Weighed 4 stone at 26 years old

[solosunflower]

From the age of 15, I've struggled with eating disorders. At 17 I was anorexic and went down 5 1/2 stone, I received outpatient treatment and regained enough weight to function 'normally' in society. I struggled with further studies, training, finding a job and by 26 I only weighed 4 stone. I lived with my mum at this point and was still working (unbelievably) as a teaching assistant. Eventually I ended up seeing a GP and I was sectioned. I spent 3 months in hospital being re-fed via a tube, there was plenty of talk that I could die. After that, I spent a year in a specialised inpatient unit. I feel in many ways this ruined my chances of a career and a decent relationship. Since I've become a parent myself, I don't understand how my mum could have watched me waste to a skeleton and not intervene. It plays on my mind a lot. I've tried to have a conversation with her about it, her response is that I begged her not to get me treatment.

Now she could be ill and I'm struggling to care.

You sound like you need therapy or further support. My wonderful sister had an ED, you could tell her something that was black, was black and she’d insist it was white. She had a completely skewed perception of reality. The more we tried to help the more we pushed her away.

Your poor mother sounds like she’s been through hell herself and you sound slightly bitter and like you’re trying to blame her for your life. Wait until your little girl is a teenager or young adult and try reasoning with her when she so desperately doesn’t want to listen to or believe a word you say.

You need to take a bit of responsibility for the decisions you took as a grown adult and look inwards instead of disregarding everybody’s advice with a flippant ‘I don’t think she cared I think she would have been fine if I died’. If you really have such a strong opinion, we aren’t going to talk you out of it are we? You sound quite stubborn so I can only imagine how difficult you were as a teen with an eating disorder.

So sorry @sosaad. Your post is so moving. I hope your son recovers. 💐

In my home country, some years ago, eating disorders were treated as a sign of a dysfunctional relationship with the mother (sexism, much) and parents in general were given very little agency in their child's treatment options, and were even often shunned from their child entirely.

So it's possible that your mum has been shamed and blamed and told that she was the one making you sick.

Unless there is a big drip feed, you sound unwell.

What would you have liked mum to do, how did you get to see the GP and sectioned, was she no part of that. It's difficult for both of you but gave you spoken about your feelings to your doctor or mh team, it sounds like this is beginning to worry you.

Tbf to OP, she has not commented since many posts were made, so it is quite possible she is reflecting.

I will also add that, when you have grown up in tricky circumstances, it can take many, many years before you really gain sufficient life experience to look at your own family dynamics truly objectively.

When it's all tangled with emotion, it is very difficult. I think there is some kind of wisdom that says you never properly become an adult until your Mother passes away.

And there might be some truth in that.

At 26 I'd be blaming myself more than my mum. It's much harder from 18+ to get anyone to do anything or have any interventions.

I think you're being extremely harsh unless there's more you're not saying, like you grew up in a drugs den or she had a boyfriend who abused you or something.

Because eating disorders are incredibly manipulative and make the sufferer lie. They also don't know what's reality and what isn't. They're locked in their own head and can't see reality.

I think its difficult to make any assumptions, without knowing both parties and what the relationship was like.
How far are you past this period of time?

Both myself and my sister had severe anorexia in the 90s/2000s and the treatment varied from year to year. It wasn't easy to get residential treatment on the NHS and outpatient care was patchy. My treatment and therapy was arguably better than Dsis.

Both our parents have passed away but when we cleared out the house there was a stack of letters maybe 20cm thick of correspondence over years between my parents and the local MP begging for funding or negotiation for a place in a local clinic for my sister. She didn't know the extent of this until recently. Both of us say we feel a lot of guilt that the situation caused so much stress for our parents.

It's possible that (maybe) your mum was trying to access help for you that you were unaware of. As you were an adult she might also have been restricted due to patient privacy.

I’m so sorry you’re going through this. None of us were there so it’s difficult to comment on how your mother acted towards you.

I will share my experience of having a dd who had an eating disorder though.

One of the things about anorexia that I hadn’t known or understood before trying to help dd was the change in her cognition. Below a certain BMI she couldn’t make any sort of decision, her understanding of her condition was limited, and now she’s recovered she can remember a very one-sided version of events, which unfortunately paints me as the bad guy. As she gets older this is getting a little easier, but I had years of “why did you let this happen, why didn’t you do something” and “you wanted me dead” thrown at me. In reality supporting her was my number one priority for several very difficult years.

I wasn’t vocal about it at all so I don’t know if this experience was typical of anorexia.

Mental disorders can be very selfish.. I don't know the relationship between you and your mum but have experienced one side of it.
My alcoholic bulimic sister who would make her self sick and drink until she was unconscious.. She would sneak out and if you tried to stop her would kick and claw and scream at you like a lunatic and throw various curse words your way.
After years of being carted to hospital to have her stomach pumped and ignoring my parents pleas to stop harming herself they slowly gave up as it wasn't getting through.
This can look like not caring but after a while of being worn down by someone's behaviour and at end of the day if someone refuses help there's not much that can be done apart from sectioning which you yourself experienced.
So have a thought for maybe what your mum has gone through.

The Op has a very disturbing posting history.

Op i genuinely beg you to look in to pursuing as much help and support as you can. You and your child will benefit so much in the long run. Take care

Where was your mum when you were receeding our care patient and when you were sectioned? Did she make comments to you about your weight ect? What does she say about it as an adult?

