Should I have Left Son with ED Alone?

[autologo]

I have mixed feelings about a situation that occurred yesterday, so I would appreciate a fresh perspective.

My 22 year old son lives with me. He has a serious eating disorder, so Christmas is hard for him. However, we were invited to join my sister for Christmas lunch.

I wanted to go to the lunch, and I discussed the visit with my son. He did not want to go, and I accepted that a noisy event, centred around food, may be a bit much for him. We agreed that I would go, and then we would have our usual meal together when I returned.

The Christmas meal was fantastic. I did not eat much because I would be eating later with my son, but I really enjoyed the company and seeing my elderly mother (95) and new great niece together. Times like these are precious.

About two hours into the event, my son phoned me. He told me he had eaten everything in the house, including food I had 'hidden' (that was our meal!) and he wanted me to come back home. He said he had been making himself sick (he has bulimia). The food was basic stock (bread, tins of beans etc)

I do not drive, so I would have to ask someone to give me a lift and this would ruin the event, so I told my son to wait until my brother was ready to drop me off.

In another hour, my brother was ready to leave, because our mother was getting tired. He dropped me off at my house on the way back.

The scene in my house was atrocious. My son had brought bin bags in to find food that had been discarded. There was a stench of sick. There were filthy pots everywhere.

He was really upset. I talked to him. He was smashing his hand against a cupboard door and broke the door. Finally, after he had tidied up (he has to clean up his mess), he insisted on going for a walk.

He set off at 9 pm and did not return until nearly 1 am. We talked for two hours on the phone.

Although I really enjoyed the Christmas event with my sister, I just wonder if perhaps I was negligent in leaving my son alone on Christmas Day.

In the good old/bad old days where the threshold was much lower, a person unable to regulate their own behaviour would be admitted to hospital and their behaviour would be regulated by staff in order to maintain life. This was not considered to be a codependent relationship. Once the crisis has passed, they may get some therapy whilst an inpatient to allow them to regulate their own behaviour. Once they are no longer in crisis they may get outpatient or community care.

In modern times there is no funding or access to it is highly regulated. Even when a young person, your child's, survival is at risk. The care provided by parents/carers is that of regulating behaviour once provided by hospital staff. Without the supporting structure. Providing this support is seen as codependent. But who provides this whilst waiting for community support? No one.

OP obviously in the abstract you deserve time off from your caring responsibilities. But how would you feel if your DS was an in-patient and staff left him to his own devices with the same consequence? I know it's not fair but in the meantime unpaid carers have to do at least as good a job until professional help can be accessed. And in the longer term this has to change.

what an horrible attitude toward the patients you’re supposed to be helping.

you honestly think an anorexic patient who’s terrified of being forced to eat and gain weight and therefor losing control of her body is trying to be “seductive”? That they think they’re “special”?
Most ED sufferers think the opposite, they don’t think they’re special or worthy of anything.

The illness is manipulating the sufferer, and causing them to behave in ways beyond their free choice.

This may well be true - although like everything in life there will be a spectrum between people who are not manipulative in these situations and those who are. But it is also true that it is not up to anyone else (except perhaps a professional who has the time and resources to do so) to control your behaviour. Friends and family members are not responsible and the continued demands of this illness is hard on them too.

ED'd patients will try anything, ANYTHING to manipulate caregivers, professional or 'amateur'

Violence, secreting food to make it gone from view, emotional manipulation, regressing to infantile behaviours - even 'seduction' type techniques to try to persuade carers that they needn't bother trying with them or they are special enough not to require as many calories as someone their ages

Professionals who aren't prepared are ill equipped to deal with such patients

They may come across as hard hearted, but they have to remain 'detached'

OP has a fully grown adult son, who has weaponised his ED to manipulate his mother's behaviour

What help they are getting isn't nearly enough

The responses on this thread are shocking.

Sadly I agree with this.

It sounds like he is punishing you for going out. You are entitled to a life. He is an adult and needs to take responsibility for his illness.

