How do you know when to stop treatment?

[Bethy]

As the title asks, really. Curious to hear people's experiences/opinions

[Rob]

When the person prescribing it says so? 

Treatment could be stopped for several reasons including no longer necessary or beneficial, unwanted side effects etc, but it's not a decision that you should take yourself - if you're feeling good it could simply be due to the effectiveness of your treatment. Always discuss things with your prescriber.

[Bethy]

Ah should clarify by treatment I mean therapy-based stuff. I'm definitely not planning on coming off meds yet 

[Rob]

 

[Gerard]

What do you feel you've gotten out of therapy so far?

[Bethy]

Hmm... I think I've got a pretty firm understanding of 'why' things are the way they are, and why they are carrying on being that way. So in terms of the tangible cause/effect stuff, I understand that, and ED-wise I know the logical practicalities of how to eat healthily/normally etc.

[jackgrillo]

I think one of the things that I found from therapy type stuff was that it taught me how to deal with stuff.

Personally, I stopped when I felt that I had been taught all the techniques, as then it's down to me to use them to deal with the situation.

Do you feel like there's more that you would want to get from your therapy sessions?

[mirrhi]

Very good question chick.  For me I found that therapy/support etc was withdrawn, one by one, some with planning some without.  I can't honestly say if they were withdrawn at the right times, sometimes I feel like something should have been available for longer, sometimes I think I needed to be made to 'sink or swim' if that makes sense?  I'm not sure if I'd have been able to make that decision for myself, not at this point anyway.

Not sure if that's any help or the opposite?  
xx

[Gerard]

Do you feel equipped to proceed without your normal support structure? And if you had a setback, would you be OK about asking for help again?

[Bethy]

I think the 'sink or swim' thing is exactly it - I've not had any prolonged period of going it alone and I think for so long I've been at the point where things aren't getting any better, but they aren't getting particularly worse. I've just been stuck for so long, and I don't feel like my current therapy is really helping with that, so I wonder if just participating in 'real life' is what I need to do. Essentially just getting on with it, as hard as that may be at times.
Behaviours-wise, I do feel like I have enough knowledge of all the techniques. It's a bit more complex with ED stuff, but I kind of think that the only thing that services could maybe help with there is if I were to go onto the day patient programme, and that's not going to happen, so I just need to get on with it but I feel so self conscious around food I think that I'd want to challenge fear foods etc without being 'watched', if that makes sense (probably not ).
The main thing that I want to get out of therapy still is for the chronic emptiness/low feeling to go away. But then I think that's probably not going to happen - I just can't see how it can, I don't see what else there is to talk about.
I'm much more open with friends now so if I had a setback I do have their support now. Luckily I've generally had good responses from doctors when I've asked for help so I'd be reasonably confident in doing that if I needed to.

Thanks for all the input guys, it really helps to be able to properly think about this. x