Teen Eating Disorders Thread 4

[SoTiredNeedHoliday]

Starting a new thread, no 3 is full

@DarkBlueEyes things sound very very tough for you at the moment. I am sorry that it is so hard.
You have also been abandoned by the care system which must be a very scary place to be despite the fact that they didn’t appear to ‘offer’ much support.
I don’t want to ‘advise’ you but I think you need some time out to regroup. Can you get away for a day to a friends or relatives. Is there someone in RL you can unload to? Could your DH cope for a day…
The relentless nature of caring for someone with an ED can be totally overwhelming.
I found the Beat Solace groups very helpful for unloading and chatting about issues with other carers. Even if there are no spaces now you can register your interest and get a priority sign up every month.

I have also heard of people using the Carers Assessment scheme via the NHS to good effect. This would be a review for you as a carer and seeks to get help and support in place for you. It involves social services but again I have heard good reports of social services being involved and acting as advocate.
Alternatively could you go to your GP for yourself. This may kick start involvement for your Dd again as well…. Possibly….

@DarkBlueEyes would you consider taking her to a &e? If she is severely restricting and losing it could help kick start some more support?

I was going to suggest the same as mog.
Hope you're ok @DarkBlueEyes as I've not been on here since a few hours ago.

You've not I've

Hey @DarkBlueEyes so sorry to hear you’re having such a hard time of it. I echo what others have said, is there any way DH can take over for the day to give you some time away? I also think that taking your DD to A&E is definitely an option. Even if just to show her you mean business. Do you know how many calories roughly she’s consuming a day? If it’s anything like 500 or less for the last couple of days then you have viable grounds for taking her.

Are you still away? If so then I would say you probably need to get back home so that you can take stock and start again.

I know its easier said than done but you and DH need to get back in control. At the moment the ED has the reigns and is running the show. You have to go back to the basic premise which is everything stops until you eat. Show the bastard ED that you mean business. Make not eating harder than eating. Take everything away. Be prepared to take her to A&E. Throw everything you can at it.

Also I would get in touch with CAMH’s and just tell them honestly how much you are struggling to get DD to eat. If I remember rightly she’s only around 85% wfh? Surely they have a duty of care to your family, regardless of whether you missed a session. Tell them you are going to make a complaint to PALS regarding your unfair treatment.

@DarkBlueEyes I would definitely, 100% be changing the GCSE choices if she has picked both PE and Food Tech there is going to be so so so many triggering conversations and she might not be able to do the required physical PE stuff for a while anyway

Dark im sorry things are so awful for you right now, I agree with all the others and would suggest you make yourself a Drs appointment ASAP and tell them honestly how you're feeling. It might be that you need some meds to get through this horrendous time.

I also agree that food tech and PE will be a nightmare for someone with an ED so talk to the school about changing the options.

Things are up and down here, we've had a staycation the last few days and just done days out. I hate the fact that wherever we go the fucking ED comes uninvited as well 😒

I also caught dd chucking some of her porridge in the bin this morning and lost my cool with her. I need to woman up and start getting much more strict with her, it feels like with ED if you give them an inch they take 100 miles!!

I'm feeling pretty pissed off with everything including myself. Feels like after a year of FBT we should be much further forward and currently we seem to be going bloody backwards!!

Sorry that was a bit sweary.

Hi all, thank you for your messages. Things are really going downhill here. DD has lost 700g this week and I'm assuming she's now around 85% which is heartbreaking when we'd got up to 44.2kg/87%% and it felt doable, now 43.2 and a huge hill to climb.

It's the behaviour that worries me the most. Today we had screaming, banging, food up the walls, crying, I'M NOT EATING IT I'M NOT EATING IT, you name it, when a few weeks ago mealtimes were ok, she was coping with encouragement. HTF did we get here?

She had her BP taken at the GP today and the lovely GP l et me pop in. He's re-referred her and I have asked for a psych assessment as maybe meds are needed. I refuse point blank to ever engage with the care coordinator again ever.

I told my GP about my suicidal thoughts and there isn't much available in person - any counselling by chat bot WTAF or zoom. no thanks. My mental health would be fine if my daughter ate her food.

Today I also saw a lovely counsellor who may well bankrupt lol but who I think really could be our chance out of this hell.

