Thursday 9 June 2011

Horrible ED rages from Feb 2010... how things have changed!!!!

I've just relocated the huge Ben-and-ED file I started back in 2010. In it is our first Eating Plan with comments on the reverse about his moods and behaviours. Here are some extracts (which show how far he has come on since then, thank God!!)


Sat 6th Feb: Lunch in town. First Pret-a-Manger, but got into stage trying to choose lowest fat option. Picked up several choices, put down, got as far as till once. Panic attack. Walked out. Managed to eat at Bagel Nash (after distressing walk through town) but felt guilty at choice. Left half a sweet bagel.

Sun 7th Feb: OK until teatime then panicked at portion size. Felt confused at larger than normal portion, unsure when to stop - mass panic followed by "I'm fat" - CRISIS!!! Long crisis... until later in the evening. 2 x bashing head with fists, hating himself.

Mon 8th Feb: Late into school (missed bus). Texted from school saying felt fat and horrid.

Tues 9th Feb: CAMHS with Assistant. Felt relaxed and empowered after it. Did writing exercises as asked, positive book and diagram of his mind.

Wed 10th Feb: Teatime: panic when asked to eat the half naan he refused. Panic when discovered having prepacked lamb kebabs tomorrow - said would be worrying about it all day. CRISIS. I said "give yourself a good talking to... you're strong, etc". He did this by slapping his own face hard. Then calmed down and ate naan, saying he didn't want to talk about it. Preparing breakfast, lunch, etc = ritualistic.

Thurs 11th Feb:  Teatime: hysterics when given too much choice. Swapped lamb kebabs for low fat chicken burger, but even then had panic, taking things off his plate and putting them back on. Shouting, crying, throwing stuff around before calming self down and putting food back on plate and eating it. (Similar to yesterday.) Back at school today and up until tea had a positive day.

Evening crisis: screaming he's fat, screaming like a maniac, thumping things, feels he needs to exercise to be able to eat. Insists he's eating enough with his old diet.

Fri 12th Feb: Off school. Ditto re above thoughts. Feels if puts on weight without exercising he'll blob out and become like someone that's let themselves go. Discussed ways to avoid above meal crises. Objected to "high calorie" Scotch pancakes I bought for a snack at 85 calories each.

Sat 13th Feb: OK all day until eve when started punching stomach "folds" and getting low.

Sun 14th Feb: Worried about carvery lunch - says typical carvery meal has 5K calories. Had more like a full English breakfast. Managed OK.

Tues 15th Feb: Ate OK yesterday but today back to vicious circle of "getting fat", pinching stomach and waist "fat", constant worry he'll suddenly "blob out", with fat, not muscle and spiral out of control to become obese. Feels lost without exercise to "firm up" the weight gain. Itching to weigh himself.

Lunchtime: Panic attack at "being greedy" and "overeating". Threat to freak out at teatime when we have a curry. Self-hatred, major depression. Teatime: Real downer, depressed, feels ignored at school and a social outcast, self-hatred, tears, gloom, low... CRISIS. Plus says people call him fat, etc.

Wed 16th Feb: Panic at "fat gut" he thinks he is developing. His entire happiness seems to centre around the perceived size of his belly. This always leads to the 'need to exercise it off' mindset. Evening: mega crisis - started suddenly when he looked at belly and prodded it. "Fat" - mega hysterics inc banging head on wall, slapping face and locking himself in room. When eventually let me in, got a bit violent, striding around house trying to find hidden scales - I had to physically restrain him.

Thurs 17th Feb: CAMHS. Rest day = OK until panic over whether to have a snack or not.

[57.8kg at this stage]


Fri 18th Feb: Managed to eat out in Pret and also Latte in Starbucks. Spent a lot of time in chocolate shops studying calories and not buying anything.

Sat 19th Feb: OK until he spotted puff pastry in my supermarket trolley and refused point blank to have the pastry element of our evening meal, so I said I wasn't going to compromise. No pastry means I wouldn't cook. Ended up eating at pub.

[gap here - 57kg at this stage]

Sat 27th Feb: Reasonably OK until theatre in afternoon when we took a drink and a slice of fat free tea loaf as a snack. Took a swig of the drink and didn't eat the tea loaf. At the interval was obsessed with showing me the array of cakes available in the café.