I totally understand the need to remain detached in a professional setting but there’s no empathy here at all for what the sufferer is going through or indeed, why they are behaving this way, you all seem very sure the person with the ED is attention seeking/weaponising/manipulating but that’s simply your take on it.
Ask the person with the ED why they feel the need to starve/binge/purge and it may surprise you, many people with eating disorders are on the autistic spectrum and they react to and process things differently. An NT professional looking in from the outside might be a very different view from the ND sufferer on the inside.

I do not know what to say. So many horrible replies. I wonder how many of those posters have first hand experience of supporting a loved one with an ED (very few by the sound of it). if posters have nothing useful to say because they do not understand the subject matter, they just shouldn't reply.

You were right to go out. While your son is using you as an emotional crutch and management tool for his ed he’s not going to be motivated to find ways to cope independently of you. I’d be saying to him it’s not sustainable for him to put you in that position and he must take more personal responsibility to address his ed.

So @Stayupallnight, are you saying that OP should never go out? Or have a break from her sons behaviour? I dont see a lack of empathy in @Gingernaut s post, simply information from someone who has worked with ED - which your post implies they dont understand.

OPs son could have just waited for her to go home to tell her what happened. He didn't, he called her. So oursourcing responsibility for managing himself to her. Whatever his intentions, this is manipulation.

Your son really needs to see the gp to get referral to crisis team..thats for starters xx

unless there is immediate danger to life, there is no help. I think many posters hugely overestimate the help that is available on the NHS for ED sufferers. There is very little. It's absolutely horrible for families dealing with it.

dont know where you’re getting that from or you’ve confused me with someone else, as I said previously the OP was totally entitled to get on with her life and enjoy her time out with family.
I don’t know why her son called her , my take on it was that he was upset that he had lost control of himself and binged so he turned to his mum for support. Its really sad for everyone involved but calling the unwell person manipulative and accusing them of trying to control others is just wrong, why would he not want his mum to go out and enjoy her Christmas with family? why would suffering from an eating disorder which is usually relating to someone’s negative feelings towards themselves mean they can’t stand to see others enjoying themselves? I don’t see the connection.

@Stayupallnight - you were attacking the person sharing professional knowledge. Implying she lacked empathy and understanding. And privileging the needs of the sufferer over those of the people around them. You assumed the son was upset and reaching out for support - it is equally valid to assume it was manipulation especially when that view comes with the benefit of front line work with people suffering from these problems. No need to have a go at @Gingernaut about it.

I have not attacked anyone nor had a go at anyone.

Oh stop. You said there was no empathy for the sufferer in a PP when someone was talking about her experiences working with ED sufferers. Thats an attack. Since you obviously just want to dodge responsibility for what you said, I wont be responding to you further.

Gingernaut

What utter rubbish. My daughter has had Anorexia and been under services(CAMHS and adult) for 3 years. Professionals don’t have that view at all. Quite the reverse .Treatment is family therapy and compassion. It is widely know that many sufferers have autism. Struggling with this is horrific for the sufferer and their carers. There is next to no treatment out there.

I’ll be honest op I was dreading what the ending of this was going to be. It doesn’t matter, I’m glad you dealt with it how you did. Best of luck to you both, I hope you get help and are both ok x

@Stayupallnight @Unfortunatelyyes I realise there is a tendency now in ED therapy to see the ED as an entity in its own right, separate from the affected person, creating the behaviours as if independently. That might well be true, but I’d say it’s a theory rather than a fact. However the behaviours are there, challenging for HCPs and even more so for carers ( usually mothers). You can think what you like about me professionally, it’s of no importance. I posted what I did because the OP was being berated by some for having a bit of enjoyable time to herself. FYI I no longer work in EDs , and I was in the strictly clinical, refeeding side of things and not the rehab and therapy side.

