Wednesday, at our meeting with the Team, Emily showed another weight loss and although it came as no surprise to me, I think Derek and Emily were a little surprised. I could see the Team shift into a different mode and intensity with this week's weight loss and I think that triggered a sense of relief in me because after the meeting I felt better than I had in some time.
Their response was to first try to understand what's been going on, which turned into a very humourous conversation after I finished my little bout of blubbering. We were describing the various and sundry ups and downs of Emily's world, including her first heartache over a self-professed bisexual boy who, unbeknownst to Emily, turned out to be dating her friend from school. And who was in fact waiting downstairs in the lobby for Emily to finish her session so that he could come and have supper with us after spending the earlier part of the afternoon with her. Derek suggested that they record this particular issue on their 'WTF' column, which just cracked all of us up. He can be so funny in these meetings, when he is recounting his observations, which I think is partly his way of handling his discomfort over sharing the intimate details of our life with outsiders.
The next part of the discussion was to figure ways to get Emily's food intake back up and we settled on adding three milk servings back into the mix, getting back to tracking the food intake to ensure that the Food guide values are met, and making her finish her dinner regardless of how much snacking she has done after school.
The final part of the discussion was around consequences to her if she was unable to get her weight back on track. The approach here is to take away physical activities that she is not nutritionally sound enough to manage, as opposed to taking away non-physical privileges like her phone or computer. We don't want her to be punished for having the disease because it is not her fault that it has kicked in, but we do need to keep her safe. Unfortunately Emily isn't doing very much physical activity so we don't have a lot of leverage here other than making her come home for lunch or no allowing her to go the Red Tail nature camp. But they have given her a week to turn around the weight loss trend before we have to impose some restrictions.
So far the week is going much better. Healthy Emily re-emerged on Tuesday morning and fingers crossed, has kept appearing for most of the day ever since. We haven't seen the teenage she-devil version except when Derek can't help himself and has to tease her about it. She has given into the new reality around the food and we haven't see Ed nearly as much at the table for the last three days.
I think I started breathing again some time on Thursday, but didn't recognize it until Friday. I was in a very bad place mentally from Monday to Wednesday when I had a sense that my negativity was mounting into an all consuming kind of mental numbness. I don't ever remember feeling quite this way. It felt a little like the beginning of depression but it was more oppressive than depressive, like my mind was caught in a vacuum of emptiness because it couldn't handle the fear any more. I felt like I was on autopilot and then I noticed it subsiding after the meeting with the Team and by the time I finished my run the next morning, it was gone - thank God!!!!
Now that I am reflecting on how I felt, I wonder if my new yoga practice had something to do with how I reacted this week. And if it did, I am not sure if that was good or bad. Yoga has been extremely challenging, both physically and mentally. I can't say I enjoy it yet, but it is a total distraction from everything in your life and it forces me to live in the moment if only for 60 moments a day. At the end of one of my classes, during the rest period, I started crying and so I just laid there for 5 minutes trying to cry quietly all the while filling up my ears with my tears. The class as focused on twisting moves which I later found out are the considered to be the physical equivalent of an emotional wringing out, which kind of makes sense to me. I hope that I can get more out of my yoga practice than flexibility and I am trying to be patient with the process of growing into my practice and so far I feel comfortable with being patient, which is not really like me, so that's a good thing.
Time to go make breakfast for Emily. She has water polo today, so I will be spending a lot of the day feeding her, but at least I enjoy cooking warm, filling winter dishes.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Relapse #1
If I had to concoct a recipe for an eating disorder relapse (and why wouldn't you use a food analogy here) it would look like this:
- Five days of a sore throat
- 10 days of mounting exam anxiety
- A dollop of post Christmas blues
- A shopping trip for larger sized clothes
Mix that in with parents who don't recognize that Ed is lurking around, and then can't acknowledge that Ed has come out of the shadows and into the light. Fold in a heaping dose of misplaced optimism that tiptoeing around Ed will make him go away.
Let the dynamic stew for 10 days and voila you have a full blown relapse, complete with anorexic thoughts, behaviours, anxiety over eating and a two kilo weight loss.
But I wonder if you can call it a relapse when there hasn't been a full recovery. Maybe in this case it's just called a setback. But from where I sit emotionally right now, the word 'setback' seems far too innocuous for the level of fear and dread and distress that we are experiencing.
Every morning I wake up with a hope that today will be better and so far everyday it has been worse. And what is different this time is that Emily's attitude is more tinged with teenage rebellion so she is fighting back with nastier words and tones. For the first time I feel like Ed is going to damage our relationships, which I find ironic because that was Emily's fear back when she was in the hospital and it didn't come to pass until now. Maybe she was too sick to fight us then, but now she is just healthy enough bolster Ed with all of her pent up teenage rage.
