"Screaming, shouting and bullying" - a post from 5th July 2010 on the ATDT parents' forum.

I was getting so very, very tired, feeling utterly powerless and my morale was at rock-bottom. At CAMHS I was being given the impression that Ben's eating disorder wasn't too bad yet the hours... days... weeks... months... I was spending with him at home was telling me something very different. Although my gut instinct screamed out for me to do something... to take action and insist that Ben eat... I was getting all these messages that I should be doing the exact opposite and taking a far more relaxed attitude about food: to trust Ben to be eating for himself and to shut up about food.


My husband's thinking was that CAMHS were the experts and if Ben ended up in hospital, then that's just the way it had to be. Maybe it'd be a kind of wake-up call. I wasn't so convinced. I'd hoped that the trip to the cardiac ward in January might be a wake-up call, but it wasn't.

I was just so very terrified that my son would head south in every respect: weight, mood, behaviours and overall health. My instinct was to jump right in and do something about it. So on the 5th July, shortly before our holiday / vacation in France, I posted the following on the Around The Dinner Table Forum.

I'm fed up to the back teeth of shouting and screaming sessions and the feeling that I'm being bullied by the eating disorder and my son. The slightest mention of food, eating, etc and he goes crazy, screaming, shouting and slamming doors, threatening to phone our psychiatrist to tell on me (the psychiatrist who has insisted we keep talk about food to a minimum and keep it low key "because it's not helpful to your son"). (Tell me HOW do you help your child recover from an eating disorder by doing that??!!)

As he continues to lose weight, I feel powerless and helpless. I am also painfully aware of what all this is doing to me, physically and mentally. I am shattered and almost feel like giving up and letting him continue the downward spiral towards hospital.

And...

Thanks everyone for your kind replies. It's difficult to 'prepare and serve' the food when the only bit I'm 'permitted' to manage (thanks to CAMS' decision) is the evening meal (with Ben buzzing around me like a mosquito). That's what frustrates me so much... seeing him serve up his breakfast, snack (rare) and lunch... he does try hard but the eating disorder always manages to put the brakes on.

Today I am just knackered and suffering from anxiety and lack of sleep (due to anxiety). And doing too much. Need to take time out, probably.