Stephanie B., former patient
“After ten years of treatment and five prior treatment centers, my hope for recovery from Anorexia was next to nothing. I fought to get my insurance to cover treatment, and my Dr. in Austin, Dr. Tyson, recommended the Eating Recovery Center in Denver. I figured this was my last chance. I would either recover, or I would die.
The Eating Recovery Center literally saved my live. I thought I was there wouldn’t be anything new that I could learn to help me recover, but I was wrong. In my initial meeting with my treatment team , Dr. Weiner focused on what was maintaining my eating disorder, rather than what caused it. This was new to me. He used the metaphor of a fly trapped in a house that kept smacking against a window trying to get out, not realizing that there was an open door. I was that fly that just kept hitting the window. He said their job was to help me find the door and fly through it.
I have never been introduced to Dr. Bishop’s concept of values, which I found key to my recovery. Once I gained self-awareness about my values, I really couldn’t go back to the eating disorder. It simply didn’t serve my values!
Another influential element in this program was learning about my temperament through the TCI. My therapist and Dr. Weiner reviewed it with me and I learned to embrace my “turtle” nature. Suddenly, it made sense to me why I felt so out of place, being a turtle in a “hare’s” world!
A third paramount aspect of the ERC’s curriculum was learning about experiential avoidance. I had always been taught to embrace it and meditate on it! What a concept! Through my faith in my treatment team, I did embrace it, and it slowly diminished. I was stunned.
While I know that recovery is a process, not an event, I finally have hope that I can live a life free from my eating disorder. I can live a values-driven life. I understand myself and my true nature. Ten years of solid treatment and five previous treatment centers, and I now have hope.
I owe my life to all of the staff that invested so much time and energy into making sure that my treatment this time was different than all of the previous ones. With their support, I can truly say that I am well on my way towards recovery. Thank you. I will always hold a special places in my heart for the Eating Recovery Center. Thanks to the incredibly talented, insightful and skilled staff at the Eating Recovery Center, I have been given a gift I had never thought possible: Recovery and Healing.”
-Stephanie B., former Eating Recovery Center patient
