Posted 4 years ago
Hi, I know exactly how you feel . My daughter has always been quite thin and small build since a baby and I have always been yo-yoing up and down with my weight, never really overweight, but a bit overweight and not able to maintain the weight when I do go on a diet. So a terrible role-model for my daughter ! But this has been made more complicated that she went vegetarian then vegan and we can't get her to change at all . I have found I now feel almost awkward eating meat/ preparing meat in front of her . I have found since she was diagnosed anorexic that at first, I just stopped eating much from sheer anxiety and panic, just as I also lost sleep massively and I lost half a stone quickly in a few weeks. Now that I have started to come to terms with her illness, to accept it is a very slow process to recovery , not just a few months, and have made some pockets of time for myself when necessary to stay sane, I have gone back to normal , sleep better and eat better. I do find though, that sometimes I comfort eat to get me through tough days but feel I can't eat something fattening in front of her or I'm being a bad role model again . She is obsessed with healthy eating ( more orthorexia to start with which then branched into anorexia ) , and doesn't trust me to give her a good diet. I have a meal plan for her and I take great care with lengthy planning to give her the right nutrients and calories each day and find things that she will accept and eat so that I don't make it any harder for her than it has to be. So I've made homemade soups as she won't trust shop-bought food on the whole, or made meals from scratch very simply . It's exhausting but I've sort of gotten used to it and I know that if I gave her cakes or biscuits , there would be a direct refusal to eat at all. At least this way, she is eating . She's 17 and trying not to let her negotiate her way at meal times in what she eats is very hard , despite all the textbooks saying there should be no negotiation.
Sorry , I have rambled a bit , but I think that as mums it is very hard as prime carers and we shouldn't beat ourselves up for thinking we haven't done things perfectly . We are doing the best we can and we are their best shot at recovering with the help of a loving family . Yes, i am desperate for her CBT therapy to begin soon and hopefully that will start to help her solve the mental issues, the fears of foods etc... but I know I have to just be there for her - to be the person she can talk to about those fears, and support , and listen . I can't work miracles , which I thought I could to begin with , but my role is nevertheless vital for her . She didn't go into hospital as she wasn't quite ill enough or I suspect... there were no beds available anywhere near , and our psychiatrist believes firmly in the Maudsley Family method .