Emotional side of supporting a child with ED, dealing with them hating you..

[Foxy333]

Hi Just looking to talk about this with someone in same place. My DD 14 has anorexia diagnosed 6 mths ago, and we are getting support from Camhs. It's just how she treat's me, how much they hate you ...because you care for them and are trying to get them better. ?!

I know teens are rebellious any way, I have older DC so used to that. But the amount of hatred and the attitude. This morning particularly hard but not unusual ( sigh) I 've broken down and cried, as she just refuses to eat and is not putting on weight. (Plus a new thing of constantly pacing standing and won't sit down at all, ever)

I cry, then stop and try and kindly persuade her to eat. She just doesn't care 1 tiny bit. I know it's the illness. But she acts like she hates me. All she wants to get away from me.

She smiles and laughs sometimes...! But I totally fear all mealtimes and now all my time with her. I'm terrified. Struggling to hold down a job. Just to cope.

I just try and hope there will be a day we are loving mum and daughter again, but just see it as never coming back. She was lovely up to 14, caring rarely naughty, just miss her so much!

Anyone else going though similar??

This may be even harder to hear than what you are dealing with but she hates herself Foxy not you, understanding that and trying to support her to address and confront that part of herself is the struggle. You can’t do it for her only she can do that. Her feelings about herself and her own worth as a person are a huge part to this disordered thinking and behaviour.

Think about if you wake up in the morning feeling on top of the world and just feeling as good as you can as a person there is literally no way you would set out to hurt another person, it is when the world seems against a person that they attack themselves (as with the ED) and those around them. Her thinking is about herself is disordered and that is giving rise to her disordered behaviour, ED and lashing out at those who love her.

You are her rock, her certainty and her soft place to fall. She is testing you to make sure that is still true because she can’t love herself at the moment and she wonders if anyone can.

You are doing amazing in incredibly difficult circumstances, your daughter is really lucky to have you.

Wow @Muttly that is such a great reply and great insight! Thank u very much.

There is a lot of hate in her and she's certainly so different and not happy.

I think if I felt very strong and very happy sort of place then I can deal with her better. But you sort of get ground down. And I am scared ....for her....for our life if she continues to be ill....for my job...everything.

I'll try and remember to keep being her rock. How much she is lashing out because she is lost and ill and that she wants to harm her self . She's not able to even care for herself

So sad she thinks she must be ultra slim and thin to be accepted. She was tiny before anorexia started and so went straight to being the most serious/ worst type of ED as her bmi was so very low.

Your words will help and I'm so glad you replied. I've got to let her lash out and just keep saying I love her.. even though she is fighting me all the time.

I am truly scared that I (or we) might not be able to overcome anorexia, but I'm not scared that I'll ever stop loving her , because I know I never will.

That gives me hope.. Iwill always love and care for her and that means I will somehow always keep going even if it's horrendous.

I am so sorry you are going through this Foxy 💔

Have you any support for you in this? It is really awful dealing with teens harming themselves.

Hi, Foxy333, so sorry you are going through this, and I know that feeling of missing - almost grieving - that child you had before the ED.

What helped me was that part of dd's therapy involved 'decoupling' the ED from herself - so she was encouraged to give it a name and think of it as a separate person. (She called it 'Christopher'.) This not only helped her but also me, as I could think of all her hostility towards me as 'Christopher talking'.

She is a lot better now, although there are still glimmers of 'Christopher' now and again, but I pretty much have the 'old' dd back now, which is amazing. I hope the same happens for you.

You need to be able to withstand her hatred to you. That's what she wants, even if she is unable to articulate it. She hates herself. She needs a mirror who loves her no matter what (but not one who gives into her either); and, as her mirror, you need to hold to your own self-esteem in the face of her every attempt to dismantle it.

This is really hard work, and you'll probably benefit from therapy to deal with it.

Thank you again @Muttly @ZittiEBuoni & @WhatMattersMost... Really nice to hear from you. Seeing Camhs is not helping enough so I'm going to hopefully get some support counselling soon from a local charity.

I must think of the ED voice as separate but she won't join in and give it a name. She's 100% against seeing anyone, doing anything telling us anything or admitting she has it so she won't name it. But I will do so. Must stick to it.

She was being really horrible and scaring me, running off, getting so obsessive about constantly moving, and I'm in ' battle' with her constantly because she has to sit down for meals , she has to eat breakfast to go to school, to have lunch to go back in for the afternoon etc. I hate battling her and chasing after her.

Picked her up for lunch, luckily school is 2 mins away. She refused, ran upstairs and started doing star jumps..we were running out of time.

Asked her 30 plus time to come back and eat.
Eventually with seconds to spare she did. So it was a 'success'. Just. But I feel like just was a huge horrible argument, exhausted, one we have 6 or more times a day now!
It is mad

It is a mad mad life.

I really how she has somehow gained at her next check up but she is moving so much and not eating much so doubt it.

It's just sad how different she is. Now there is no moments left each day or week of her pre-illness self.

One day she will come back....I've got to believe that.
I wish we could have normal teenage problems.

Thanks very much again.
How long did it take @ZittiEBuoni for you to see your old DD back again??

No two cases are the same, as of course you know, but for my dd it took about 15 months to come truly out of it (after several false dawns).

The ED support thread on here was a great support, if you aren't already on it btw.

I am sorry Foxy, I have no words of wisdom but we are in a similar position with our DD, also 14. It's a living nightmare, every waking moment is dedicated to either getting her to eat something or preventing a serious meltdown which always leads to self-harm. We are 11 months into CAMHS treatment and while her weigh is has restored her mental health is poorer than ever. We are struggling to cope and each day is another battle.
Sending you hugs.

Aah thanks @Selfishjeans hugs right back to you..

Camhs told us that it's typical as they recover partly, ( she's gone from 39 to 41 kg last two mths) they then react being forced to start recovery, by acting more strangely, self harm or more weird behaviour. Our DD has cut her arm few times secretly but luckily not too badly. It's crazy...but her low weight was more dangerous, odd heart rhythm so we still pushed her to eat. What's sad is also seeing her never behave normally , when we used to get bits of normality in the evenings often. Now they are gone.

Isn't it a mad crazy scary world we are living in.

I'll try the big support your teen thread, but it'll take time to get into it.

Thanks everyone. Coming here has helped me xx

@Selfishjeans and @Foxy333 seriously come onto the teens board, you'll find so much empathy and shared experience. Don't try to read the whole thing or try to work out who's who with which child, just dive in and you'll soon realise.

If you do, my story is that DD is 14 and 9 months since diagnosis, very little weight gain or more accurately gains 3kg, loses 3kg and repeat. It's fricking awful it really is. I could fill a swimming pool with my tears. Completely agree that the longer it's gone on the weirder her behaviour has become. She always says we've made her obsess about food by being so obsessed with her following the meal plan and as such we've 'given' her the ED.