@Goldcrestonabranch yes, I’m currently deep in the trenches with a teen DD with severe binge eating disorder. We can’t have any money at all (apart from the emergency fiver currently hidden in a tin of Dobble but it’s only a matter of time till she hunts and finds that) in our home and DD can’t be left unsupervised ever because she will literally ransack the house looking for money to fund her binges or consume loaves and loaves of bread or multiple family size boxes of cereal. Food is hoarded everywhere, wrappers and boxes concealed all around the house - she has even ripped the lining of the sofa frame so she can hide her wrappers and ‘store’ her contraband. Essentially, DD2 and I can never have our share of any ‘nice’ foods and we live in a giant dustbin.

As reiterated previously, I have had to buy a strong-box safe to protect DD2’s totally normal Christmas treats. We have been told previously - by professionals - not to have sugary foods or carbohydrates in our house. This is no way to live and I am happy to say that I do feel manipulated and controlled by DD1’s ED.

TheGander

My daughter has been in and out of hospital and thankfully we have never come across any professional with a belief such as yours-“Using food to control not just one’s body but the emotions and behaviours of close family members is pretty standard”.

Well I’m glad you are happy with the staff , I wish you and your daughter well.

@LuckySantangelo35 I asked why so many people are against helping someone who is clearly in need of help.

As it happens, I have already said I wouldn't have gone, in this situation. @autologo did ask of she was wrong, I said I wouldn't have gone. It was an honest answer, and we all would deal woth these situations differently.

However, a more important question is what can be done to help them both avoid the situation in future.

I'm not 'against' the op and feel desperately sad for her. I'm just shocked at the level of people who seemingly would leave someone they love to sort themselves out.

'In the good old/bad old days where the threshold was much lower, a person unable to regulate their own behaviour would be admitted to hospital and their behaviour would be regulated by staff in order to maintain life. This was not considered to be a codependent relationship. Once the crisis has passed, they may get some therapy whilst an inpatient to allow them to regulate their own behaviour. Once they are no longer in crisis they may get outpatient or community care.

In modern times there is no funding or access to it is highly regulated. Even when a young person, your child's, survival is at risk. The care provided by parents/carers is that of regulating behaviour once provided by hospital staff. Without the supporting structure. Providing this support is seen as codependent. But who provides this whilst waiting for community support? No one.

OP obviously in the abstract you deserve time off from your caring responsibilities. But how would you feel if your DS was an in-patient and staff left him to his own devices with the same consequence? I know it's not fair but in the meantime unpaid carers have to do at least as good a job until professional help can be accessed. And in the longer term this has to change.'

Yes, I was an inpatient in an adolescent unit at 15 and then, at the age of 17, transferred to the main hospital for 'treatment' way back in the 70s and 80s. The treatment was far from ideal, and many staff were not very understanding about EDs.

Yet, the frequent and long admissions did, I must admit, save my life, and gave my family a break (although I never returned 'home' after 17). This went on for about 15 years. There seemed to be more resources, forty years ago, although perhaps much less understanding.

I would agree that the relationship between the ED patient and the hospital during that period was not one of co-dependency. In fact my memories of that time are pretty bad: over-medicated, confined to bed for obscenely long periods (think of being in one room for a year) and various treatments such as ECT for depression related to severe malnutrition and moderated insulin therapy for who knows what reason. For me, it was more like inmate and warder.

However, my son has next to no practical support except the support I provide. I do not want this to be a long 'woe is me' , but the point made in the quoted post above, that parents, or carers now do the work of a team of professionals is all too true. I also know that it is possible a lot more death occur through EDs that figures suggest because (especially with bulimia) suicide or cardiac arrest may be the C o D.

As for co-dependency between my son and me, it is much more complex. It is a situation in which someone who recovered from a serious ED (it nearly killed me) supporting someone who has a carbon copy of the disorder (without the secrecy).

I feel for you and your ds, op.

My dd has Anorexia.
You can only do your best and there are times when you can't be there for them and shit hits the fan. It happened to me recently when I had a devastating bereavement so couldn't care for Dd properly and she relapsed.

It's NOT your fault. Sending you love x