She had a fortisip for snack but hated it, so we are back onto Ensure milkshakes as of tomorrow.

I just don't understand how we have gone backwards so fast. What have I done wrong?

Hope all of you are faring better than we are.

@DarkBlueEyes you haven't done anything. It's just the nature of this illness that it grips hard at any opportunity.

We’ve had some positives here. DD had gained half a kg at weigh in yesterday and she smashed her gcse English Lit with a grade 8, which she took a year early.. (they all do at her school).
We’ve also had first contact with the cahms eating disorder team. She’s been accepted as an urgent referral and we have a physical health check on Monday and an assessment on Tuesday.
I have to cling on to these positives otherwise if lose it completely.

@DarkBlueEyes. I’m so sorry things are tough!
My DD refuses fortisips too, maybe I should try the ensure shakes!

@Bettybarkalot123 Oh wow! Great news, well done to your DD.

We’ve also been for first appt today at the eating disorder clinic and we have to go back next week and then every 2 weeks.
DD is 89% wfh, low blood pressure, pale, cold hands and fingers.
She says she’s going to really try as she’s sick of being so low of energy and not being able to do anything so we’ll see how we go.

@DarkBlueEyes You are always on my mind lately and you’re doing all you can.

I’m not sure of my DD wfh. I think it was 82% when last calculated, about 2 weeks ago now.
So glad she’s being seen so quickly.

A year ago tomorrow my DD was admitted to hospital for the first time and so began our official journey with anorexia. I wrote this blog a couple of months later - I've shared on a previous thread. My utter bewilderment still jumps off the page to me. I share this because I know everyone of us on this thread could have written this blog and I share it because I hope it gives some hope knowing that for me, my DH and my DD our lives are different now, we have a future through recovery. Its not an easy future, there are wobbles but it is a world away from the blogpost.. I know for some of you that will seem a far off dream - it did to me too. But I hope it gives a glimmer, a tiny flicker of possibility that where you are now is not where you'll always be
anunwelcomejourneywithanorexia.medium.com/to-quote-the-fresh-prince-of-bel-air-fb3fcb7d39ba

DD1 is still maintaining. Hovering between 53.3kg and 54kg. We see the psychiatrist again tomorrow.

@Lougle Good Luck for today. 53/54kg sounds really good.

My DD is 40kg at the moment, she looks so tiny and fragile.
The meal plan she’s been given looks overwhelming and there’s so much food on there. If she could and eat even half of it over the next few days I’d be happy and it would be more than she’s having now.

Lougle that sounds like a great weight. Long May it continue.

Snitchy my DD was 40.2 on assessment too. She looked so ill it was heartbreaking. We weren't even given a meal plan. But she did quite well for the first 6 weeks and we thought we'd cracked it. I wish you all the best and hope you get a good care coordinator.

I had an appointment yesterday with a therapist and have to take DD back today. I have a tiny glimmer of hope but basically it's up to DD if she'll let us help her. I don't see how we can progress unless she voluntarily eats. Unless there's some way of force feeding her that I don't know about?

Hope you all have a good day.

@SnitchyBitch my dd was 35kg on admission and is now 40kg. She looks so much better for it. I know that it all depends on height (she's tiny) but it is all doable. Our issue is that DD knows she's a lot better and in her mind is now 'fixed' even though there's a long way to go.
@DarkBlueEyes I hope your appointment goes well. Keep posting on here for support x

@SnitchyBitch hang in there. DD1 was 37kg and 165 cm when she was first admitted to hospital - 68% WFH. She was like a little bird with purple toes and freezing fingers. Her spine was clearly visible, as were her ribs. Now, she has boobs, her spine is covered, she has flesh around her knees, and her fingers and toes are warm. She's gone from a size 4 to a size 8.

Re. The meal plan, I sacked that off very early. DD1 just couldn't manage the quantities of food. I switched to calorie counting and built up rapidly from 1700, to 1900, 2300, 2500 and 3000. All achieved with very calorie dense foods. Terrible diet, mostly chocolate, pancakes and cream. But it did the job and we moved to a more balanced diet fairly easily when she was weight restored.

