Rose Anne Evans was 16 when she developed an eating disorder. She knew something was wrong, but she couldn’t bring herself to admit it.
Her family and friends were worried. They had noticed her gradual weight loss and tried to talk to her about it, but Rose Anne continued to battle her demons alone.
It was 18 months before her anorexia was finally recognised, and she realised it was time to get help.
But even then, the now 21-year-old faced a lengthy four-month wait for treatment – something she described as like being ‘in no man’s land’.
Rose Anne, who is from Halifax in West Yorkshire and had treatment in Greater Manchester, is one of hundreds of young women and men to be diagnosed with an eating disorder such as bulimia or anorexia each year.
New research published today by UK eating disorder charity Beat revealed that worryingly, it can take some people three-and-a-half-years from falling ill to actually starting their treatment.
It also found that on average, it can take sufferers 18 months to realise or admit they even have an eating disorder, and then another year to seek help.
Like Rose Anne, many then end up waiting a further six months between seeing a GP and receiving treatment.
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The charity says it is now time for the Government to take action, and do more to encourage people to seek help as soon as possible.
Rose Anne shared her experience with the Manchester Evening News in a bid to support Beat’s campaign.
She explained that it was early 2015 when a therapist she had been seeing for her OCD first identified her anorexia and wrote to her GP, but says it wasn’t until she became severely physically unwell that she was referred to specialist services.
“At this point I was caught in no man’s land,” she said.
“There were no specialist eating disorder services in my local area so I needed an out of area referral. For this out of area referral, I needed to be appointed a community psychiatric nurse but my eating disorder was deemed too severe for this to happen.”
During July 2015, Rose Anne was in and out of A&E, before she was eventually admitted to a facility in Greater Manchester where she spent eight months as an inpatient, and another two months as a day patient.
Still a teenager at the time, Rose Anne said that being apart from her family and friends for so long was difficult, and believes that had she been referred sooner she may have avoided spending so much time away from home as an inpatient.
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As well as backing Beat’s call for action, she also feels that there need to be more specialist services available in the UK, so that people don’t have to travel and leave their support network to seek help.
The charity’s research too found that eating disorders have a significant impact on the whole family, who on average spend over £32,000 on travel to clinics, special food, lost time at work and other expenses.
Around 44 per cent of mothers and 31 per cent of fathers described themselves as ‘extremely badly’ affected by the wait for their son or daughter to access treatment.
Beat chief executive Andrew Radford commented: “When we look at the impact this has on those affected by eating disorders, it is devastating.
“We’ve spoken to carers who have had to give up work, a sister who at 12 years-old considered herself a ‘carer’ to her sister and her struggling parents and a mother who said the illness was destroying their family.”
In 2015 the Government introduced targets to reduce the time children in England spend waiting between being referred and starting treatment for eating disorders, alongside new funding of £30m a year.
Within a year of her beginning her treatment, Rose Anne was able to take up her deferred place at York University in 2016 to study French and German.
She is also now working towards a diploma in eating disorders, and became an ambassador for Beat in June this year.
Earlier in 2017, Rose Anne published her own book, ‘Fight for Freedom’, which talks about her struggle with anorexia, and offers advice to those with an eating disorder and their families.
It is available on Amazon and on her website www.roseanneevans.com .