So far, so good...

This is what makes it so different, these days, to the days of High Anorexia when Ben's mind jetted off to Planet Irrational... Thankfully, in general, Ben is happy about my Big Plans for New Year.


Mind you, I've only touched on them. Drip-feeding is always the best way with Ben and (what remains of his) anorexia, I have found.

So, the first week of January we'll be doing my "little test" to gauge how much fat he is actually having in his daily diet, on average, adjusting it in the second week of January. The aim, I said, is to work on his mood and turn things around.

And I have hinted that we'll be working full steam ahead to help him with socialising and the other issues that still remain.

The only thing he's not keen on is weaning off low calorie foods (skimmed milk, low fat Flora margarine, etc). But I'll leave that until we see how his fat-intake levels are.

He's also not overly keen on the idea of putting on more weight, although I have shown him the charts which say he needs to increase over the coming year. He accepts this as fact, especially when I reminded him that they're the charts his CAMHS psych used to use. (He trusts what she says / said as "gospel".)

Mood-wise, he's been fairly normal this week and I can still scarcely believe his behaviour at the weekend and the pit of fear and dread it catalpulted me and his dad into.

But he's done this before. Been relatively okay for ages. Then something would start rumbling beneath the surface eventually spewing out in the form of some sudden scary, atrocious behaviour. Almost as if he's letting off steam.

I know he'd been planning to go to the school reunion on Saturday night - a reunion of The Class of 2012. But the closer it got the more evident it became that he was dreading it. Not just because he still feels uncomfortable amongst his former friends and school-mates, but because he knew that most if not all of them would be going on about the fantastic time they've been having this year - at uni, at work or in their gap year.

In contrast, he feels pretty sh*tty about how he's handled this year, what with leaving university after just two days and not being able to get or hold down a paid job. So I don't think he could handle the reunion. Once he'd decided not to go, with our blessing, he seemed to calm down a lot.

Of course we've told him over and over again that he isn't a "failure", as he thinks he is. Good grief, he's done loads since September and, until recently, has stuck to every single one of the conditions I set him in return for taking him out of university.

Recently, though, he's fallen into a rut. The momentum has stopped. And I know he is aware of this.

Which is why, after Christmas, we need to get it moving again.

As I said to Ben yesterday: "We're a strong team, you and I. We've got this far by working together, and by talking and listening to each other. We will continue our work in the New Year. I believe you can do it, and I'm here to help you, just as I've been doing over the past 3+ years."