Today I have promised Emily that I won't bring up Ed all day. Which is hard to do on the one hand because I don't want her to think that Ed will go unchallenged. But on the other hand it is difficult for me to point Ed out to her because I know I risk igniting a tidal wave of emotion that not only swamps her but us too. I think I will keep a journal of her Ed behaviours today and maybe try writing her a letter tonight with my reflections on what I saw and what I felt and thought about what I saw. Maybe if I present it to her in non-confrontational love letter format it will be less offensive to her.
I think I just had an epiphany, as I wrote my last paragraph I remembered a show I watched on teenage brains. Using functional MRI's researchers have learned that teenagers tend to interpret every emotional reaction as anger and every conversation with authority figures as condemning and conversely they respond with anger to pretty much everything. Phew am I ever glad I remembered this because now I am less concerned that my actions and words are responsible for upsetting her. Probably whatever I do or say will piss her off, because well duh, she's a teenager. Now I am feeling very grateful that I forced myself to journal this morning, this revelation will probably keep me sane for the next little while and I have to say a little island of sanity is a good thing because there is a whole bedroom of looney tunes right above me.
I don't know where this setback will take us over the next few weeks. I do know that our lives are on hold in terms of the get away weekend that Derek and I so desperately need, my work travel in February, meals, menus, recipes, etc. And that sucks especially after a bit of time and space where things seemed 'normal'.
Thankfully we still have the team to help guide us through this and they are available weekly again for now. And thankfully we know a lot more about Ed, and about how to fight him. We know more about ourselves and our capacity to tough it out. And Emily is healthier and wiser herself. I think she forgot how strong Ed can be and how sick he made her, so this setback will serve to remind all of us of that this retched disease is a formidable foe.
- Five days of a sore throat
- 10 days of mounting exam anxiety
- A dollop of post Christmas blues
- A shopping trip for larger sized clothes
Mix that in with parents who don't recognize that Ed is lurking around, and then can't acknowledge that Ed has come out of the shadows and into the light. Fold in a heaping dose of misplaced optimism that tiptoeing around Ed will make him go away.
Let the dynamic stew for 10 days and voila you have a full blown relapse, complete with anorexic thoughts, behaviours, anxiety over eating and a two kilo weight loss.
But I wonder if you can call it a relapse when there hasn't been a full recovery. Maybe in this case it's just called a setback. But from where I sit emotionally right now, the word 'setback' seems far too innocuous for the level of fear and dread and distress that we are experiencing.
Every morning I wake up with a hope that today will be better and so far everyday it has been worse. And what is different this time is that Emily's attitude is more tinged with teenage rebellion so she is fighting back with nastier words and tones. For the first time I feel like Ed is going to damage our relationships, which I find ironic because that was Emily's fear back when she was in the hospital and it didn't come to pass until now. Maybe she was too sick to fight us then, but now she is just healthy enough bolster Ed with all of her pent up teenage rage.
Today I have promised Emily that I won't bring up Ed all day. Which is hard to do on the one hand because I don't want her to think that Ed will go unchallenged. But on the other hand it is difficult for me to point Ed out to her because I know I risk igniting a tidal wave of emotion that not only swamps her but us too. I think I will keep a journal of her Ed behaviours today and maybe try writing her a letter tonight with my reflections on what I saw and what I felt and thought about what I saw. Maybe if I present it to her in non-confrontational love letter format it will be less offensive to her.
I think I just had an epiphany, as I wrote my last paragraph I remembered a show I watched on teenage brains. Using functional MRI's researchers have learned that teenagers tend to interpret every emotional reaction as anger and every conversation with authority figures as condemning and conversely they respond with anger to pretty much everything. Phew am I ever glad I remembered this because now I am less concerned that my actions and words are responsible for upsetting her. Probably whatever I do or say will piss her off, because well duh, she's a teenager. Now I am feeling very grateful that I forced myself to journal this morning, this revelation will probably keep me sane for the next little while and I have to say a little island of sanity is a good thing because there is a whole bedroom of looney tunes right above me.
I don't know where this setback will take us over the next few weeks. I do know that our lives are on hold in terms of the get away weekend that Derek and I so desperately need, my work travel in February, meals, menus, recipes, etc. And that sucks especially after a bit of time and space where things seemed 'normal'.
Thankfully we still have the team to help guide us through this and they are available weekly again for now. And thankfully we know a lot more about Ed, and about how to fight him. We know more about ourselves and our capacity to tough it out. And Emily is healthier and wiser herself. I think she forgot how strong Ed can be and how sick he made her, so this setback will serve to remind all of us of that this retched disease is a formidable foe.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Chocolate Cake for Breakfast
If someone had told me four, three, two or even one month ago that we would be eating chocolate cake for breakfast to celebrate Derek's birthday I probably would have scoffed and said 'that'll be the day'. But today was the day.
