The closest I can get to describing how I've been feeling over the past week or so is this... It's kind of how it must have felt to civilians adjusting to life in peacetime after World War II. Suddenly the threat is gone: no air raids, no killing, no worries that Hitler will invade, etc etc. Yet for some people, I imagine, the adjustment to peacetime wasn't easy. Okay, so maybe I'm completely wrong, but I'm trying to find a parallel for how I feel at the moment.
ED the 'anorexia demon' has gone for good (fingers crossed...) Ben has no problems eating the required calories and increasing them if necessary in order to slightly boost his weight until he (shortly) reaches full weight restoration. I am no longer terrified that he will run away from home, harm himself or take his own life. In fact I could go on for hours about the stacks of ED-related things that no longer take place in our lives as we enter the world of normality and peace.
This is the End of the Tunnel. The place where 'the light' is which I longed to catch a glimpse of for so long.
We have come through this terrible thing and out the other end into the sunshine.
Yet why do I feel so strange about it?
Why aren't I jumping up and down with glee, cracking open the metaphorical champagne and letting off the fireworks?
I don't know. I guess I'm just finding it hard to adjust to a quiet life in peacetime after 2+ years of being at war.
After all, at its height and for a heck of a long time stretching from months into years, Ben's anorexia and associated behaviours dominated every waking second of my life.
Curiously, it's almost like finding yourself out of work or finding your skills have become obsolete.
But it is the strangest of feelings, it really is.
Want information on eating disorders in boys? Worried your son has an eating disorder? What are the signs of eating disorders in boys? In 2009 my 15-year-old son developed anorexia. Now aged 31 and with a MSc in Psychology he is recovered & working in mental health using his experiences to help others. I help to raise awareness of eating disorders in boys, point parents to helpful resources & talk about how eating disorders can traumatise families.
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PART FOUR of the notes I was making as my son hurtled into anorexia in late 2009...
By November 2009, my son's escalating anorexia was making him behave incredibly erratically and my stress levels were stratospheric. The...
It's like you're reading my mind !!!! Weight restoration back to IBR still eludes us but passed mimimum point with normality coming back into our lives .....and it feels realllllly weird. It's hard to trust the ED silence.
ReplyDeleteNicolette - Toowoomba - Australia