omg, you have to be kidding me.

Having been through a situation similar to one of the girls, I didn't think it could get much worse than my experience.  But apparently it can.

At around age 11 or 12, I began displaying "quirky" eating habits, which eventually developed into a combination of anorexia and bulimia in my high school years. My senior year was by far the worst.

Just to put it in perspective, here is some of what I went through:

*severe laxative abuse (when I finally entered therapy, my doctors were horrified to find that I had been ingesting over 3 times the maximum dose on a daily basis)
*refusing to eat carbs, leading to serotonin deficiency and all it's harmful side-effects (including insomnia, anti-social tendencies, mental fog, depression)
*inducing vomiting several times daily
*heart palpitations
*weakened immune system, which led to being sick with various illnesses for 5 months
*crying up to 10 times daily, and crying myself to sleep every single night (not exaggerating)

When I was going through this whole ordeal, I attended a Christian high school. Everybody was always so happy, and they were always praising god for this and that, and it honestly made me very angry and even more cynical and depressed. They would submit prayer requests (aka complaints) about the most random shit like how the "check engine" light in their car had been on for 3 days, or how their dog was sick, or their grandma had fallen out of her wheelchair (I'm not joking, those were all things that the class as a whole prayed to god for  ). I could have made much more disturbing and dire requests, but for obvious reasons, I didn't. But privately, I prayed to god several times daily to relieve me of my misery, and he did nothing, while he was busy rewarding the basketball teams with victories and making people raise their hands with joy during chapel. It was honestly a very toxic environment for me, because I was constantly being told how much god loved me, yet I felt like total shit. (And if you think that this sounds like the high school from that movie "Saved" it pretty much was, except we didn't wear uniforms, and we expelled the token pregnant girls & gay guys. Yay Jebus! )

The only good thing that did come of that place, was that two teachers whom I was fairly close to noticed that I had been very sick, tired, and depressed, and so they raised their concerns to the counselor, who called me to her office during my study hall one day. Over the course of several meetings, she coaxed out of me exactly what was going on. She contacted my parents and offerred references to several outpatient therapy programs. I began treatment in the last month of senior year at a normal counseling facility (which the counselor recommended, but it was "secular&quot, and I also saw several doctors and nutritionists. Thankfully, the people at my school were not such fundies that they endorsed anything like this Mercy place!

While I hated the Christian environment I was in at the time, at least the only crime they really committed was negligence. Anything that was unhappy or un-Christian was sort of covered up, or dismissed with the notion that God answers prayers - you just need to pray hard enough. I was just sort of ignored and ostracized by my peers, more than anything. Apparently, we're teenagers first, children of god second.

But imagine the added element of being told you're going to hell, or possessed by demons, etc. As if the psychological abuse you inflict on youself isn't enough, you get to be abused by others! These girls seek help at the facility because they're "freaks" and then the facility continues that mindset and manipulation?

The one girl who was profiled, Naomi, said that it had taken her several years to recover from the incident, and get to the point where she could leave her room. It took me months to stop confining myself in my room, and I underwent "normal" treatment! I only went through psychotherapy for about 5 months, at which point my therapist went on maternity leave, and I left for college. Although the behavioral manifestations of my problems stopped soon after the beginning of therapy, it took me over two years after the termination of my therapy, to truly stop being insecure and become a more confident person on my own - and there were a few "emergencies" in which I had to contact campus counseling services. And again, those were the results from "normal" therapy. It's no surprise to me that this woman has taken so long to recover.

I totally echo the sentiments in the article - only trained professionals should be allowed to deal with women suffering from such immense mental traumas. This is not a joke. These are peoples' lives. To play around with this is the equivalent of trying to treat someone with AIDS when you're not a certified doctor.

And finally, I wish people would stop pinning their hopes on God, and crediting him with "miraculous" recoveries. Give the credit where it's due. I overcame my problems because of my actions - of course, I had the support of my family, and my therapist & doctors, but at the end of day, I was the one who made the decision to turn my life around. I would never dream of giving God any of the credit for my accomplishments.

I'm glad that the women in this article are getting the proper help - but with the Mercy people opening more houses, I'm just scared that many more women will receive treatment that is not only inadequate, but detrimental to their progess.