Now it must be said that Emily was uncomfortable with the idea because she doesn't like change around eating habits, and she only had a small piece, but she ate it and enjoyed it. Who knows what kind of 'nutso' things Ed screamed in her head all day about it, but she did it and although she did it partly to please us, she also did it partly because she wanted to. Ah, the sweet taste of success lingers on my tongue still.
We had a very good Christmas holiday. We did some of our traditional things including many food related activities and we did some new things too. She just kind of went with the flow. I checked in with her, maybe too often, to make sure that she was comfortable with whatever was going on and she seemed to take it all in stride. She had her fair share of Christmas goodies and sometimes Ed kicked up, but not always.
She maintained her weight over the last three weeks in spite of having a sore throat for five days. Her menstrual cycle continues with lots of pimples, bloating, cramps and moodiness which are all great signs of her excellent health. Her energy level is good enough to allow her to do 8k runs. And she looks fantastic, if I do say so myself.
Mentally she tells me that Ed is only present about 50% of the time which she considers much better than 100%. I want him gone completely but he is not working on my timelines is he? Lately, I think she has been getting more uncomfortable with her current weight. I guess when you gain 25 pounds in four months you kind of can't help but notice it. But she realized that wearing clothes she bought about 12 pounds ago is a trigger for those thoughts so after her session with the Team yesterday she announced that she needed new jeans and new school pants. I wonder how many of us to quiet the nasty 'self improvement' committee in our heads with some clothes that fit properly and make us feel good to wear?
I have come to realize that one of my challenges for this stage of her recovery is to not let my guard drop and to make sure that we keep anchoring ourselves with breakfast and dinners at the table. Over the holidays things got a little out of whack for us and while a change was good in the short term I believe that we need to come together twice a day to break bread and commune for a lot of reasons. We have all but stopped playing cards or games at meal time because Emily doesn't need that level of distraction. Plus we added a lovely dog named Kismet to our clan recently and he provides more distraction for us.
One of the other challenges that we are facing right now is figuring out which of Emily's behaviours are Ed related versus puberty related. We think we are seeing a lot of normal teenage angst, defiance, snarky toned retorts, emotional highs and lows. But sometimes we aren't quite sure how to handle her because we are virtually brand new to the whole teenage parenting role. But at this early stage of the process I can usually laugh off her antics because normal teenage stuff is a treat compared to the psycho Ed stuff.
Things are good for us right now. Life is feeling more normal all the time. I don't wake up feeling panicky. I don't feel stressed about what to serve for meals. Emily has started making her school lunches and taking more independence around her other meals. We've seen a difference in her enthusiasm and appreciation for meals since she has taken on the responsibility of feeding and caring for Kismet. I know she is at a stage in her life when she needs to establish her independence and ironically Ed robbed her of that completely so we need to help her to regain it in ways that don't jeopardize her health or her growth. That will be a tough balance to strike but at least I know what I am up against and I am feeling rejuvenated enough to take a stab at it.
Happy New Year, Happy New Decade and Happy Birthday to my wonderful guy!
Now it must be said that Emily was uncomfortable with the idea because she doesn't like change around eating habits, and she only had a small piece, but she ate it and enjoyed it. Who knows what kind of 'nutso' things Ed screamed in her head all day about it, but she did it and although she did it partly to please us, she also did it partly because she wanted to. Ah, the sweet taste of success lingers on my tongue still.
We had a very good Christmas holiday. We did some of our traditional things including many food related activities and we did some new things too. She just kind of went with the flow. I checked in with her, maybe too often, to make sure that she was comfortable with whatever was going on and she seemed to take it all in stride. She had her fair share of Christmas goodies and sometimes Ed kicked up, but not always.
She maintained her weight over the last three weeks in spite of having a sore throat for five days. Her menstrual cycle continues with lots of pimples, bloating, cramps and moodiness which are all great signs of her excellent health. Her energy level is good enough to allow her to do 8k runs. And she looks fantastic, if I do say so myself.
Mentally she tells me that Ed is only present about 50% of the time which she considers much better than 100%. I want him gone completely but he is not working on my timelines is he? Lately, I think she has been getting more uncomfortable with her current weight. I guess when you gain 25 pounds in four months you kind of can't help but notice it. But she realized that wearing clothes she bought about 12 pounds ago is a trigger for those thoughts so after her session with the Team yesterday she announced that she needed new jeans and new school pants. I wonder how many of us to quiet the nasty 'self improvement' committee in our heads with some clothes that fit properly and make us feel good to wear?
I have come to realize that one of my challenges for this stage of her recovery is to not let my guard drop and to make sure that we keep anchoring ourselves with breakfast and dinners at the table. Over the holidays things got a little out of whack for us and while a change was good in the short term I believe that we need to come together twice a day to break bread and commune for a lot of reasons. We have all but stopped playing cards or games at meal time because Emily doesn't need that level of distraction. Plus we added a lovely dog named Kismet to our clan recently and he provides more distraction for us.
