Jasmin’s Story— Trigger Warning: Eating Disorders

Jasmin (She/Her) Pictured

Content Warning: The below story, written by Jasmin, contains themes of Eating Disorders, particularly the trauma that she sustained while receiving treatment for her Anorexia Nervosa. Her story also includes brief mentions of self-harm and suicide. Reader discretion is advised.

“I’ve been in the medical system since I was a teenager, I was 22 years old when a doctor first spoke to me about a DNR, with them telling me I was “I’ve suffered enough”.

Two years later, at 24, I was discharged from a medical admission because doctors said they couldn’t help me anymore, I was ‘too malnourished’. They said to start making funeral plans.

I was left to die—not because my illness was untreatable, but because the system decided I wasn’t worth saving.

I was so scared, so hopeless, and so alone. I had already given up on myself, unable to see a way out of the pain and fear that consumed me every day. And then the medical system confirmed those fears for me.

Imagine fighting every day to stay alive, only to have the very people meant to help you tell you that you aren’t worth the effort. Imagine being told that trying to recover would do you more harm than starving to death.

A part of me died that day. It altered my brain chemistry forever. I will never understand how or why the medical system accepted that as my fate. I was placed on a palliative care pathway without my consent—because, at the time, I was too unwell to even have the capacity to consent. That choice was made for me, and I am far from the only one it has happened to.

In 2023, I was voluntarily admitted to a medical ward for stabilisation of my anorexia nervosa, i was then deemed to ‘lack capacity’ and was scheduled under the Mental Health Act and transferred to the psychiatric facility, despite having no thoughts of self-harm/ suicide, no history of such and had been deemed medically stable.

In the psychiatric facility, I was subjected to sedation and restraints as a first-line treatment for my anorexia. I was restrained for refusing and wanting a break from the 24/7 NG feeds, I was yelled at by staff, I was security forced onto weighing scales, and then was subjected to a mental health tribunal where I was deemed too unwell to make decisions about myself and needed 6 weeks of inpatient care.

A nurse made a mistake recording my weight and did not own up to it, she instead let this error psychologically wear me down to the point where the ward decided to discharge me because of the ‘harm they have caused’.

This treatment ruined me completely and has taken me years of relearning and re-trusting in a healthcare system that decided it was easier that I die from my anorexia than provide trauma-informed, safe, and empathetic care.”