Then we went to Pizza Express, having agreed in advance what he was going to have via the PE website which has calories.

As he had tonnes of calories left he went with the suggestion of a normal pizza rather than the low calorie one he almost chose. However he left around a quarter of it, including all the outer crust. Instead of going for the agreed fruit juice he went for a diet drink.

At the end he had a frenzy about the fact the pizza was bland and he hadn't enjoyed it. This grew into a bigger frenzy which meant we had to leave the restaurant pretty quickly as Ben walked out. He ran from us, along the main road. Eventually we found him standing on the kerb edge. There followed a MASSIVE scene as we walked home including some violence towards me. Loud screaming hysterics.

After more of this plus husband breaking down once we got home, Ben calmed down and made one of his sundaes and watched the telly.

Sun 28th Feb: Rocky ride with new diet. Said felt bloated, faint and uncomfortable, sweating and with heartburn. Ended up in massive scene again. Unable to grasp the need to eat at least enough calories not to lose weight. Fighting against having very low fat spread in his sarnie.

Claimed to have had 250ml of smoothie when it was only half this amount. H confronted him.

Ate tea OK and enjoyed it. Had dry bread with it. Volunteered to have a fruit juice drink with it.

Problems with pudding later on - said he was bloated and wasn't hungry, felt he was being force-fed and was convinced it would make him fat.

He discreetly threw some of his pudding in the bin before eating the rest in front of us. H discovered this.

Mon 1st March:
Woke up in bad mood. Dragging breakfast. Assume he ate cereal as claimed. Took just 2 bites out of crumpets. I persuaded him to finish them. He complained of bloating, guts in cramps, etc. Said he felt his current weight was OK so he didn't see the need to eat so much. I said he wasn't eating much more than he'd been eating over the past 2 weeks and he'd LOST weight last week...

Drove him to school late. Had a word with medical centre about having supervised lunches there. Emailed them a list of what's in lunchbox.

Texted me from school after lunch saying ate nearly all of it, but felt there were too many calories in it.

Usual argument in the evening about eating too many calories.

Tues 2nd March: Woke up in bad mood, couldn't get him into school. But typically OK after that, despite usual argument about eating too much and horrors of standard yogurts over fat-free ones.

Ate lunch OK, but started to freak out at thought of maybe having to eat high cal food in the future e.g. butter or low fat yogurt, even though I said I didn't know whether CAMHS would say he has to or not. I said they might either ease it in or not at all, I don't know, I can't say.

Said would NEVER eat it, EVER. Said CAMHS don't listen to him when he explains WHY he will NEVER eat it, EVER. His main problem is saturated fats in things like low fat yogurt. Went upstairs in a mood.

Bit of a tizz when it came to pudding for tea - couldn't choose when decided didn't want his original choice.

Wed 3rd March: Went to school. Argument when came back - felt bloated with heartburn and said it's just how he used to feel before he started to lose weight which was why he felt better thin. Wants to give up eating plan and just focus on the psychological side of things. Feels bloated and flabby. Wants to exercise. Said I'm overfeeding him and it isn't necessary. Says he eats double what a normal boy eats. Lots of arguing - the usual vicious circle arguments. Didn't finish juice today. Also left most of 1 crumpet at breakfast.

Was sick at 6pm. Ate tea OK.

Tues 4th March: Deliberately made it so there wasn't time to have his toast this morning, even though we'd arrange for him to make more time in the morning. Ended up having massive row, with him throwing toast around the kitchen saying he didn't want to do the diet plan any more and CAMHS were just trying to make him fat.

Tried to leave lunchbox at home, they tried to leave it in the car. Went to the school bus in a terrible state. I called nurse in medical at school who later called back to say he'd been there most of the morning and hadn't done his first 3 lessons, but he was having lunch with her, she would supervise it, and he'd calmed down a lot. Got the impression he'd been a nightmare earlier...

[I stopped making comments at this stage at which Ben was 58.9kg - ALL proof that you don't have to be dangerously low in weight to have ED raging...]

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