Do I need to go back to hospital?

Hi everyone.

Quick introduction to me — I’m a 27 y/o woman from the UK living with anorexia nervosa. I’ve been suffering quite badly with this condition for the last two years, which has resulted in me being admitted to inpatient eating disorder units on three separate occasions.

I hate being in hospital and have trauma from my time on the units. Each stay has lasted months, but although I’ve gained weight and reached a point where the doctors can no longer detain me if I choose to leave, I have discharged before reaching the recommended BMI on each occasion as I’ve been desperate to come home and have been convinced that I can continue recovery away from hospital. However, this obviously has not worked. The first two times I discharged, I was unable to continue with the incredible challenge of weight restoration independently and ended up relapsing and losing all the weight again, forcing me into readmission. I am now on my third discharge, having left hospital in August, and am once again losing weight despite my best intentions.

My family want me home and I do too, but ultimately they are torn as they can see me deteriorating once again and the doctors are keen to read it me before I reach crisis point. I find hospital very distressing but it is the only place in which I seem to be able to restore weight. My dilemma is, do I continue to keep persevering from home and really try to turn things around, or am I fooling myself? I don’t want to be sectioned so it’d be better to return to hospital on a ‘voluntary’ basis, but this is very hard for me to accept. Plus, what’s to stop me from backsliding again once I’m out? The doctor recommends that I stay until I’ve actually reached a healthy BMI and suggests that the success rate is much higher this way, and I will likely feel a lot different once my body is actually healed (e.g. my mind will finally catch up). I’m not sure what to do for the best. I don’t want to be stuck in this anorexic cycle forever but I also don’t want to keep putting my loved ones through the pain of my hospitalisations and it’s not an environment I enjoy either.

Any thoughts or advice appreciated.