4 Ways to Advocate for Your Recovery During Medical Care
For many people, particularly those in eating disorder recovery, doctors appointments can feel complicated and terrifying. Oftentimes even routine appointments can bring about anxiety, fear, shame, or frustration as discussions can quickly turn toward weight, body size, and/or dieting.
Although healthcare environments are supposed to support health and healing, they might not always feel that way for people navigating recovery. A lot of providers unintentionally overlook a patient’s symptoms or concerns due to assumptions tied to weight. Additionally, seemingly well-meaning comments made by providers regarding dieting or weight can potentially disrupt the recovery process.
Unfortunately, many people leave appointments feeling dismissed, triggered, unheard, or discouraged. Let’s discuss strategies to feel more comfortable advocating for yourself in these medical spaces.
Your recovery deserves protection
Recovery requires individuals to rebuild trust with their body, hunger cues, emotions, and inner voice. This can be difficult to build when medical environments are pushing harmful messages. It is important to keep in mind that protecting your recovery is not being ‘difficult’, it is simply advocating for your health.
Advocating for your recovery can look different for everyone: some people may need to ask providers to refrain from discussing weight loss, others may need to set boundaries about being weighed. Moreover, people may require additional support at appointments in order to ensure that they are being listened to by a provider.
1. Declining weights
Typically, being weighed can be distressing or triggering for those in recovery. However, for most appointments, you can decline to be weighed. You are allowed to let providers know that you are in eating disorder recovery and explain to them what best supports your individual care.
If you have a dietitian, therapist, or treatment team, you can also request that providers communicate with them directly instead of discussing potentially triggering recommendations.
Remember that these spaces are supposed to be beneficial for your health. In doing so, you can ask questions like:
- “Is my weight necessary for today’s appointment?”
- “Can we do a blind weight?”
- “Can we avoid discussing numbers and/or weight loss?”
2. You can always switch providers
Sometimes we might stay with a provider because we feel guilty for leaving, worry that we are overreacting, or maybe even think that we need to just ‘deal with it’. However, your relationship with any provider should feel collaborative and respectful. After all, this is about what is best for your individualized care and nothing else.
If you find that your provider is repeatedly dismissive, pushes your boundaries, doesn’t listen to you, or makes you feel unsafe in your body, you are absolutely allowed to find a different provider who is more aligned with your values.
There are some spaces that practice a weight inclusive perspective and who have been trained in understanding eating disorders, chronic illness, and body diversity. If possible, check with your treatment team to see if they can refer you to these types of spaces.
3. Listening to your gut
One of the most challenging aspects of recovery can often be learning to trust yourself again as people have spent years ignoring their hunger, overriding their discomfort, and second guessing their own experiences.
This means that when something feels off medically, it is easy to convince yourself that you are making it up or are overreacting.
If you feel like something is wrong, it is vital to continue to ask questions and advocate for yourself. You are the expert on your body.
Additionally, being in recovery does not mean that your symptoms are ‘just anxiety’; everybody deserves comprehensive and thorough medical care.
4. If possible, bring support
When medical appointments are overwhelming, particularly when difficult conversations happen unexpectedly, it can be beneficial to have support with you. This could be a spouse, partner, parent, or trusted friend. Having another person in the room that understands your background can help you to:
- feel more grounded
- remember information more clearly
- reinforce boundaries
- speak up when it is difficult to advocate for yourself
Everyone deserves care that supports healing
Recovery is already incredibly hard and you should not have to fight to be treated with respect in healthcare settings. Advocating for yourself may be uncomfortable at first, but keeping in mind that your comfort, safety, and recovery matter can help to push through the initial discomfort.
Remember: you deserve providers who listen, you deserve nuanced care, you deserve to be seen as a whole person, and you deserve comprehensive healthcare.
Contributed and written by: Crisman Arnold, dietetic intern
