I think I hear demonic laughter...

Ed, the anorexia demon, is falling about on his back laughing till he cries. "Brilliant!" I imagine him chortling, "All I had to do at the end of a week where Ben seriously challenged himself almost every day IN ADDITION TO eating an extra 100 calories a day AND munching his way through fish'n'chips on Saturday... All I had to do to mess it all up was to make sure Ben put on a tonne of weight by the end of the week. Bingo! Chortle, chortle, chortle..." etc...

We're still beating the anorexia...

Thankfully, Monday's mood was a 'one off' and Ben did eat all his calories without issue, including the extra 100 per day he needs to consume now. Yesterday he was back to his normal recovering self. Ditto today (except for the insomnia which was improving slightly after his psychiatrist prescribed some Melatonin tablets, but which came back with a vengeance last night). So it will be interesting to see what his weight does on Friday when we go to our weekly CAMHS session...

Yesterday I asked him if he'd been finding it hard to eat the extra 100 calories. "No," he said, "because it's not like in the days when I'd do anything NOT to put on weight; now I know I need to and I don't mind. I don't actually like where I am now, physically, and want to put some of the weight back on."

The road gets rocky

Mood-wise, today is 'one of those days' as Ben miserably slouches around the house as the 'anorexia demon' tries to muscle its way back in. I can always tell because some of the old, familiar comments return like: "I feel as if I'm just living to eat, existing from one meal to the next" and "I feel useless" and so on. All afternoon I've felt my own old anxiety levels rising, yet trying to appear calm, positive and in control. At least he's responding when I give him a cuddle; often in the past he'd just stand cold and emotionless, arms by his side. He also wants to "help me cook tea" which, in the old days, meant "checking and freaking out at the fat content going into the meal", so I'll be keeping a very watchful eye. And I need to query the list he's made of the food he's consumed today because I'm not entirely convinced the calories add up... (Yesterday they did, by the way.)

100 extra calories a day on the eating plan...

This week we are trialling 100 additional calories every day to see if Ben will put back the weight he lost last week, and also to gauge the optimum intake he needs for the recommended 0.5kg a week weight gain. I believed the previous level was too low and was eventually proved right. So how will he adjust to having to eat more?

We shall see, but I'm monitoring his intake discreetly but diligently. For example today I found he'd omitted to include the extra 100. I am hoping it was just an error and not deliberate...

Anorexia - What a difference 6 months makes...

Get this...

In September we went out for a meal and our 16 year old son refused to eat a single morsel. Instead he just sat there, in floods of noisy tears, while we miserably ate our meals. It was a busy and very popular country inn and everyone was staring. After all, it's not often you see a 16 year old boy in tears in public! Also the worried waitress kept coming over to see if the food was OK and ask what was wrong - of course she'd never be able to understand why our son was in tears, refusing to eat what was, to all intents and purposes, a perfectly delicious meal...

Surprise weight loss!

Yesterday we had our weekly CAMHS weigh-in session and everyone was stunned to find Ben had LOST over a kilo in the past 7 days. So the decision was made to add an extra 100 calories a day to his intake with immediate effect. In the past, such a decision would have freaked him out big-style, but yesterday he accepted the need for extra nutrition without batting an eyelid - together with the psychiatrist's explanation that it could be due to his metabolism speeding up now his body is successfully healing itself from within.

Anorexia echoes? Only kidding!

Phewee.... Ben decides to do some baking in the kitchen downstairs. Then I hear banging, crashing and what sounds like shouting... then a repeat... My heart stops and I go into 'Red Alert'. I recognise those sounds. Something must have gone wrong with the baking and Ben is having an 'Ed rage'... Oh no, I thought we'd seen the last of these rages! So I brace myself and go downstairs, taking a deep breath before walking into the kitchen (armed with clean laundry so he'd think I was entering by coincidence...) LOL, there he is, bashing the baking dough to knead it, big smile on face while 'singing' along to Wizard's 1970s hit "See my Baby Jive" at the top of his voice.

Ed was well and truly absent.