Not much has happened on the university front this week. This is because Ben has been off sick with some kind of fluey bug. Thankfully he has kept eating, and has also put on weight which is excellent news. So, with any luck, it's back to uni next week and, also with any luck, back to the attempt to build up a new network of friends. Meanwhile, he is well enough to cook dinner for tonight and is doing a stew with dumplings, the kind of meal I could never imagine him eating in the Bad Old Days of his eating disorder.
I've been kind of quietly busy this week. Busy with my copywriting work and getting in touch with some of the people I promised to get in touch with following Friday's conference.
And updating and expanding my Bev Mattocks website.
I have also ordered a book with a similar title to my book Please eat... A mother's struggle to free her teenage son from anorexia. This book, by a US mum, Susan Barry, and published in June 2013, is entitled: Dying to be perfect: A mother's story of her son's battle with anorexia.
The difference is that whereas our story has a happy ending, hers doesn't. As the very first chapter explains before looking back on his all-too-brief life, her beautiful son, TJ, passed away from complications of his eating disorder at the age of 22. Addicted to exercise in a similar way to Ben, he was doing his daily sit-ups and crunches, in his apartment at university, when his heart simply gave up.
It's going to be difficult reading and it isn't a book which I could have read when we were in the throes of Ben's eating disorder, primarily because of my constant fear that I would lose my son to the illness, especially with the issue of the heart and Ben's history of heart problems at the height of his anorexia.
But I know that now, at the end of 2013, I will find it easier to read an account as tragic as this one. I don't doubt that the tears will flow, and I will keep you posted on my progress as I have a gut feeling that it's going to be an important book in the global fight to raise awareness of eating disorders in boys and men.
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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Hi, I have just come across your blog and I think you are and have done such a wonderful job that I had to comment. I am currently trying to recover myself and it is always helpful to know it is possible and just wanted to say that it is amazing that there are parents like you out there. Well done Ben and I wish you and all your family the absolute best.
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