hello everyone.
I have been off work so not had chance to keep in touch with you all.
I wanted to say how rubbish it all sounds for everyone , and although we are in the depths of despair, we have to keep going. The hate-filled rages, the violence, the swearing, the self-harm, the slamming of doors - these will get better with time as their brain heals. The monster inside is trying to scare you off with all this nastiness, you have to look it in the eye and ignore it. Hard to do I know, but we are strong mothers and we can do this!
In my own case, we have had a slow but steady improvement, so remember It does get better - my daughter keeps telling me she loves me now, and the other day she came home from school with a chocolate bar she had been given in class. She ate some of it in the car, even though it wasn't on her meal plan!. Only a bit, but she ate some of it. I was so happy for the rest of the week!
Christmas was utter hell for us last year, so what I would advise (if I can bear to revisit that awful time) is:
you need some distractions (even harder with covid this year) - so find some online shows to watch, get some new games to play, buy a jigsaw or two from the charity shop, plan some (non-baking) crafts. Buy some christmas interior decorating magazines to drool over.
Your child will be terrified of christmas - the less break to routine the better in my opinion. Try to eat as a family without too many extra people. Let them know what you will be serving for them - even if they have different food to the rest of you, they need to know what they will or won't be asked to eat. Just the stress of sitting next to a box of celebrations might be a trigger.
Have a plan with the rest of the family what you will do if they don't eat - AN may well try and not eat in front of others, hoping you won't create a scene. Either eat before you visit or be prepared to leave if eating isn't occurring. warn others about possible outbursts and arguments.
Try and remember your little child who loves you - they will be weeping inside about missing christmas (believe it or not) and so maybe this is the time to watch old favourite movies and talk about past christmases (even if they are grumpy).
To be sneaky, try and get them to wear a christmas jumper or hat - all heat conserved is calories saved! Turn up the heating if you can. We bought an electric blanket to keep DD warm at night.
On a more routine note - we didn't let our DD know her weight for some time at the beginning - it wasn't helpful to her and just made it harder for us to feed her after. After a while we did let her know , but not when she was very ill.
It's the drama of 'i would be better off dead than eating a chocolate brownie' that really used to irritate me. Can't you see what you are doing to everybody's lives while you are like this? But they can't see, they are too ill.
Good luck everyone!