the ability to request any medication that will help with any anxiety.
Also, if you’re someone who has a competitive eating disorder and can be triggered fairly easily by the appearance of others, then Sanford may not be for you because they have the capability to accept the sickest of the sickest. Chances are at some point during your stay, you will not be the sickest person among the group, but that doesn’t mean your illness is any less valid. My best advice is to focus on yourself and remind yourself that you’re there to get better and not to go backward because even if you think you want to look like that other person you’re comparing yourself to, deep down you know that person’s life is a misery and you don’t want that for yourself.
It can also be tough trying to offer encouragement to the patients who aren’t on the SEED program and are on the standard weight restoration path because everyone knows who’s in what program. I struggled with this because I found it difficult to tell a struggling patient that it would get easier when I also recognized that the program I was on was way easier and more comfortable than what they were enduring every day. Unlike patients on the SEED track who could pick every aspect of their meals, those not on the SEED track had to pick from a limited number of options for that specific day. It was usually two main entrees and a couple sides and a couple desserts that they had the ability to choose from for each meal, but they could not order anything that was not already on the menu, except for the snacks, which they had 100 percent say over. For the adolescents, they did not get to choose anything. Everything was chosen by the dietitians, and they often challenged them with the more difficult of the two options. I never sensed hostility toward those on the SEED program because typically the number of patients on the SEED program outnumbered those who weren’t, but I wouldn’t blame them if they did have a bit of resentment toward us. The best you can do in that situation is lead by example, complete your meals and not complain. That’s what I tried to do and I felt like everybody there noticed my willingness to be there and appreciated it. I did not have any trouble with any of the patients I shared space with during my four weeks there, and there were about 15-18 different patients while I was there.
The individual therapy is where the real healing takes place. When it comes to the group sessions, they’re not much different than any other treatment place. They have ACT, DBT, CBT, Mindfulness, Skills Integration, Nutrition, Creativity (Art), Life Skills, Book Club, and Emotions. They are missing a couple groups like Body Image that are offered in their PHP program. A lot of the groups are reading off handouts and doing worksheets, which is not unlike any other treatment facility. Sometimes it’s more about the group dynamics and how open the group is to talking that really makes the difference.
Overall, I highly recommend Sanford to anyone who has exhausted their treatment search and is thinking about giving up altogether on recovery like I was. It can be extremely defeating suffering relapse after relapse, undoing all that time you spent in treatment being force fed and suffering through endless anxiety and what felt like torture. I never felt any of that while at Sanford. I enjoyed the vast majority of my time there and the four weeks flew by. While I’m happy to be home and able to go to the bathroom unassisted and flush the toilet myself instead of having to have a nurse do it, I was extremely satisfied with the program and I was proud of myself for giving my maximum effort. I pushed myself when no one said that I had to. I challenged myself to get a bit out of my comfort zone when it came to menu planing. I could have very easily just picked the same meals every day because that was something someone on the SEED track was allowed to do and some did exactly that, but I chose to incorporate as much variety as I could. When the dietitian and therapist offered potential challenges for me to consider, I accepted them instead of rejecting them. I agreed to eat more challenging snacks like cookies, brownies, pumpkin pie, muffins and candy bars. I allowed my dietitian on multiple occasions to surprise me with a meal she picked out for me that would be a bit more challenging than something I would pick out for myself. I didn’t need to do any of these things, but I wanted to get the most out of my time at Sanford as I could because the SEED track really only allows for patients to be there for 2-3 weeks. I lobbied to stay for four weeks and it was approved because I was new to the program, but I very easily could have asked to leave after two weeks and they would have complied to my request, but I knew that wasn’t going to help me in the long run. The reason for the short stays is because the idea is that when you are discharged, you use the skills they taught you in the real world for about three months before reconnecting with them and seeing whether you would like another 2-3 weeks in their program to either get back on track or to work on the next areas of your recovery. From a logistics standpoint, I don’t see myself returning to Sanford in three months for another round of treatment, but I’ve also not left a treatment facility feeling as hopeful as I do right now.
I’m hopeful more treatment facilities will adopt a SEED track in the future, because for some of us, it’s the correct approach. At this point, I have given up on the traditional treatment centers and will never go back to one. They are far too fixated on numbers and not the individual. They are rigid in their approach and aren’t willing to be flexible. They tell us not to focus on the numbers and to be flexible, but they do not practice what they preach. I think it’s pretty telling that so many people suffering from eating disorders are reluctant to go into treatment because they view that as a bigger suffering and torment than continuing down their path of destruction. Clinical directors need to have a more open mind to the SEED model for those that would qualify and I hope one day someone looking to get help has more than just the one option in the middle of the country to turn to get the help they are looking for. North Dakota once again far exceeded my expectations and I’m glad I found what I consider to be a treatment diamond in the rough.
If anybody has any questions about the program, feel free to reach out to me. I’d be more than happy to answer any questions you may have.
Mike can be reached at: mkraft418@gmail.com