Touching base on how things have been this week

Yesterday I had a chat with Ben about how this first week at school has been. I also weighed him because, if you remember, I agreed that - for the first 3 days back at school - Ben could reduce his calories by 100 a day. Why did I agree to something that may appear as 'colluding' with the eating disorder?


Because Ben needs to eliminate as much of the anxiety as possible that comes part and parcel of easing himself back into school.

There was a caveat to this temporary calorie reduction, however. I'd weigh him at the end of the week and the following week's intake would be based on the results. My plan is to ease him back into school, adjusting his intake up gradually until he's gaining consistently. In the end he'd gained this week anyway, so we've agreed a duplicate week next week.

What I must be careful NOT to do is to 'feed' the mindset that the 'cure' for school and social anxiety is a reduction in food intake...

School's not been too bad this week. Not perfect, but not anywhere near as bad as it was one year ago (and we won't even talk about where we were one year before that!)

But it's a case of gently easing him in, touching base regularly to check that the delicate balance of socialising, eating, exercise, sleeping and anxiety levels are relatively OK and doing whatever it takes to put things right if they're not.

My main concern is the social side of things, so I'm keeping a close but discreet eye on this...

And, you know, we haven't had a CAMHS appointment for a month... So I really hope they work with me, not against me, when we see them this coming Friday.