One of the other challenges that we are facing right now is figuring out which of Emily's behaviours are Ed related versus puberty related. We think we are seeing a lot of normal teenage angst, defiance, snarky toned retorts, emotional highs and lows. But sometimes we aren't quite sure how to handle her because we are virtually brand new to the whole teenage parenting role. But at this early stage of the process I can usually laugh off her antics because normal teenage stuff is a treat compared to the psycho Ed stuff.
Things are good for us right now. Life is feeling more normal all the time. I don't wake up feeling panicky. I don't feel stressed about what to serve for meals. Emily has started making her school lunches and taking more independence around her other meals. We've seen a difference in her enthusiasm and appreciation for meals since she has taken on the responsibility of feeding and caring for Kismet. I know she is at a stage in her life when she needs to establish her independence and ironically Ed robbed her of that completely so we need to help her to regain it in ways that don't jeopardize her health or her growth. That will be a tough balance to strike but at least I know what I am up against and I am feeling rejuvenated enough to take a stab at it.
Happy New Year, Happy New Decade and Happy Birthday to my wonderful guy!
Friday, November 27, 2009
Our darling daughter is back!!
Yup it's true, Emily, the real 'honest to God' Emily, is back. I can't believe how far healthy Emily has pushed forward and how far she has pushed Ed back in the last two weeks. She is not only back but she is happier, more self accepting, wiser, and less prone to anxiety than she was three years ago, long before all of this started.
We now see a vivacious, courageous, compassionate, engaged, upbeat young woman show up at the breakfast table every morning. We see a person who has the tools to cope with the run of the mill frustrations and disappointments of teenage life.
We have only seen Ed at about three meals out of the last 20 and I think we kicked his butt in a kind but effective way. We don't see 'Ed' rules around eating, we don't see over reactions to stress, there is less clinginess, less dependence, less obsessive behaviours.
We are utterly amazed and utterly grateful.
I have to confess that it all happened just in the nick of time because I was starting to unravel. I had a major melt down two weeks ago which made me realize that I was approaching the zero stress tolerance level. I knew the time had come to distance myself from Ed or risk my mental health. I had several escape fantasies emerging in my tired brain, some of which were pretty scary, but I chose returning to work part-time, quitting caffeine, exercising more regularly, and getting away all by myself to a few days, (which is where I am right now). My self-care tactics, combined with Emily's progress have enabled me to get to a much happier and calmer place.
Self-care is tricky thing. It makes a lot of sense in theory but in reality it is impractical. Afterall when you are running around feeling like your hair is on fire finding some 'me' time isn't realistic. But even harder than that is acquiring the ability to a) figure out what you need, b) figure out that you are actually entitled to self care, and c) figure out how to ask for what you need. I think women have a really hard time with this, I know I do. But one of my many readings on dealing with 'Ed' talked about the responsibility that parents have to model 'self care' for our children. What a concept, not only am I entitled to self care, I have a duty to practice it and model it for my child. I can do that, because in case you don't know this about me, I like to follow the rules. So if you are like me and never learned about self care because your parent's didn't model it for you, it is not too late to jump on board this train to well being. Even if you don't have kids, you should consider it your duty to model self care for others that you love.
Who knew work would fall under the self-care category. One of my many, many lessons from the past few months is that when you lose the ability to work, for whatever reason, you appreciate it all the more when you get it back. Returning to work has been very therapeutic. I love being there because the people I work with are fantastic and extremely supportive, I get to enjoy walking to and from the office, I get to work on interesting and stimulating projects and tasks, and I know I already said it but - I get to spend time with the amazing people in the Coop Office. It is a completely 'Ed Free' zone.
Some other signs of my progress include the realization that I went for a run the other day for the first time because I wanted to, not because I wanted to escape. I don't feel the need or desire to talk about the ordeal to anyone; it is no longer 'top of mind' for me. When we saw the Team yesterday I didn't have a list of concerns to raise with them. When a team member asked me if I saw light at the end of the tunnel I realized that the little light I saw a month ago has spread to fill my entire range of vision and now 'Ed' is a little black dot in that vast sea of light.
Emily has turned a corner on her recovery and so have we. Some of the signs of recovery are quite subtle. She ate birthday cake at a party Saturday night. She helped me grocery shop without dread or anxiety, she even said she loved yogurt drinks and could drink them all day. She is dining out with Derek tonight and she agreed to let me invite Grampy down for supper a few days ago (ironically he turned me down though when he found out it was a vegetarian meal). Subtle or not, the signs are monumental.
And through all of this, Derek has been there providing a safety net, a shoulder to cry on, a joke, a game of Crazy Eights, a sounding board, a retail therapy buddy, a friend, a Dad - a husband extraordinaire. Grateful doesn't even begin to cover it.
