Seven former patients and three former staff members staff described to The Denver Post a punitive and traumatic environment at the Denver-based Eating Recovery Center, one of the largest treatment providers in the country.
, which also encouraged families to “exercise caution when selecting a residential treatment program.”
Several former patients told The Post that they were aware of the severity of their illness and understood the need for serious intervention. But those practices were often traumatic to patients in a delicate mental and physical state, they said, and can reinforce pre-existing trauma and prompt patients to avoid treatment. One person said they attempted suicide rather than go to treatment because of the horror stories they’d heard.
The former patient, who was 15 at the time, said that those who had too many tube feedings were put in isolation in their rooms. One girl who was there at the same time was isolated for about two months, she said. Suicide is more prevalent among people with eating disorders, which, coupled with the physical effects of the diseases, make them particularly deadly. People with the disorders often identify strongly with them, experts said, making them defensive of the behaviors and more difficult to treat.
Eric Dorsa, an eating disorder advocate, said they frequently were hospitalized as a teenager for refeeding because none of the eating disorder programs in their home state of Texas took teens who were assigned male at birth. They said they also objected to tube feeding and had to be physically restrained at age 12 so they couldn’t pull the tube out.
Beal, 20, said she was given a feeding tube after she didn’t eat enough at her first meal and snack time. Because she wasn’t considered compliant, she couldn’t call home for emotional support after getting the tube, she said. A female therapist, who also left a job at Eating Recovery Center in 2022, said she still feels uncomfortable with the way some patients were treated. They were seriously ill and needed to be fed, but it’s traumatic for a teenager to be held down by five adults while a tube is inserted in their nose, she said. She spoke to The Post on condition of anonymity because her current employer didn’t authorize her to speak publicly.
The bathrooms were locked overnight, and patients had to wait for someone to take them, Beal said. She threw up accidentally on the floor when she couldn’t get into the bathroom, and a staff member who thought she’d vomited intentionally yelled at the janitor for cleaning it up instead of making her do it herself, Beal said, adding the same thing happened to another patient while she was there.
Sometimes, the patient peeled off their skin while on “sit protocol,” where they were required to sit down and do nothing because they hadn’t complied with directions. A friend stopped breathing following a suicide attempt at the facility, though she was revived, they said. Ayres said she understands why people report negative experiences, but much of that is a reflection of the disease. In treatment, they take away coping mechanisms that numb emotions, leaving people feeling raw and more likely to misinterpret innocuous behavior, she said.
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