Published 24 September 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3800
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3800

Practice

A patient’s journey

Anorexia nervosa

Rebecca McKnight, academic foundation trainee 1, Nicky Boughton, consultant clinical psychologist2

1 Department of Psychiatry, Oxford University Warneford Hospital, Oxford OX3 7JX, 2 Cotswold House Specialist Eating Disorders Service, Warneford Hospital

Correspondence to: R McKnight rebecca.mcknight@psych.ox.ac.uk

Rebecca was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa at age 15 but is now a qualified doctor who is able to maintain a healthy weight, manage her workload, and engage in normal relationships

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

I was recently asked to sum up my experience of anorexia nervosa in one sentence—actually, I can do it in just one word—isolation. This may seem surprising, but when you have spent a decade fighting an illness that forces you to go against the natural instinct to protect yourself, and that creates a life so constrained by rules that it is impossible to live normally, you feel completely alone. Anorexia makes you change your view of yourself, always to one that is highly negative. Reversing this is a challenge, and one that is easily underestimated. I have had to rise to this challenge while at medical school, and now that I have finished my training I have begun to reflect on how anorexia has affected me and how lucky I have been to overcome it. I wrote the following while I was very ill in hospital. It gives an insight . . . [Full text of this article]


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