cant eat or feed dd. Please help

[littlelamb]

I really feel I'm at the end of my tether and i just cant cope. I had problems with bulimia as a teenager and now i'm on my own with my ten month old daughter i just feel so low that all the old habits have slipped back. I have to do twenty miles on my exercise bike a day and I'll only let myself drink diet coke and eat sugar free jelly and i just don't feel able to get out of bed yet alone look after dd. it doesn't help that she's teething and very clingy and i have so much guilt that i cant cuddle her and be happy. I'm so scared she's getting fat I don't know what to feed her and don't want to cook in case I end up eating some of it. I just feel i want someone to take her away but that terrifies me. Please help

What you have described IS depression - ie the feeling of hopelessness and that nothing can change. Depression feeds on itself but there are ways to break the cycle. By doing so you will give yourself a chance to take some control of your life, rather than feeling so helpless. The essential thing is to find a way of breaking the hold the depression / negative thinking is having over you. That might need a combination of medication, counselling, practical help etc - but people DO overcome depression, or at the very least learn to manage it better so that they don't feel so awful. For me it was all about talking to someone- that is my nature, as I store so much anxiety and shame that it positively eats me up! Sharing your feelings is a way of releasing them. Does posting on here help? If so, then keep doing it, you can guarantee that people will keep an eye out for your messages and try to support you.

she goes during the week but they tell me she eats so well there so when she won't eat what i cook her it wories me. She had a little spaghetti from a jar today but not very much, then two fromage frais as a snack and a banana tonight but it just seems she eats so much better when she's there, probably because all the other babies are eating with her so she can see its normal

I found counselling really helpful when I was pregnant but the service at uni is so overstretched I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be able to squeeze me in. I took anti depressants while I was pregnant but i think the guilt I felt about taking them stopped them having any effect. I felt great after she was born though, its just been the last couple of months that things have got bad. I stopped breastfeeding a month ago, thinking that maybe i should go on antidepressants, but that just made everything worse, because when I was feeding I HAD to eat. Now, i don't have to and i know its hard to understand but it's just easier if i dont

"I guess a part of me thinks people won't believe me how can you have an eating disorder when you're so fat?"

Littlelamb, many (possibly most) fat people have eating disorders. I've known compulsive over-eaters who turned into anorexics, and got praised by the other compulsive over-eaters because nobody knew about anorexia in those days. For them, it turned out that anorexia was the flip side of the same disease. And I've known anorexics who blimped out when they managed to stop starving themselves... It's all an obsession around controlling food or not being able to control food intake...

A baby needs fattening foods. I'm sorry to sound harsh but reading your first post made me scared for your DD, that you must not worry about her "getting fat". Something tells me that you yourself are also miles away from fat. I don't know why anorexics get delusional like that. It sounds like you are giving her enough food & the right things, but you owe it to your DD to get help NOW before things get worse.

I know you don't want your family to know about this, but your DD is more important than the rest of your family put together, quite frankly, because she can't stand up for herself. Your family would rather you admitted to this problem than let it get worse and put yourself or (God forbid) your DD in danger.

So please be brave & get some help, won't you?

i'm not anorexic zebraX

well, littlelamb she may also eat her 'main meal' at lunchtime. dd2 eats for England at lunch and is never particularly hungry at tea time. What is she like with eating at the w/e?

Sorry I misunderstand that.
I write as an past-exercise bulemic myself. I spent 2 years going to OverEaters Anonymous. Not right for me to continue there, but it was the right place for me to start getting better.
Good luck.

so who's going to look after your little girl if you faint on the street and end up in hospital with anemia??? please , please littlelamb get yourself to the GP ASAP and I'm sure they'll help you devise a healthy eating plan. and for god's sake, stop buying coca-cola and other crap like that: all it does is to give you a bed stomach problem of which you will only learn a few years down the line. just eat loads of fruit & vegs if you're worried of putting on wieght. they are not fattening at all but you need energy& vitamins. turkey meat is the leanest meat you can have so try a bit of that maybe.
as for dd's diet, it is true, children and babies do need to consume fat especially to develop their brains properly. they also need a blanced diet, which you probably know all about so no need to go into details. there was some study saying that childred with a bad nutrition under 3 are more likely to be problematic as teenagers in terms of behaviour. so this is the age your DD needs and can eat anything and everything (natural of course, not processed foods, but a biscuit here and there, or an icecream etc is absolutely fine for a small child).

just let dd eat as much as she likes. really. and offer her food when she comes home from nursery, even if she doesn't seem hungry. she might be hungry, you never know. your meal plans for her sound fine to me btw

Didn't mean to sound so blunt zebraX I know full well that I'm not well but i don't think I'm anorexic. How did you get better? It worries me that all the literature says bulimics maintain weight but I've dropped twenty seven pounds in a month and i'm not really bingeing does this mean i am anorexic? I don't feel anorexic. I know that i sound very childish and stupid but I guess maybe I'm not bulimic after all I just throw up whatever I at no matter how small it is. Sorry to be disgusting

It just seems she should be eating more but I guess she's got a littler tummy than adults. I probably don't realise how the breadsticks fill her up either she's probably had about four today

and imho breadsticks are good too but not much nutrition to them. i think you should insist on a home visit from the HV. she is your DD and only you can make things happen for her, none else. be pushy with the HV and she will have to make a home visit.

