"Still can't get son to eat enough..." - a post from 8th September 2010 on the ATDT parents' forum.

The summer of 2010 was a nightmare on so many fronts - and if you drew a straight line on his weight chart from the middle of May to the date I posted the following on the Around The Dinner Table Forum (8th September), you would see a steady drop in weight. With this came a deterioration of mood and behaviours yet CAMHS were insistent that Ben had arrived at a stage where he could manage his own food intake. In fact they were keen for him to do this right from the start.


By the September I was worried sick about where this was heading. One day the CAMHS nurse said to me that he "has to want to recover". So I asked her: "What if he never wants to recover?" and she just shrugged which, not surprisingly, sent me into an even great panic. It was all about Ben having to "learn to make the right choices".

But how long would it take for him to "learn to make the right choices"? How much more weight would he have to lose before that happened? Just as crucial: could I, as his mum, handle a situation where his moods and behaviours got even more disturbing, distressing and terrifying than they were by this stage? By September 2010 (which was 12 months on from when I first took Ben to see our GP), I felt as if the two of us were about to free fall off a cliff.

All I can say is Thank God I had the support of the mums and dads on the ATDT forum, because without them I would have felt so very, very isolated and alone.

An update... nothing much has happened except continued weight loss while my son has been under the 7 months treatment from CAMHS (gained weight for first 3 months, then started the downwards spiral).

He refuses to do an Eating Plan administered by me. I do evening meals and that's all. He will just about make XXXX calories (where he maintains or loses weight gradually) but refuses to go over and above that for fear that he will put on weight rapidly. Nothing in his psyche has changed over the months with regard to that.

Please don't tell me that I "must just take over" or persuade him; he's the most stubborn boy in the world and also manipulates me with threats of leaving home or doing himself in if I so much as suggest an Eating Plan administered by me. And meanwhile CAMHS keep saying they'll intervene if he loses more weight, but they don't. And they won't support me doing the Eating Plan preferring to let my son make the choices. (I have written a to-the-point letter to them and asked for a private meeting to discuss why this is being allowed to happen.)

And now he's back at school with all the potential weight loss horrors of school dinners (no-one takes lunch boxes and he refuses to do things differently from everyone else).

I have got to the stage where I am panicking and very frightened of where this is going.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.