Where shall I start?

I'm not sure how to write this. I have enough material for 100 blog posts after yesterday and, frankly, today my emotions, energy and mind are in shreds. Lowest and highest points yesterday?


Highest. When P and I took some time out to drive up into the Pennines and visit a tiny village brewery to pick up some Christmas beer, stopping off at the packed local inn before driving along the dark, winding, hilly roads back home. Everywhere you could see twinkling Christmas lights in the darkness. And if you come along to that remote village inn this coming Friday you will hear the Loxley silver band playing Christmas carols. Meanwhile, mulled wine was on sale and special festive beers brewed in the little micro brewery up the road. Everyone was jovial and festive. Everyone except us.

Lowest. When I took a looking-like-death / thunder / and threatening suicide Ben along to see the private psych and he just sat there looking like death / thunder, etc in between effing and blinding at the (very nice and highly recommended eating disorder specialist) psych and refusing to continue the 60-minute session after 40 minutes. Followed by a conversation between me and Ben on the way home about suicide.

God only knows how I did it, but some kind of heavenly inspiration must have come to me over lunch because I conversed calmly and dolphinesquely with Ben, copying the techniques Gill Todd taught us at the FEAST conference the other weekend.

Inside my emotions were on a roller coaster. Outside I was the calm, supportive dolphin.

But, later, when P and I drove up onto the Pennines - or, rather, drove back from the Pennnines - I got angry. Furious. Livid. Angry with the eating disorder for stealing 3 years of my son's life and threatening to sneak in and steal some more.

Frustrated and impotently angry at having the means to save him, right here. One of the best (and most expensive!) eating disorder psychs in the region - yet he refuses to see her again. Or anyone, for that matter.

He claims he is a failure and we think he's a "little sh*t" (quote). Of course we don't think that at all, but he's convinced we do. He is beating himself up about whatever's going on at the moment and feeling that the world, and us, would be better off without him.

As I said yesterday, I've had a hunch that something was up. Like all things ED-related it creeps up on you when your eye is off the ball. Interestingly, one of the major things that Ben and I feel certain changed his mindset initially and over the long term as he progressed onto recovery was his change in diet. From going to a low or no fat diet during his initial "re-feeding" (because he refused to eat anything else and no-one was giving me any support or assistance) - which I believe messed up his mind, because everywhere on the Net it shows that the science has proven that a no or very low fat diet interferes with the neurons or neurotransmitters in the brain and can lead to depression, outburst, anger, etc... From going from this kind of diet to a fully balanced diet with the right kind of fats in the right quantities, his mood changed. Or at least he was until 6 weeks ago-ish.

He has admitted that, over the last 6 weeks or so, he has been drastically reducing the fat in his diet again. Remember, he's been doing all the meals - because I trusted him to do it... he'd done it for so many months so very successfully, and he enjoys cooking immensely. But he's been secretly cutting back on fats and we've been mainly eating veggie-based meals. Result? His mind is messed up again. Or so I firmly believe. Meanwhile his weight hasn't really changed much, because he's been having the calories - only not in the form of fats.

When I was being dolphinesque yesterday, he seemed to accept this as a probable reason why he felt so cr*p.

But, anyway, after getting back from our trip out to that little village (Ben didn't come), I took to my bed, just like I used to do in the Bad Old Days and bawled my eyes out for hours and hours. By the time I went to bed for real, I felt mega cr*p. I was awake at 3am feeling mega cr*p and I awoke this morning feeling mega cr*p.

Much of the mega cr*pness comes from the morbid fear of having to go "back there"... Even remotely having to go "back there"...

With Ben threatening to kill himself over the last few days I've been back to places, mentally, that I never ever wanted to go ever again. I have experienced that ice cold sheer dread, that total fear that you will lose your child to this effing awful illness. And the frustration that you have the means to save him... like the lifeboat sailing right up to the sinking ship... but the captain says, no thanks lifeboat guys, I'm happy to go down with the ship.

More later.

PS I'm on a fats-finding mission... Mama Matty is going to swoop back in (if the ED will let her and give up threatening suicide i.e. "If you do xxxxx I'll kill myself."...)