Sorry if this sounds blunt, but if all you are eating is sugar free jelly, you've lost 27lb ina month, and you won't eat because you will throw it up then you have an eating disorder, and it sounds to me like anorexia.

Please get help.

I would say you're bulemic, but the high weight loss shows you're probably behaving like an anorexic, too. Smiley because I think you prove my own argument about all eating disorders usually being different symptoms of the same underlying disorder...

Although, tbh, I think there's a class of anorexic who are die-hard, they rarely get fat & they rarely get better. Thankfully it really doesn't sound like you're one of them. They probably do (IMHO) really have a terrible brain chemical imbalance/disorder.

I'm not an expert on eating disorders, but this is my experience...
In OA there's a kind of group culture of why people think that they're compulsive about food. I suppose that there are lots of commonalities but always individual reasons why people may go weird about food/eating, too.

I know with me, what probably really helped was I used to play a kind of game...

"Ok, I will eat that choclate bar, it's all mine, no one can take it way from me, but first... if I were eating this because I was unhappy, what would be the reason be?"

[You would simply say, I'm going to eat this but sick it back up, I will I will I will...]

Usually I was clueless why I was being compulsive so I had to guess. After a while I managed to persuade myself to wait for my chocolate until I tried to do one little thing about the thing that I was guessing might be what was bothering me. The weird thing was, often after I did that one little thing, I didn't want the chocolate so bad after all....It's like, I was learning how to to empower myself how to deal with life.

I know it sounds really simple, but it wasn't. Especially because usually what was upsetting me was my thinking, not anything real. Like if someone was rude to me in a shop, well that happened because I'm such a pathetic rubbish worthless human, didn't it? It took a long time to learn how to confront that kind of negative self-belief.

I don't know if any of that helps. Like I said, it's individual. But you can do it, honest you can. One step at a time. First step, find people who are willing to help you.

so if i ate then make myself busy so i couldn't do anything about it afterwards? that sounds sensible but a bit scary to be honest i suppose you understand that though :-) Did you ever feel like maybe you didn't have a problem? I know its probably denial but because you're telling everyone you're fine you think maybe you really are?

Littlelamb, I really feel for you and hsave suffered eating disorders for many years. Please please seek help via your GP as soon as possible. It isn't about you at this moment - your dd's wellbeing is your priority.

You've got to try to figure out why you sick the food up, why you want to. And what you could do to make yourself feel less like doing that. Yes, making yourself busy might help... but it's deeper than that. You need to solve the problems in your life or just in your head. You can't solve them all at once, but if you can just try to solve one of the very little ones, today, that will be a good start.

According to Overeaters Anonymous thinking I am living in denial now because I don't consider myself a compulsive overeater anymore... they have a group thinking that it's like alcoholism, you never get better, you just keep it at bay. Either that or I never really had the problem. But... actually, I think most bulemics do get better. Look at Princess Di -- she "got over it". But I don't think she found it easy, either. I still have days when I eat because I'm "nervous", and I may even want to go for a long run afterwards to burn some of it off, but I don't do that most days, and if I can't go running I don't get deeply upset about it.

can someone just reassure me you're not all mad at me so I'm not afraid to come back here? I feel like i'm wasting your time but it definately has helped i need a good kick up the backside. I'm off to bed now. Thanks for all staying up to talk x

No-one's mad at you! Please come back and talk again, it can help. And let us know how you're getting on.

not mad, hon, just very concerned for you and your dd. keep posting and very best wishes. xx

I'm off to bed, too!
Cor blimey, what's to be mad at you about? Just please say you'll try hard to make yourself find some help in real life? Would really like to hear that.
There are several threads in the archives from people trying to get to grips with eating problems (eating too much, sicking it up, eating too little, etc.). You are far from alone....

ok before I go I'm going to give myself an aim. I'm going to make dd breakfast and just keep offering her food through the day and i'm going to try and reach 500 calories tomorrow, which is pathetic i know but I have been trying to keep below 200. And I'm going to have diner with dd I'm just so tired of all this I really do want to get better

litllelamb you're not mad. and everyone here is most supportive. you'll find lots of useful advice and support on MN, all you have to do is ask the questions!
Night, night!

Below 200 calories? Please do something about this, littlelamb, you can't look after yourself on that amount of food, let alone a child. Promise us that you will try and get some help, please.

littlelamb, no-one is mad at you. I've read your posts and about how much you love your dd. She is so lucky. And you are giving her a good diet. Keep going - babies need fat - they need it to be healthy and need a lot more calories than adults for their body weight. Perhaps you could plan each week the meals that you want to give dd each day? As for snacks, my two like rice cakes and bread sticks, cubes of cheese and raisins.

Now to you, honey. Do go and see your gp, they can arrange couselling for you. Or try your uni again - it's what the couselling service is for. And if you need help from your hv then keep pestering them until they help. Your dd needs you to be well. Best of luck.

hope you find some help littlelamb. 200 cals is drastic.