my daughter is anorexic

[hippo38]

My 16yr old daughre is anorexic, she doesn't want to eat and when she does it wouldn't feed a baby bird.
It all started when a friend called her fat she is 5ft and weighed just under 8 stone she is now 6 and a half stone.
She sees a physciatrist and a dietician.
Feel like i have no support and very alone.

I am so sorry for you and her.I am not really up on this health issue but to give you some hope both my cousins sisters had anorexia and are both now married with kids etc They both say it is something that stays with them but they are both a healthy weight and happy with nice lives etc.They had a lot of family support and caused a lot of heartache but got their in the end in their 20s.Hope someone with some more knowkedge comes along to advise you xx

Theres a parents and carers board on the b-eat website (formerly the eating dosorders association) - have you had a look a that? I had an ED as a child - my mum was rubbish. From my point of view just be as consisitant and loving as you can, I never had cuddles and was told I was "being silly" just drove me away. It must be so incredibly hard. How long has this been going on for?

appalling spelling and grammar there not sure what happened sorry!

It has been going on for about 4 months, my partner thinks she should just pull herself together and i know that is the wrong thing to say to her.

Well, when I was 14/15 I started eating next to nothing, became obsessed with my weight and lost a hugely unhealthy amount of weight. It was more to do with control than being fat, really. I wasn't very happy at schooland it seemed to be something I could do and be in charge of. I got a real kick out of every pound I lost, out of every dinner I could sneak into the bin without mum noticing, even from the concern of my friends. My parents never seemed to notice! I think my mum just thought it was a "phase" and ignored it! I started eating properly again after a family holiday to France where I met a lovely bunch of girls and boys, and started to feel good about myself again.

From my experience, I would talk to your dd about her life/ concerns/ worries, not about her eating. If you talk to her about her eating, she will most likely get defensive and angry- you are trying to take away the thing she can control, the thing that gives her satisfaction and makes her happy (again, just from my experience) Even if she doesn't want to talk to you about her worries etc, just letting her know that you care and are interested may be a help. She needs support, but not nagging about eating, and hopefully eventually she will return to normal. It may be worth discussing with your GP or specialists how best to help her. Good luck.

Hi Hippo. My DD is 13 and is just starting to display some eating disorder symptoms- at the moment it's just attention seeking behaviour but I can see where it could lead.

Of course our DD is younger than yours and is still eating some things. She keeps saying she is not hungry and says she feels sick when she has had no more than a few mouthfuls. She stopped eating breakfast a while back which didn't concern me too much as she always had a good lunch and dinner. But for the last 2 months she has been refusing to eat her lunch as well (although she is not hiding it from us which is why we think it's an attention seeking thing at the moment)I have refused to let her walk away frm her dinner and although she initially complains will eat it and (seems) to enjoy it.

She is on the 75th percentile for height for her age but at only 5th percentile for her weight which is concerning me. SHe does not look ill yet but was only consuming 400 calories or so a day so her weight will inevitably drop if we don't do something now.
SHe has loads of friends at her school and regularly tells me that she loves it there- so no obvious problems to be causing this.

Rightly or wrongly we have gone down the tough route and taken away her computer her phone and contact with friends until she starts eating sensibly without complaining. We are doing this very calmly and not getting into screaming or pleading matches with her. We are (as others have suggested) being very loving and supportive.

She is under a paediatrician for mild fybromyalgia and I am thinking of making an appointment to see take dd to see her again next week.

Am very new to this problem myself so not sure whether I can be any of any help but want to let you know there are other mums out their with similar concerns about their DDs.

Hi my daughter has seen the physchiatrist initially it was fortnightly but she is so worried she will see her weekly for the next 4 weeks, she has been told she is underweight but she thinks it is great that she can fit into smaller clothes, my partner thinks she is doing it for attention, maybe she was at the beginning but certainly not now.
I am work for her appointment with the physchiatrist today so my partner is taking her, i'm hoping this will make him realise how serious this is as she won't take the ensure that was prescribed (she said it was disgusting)now she won't take the scandishakes.
Not sure what to do now as i work full time and shifts so i can't monitor her food all the time, than she is out with friends and tells me she has ate, i don't believe her anymore

My husband took her to the appointmentand now realises how serious this is, my daughter now weighs 6 stone and half a pound, friday and saturday she ate great but Sunday was bad as is today, both myself and my husband are at work today and as the time stands now she hasn't had a thing to eat she says she isn't hungry.
The worst thing is i can't force her to eat.

I had anorexia in my late teens/early 20s.

I was sent to the local psychiatric outpatient clinic where the focus was all on food and making us eat it, I found it utterly useless and if anything it made me worse.

Luckily a friend of a friends sister had been through the same thing so she gave us the name of a behavioural psychologist who hardly ever mentioned food and helped me sort out the root cause and then the eating fell into place by itself.

IME eating disorders have very little to do with food, the food is just the manifestation of the problem. In most cases the issue is control - young girls, often 'people pleasers', feel they can't control what is going on in their lives, but they CAN control what they eat, so they do.

That's a very simplistic version obv, but that's what it boils down to.

My GP was so impressed with my recovery that she sent all her eating disorder patients to the psychologist I went to - she was fantastic and helped me turn my life around.

My advice would be to try to find a therapist who takes the focus off the food and helps with the REAL problem - sounds blindingly obvious, but a lots of ED treatments don't do that and they are the ones that will fail in the long term.

HTH