Help - 16 y/o with eating disorder

[iCrochetSoIDontKillPeople]

In March my healthy/happy teen was dumped by her boyfriend AND lost her best friend.... both through very unjust circumstances, then lockdown and the inevitable isolation hit her hard. Since then her eating has spiralled out of control. She is now around 7 stone and eats around 2-300 calories a day. I have taken her to the doctors and she has been referred to an eating disorder clinic and has her first appointment on Thursday. She has already been having private counselling for the past two months but it hasn't really helped as she doesn't get on with her counsellor. She has also said she doesn't want any help yet.

This past weekend was awful, we had a massive row yesterday which went on for an hour, but at the end, we were all crying and she really opened up and said how much she hated herself, her disorder and also how sorry she was for causing us pain... but she literally CANNOT eat. She is stick thin, exhausted and constantly crying or angry. She hasn't eaten since Saturday night and is currently in bed, too weak to get up.

I have a younger 8 year old daughter which I'm trying not to let it affect... My husband (their step dad) is successfully in recovery for addiction so I am still taking one day at a time with him. DD's natural father who lives far away just said I should come down on her like a ton of bricks and punish her/take away luxuries until she starts eating... so he is NO help at all...

I feel so drained, I can't cope with this. My family are supportive but live far away and have problems of their own. So I'm sitting in the kitchen typing while my daughter is wasting away upstairs. What the hell do I do?

I have no experience and worry about giving the wrong advice, but bumping for you

If she hasn't eaten anything since Saturday please consider contacting the Eating Disorder clinic by phone or your GP to check whether she should be admitted to hospital. When you saw the GP was her heart rate and bp checked sat down/stood up?
A really good forum for advice is the round the dinner table forum on www.feast-ed.org
I hope you and your daughter gets the help/support you need.

@iCrochetSoIDontKillPeople Your post really resonates with me. I don’t have any help to offer sorry but I’m going through a similar experience with my 20 yr old daughter.
She came home from university when lockdown started and has suffered with anxiety and depression for a while now. She has been having CBT counselling sessions over the phone, and during these calls it has come to light about her eating disorder. She has always been very slim but now has a BMI of 15. She has been very open and honest with me but like yourself I feel really helpless.
I’m just off loading here so that I can be strong at home. It all just feels so intense. She knows she needs to eat but just can’t get herself to eat what she needs. It is so worrying.
Blood appointment and GP appointment week after next so hoping there’s more help and answers then.
Hope you and your daughter are ok

Dd is also 16. She's eaten very little since lockdown - I think this is because food of the only thing she's got control over atm. She's lost weight but I don't know what she was before lockdown so hard to tell how much. Her clothes hang off her. She tells me that she isn't hungry but her bad temper suggests otherwise and she is doing lots of exercise. I'm going to get a doctors appointment and hopefully they'll do some blood tests.

My daughter has struggled with an eating disorder for several years and it has been horrible for the whole family. I tried lots of diff things but what worked a bit for us was the maudsley method www.maudsleyparents.org/
Don't wait for the nhs to do anything - my daughter tried to get help and it was scarce and patchy. She went to camhs at 16 but they just focussed on the weight restoration and didn't offer counselling which is what she needed then. After 18 it was very difficult to get any help as her bmi wasn't low enough - she was told this by doctors - which obvs made her worse. After years of not knowing what to do I tried the approach recommended by the maudsley and it did work to stabilise her. She's still struggling though. Good luck - it's really hard to deal with x

Thank you for the link @Plumstrum
I have shared with my daughter and we will look into this approach together.
She has just been referred to ED Specialists in NHS but after her initial telephone consultation she didn’t hear from them again. Contacted them to be told that although she is a priority (BMI 15) that there is a waiting list and if she doesn’t hear from them in 3-4 weeks then she should ring again 🤷🏻‍♀️ Just feels like anything could happen in that time and she needs help now. Since the ED has come to light she has gotten worse and lost more weight, it’s so scary.
Best wishes to you and your daughter, and to everyone else on this thread going through this