DD was 39.46 kg on admission/diagnosis and that worked out 79% wfh. She was 47kg when weighed last week which puts her at 95%wfh. She is 1.57 tall. I also count her calories on MFP. For her a daily intake of around 2300 to 2600 calories a day ensures weight gain of between 400g to 1kg.

We are back from Devon a day early. It was lovely but the weather was shocking. I thought I’d give myself an extra day to prepare for our holiday to Mallorca on Tuesday. The kids have their Covid tests on Sunday and then we will know if we are definitely going or not. DD seemed a lot more relaxed while we were in Devon. She managed to eat out in restaurants twice which I was really pleased about. We came to a compromise and says that she didn’t have to have her afternoon snack on the days we ate out in the evening. I think it actually ended up her having slightly less calories on those days but I thought it was worth it for her to tackle her fear of eating out. I’m hoping we can eat out a bit more in Mallorca.

Hi all, things seem to be deteriorating here as well. Even though my dd is at a much better weight (just over 57kgs, she's 170cm tall) mentally she's not in a good place.

I'm really struggling to get her to eat enough and can feel the control slipping.

I don't know what to do, if I take her phone or stop her seeing her friends then her mood will crash.

She seems to be leaving around a third of all food offered and physically is starting to struggle. Not sleeping well, much more tired, looks pale.

I'm worried as well that we're a year in to FBT and a good 16 months since she first started restricting and we're still here stuck.

I think I might have to the psychiatrist about meds for her as I can't go on like this indefinitely 😕

Oh no I'm so sorry to hear that @Girliefriendlikespuppies when you've done so well. Really hope it's a blip.

@myrtleWilson thanks for posting that blog - you write really well. I've been keeping a diary of thoughts but I can't bear to look at it as I really didn't expect to be so stuck seven months on.

DD is 41kg. When diagnosed in New Year she was 40kg. Yes having got up to nearly 44kg we are almost back where we started. She's about 75% but her bloods are always absolutely normal as is her bp/heart rate, she has a more or less regular period, her hair is thick, physically she seems to confound medical consensus apart from the fact that she's godawful thin and wan. It's part of the problem for us because she keeps saying, why do I have to put on weight when I've got a period and my bloods are fine. She's convinced her skinniness is 'natural'. While I think she can exist at a lower weight than many, it's really not natural in any way. I hate seeing her hip bones. She looks like an anorexic.

Because she's now eating the meal plan and has put on half a kilo, we're being allowed on holiday. One of us will come back if she veers from the plan for even a day. I'm (deludedly) hoping that a change of scene might take out of the destructive mindset.

I would love her to put on a stone/6kg and be more or less back where she was before restricting. She'd only be 85% WFH but I think all our experiences show that what works for one person doesn't for another.

@myrtleWilson loved your blog post The Fresh Prince . I'm interested to know, at 3 months in you said you know it was a long road to travel - did you know it would be this long? I get disheartened as I feel it is never going to fall beneath the surface. Fall away into something that we need to keep an eye out for, instead of being a loud angry voice that is there looking for any crack to break back into full blown ED.

DD is doing well but she almost seems to 'not want to grow up. She wants to look like she did at 11 and at 14 that's not possible. She can't take on the logic that at 25 does she really want to look like an 11-year-old.....

(DD's started restricting a year ago, and we've been in 'recovery' phase since January)

How do you cope with body dysmorphia? Any helpful hints for answering questions like are my thighs 'thick' ? How do you get them to stop asking these 'reassurance seeking' questions? It's so tricky.

Sotired my dd is similar, she hated her 'grown up' body and when I said to her something about looking like a 12 yo she said 'that's what I want' 🙄 she's grown a bit in height as well which she also moans about. Most people would love to be tall with long legs but she seems to think it's a problem. No advice I'm afraid but I can relate!

Valley that's good your dd is following the meal plan and has gained a bit. I think you probably need to be guided by your dds mental state rather than her weight, in theory once they're at the right weight the anorexic thoughts and behaviours should naturally lessen.

We are definitely not there yet unfortunately.

So DD is now totally refusing. Yesterday she agreed with the therapist she wanted help and agreed not to lose any weight. Now she's looking like a zombie at the table utterly refusing to eat.

What do you do in this situation? I have no plan B.