So far, so relaxed... so much better than last year...

Last summer, in France and ESPECIALLY on a 'get away from ED' break I took to Somerset in August, I was so incredibly stressed and anxious my whole body actually physically 'seized up' at one point (unhelpfully when I was driving down the motorway...) This summer's mini-holiday / vacation in the Peak District couldn't be a starker contrast I am thrilled to say.


Last August Ben and I had just been for our Friday CAMHS session. He was rapidly losing weight, week after week, and CAMHS were failing to do anything to halt it. Ben was also going through his nightmarish ultra-depressed ED-rage suicidal phase - a period where I was seriously worried I would lose him... It was the eating disorder at its worst.

I'd agreed to drive Ben down to Cheltenham where my husband was working at the time. We were staying there for the night and then Ben was going with H to his parents' house in London while I was heading off to the Somerset coast to (hopefully) get away from ED for a while.

But I was so stressed, anxious and tense that my whole body began to seize up as I drove the 200-ish miles to Cheltenham. I had to stop off at every single motorway service station en route to do relaxation exercises; it was as if my whole body (and especially my neck) had contracted some kind of 'lock-jaw'.

In Somerset I just couldn't relax. The trouble with ED is that you can distance yourself from it physically (after all, ED was with H and Ben in London and I was in Somerset in a lovely seaside apartment overlooking the bay) but, as a mother, you can't distance yourself from it mentally. ED was right there, well and truly with me, haunting every single moment of the day and night. It should have been idyllic but I was in a living hell. So I returned home after one day of driving around the area feeling totally miserable, unable to handle seeing 'happy families' enjoying their summer vacation...

This current holiday in the Peak District couldn't be more different and I am sooooo relaxed; ED simply doesn't seem to be here now... And in a few weeks' time I'm taking Ben to that same seaside apartment for 4 days, hopefully for a similarly relaxed and ED-free break.