Meal times

Posted one year ago

Hi, I very much hope your daughter and your family are in a better place now. Like you 8 months ago, I am now just coming to grips with our 16yo daughter's developping anorexia and learning about it.
Here at home, I can see our daughter is really trying hard to eat and listen to all the advice given to her by therapist, doctor, and dietician. Yet it is difficult.
Although when she has a day when she eats 3 meals and 3 snacks she does not binge and purge later in the evening, yet, when she has more chaotic meals she does binge and purge and all the food consumed, good and bad, is out. It is particularly difficult on the weekend as she does not get up till late and so there is little time and it is very difficult to get the necessary amount of food in for her not to feel the urge to binge in the evening late.
If I wake her up, she goes into a fury and is upset for the rest of the day, which then makes the remaining meals almost impossible. So far as it is relatively new to us, we have let her go to her room after meals. Clearly this is not working, but it is rather difficult to keep her downstairs, short of restraining her physically?
Should I be tougher or just be patient? I am genrally patient and try to get her to eat as much as possible hoping that the weight gain will improve her resilience, but when her weight drops yet again, I do panic.

Posted 2 years ago

Hi Kirky and thank you for your care, advice and good wishes. I am happy to report that yes meal times are much better now. My daughter is in a much better space, she was 19 when she was diagnosed and she is in her late twenties now and so as she has recovered meal times have become her responsibility but they are no longer stressful.
It is a sadness for me though that apart from Christmas dinner, she no longer joins us for family meals when all of my children are home. I will really feel as if we have achieved something when that happens. But I suppose the truth is that she has been through a lot and we are now all in a different space, we are not the same as before and that has many positives and a few negatives. The major positive is that she is mostly happy and rebuilding her life, she has gone back to exercise in a controlled way and that is helping her as she has always enjoyed exercise.
I hope that meal times continue to improve for you. It is so good to hear that you are both working as a team to support meal times. I know now that meal times are the time of major stress for someone with an eating disorder as they battle the contradictions of their thoughts. Eventually I learnt to plan ahead to agree meal times timings with my daughter before hand and insist that we stick to them, I also agreed the menu with her just really to take away any surprises. I also eventually learnt not to give in to her every persuasive reasons. Wishing you and your family the best