Did anyone watch the programme on the children with eating disorders and the Maudsley Clinic?

[foxinsocks]

gawd it was harrowing

I hope to god none of our kids ever suffer from anorexia

Trouble is nowadays they are under so much pressure. I have been fat/thin doesnt bother me either way unless it starts affecting my health. MIL said to me the other day - dont you think DD is getting a wee tummy - she is 5, I just about decked her. MIL has been 8 1/2 stone all her life.

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What????? Cod feckin learn to type.

Oh no I missed it

Dd1 is 9 and a thin as a rake and thinks that her weighing 4 stone is awful

Dd2 is 7 and just right but has been called fat at school.

Makes me so mad and scares the shit out of me. I very nearly had an eating disorder but was pulled out of it when I met xp (one thing he did right).

dunno cod

in both cases (that we saw), the anorexia had started after something had happened - with the girl, she'd had a tummy bug and afterwards, just couldn't make herself eat without feeling full very quickly (and ill). With the boy, his gran had died and he'd become very miserable (and felt he had no-one to talk to) and had developed an irrational fear that if he ate after 5pm, he would choke and die in his sleep.

But they did stress, this new way of 'helping' anorexics, was family therapy - so get the whole family in and have them work together to solve the problem. These kids were seriously ill though - the girl had almost died and been in and out of hospital. It really was very sad.

oh don't nutty

I am lucky in that I've never had issues with food but had plenty of friends that did. This programme did show that it can be incredibly hard to treat - it's such a controlling illness.

i have been anorexic since i was 6, at my lowest i weighed 3 stone and had to be hospitalised because my internal organs had started failing. my hair was falling out in clumps, my teeth were loose, my skin was flaking, my breath stank, and i was about 13. i think it's very easy to try to blame the media or the parents but in the end it is the sufferers choice. i was addicted to starving myself and you train your body to ignore hunger until you get a physical buzz out of lack of food. it's terrifying. after ds i lost all of my baby weight in 8 weeks not coz i was lucky but coz i was so unhappy. i think anorexia and bulimia is like alcoholism, you are always in recovery. i have struggled now for the best part of 22 years and i am sick of it and fed up of being defined by my eating disorder but it makes me so angry when people blame external influences. if it were the media's fault we wouldn't have the obesity rate that we do, if it were the parents fault we'd have more children in care. i take responsibility for my illness and also for my recovery

I don't think the outside pressure helps though lissie. Anorexia seems to often start as a child, at a time when it is still very hard to take responsibility for the way you are feeling.

i appreciate that but i really think that it's more of a genetic disorder than a social one. my auntie has suffered anorexia since she was 11, my sister is underweight and obsessed with her diet. while my mum hasn't helped (used to call me fat, chubby etc) she didn't make me stop eating, and tbh it was more of a control issue than a weight one

I'm sorry your mum did that.

You see, you could argue possibly, that your control issues developed because of the way your mum/family was treating you (and possibly, she was like that because of food issues in her upbringing). I agree with you totally though - as an adult, you have to try and take responsibility for your illness and recovery and that 'blaming' other people probably doesn't help your recovery process.

Must take up a lot of mental energy fighting something like that .

tbh it's easier to know that i'm in control of my own destiny, and while my upbringing was a factor, i knew what i was doing. i knew that i was ill, but maintaining my "habit" was more important.

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Yes I saw it. Found the OCD one the week before really upsetting too. Think DP is gonna ban me from tehis type of TV soon. My sister used to be seen at the Maudsley.

yeah, I thought the OCD one was more positive in a way - there was an end in sight (iyswim). As lissie said, the anorexia seems to be something that will be with them for a much longer time. It is awful to see children suffering though. In both episodes, I really felt like putting my arms round them and I'm not even a very lovey dovey sort of person.

The OCD was very personal for me. Every time there is a prog on OCD there is light at the end of the tunnel for them, why is there non for my sister, why is hers getting worse. I hate it. I should be happy for the ones that get better but its just so unfair for my sister and it makes me so angry and it hurts so much and I want to be able to punch OCD in the face, spit at it and throttle it and stab it to death and I can't and I'm frustrated and pissed off.

it must be very frustrating for you to see your sister going thru that. dh gets so angry with me sometimes. how long has your sister suffered?

19 years badly but it was always there before. Just that none of us knew. She used to sit int he back of the car as a 3 year old asking to go back in to check she'd turned the taps off. She was quiet and shy and wonderful and fragile and in pain as a young girl and then when my parents split up her school work started to really suffer. She'd rip up homework cos it wasn't 'perfect' enough and start again, over and over and it never got done. Then she got bullied cos she was pretty and boys liked her, even though she was so quiet. Over the 19 years it's got so bad she has no freinds, no one. She can't talk on phone, won't answer door, not even to my mum when my mum was locked out. Won't come downstairs unless coaxed. My mum leaves a plate of food outside her room if she is oiut for day. She won't talk on the phone. Takes her hours to write in a birthday card. She can't boil a kettle for a cup of tea. Spends hours in bathroom ruminating, washing, checking. Has fear of harming others. Feels worthless. Thinks she strangled a baby in BHS years ago on a rare shopping trip with my mum. Thinks she doesn't deserve to get better cos she's a murderess. She thinks she's ugly. She has keloids on her back and won't let anyopne hug her incase they feel them and are revolted by her. I could go on.

I'm so sorry, TeeCee.

I'm sorry teecee.

What did you think about the OCD programme then? I thought the family (with the lovely teenage boy) were fabulous and I was so proud of him when he ripped the magazine. I did find myself thinking (throughout both programmes) that if ONLY those that I know/knew with serious mental illnesses had been able to access this sort of help at that stage in their lives, things may well have turned out differently for them.

Is your sister getting any help?

oh teecee, i'm so sorry, thats awful. does she see a counsellor?

Nope she sees noone. Sorry, thsi is all turning into a me, me me thread, and I ddon't mean it too. Just mention OCD and I let out some of what I carry around. Never talk about it really, except ton here. If I tried to talk now I'd get that thing in my throat and no words would come and I'd cry but I can type ok and not cry so it feels good, a release.

She doesn't get help cos they a;ll sort of gave up. She has to want to get better but she doesn't feel she deserves it. She thinks this is her punishment for being evil The help was getting her to sit in kitchen with the cupboard of bleach opena nd they gave her anti depressants that had horrid side effects.
None of us know what else to do. How do you help someone who doesn't want to be helped>

She's scared of not having OCD, scared tolet go becasue it's all she knows, who she is. How do you begin to strip it away and find the real person. Hers is so, so so bad, so bad.

Tears coming, will break off quick

Aw TeeCee .

i think the problem with this type of illness is that after a while it DOES define you and as i said before you become addicted to this destructive behavior. don't apologise, you need to talk about this too. are you getting any help?

don't be nice to me! It'll make me cry! . Don't want to take over this thread either. Sorry.

i'll tell santa if you keep apologising and you won't get any pressies