Leave my daughter alone Ed!

One of the hardest challenges I have faced as a parent over the past year is supporting my eldest with an eating disorder. It is one of those things that you don’t think will come into contact with your family and it is something that other people get.

Looking back, I saw signs there was a problem about two moths before my eldest came to me for help. It was hard picking apart the signs as she was going through puberty and naturally her body and appetite were changing anyway. She went through phases of wanting to try different eating styles such as vegetarian, gluten free and even vegan. I thought she was just experimenting like kids do. I noticed she was wearing baggier clothes and ate with us less and less, choosing to make her own food which got more and more restricted such as scrambled egg, going off meat and even not wanting take aways.

My daughter agreed to get help, so we got a referral through our gp to CCAHMS. They started to see her once a week. In the beginning it was so hard. the panic you feel as a parent when your child won't eat and there's nothing you can do to instantly change that.

I think alongside her therapy sessions, the first time I noticed an improvement to her mood was when we started to take walks every day. This allowed my daughter to talk away from home and was distracted whilst we walked. We have always had a close relationship, so she has always been quite good at coming to me for help, but I knew this was still extremely hard for her to talk about.

Another key moment in my daughter’s recovery journey was books. She started to show an interest in reading thrillers which I read so not only did she have a distraction from her thoughts, but it was also a topic away from food th

at we could talk about. Within a few months I think she had read 100 books! It gave her the escapism from the real world, especially when she came across Colleen Hoover’s books. Thank you Atlas!

The main thing to remember when supporting your loved one with an eating disorder is it will take time for them to open about what triggered it in the first place which for a lot of people is the need to feel control. I know CCAHMS has seen a major rise in ed cases since lockdown where a lot of us lost control over all parts of our daily lives and routines and we had too much time on our hands to over analyse everything.

My daughter had her autism diagnosis during her recovery when she was 14. This brought with it its own challenges of beginning to understand herself

better as well as accepting that she was autistic. Time again has helped and as her younger sister is autistic, she was already aware of certain behaviours and difficulties she had. I will be doing a post about the link with autism and eating disorders another time.

Although things are not perfect (when are they?!), my eldest is doing amazingly well and now attends College and is a fantastic baker which she loves doing when she isn’t reading. I think if you can find something to distract your child from the thoughts and eating disorder voice, then this can help them see a glimpse of what life is like without being controlled and to encourage them to strive for a future free from it.

Also, I know it is hard, please don’t put unnecessary pressure or stress on your child be trying to take too much control over what they eat, when etc. as much as they need to eat and recover, they must be a part of the process and need to want to get better. Listen to them and what they want and ask how you can help.

I have attached a link to Amazon which is where I purchased a helpful book which I read and then would send my daughter photos of parts I thought were relevant which was less overwhelming for her than being told to read a whole book.

https://is.gd/iCKnCL (This is the book CCAHMS suggest to look at)

https://is.gd/eEWk5h ( I personally found this helpful to understand the eating disorder and helped my daughter too).

https://hampshirecamhs.nhs.uk/