"Seeing Double"

Our child has very recently spent in excess of 360 days in Perth Children's Hospital over a 20 month period. 

They suffer combined mental illnesses being Anorexia Nervosa, Depression, Anxiety, PTSD and Body Dysmorphic Disorder. 

Eating Disorders (ED) are such a cruel, debilitating disease and are relentless in making a person feel disgusting, worthless and hopeless. In most ED patients the person will have a distorted perception of their body image and see a severely flawed body when looking in a mirror.

When in hospital for re-feeding, ED patients receive a substantial amount of energy per day to bring their weight up in a relatively short period of time. This weight gain often locates in the stomach area making the person look and feel bloated.

In my opinion, the last thing these young patients need to see when having a shower is a full-on view of their naked body in the overly large mirror, having the Eating Disorder voice screaming at them how awful they look. We know they don't look awful but they have a distorted body image.

I have on numerous occasions (on the ward) blu-tacked a newspaper to the mirror in the room so that my child had one less thing to have to contend with in that day.

I feel the mirrors are far too big and need to be fully removed and replaced with a small one just big enough to see when brushing hair and teeth.

I also believe that not having a full-length mirror in the bathroom will eliminate the temptation of some young people to take a "selfie" which is extremely unhelpful when dealing with an eating disorder.

I believe that there may be an idea of a decal to cover a part of the mirror in the rooms on Ward 4a, POD rooms at least. In my opinion, this would only be successful if the whole mirror was covered with a small circle cut out at head height only. I feel sure the decals would get picked off over time.

I am pleased that locking of the bathroom doors has been introduced in the past few months in the POD. This eliminates the temptation for a young person to hide away or self-harm and is especially helpful with patients suffering Bulimia, taking away easier access to purge.  

I think taking away the extremely large mirror is a simple request for one tiny thing in a very complicated illness.