Can I complete my book? I'm not sure if I can...

For a week or so the old instincts have been nudging me, homing in on the fact that All Is Not Well with Ben. Thankfully, we're seeing the new psych tomorrow and I have every hope that she will be exactly the right person for Ben. So, completing my book, talking about "recovery" feels, well, a bit hypocritical at the moment. It didn't a few weeks ago, but it does now, I am sorry to say.


Something is wrong with Ben. His mood has been rock bottom for some time and he's making no attempt to socialise. Yes, he's still teaching at school two mornings a week and working in the charity shop, but everything else seems to have gone out of the window.

And it didn't help when he said that, for the past three days, he's been feeling suicidal...

Now, that took me back to places I never wanted to go again. How can I talk about my son being fully recovered when he's talking about things like this, claiming that one hundred per cent of his day is taken up with thoughts about food at the exclusion of everything else: relationships, friendships, work, study... He's still rigidly counting calories and biting my head off. But at least he is eating. Or at least I think and hope he is eating. He seems to be. I haven't noticed anything that sets off the alarm bells. So at least that's good.

On top of this he still feels numb. That numbness that came with the anorexia and never seemed to really leave.

It's as if his emotions have been anaesthetised. The positive emotions, that is.

Three years ago when we were on the waiting list for CAMHS treatment and I decided we had no option but to call in a private therapist as a "stop gap". I was desperate. But it was the run up to Christmas and getting appointments was virtually impossible. I think we had one appointment before Christmas and then nothing until way into the New Year.

I tend to think it will be the same with this psych.

Who, coincidentally, we are seeing at the same place we saw that first private therapist, three long and hellish years ago.

So the first thing we're going to be talking about is the "S" word and Ben's worsening depression.

Now, as Marcella has suggested in response to my last post, Ben's symptoms do sound very eating disorder-esque.

My theory is that, yes, he did need quite a bit more treatment from CAMHS. When he was discharged we managed quite well for a while and he was busy, what with exams and all the end of school socialising. Then came uni. Or, rather, there went uni. And, after that, things were relatively okay and he embraced all those conditions - job, socialising, etc.

But, over the past few weeks, it's all come to a halt. Very much so.

It's probably why I've been having nightmares every night and why, last night, my body was so tense I couldn't sleep at all.

And why I just can't get into the Christmas spirit this year.

And why I don't feel as if I can complete my book just yet.

Fingers crossed I'll be able to get going on it again very, very soon.