We now see a vivacious, courageous, compassionate, engaged, upbeat young woman show up at the breakfast table every morning. We see a person who has the tools to cope with the run of the mill frustrations and disappointments of teenage life.
We have only seen Ed at about three meals out of the last 20 and I think we kicked his butt in a kind but effective way. We don't see 'Ed' rules around eating, we don't see over reactions to stress, there is less clinginess, less dependence, less obsessive behaviours.
We are utterly amazed and utterly grateful.
I have to confess that it all happened just in the nick of time because I was starting to unravel. I had a major melt down two weeks ago which made me realize that I was approaching the zero stress tolerance level. I knew the time had come to distance myself from Ed or risk my mental health. I had several escape fantasies emerging in my tired brain, some of which were pretty scary, but I chose returning to work part-time, quitting caffeine, exercising more regularly, and getting away all by myself to a few days, (which is where I am right now). My self-care tactics, combined with Emily's progress have enabled me to get to a much happier and calmer place.
Self-care is tricky thing. It makes a lot of sense in theory but in reality it is impractical. Afterall when you are running around feeling like your hair is on fire finding some 'me' time isn't realistic. But even harder than that is acquiring the ability to a) figure out what you need, b) figure out that you are actually entitled to self care, and c) figure out how to ask for what you need. I think women have a really hard time with this, I know I do. But one of my many readings on dealing with 'Ed' talked about the responsibility that parents have to model 'self care' for our children. What a concept, not only am I entitled to self care, I have a duty to practice it and model it for my child. I can do that, because in case you don't know this about me, I like to follow the rules. So if you are like me and never learned about self care because your parent's didn't model it for you, it is not too late to jump on board this train to well being. Even if you don't have kids, you should consider it your duty to model self care for others that you love.
Who knew work would fall under the self-care category. One of my many, many lessons from the past few months is that when you lose the ability to work, for whatever reason, you appreciate it all the more when you get it back. Returning to work has been very therapeutic. I love being there because the people I work with are fantastic and extremely supportive, I get to enjoy walking to and from the office, I get to work on interesting and stimulating projects and tasks, and I know I already said it but - I get to spend time with the amazing people in the Coop Office. It is a completely 'Ed Free' zone.
Some other signs of my progress include the realization that I went for a run the other day for the first time because I wanted to, not because I wanted to escape. I don't feel the need or desire to talk about the ordeal to anyone; it is no longer 'top of mind' for me. When we saw the Team yesterday I didn't have a list of concerns to raise with them. When a team member asked me if I saw light at the end of the tunnel I realized that the little light I saw a month ago has spread to fill my entire range of vision and now 'Ed' is a little black dot in that vast sea of light.
Emily has turned a corner on her recovery and so have we. Some of the signs of recovery are quite subtle. She ate birthday cake at a party Saturday night. She helped me grocery shop without dread or anxiety, she even said she loved yogurt drinks and could drink them all day. She is dining out with Derek tonight and she agreed to let me invite Grampy down for supper a few days ago (ironically he turned me down though when he found out it was a vegetarian meal). Subtle or not, the signs are monumental.
And through all of this, Derek has been there providing a safety net, a shoulder to cry on, a joke, a game of Crazy Eights, a sounding board, a retail therapy buddy, a friend, a Dad - a husband extraordinaire. Grateful doesn't even begin to cover it.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Things you never want to hear your kid say
Reflecting on the past week made me realize that things have recently shifted in two important ways. For the first time in 10 weeks, I felt okay more than not, and our 'new life' started to feel normal instead of pained and awkward. I guess it is a testament to man's capacity to adapt to new environments and Emily's capacity to continue moving forward with her recovery.
Early in the week I read a great deal of a book called 'Skills Based Learning for Caring for a loved one with an Eating Disorder'. It scared the hell out of me because there seems to be so much to learn but it gave me an idea of how to approach Emily on a few issues. That night I tried to engage her in a conversation to get her to rate herself on a scale of 1-10 on how ready she is to look after her nutritional health. At first she rated herself a three, but then when I asked her to walk me through a day of feeding herself and she started listing what she would choose to eat for breakfast and lunch she realized she was actually higher than a three. I think she is maybe at a six.
Then I tried to get her to talk about her 'Ed' eating rules but she was really not into having that conversation. I tried to convey that eating rules are not healthy and are keeping Ed going and that talking about them helps to lessen their hold over her but I am sure in her head she was thinking yadda yadda yadda mom! I was heading out to go to my first choir rehearsal since August and she was reluctant to let me go. She is like an eight year old afraid to let her mom out of her sight. I offered to stay home so we could talk more about stuff and she laughed and said she could handle me going out if it meant not having to talk any more. I mentioned her clinginess and separation anxiety to the team and they reassured us that reverting to previous anxieties is a normal reaction but that the skills she is learning to deal with Ed can be used to deal with any form of anxiety. Phew, I hope that comes true.
