I think I hear demonic laughter...

Ed, the anorexia demon, is falling about on his back laughing till he cries. "Brilliant!" I imagine him chortling, "All I had to do at the end of a week where Ben seriously challenged himself almost every day IN ADDITION TO eating an extra 100 calories a day AND munching his way through fish'n'chips on Saturday... All I had to do to mess it all up was to make sure Ben put on a tonne of weight by the end of the week. Bingo! Chortle, chortle, chortle..." etc...


Today was our weekly CAMHS appointment and it all started very well. In fact, apart from Gloomy Monday, this week has felt like a really successful week with the light at the end of the tunnel getting stronger and brighter every day. Ben went into the weighing room in a lighthearted, chatty mood. But he emerged from it with a face like thunder.

Of course the team tried to point out to him over and over again that if he looked at it over the long term i.e. over the past 4 weeks he would see that his weight has averaged out at 0.25kg gain per week. Really, you should be looking at an average weight gain of 0.5kg i.e. DOUBLE this.

"Don't listen to them!" shouted Ed, the anorexia demon, inside Ben's head. "All those challenge foods have made you FAT and this is the undisputed proof. Look at what the scales are saying... you put on 1.9kg this week, you fat greedy pig! Everyone was WRONG, see? I was right all along!!!"

And Ed the anorexia demon is really great at making Ben totally deaf to the team's response of "But you lost 1.2kg last week and over all you're only looking at an average weekly weight gain of 0.25kg per week".

No, Ed the anorexia demon, had muffled Ben's ears so he couldn't hear that.

So CAMHS said "If you were being treated at the inpatient unit you would be fed on a very rigid diet every day. They just put the food in front of you and you have to eat it. And if you refuse, you just stay sitting there until you do. Then, at the end of the week, if you'd put on a similar amount of weight to the 1.9kg you put on today, they would expect you to continue the same rigid diet, without any tweaks or changes to it. So in an ideal world we should be asking the same of you, as an outpatient...

But sorry, Ed the anorexia demon had made Ben totally deaf to that fact, too.

And when we got home, out came the free weights for a punishing exercise session, for the second time today...

Ker-ping! I feel as if we've been catapulted back 6 months or so.

But with this horrible illness it's all too easy to suddenly panic, hold up your hands and think it's all a total waste of time so why bother.

But it's probably better to take a bit of time out, then pick myself up, dust myself down, keep calm and carry on...

Watch this space...