These days a 'six pack' isn't so important

Two years ago when he was spiraling into the eating disorder at a rate of knots, Ben was obsessed with comparing himself with another boy at school. So much so that Ben used to get incredibly upset and distressed about how this boy was stealing the limelight whereas Ben was disappearing into the background. If it wasn't so obviously distressing for Ben, his descriptions of this boy's apparent behaviour would have been funny...

Beautiful healthy hands

"Look at my hands!" said Ben in the car as we were waiting for the school bus this morning. "Look how great they look!" He spread his fingers out to show me. Smooth, healthy, blemish-free hands "except where I nicked myself with my model knife", he added. I'll tell you why this brought tears to my eyes...

3 hours of brain storming about school...

Yesterday was another difficult day with Ben sending emails at breaktime and lunchtime. In the end he asked me to pick him up, so I did, but I insisted it had a 'caveat' and that would be to spend the afternoon having a brain storming session about what to do next...

I've been reading Harriet Brown's 'Brave Girl Eating'...

... and I'm astonished at how identical our experiences are. Virtually every thought that goes through Harriet's head has gone through mine in the last 26+ months. Virtually every ED behaviour exhibited by her daughter, Kitty, was carbon-copied in Ben.

School is still proving difficult and the insomnia is back...

The insomnia is back. The anxiety-fueled sleeplessness that wouldn't go away last year and which started the moment Ben returned to school last September. So far, this term, things hadn't been too bad on that front. But now the insomnia is back and, just like last time, it's all because of school. Also, in the place of last year's and the previous year's regular texts, I'm getting emails from Ben as he sits at a school computer filling in his time during free periods, breaktime and lunch.

Ye har! The Recovery Contract is 6 months old this week!

And, yes, we are still doing it. And, yes, it is still doing what it's supposed to do. And yes I am quite a few quid poorer as I've 'traded in' all those yummy scrummy points for cash!

The hardest bit of cramming I ever did

As a freelance advertising copywriter working for countless organisations in very different market places, cramming up on information is second nature. Often I have to get to grips with a client's entire business pretty much instantly in order to write a meaningful website or whatever. Everything from scientific instruments to complicated software platforms... I've crammed up on them all. Likewise it was second nature to cram up on baby and toddler care during Ben's first few years of life. But eating disorders proved to be altogether different...