I hear what you’re saying about refusing to eat unless your dd makes the food herself. It is still worthwhile pursuing what you’re being advised, ie making the food and putting it in front of your dd, the Eva Musby method. It didn’t work for my dd but it was important for us to try as if it works, It can be very successful and absolutely the way people are expected to eat when hospitalised. Ie 3 meals, 3 snacks.
Because your dd is heavily restricting, you should start to calorie count and secretly note down everything she is eating (without her realising) to see how much she is actually eating. I was literally weighing everything and keeping a note before and after of what she’d eaten every day for months.
I get the concept of going to A&E if your dd is not eating enough is scary. However, not going is even more scary. If she hasn’t been checked over, you don’t know your dd’s state of health right now. A&E will at the very least do basic medical obvs to check her blood pressure, pulse and oxygen sats along with blood tests and an ecg if deemed necessary. Less than 500 calories a day puts her in the danger zone. When you talk to CAHMS, they will tell you if you have any major concerns, you need to take her there. Taking my dd for tests (which she refused to do until it became very clear that she either agreed to testing or she would be admitted under the mental health act) was a turning point for her.
I understand it’s very very hard. I was where you are until a few weeks ago and my dd is only at the start of recovery. Right now, your dd doesn’t have capacity to make rational decisions. I understand she wants to be in control of everything but unless she is willing to increase the quantity of those foods, idk how. Did person, who spoke to you tell you how it could work?
In the beginning, I was making food for dd and she was so disinterested in food and she would only eat a handful of safe foods. Being in charge of this, I could very very slowly increase her intake without her noticing, the aim being just to feed her and worry about variety later.
Now dd is more able to eat and has regained the taste for food, she wants to make her own food and this is working because it puts her at ease and she eats more. She still doesn’t want to eat in front of us because it is too anxiety inducing and will only do so if at a restaurant. But as I said in an earlier post, we are ok with this only because she is 100% honest about eating the food, doesn’t hide or flush it away and doesn’t purge. She has upped the variety of foods albeit still limited.
Dd is being treated as though she has autism and pathological demand avoidance (PDA) and cannot handle not being in charge of the type of food she eats. We are doing this under the guidance of a private eating disorder specialist. She says it’s modified family based treatment (FBT) and someone with PDA will find having the food chosen for her is too anxiety inducing. In fact I have never been able to decide what dd will eat.
Apart from the ED specialist, we have had a lot of external help from dd’s friends. There is no way that we could do this alone and there is no way dd could have been in charge of making her own food and upping the quantities.
My dd was very shut down, constantly really nasty and still will get very angry when food is talked about. This is all very normal and it is important not to react to this, not to give into the ED, which wants you to get upset or angry as it detracts from the goal of getting your dd to eat. If you live with a partner, it is also important to both be creating a United front. Right now, you’re not dealing with your dd, you’re dealing with an ED and the book with a long title I mentioned works for dd explains what that means. Your dd is there somewhere beneath but she’s being controlled completely by the ED.
When you have time, I would suggest you read through this thread. I posted for the first time about dd’s ED on this thread so posters kindly gave me a lot of insight into what is happening in an ED. This would also be useful for you too.