We had a good meeting with the Team on Wednesday. Emily's weight was up again which is good because if she gets sick this winter and loses weight she will have some wiggle room. So I was surprised to find that Ed felt the need to join us for dinner that night. But I realized it was a chance to use my newly learned 'skills' to deal with him. I think he surfaced to test the waters because Emily asked for, and was granted, permission not to be monitored for purging after meals any more. As much as healthly Emily wants that privilege she knows that Ed is still a threat so she let him out of the box at dinner to see what would happen. I was really glad that I was able to step up to the plate and state that I believed that her not finishing dinner was Ed not healthy Emily. It is always hard to initiate a difficult conversation because my natural reaction is to avoid it and make excuses for her not finishing her meal. And this time I remembered to tie the need to get rid of Ed into her goal of taking up water polo in January so that it wasn't looking like a power struggle between Ed and me. Can you tell I was pleased with myself?
The following evening, Emily had four KVA (school) friends over for dinner and fifth to watch a movie. Two of them stayed for a sleep over which meant that Emily had to eat several times in front of people. She said it was really hard but since she has been eating in front of them at school for a while now and because she was rewarded with the fun of socializing she was able to do the hard work of eating so that she could enjoy the rest of the event. Her friends from KVA were delightful, a big change from Shambhala.
So all in all it was a really good week and I was starting to let down my guard a bit when out of the blue Emily started talking to me again. I was delighted to hear her say that she is really enjoying feeling well physically and that she is starting to use and to trust in the techniques and tools the team are teaching her for managing Ed. I wasn't ready for her to tell me that in the week before we found out about Ed, she had resigned herself to the fact that she dying and wouldn't live past the end of the year. I can't begin to describe how mind boggling it is to know that my highly intelligent, loving, warm, compassionate beautiful daughter was so ill that even with the full conscious knowledge that she was killing herself she was unable to ask for help. When I asked why, she said it was because she thought it was absolutely hopeless and she was too tired to even talk to me about it. So I will not be letting my guard down any time soon. You can't when you are dealing with a disease this deadly.
But the rest of my life starts today with the full knowledge and fear that it is more vicarious than I want to acknowledge. So now I am plotting my return to living. This week I start to plan out how to integrate working, singing, socializing and exercising into our new life style of meals, appointments, discussions and schleping Emily around. And being the 'planner' that I am, I will enjoy this project I will work on re-energizing myself with some rest and relaxation.
Gotta run and get lunch for my poor girl who is feeling yucky and sore from her H1N1 shot.
Early in the week I read a great deal of a book called 'Skills Based Learning for Caring for a loved one with an Eating Disorder'. It scared the hell out of me because there seems to be so much to learn but it gave me an idea of how to approach Emily on a few issues. That night I tried to engage her in a conversation to get her to rate herself on a scale of 1-10 on how ready she is to look after her nutritional health. At first she rated herself a three, but then when I asked her to walk me through a day of feeding herself and she started listing what she would choose to eat for breakfast and lunch she realized she was actually higher than a three. I think she is maybe at a six.
Then I tried to get her to talk about her 'Ed' eating rules but she was really not into having that conversation. I tried to convey that eating rules are not healthy and are keeping Ed going and that talking about them helps to lessen their hold over her but I am sure in her head she was thinking yadda yadda yadda mom! I was heading out to go to my first choir rehearsal since August and she was reluctant to let me go. She is like an eight year old afraid to let her mom out of her sight. I offered to stay home so we could talk more about stuff and she laughed and said she could handle me going out if it meant not having to talk any more. I mentioned her clinginess and separation anxiety to the team and they reassured us that reverting to previous anxieties is a normal reaction but that the skills she is learning to deal with Ed can be used to deal with any form of anxiety. Phew, I hope that comes true.
We had a good meeting with the Team on Wednesday. Emily's weight was up again which is good because if she gets sick this winter and loses weight she will have some wiggle room. So I was surprised to find that Ed felt the need to join us for dinner that night. But I realized it was a chance to use my newly learned 'skills' to deal with him. I think he surfaced to test the waters because Emily asked for, and was granted, permission not to be monitored for purging after meals any more. As much as healthly Emily wants that privilege she knows that Ed is still a threat so she let him out of the box at dinner to see what would happen. I was really glad that I was able to step up to the plate and state that I believed that her not finishing dinner was Ed not healthy Emily. It is always hard to initiate a difficult conversation because my natural reaction is to avoid it and make excuses for her not finishing her meal. And this time I remembered to tie the need to get rid of Ed into her goal of taking up water polo in January so that it wasn't looking like a power struggle between Ed and me. Can you tell I was pleased with myself?
The following evening, Emily had four KVA (school) friends over for dinner and fifth to watch a movie. Two of them stayed for a sleep over which meant that Emily had to eat several times in front of people. She said it was really hard but since she has been eating in front of them at school for a while now and because she was rewarded with the fun of socializing she was able to do the hard work of eating so that she could enjoy the rest of the event. Her friends from KVA were delightful, a big change from Shambhala.