I'm recovering from anorexia. My lowest weight was 39kg. My 10 Year old has recently been weighed and shes 38.5kg. Its shocking to imagine I weighed basically the same as my child a few years ago.

I dont think it's fair to blame your mum for you not getting more help.
What did you want your mum to do? You received out patient and in patient care which shows she cared to a certain extent. She couldnt force you to eat or force you to attend doctors appointments?

You know yourself, if you dont want to eat you wont. What possible could your mum of done?

You need some empathy for that poor women, she must of felt very power less in an awful situation and now your blaming her for somthing she couldnt force you to do?

Your post is so triggering for me. I find myself seething .

i am an anorexic (in recovery) and had a similiar situation to you, but also as a parent and now seeing things from outside I see how helpless families are.
Not only that I am watching my child currently killing themselves slowly. I am distraught and helpless.

Your post makes me so angry yet I know that anorexia is a selfish evil disease and your journey is your own. I just feel sorry for your family also as I now walk your mother‘s road and it’s as hard as being sick yourself.

I am an anorexic (in recovery) and had a similiar situation to you, but also as a parent and now seeing things from outside I see how helpless families are.
Not only that I am watching my child currently killing themselves slowly. I am distraught and helpless.

MaggieBsBoat. I really can emphasise having been anorexic and seen my DD suffer. Watching DDs descent into th condition really was a stark insight into what my behaviour was like and how absolutely vile I was to my DM who was a sweet and caring soul who was beside herself with fear and helplessness. Literally nothing she could have done would have made me eat more or see things more clearly /rationally. I was utterly irrational, withdrew from family life and screamed, lied and manipulated constantly. I saw my DD doing exactly the same and I’ve never felt more hopeless or helpless, unable to stop her weight loss and see her become a shadow of herself physically and mentally. Thinking is utterly distorted by this horrible condition.

We are both ok and I hope so much that you and your DC will be too. Sending strength and love to those suffering and their loved ones who suffer with them

Unbelievable yourself!

as someone who has experienced all sides of an ED, I stand by every thing I’ve said.

… you honestly think her Mum is a failure, and in some way to blame for the ED.
Really, she’s a shit failure of a mum because her child with an ED says so?

We will have to agree to differ on that.

@Shhhthedogssleeping thank you so much for your kind and wise words. I am at the point now where I don’t think I can do anything. It’s like stages of grief I realise now. I was angry for a long time.

The OP made me realise that there are two sides but blaming a mother who likely felt as I feel now is terribly unfair. I too was not to be reasoned with. It’s a terrible disease, but once out of it we need to realise how others have had to travel along that road with us too.

Thanks again. So much.

MaggieBsBoat. I think all we can do as parents is let our DC know we see their suffering and how hard it is for them. And to separate the condition from the person as they’re in the grip of something that is ‘possessing’ them and their pre-anorexic behaviours and personality are taken over. The utter powerlessness is like torture. But having been both anorexic and parent of a DD with it, it was nothing either my DM did or didn’t do, and nothing I did or didn’t do as a parent, that enabled both of us to take off the brakes and begin to eat. In my case it was a youth trip abroad that gave me the physical and emotional distance to realise what I was doing to myself and what I was missing out on. I was too weak and ill to do much at all during the trip. It was like “Ok I have this power to limit my food and control my weight” but I have no life . I came home and gradually began to recover. For DD it was meeting her boyfriend who seemed to allow her to take the focus off food

i am hoping that you and your DC will both be able to look back at this awful time. Your DC will see what you are doing to help as being terrible and thwarting, one day I hope they will just see you did all you could until they were able to break free of their ED. Sending hugs.

@Interlaken I 100% agree. I think the Op still sounds rather childish and of course it's obviously the mothers fault could not possibly be the fathers or god forbid the adult child.

You’ll need to reread my post. I haven’t said she’s a shit mum

That is a tragic thing to think. It may or may not be true, in part or totally.

But one thing is true, and that is that you controlled your own eating, denying yourself nourishment almost to the point of death. I would set aside the issues with your mother for now, because we don't have power to change other people's feelings for us or attitudes towards us and we have to be in a very strong and stable place to face that, head on.

You will benefit from very gently, non-judgementally, asking yourself why you treated yourself with such harsh terms. How you might begin to show more care and compassion and nurture to yourself and your body through focus on nourishment, health, strength, vitality, self acceptance etc. That is work you can do, regardless of failings and cruelty and neglect in how you were raised, and it will empower you for the rest of your life. The sooner a person with a difficult past puts in the hours on learning how to truly love themselves and accept themselves with compassion and faith, the better life is and it stays better.

It’s complex but displacing blame to someone else highlights a lack of acknowledgement of one’s own actions and continued parent-child behaviour.

‘It wasn’t me or my illness, it was all you.’ This way I can disassociate and displace anything that happened and I did.

We all have agency, but diseases (which ED are) influence actions. I’m not sure taking accountability for one’s own actions is the right phrase for someone who was ill, other than acknowledging the decisions you took, albeit whilst very ill, had consequences for yourself and others.

Lots of people every day don’t have great relationships with parents. They don’t all have ED.

.

@solosunflower
When you are ill, especially with an ED you're not thinking straight. Can you talk this through with a family member/ friend who might have a more objective view point as to what was going on (especially from your mum's pov). I find it hard to believe that she would have wished for you to die. The maternal instinct is for our children to live but ofcourse there are extreme cases with horrible parents.