NG Tubes and Forced Fluids: My Stay in the General Hospital.

The more I've tried to write this the more anxious I have become because this is a very difficult article to write. Going back to that mindset isn't easy and to think of myself so desperate is something I struggle to dwell on. However I wanted to document this part of my journey because I have made an awful lot of progress since then and sometimes you've got to reach rock bottom to realise you need to fight harder for your life. It's about learning you deserve more than a mere existence. You deserve life.

Following my first admission to Wotton Lawn Psychiatric Unit in August 2014 I began to drastically decrease my food intake. I was eating a very limited amount of food and exercising alongside this. It was miserable and absolute torture but I was convinced losing weight would help. Or Anorexia convinced me it would. As well as this I was overdosing nearly everyday on paracetamol to the extent that the tablets themselves lost all meaning; they could have been smarties for all I cared. I was going missing a lot. I was in the midst of a severe mental health crisis and I was experiencing hallucinations. Not only was this worrying to my treatment team but also to my loved ones. They would get frequent calls from the police because I had yet again disappeared and I was a missing person. The truth is I chose to go missing because I didn't want to be Sophie Clayton anymore. I wanted to escape myself. However, as described in my previous post, I was sectioned under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act. My rights were taken away in order to protect me from myself.

My first few weeks in Wotton Lawn were filled with restriction. I refused to eat anything and my weight started to drop considerably into the danger zone; I was near my lowest weight again. This was of great concern to the nurses on the ward and they tried to encourage me to eat small amounts. I refused because they had taken away my other coping mechanisms and I was sort of rebelling. They took away overdosing and self harm so I reasoned I could immerse myself in Anorexia. And I took it to a whole new level.

For 5 days I refused to eat and drink anything. I was starving and dehydrating myself to death. Although I wanted nothing more than to eat something or drink a pint (or 20) of water, I could not allow myself to do it. The voice I my head said no. I desperately cried to my parents and my friends to help me and they encouraged me to take sips of water but I flat out refused. I was growing very weak and I couldn't get out of bed; my body was dying and my mind was disappearing. I wasn't Sophie anymore. I wasn't anyone. The doctors took regular bloods but it wasn't until day 5 that they were forced to act because my blood sugar had dropped to 2.1 and my kidneys were beginning to fail. My body was starting to shut down and I still would not let myself even take a sip of water. This is one of the many things people fail to understand about Eating Disorders; we love food and drink so much that we punish ourselves by restricting them. It's not about the food it's about control. It's about coping with something bigger than the human need to eat and drink.

I was transferred to Gloucester Royal Hospital because I needed emergency treatment. I was told that I would receive just fluids when I left Wotton Lawn but when I got there the doctor also ordered an NG tube. This tube would supply my body with the essential nutrition it needed for it to recover. Immediately I freaked out to the nurse who was on one to one with me. This wasn't the plan. I was too fat to be pumped full of liquid calories. The control would vanish. How would I cope now? YOU CAN'T TAKE THIS AWAY FROM ME. I cried and picked at the cannula they'd already put in for my fluids. 

But my efforts were futile because I was on a section; the doctors could treat me against my will and now I'm so very thankful that they did. So I was moved to an admissions ward and the nurses put up more fluids and a vitamin drip. Once I was calmer (after a strong sedative) two nurses prepared to place the NG tube. I was terrified but a part of me desperately wanted them to just force me. I had no fight left and I just wanted them to do it for me. I wanted food and I wanted drink more than anything. I cried as they steadily inserted and guided the tube through my nose and down my throat into my stomach. It felt very uncomfortable and I had to fight the voice telling me to pull it out.

After an X-Ray confirmed it was in place, they moved me to a ward higher up in the hospital and started the feed. I was on a very slow feed because of my risk of re-feeding syndrome. However, slow as it was, the feeling of absolute disgust Which spread throughout my body felt unbearable. I tampered with the feed constantly and pressed stop on the pump numerous times because I'd had enough. But I know now that the feed and fluids were saving my life. Maybe at that moment I didn't want to be saved. Maybe I wanted to die. But hindsight is powerful and you have no idea just how grateful I am now for that little purple pump. 

It saved Sophie. It saved a person who could not make a decision about life and death; it gave her time to decide fully for herself. 

This was my turning point in terms of Anorexia recovery but also it marked a real change in my treatment plan. It altered the steps I would later take after being discharged back to Wotton Lawn and beyond. There was no going back to starvation or dehydration after that because that was death and I decided to live. I chose life the minute I left hospital and I continue to choose it to this day.