I hesitated a long time before writing about it. I hesitated because at the time of the facts, I played the game. I laughed. I froze. I participated “. In fact, to hide my discomfort, I pretended that the situation was funny and banal. And yet…
At the time, in 2013, I was at rock bottom. After six weeks of hospitalization in Saint-Jérôme without proper care, I accepted my parents’ offer to go to a private clinic for addiction treatment. Dependency as in alcoholism and drug addiction… although I had never had a problem with alcohol or drugs. But what I learned there was that my problem – eating disorders – was exactly what all addicted of this world. The substance was different, but the underlying evil was the same.
I was the only one in the entire clinic who was being treated for anorexia and bulimia. All the other patients were there to deal with a drug or alcohol problem. But very quickly, in group therapy, the evidence jumped out at us: we were the same.
Except for one detail.
In my case, physical appearance and weight were central to my ailments. So when my GP (and owner of said PRIVATE clinic) started hugging me and making comments about my boobs and my shape in general, I froze.
I am an assertive person who is not intimidated. But in this “therapeutic” context, where I came to seek help after so many years of suffering alone on my side, the reaction of my doctor (and the nursing staff at his side) disturbed me. To all his very public comments and caresses where he commented on my body and my breasts, I responded with a laugh. A yellow laugh, an uneasy laugh, but a laugh that I had mastered. The laughter of the girl who doesn’t want to attract attention, who doesn’t want to make waves, who doesn’t want to disappoint.
I was in this VERY expensive private clinic to help me with an eating disorder that had plagued my life for 20 years. What I received in return were inappropriate comments from a HEALTH PROFESSIONAL who was supposed to help me.
I haven’t talked about what I experienced at this clinic until today. Because I didn’t want to be the woman complaining about luxury treatment in a private clinic. Because I didn’t want to draw attention to my case. Because I didn’t want to disappoint my parents who invested so much money in this unpromising treatment. Nine years later, I never told them what I had experienced in this clinic. Because when we’re in so much pain and our parents are willing to invest so much in treatment, the last thing we want to tell them is that some of the professionals paid to help us weren’t helping. Were they only there for the money? I do not know. But me, as a woman, as a patient, as a vulnerable person, I felt abandoned. As a victim of sexual abuse and inadequate care for any adult with an eating disorder, I felt betrayed. But I played along. Again, so as not to disappoint.
When even the doctor who “treats” you does not understand how harmful and inappropriate his actions and comments are, how can you hope for better? Since that experience, I have stayed away from health care. If I don’t have a family doctor, I would rather suffer alone than be accompanied by another dinosaur who thinks that a comment on the “firm breasts” of an anorexic patient is an appropriate therapeutic approach…