Eating Disorders

My home city of Leeds is one of the first areas in England which is pioneering FBT (Family Based Therapy) as the primary model for treating adolescents with eating disorders in the city. It all goes back to Chancellor Of The Exchequer George Osborne’s Autumn Statement in 2014 when he promised an extra £2 billion a year of additional funding for the NHS across various services including mental health. Leeds was one of the authorities that applied for funding and they were successful in their bid. So some of this funding is being used to roll out a new service for adolescents with eating disorders within the Leeds postcode area.Hopefully, the new service will “go live” at some point this year, but I’m not sure when. Meanwhile …

If you look back on my blog posts over the last couple of years, you’ll notice that they were a bit thin on the ground for a while. That was because of the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, etc which suddenly hit me about 27 months ago and which meant that I had to take a break from anything to do with eating disorders because I found it very triggering.Thanks to the fourth set of therapy sessions (care of the NHS!), I seem to have finally come out the other end. I still have issues with anxiety, but am pretty much able to manage this using all the various CBT/mindfulness tools that I’ve learned along the way. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to fix the nightmares …

Over this last week, my son and I have gone through a heck of a lot. Not to do with his (now thankfully gone) eating disorder, but to do with a GIRL. Let me explain…Recently he’s met this girl and he really likes her. A lot. But last weekend she was behaving a little off-hand and he was convinced that she was trying to dump him. So we went through all of that… all the usual heartbreak plus the added worry (in my mind) that something like this could ping him into relapse – or worse. And of course no one likes to see their child upset, eating disorder or no eating disorder.But the story so far is that she’s been poorly, which is …

On Saturday afternoon I spoke at the SEDIG (Scottish Eating Disorders Interest Group) conference in Edinburgh about my family’s experience of getting my son through anorexia. It was great to see so many dedicated people together from across Scotland – mainly parents who are still struggling with an eating disorder in the family but also one or two clinicians, and the speakers, chaired by the amazing Dr Jane Morris, Consultant Psychiatrist, Eden Unit, Aberdeen.Everyone who spoke at the conference is doing an incredible job to raise awareness of the issue of eating disorders – and in the afternoon the focus was primarily on eating disorders in males, so it was great to see Sam Thomas from Men Get Eating Disorders Too and Paul Donald from Men …

After my SEDIG (Scottish Eating Disorders Interest Group) conference talk on Saturday about eating disorders in boys, one mum in the audience stood up. She said: “You’ve just told our story – it’s identical. Except for one thing. Unlike your son, ours didn’t make it; he passed away, aged 19.” My jaw dropped. And with it came a rush of emotion. Here was I, describing our recovery story. There she was, reinforcing the fact that eating disorders can kill. They are deadly diseases. And no matter how punishingly hard you work as a parent to get your child through it, the eating disorder can claim them in the end.I know some of us felt some guilt. Like survivors’ guilt, I guess. Our sons and daughters pulled through; …

It’s curious how the brain gets ‘stuck’ in the ‘fight or flight’/Red Alert response, isn’t it? Take yesterday teatime for example (or evening meal, to non-Yorkshire people out there!) Paul and Ben were eating fish in breadcrumbs, chips and mushy peas. Ben commented on the fact that Sainsbury’s mushy peas weren’t a patch on Batchelor’s mushy peas. Then there was a silence. And the ‘stuck’ part of my brain suddenly went into FREEZE. I mean F.R.E.E.Z.E…Why? Because in the ‘bad old days’ when Ben’s anorexia was raging, he’d make a comment on something about the food not being right (too hot, too cold, too tasteless, too fatty, too little, too much, too dry, too salty, too… you name …

I just said to him: “I’m so proud of you, all these time-management skills and all that.” “What’s brought that on?” he said, suspiciously. So I told him I’d blogged about it and so on. “Aw, thank you!” he said. Then, giggling (in a little boy’s voice): “Okay, mummykins… I’ve been such a good little boy, can I have a million pounds, please? Like NOW! In CASH!!”That’s another bonus. He’s got his fabulous sense of humour back, too.