So all in all it was a really good week and I was starting to let down my guard a bit when out of the blue Emily started talking to me again. I was delighted to hear her say that she is really enjoying feeling well physically and that she is starting to use and to trust in the techniques and tools the team are teaching her for managing Ed. I wasn't ready for her to tell me that in the week before we found out about Ed, she had resigned herself to the fact that she dying and wouldn't live past the end of the year. I can't begin to describe how mind boggling it is to know that my highly intelligent, loving, warm, compassionate beautiful daughter was so ill that even with the full conscious knowledge that she was killing herself she was unable to ask for help. When I asked why, she said it was because she thought it was absolutely hopeless and she was too tired to even talk to me about it. So I will not be letting my guard down any time soon. You can't when you are dealing with a disease this deadly.
But the rest of my life starts today with the full knowledge and fear that it is more vicarious than I want to acknowledge. So now I am plotting my return to living. This week I start to plan out how to integrate working, singing, socializing and exercising into our new life style of meals, appointments, discussions and schleping Emily around. And being the 'planner' that I am, I will enjoy this project I will work on re-energizing myself with some rest and relaxation.
Gotta run and get lunch for my poor girl who is feeling yucky and sore from her H1N1 shot.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
In our family we usually celebrate milestone events by getting together to share a meal or at least a cake. But one of the hundreds of things that suck about 'Ed' is that he has put the kibosh to that family tradition, at least for now. This week Emily achieved a significant goal in her fight against anorexia - she reached her goal weight of 110. But although it was the hardest thing she has ever done we didn't turn to her and say 'congratulations, you did it', and it didn't even occur to Derek and I to take a private moment to acknowledge how relieved and grateful we felt that we've all made it this far. Instead we just moved on to the next topic on the list of things we needed to discuss with the team. Our only acknowledgement to Emily was that she could switch to skim milk and cut out one snack a day. It wasn't until the next day that I realized the magnitude of this milestone, Emily is weight restored and we have finished phase one of this treatment process, only two phases to go.
That prompted me to read about the next phase of treatment in my reference books which state that the goals of the next phase are:
As for the last goal of this phase, exploring the relationship between Ed and adolescent issues, I am very afraid of what that will entail. I am exhausted from phase one and don't know how to muster the energy to learn the new skills and behaviours that the Team is promoting for her healthy emotional development. The kinds of issues we have to deal with loom large in my tired mind. She needs to become less attached emotionally to us because right now she can't even sit in a movie theatre with someone between she and I. She needs to develop peer relationships that are more appealing to her than her relationship with us and she hasn't spent any time with friends in over a week. She needs to become accepting of her body image but she won't even go swimming yet because she doesn't want to be seen in a bathing suit. She also needs to get ready for dating and be comfortable with her sexuality and at this point in time that seems at least five years away to me. And our reward for her achieving all this adolescent development is that we get to deal with the kind of typical adolescent behaviour which we all know drives adults crazy.
Apparently one of the purposes 'Ed' is serving is to be a big wake up call to the fact that how you parent a child is vastly different from how you parent a teenager. My new term for this stage of my life is 'full frontal parenting', and if that has military undertones it is meant to because I feel like everything about my parenting style is underseige and that I am having to regroup and remuster every 10 minutes.
But old habits die hard and I gave into one yesterday and cooked a dutch apple pie to for us to eat and celebrate Emily's successful weight restoration. She gave me a quick flash of Ed's disapproval over the idea of celebrating but she tucked in and ate most of her normal sized piece of pie leaving behind a piece of crust that frankly I left behind too because it wasn't homemade.
And now it is time to figure out what to cook for supper, make my party appetizer, get my costume ready and finish putting up the Halloween decorations. And if anyone else asks me what I do all day I am going to lose it.
That prompted me to read about the next phase of treatment in my reference books which state that the goals of the next phase are:
- for us to maintain management of the eating disorder symptions until Emily shows evidence that she is able to eat well and maintain weight independently
- to return food and weight control to her
- to explore the relationship between the anorexia and normal adolescent development issues i.e. self esteem, body image, relationships, independence
As for the last goal of this phase, exploring the relationship between Ed and adolescent issues, I am very afraid of what that will entail. I am exhausted from phase one and don't know how to muster the energy to learn the new skills and behaviours that the Team is promoting for her healthy emotional development. The kinds of issues we have to deal with loom large in my tired mind. She needs to become less attached emotionally to us because right now she can't even sit in a movie theatre with someone between she and I. She needs to develop peer relationships that are more appealing to her than her relationship with us and she hasn't spent any time with friends in over a week. She needs to become accepting of her body image but she won't even go swimming yet because she doesn't want to be seen in a bathing suit. She also needs to get ready for dating and be comfortable with her sexuality and at this point in time that seems at least five years away to me. And our reward for her achieving all this adolescent development is that we get to deal with the kind of typical adolescent behaviour which we all know drives adults crazy.
Apparently one of the purposes 'Ed' is serving is to be a big wake up call to the fact that how you parent a child is vastly different from how you parent a teenager. My new term for this stage of my life is 'full frontal parenting', and if that has military undertones it is meant to because I feel like everything about my parenting style is underseige and that I am having to regroup and remuster every 10 minutes.
But old habits die hard and I gave into one yesterday and cooked a dutch apple pie to for us to eat and celebrate Emily's successful weight restoration. She gave me a quick flash of Ed's disapproval over the idea of celebrating but she tucked in and ate most of her normal sized piece of pie leaving behind a piece of crust that frankly I left behind too because it wasn't homemade.
And now it is time to figure out what to cook for supper, make my party appetizer, get my costume ready and finish putting up the Halloween decorations. And if anyone else asks me what I do all day I am going to lose it.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
When pimples mean progress
Emily is continuing to make excellent progress. She gained two pounds this week which means she is only two pounds away from the bottom of the ideal body weight range for her age and height. And what is really amazing is that she has actually come to realize that she feels much better at this weight.
The advantages of her reaching the goal weight are that she can switch from 2% to 1% milk, her hair has stopped falling out and she is able to take on more physical activity. She will be starting phys. ed. tomorrow, but is only able to let her heart rate reach 120 beats per minute for this week, and she plans to start walking to school. I was concerned that she would have to increase her caloric intake to compensate for her physical activity but that is not the case because once she is at the goal weight she would have needed to reduce her intake in order to not continue gaining. But by adding physical activity she can maintain the same food intake and maintain her weight. Well that's the theory at least. The down side of reaching her goal weight is an increase in acne because her body is producing estrogen again and I am sure many of us can relate to the horror of teenage pimples.
Healthy Emily is present so often now that when Ed shows up it is readily apparent. She becomes totally silent, motionless and gives off a very troubling aura of intensity. I can spot Ed at 50 paces these days, I don't even have to see her face to know when it is happening because the change is so dramatic. Sadly she turns into the girl she has been for the last year so we are very familiar with what Ed looks like only now we get to see it in contrast to healthy Emily.
Emily has managed her morning snack at school with no problem and we have progressed to me bringing lunch for her to eat in the car and she takes her dessert into the school to eat with her classmates. Her motivation is to have more time to socialize with her classmates. She is really enjoying school, and the people there a great deal. She started taking German and Mandarin and I am in awe of her ease with speaking German. Her teacher asked her if she had taken it before because she sounds so natural. She is also playing the piano again and she has been jamming at school with a couple of other students, both of whom are outstanding musicians. There is a school fundraising event this weekend, a bake sale on Spring Garden Rd. in front of the Gardens, on Saturday between 10-2. She is looking forward to participating and even hopes to be able to make some marble squares to sell. So if you are in the area on Saturday bring your cash and get some goodies.
Today, she set the goal of taking her school blazer off during class. She is the only student who wears her blazer so she is starting to feel like she is standing out. When I met her at lunch she said she did it. It was harder than she expected it to be at first but it got easier after a while. Ironically, she noticed that a couple of kids left their blazers on today. She also commented that she has the most 'fitted' white shirt which made her feel a little awkward. In fact the white shirt, which is one of her H&M purchases from the weekend, is very flattering, so although no one said anything about her not wearing her blazer I am sure that the boys in her school noticed.
Emily thinks she might try lunch on her own at school tomorrow. Derek and I are both apprehensive about that but we have to let her decide if and when healthy Emily is ready. And we will have a contingency plan to compensate for any uneaten food. She is planning another weekend of socializing with friends just like a real teenager - phew that's a relief.
Her session with the Team yesterday gave her some tactics to use to reduce her Ed thoughts at meals. She is going to tell herself that 'yes this meal is hard, but it will be over soon and then I don't have to think about eating again for another three hours'. She is also going to try to go to school all day instead of just mornings, so today is the second afternoon she has stayed this week. She has been avoiding Thursday's drama class and can't quite articulate why, so it will be interesting to hear what she discovers about herself today.
She told me last night that she feels like she is not in the same league as the rest of the students in her class because they all seem to be very smart and accomplished at one thing or another. She said she is the least motivated student in the school. I missed the opportunity to ask her how that made her feel but today when she told me she signed up for an extra course, grade 11 biology, I realized that she might be feeling the need to work harder to feel like she belongs and deserves to be there. I plan to explore that with her tonight and give her the chance to label and voice her feelings rather than suppress them. I have been reading up on how all eating disorder patients suppress their feelings through starvation because the process of restricting food intake is a very time consuming distraction from all other thought processes and activities and one of the physiological affects of starvation is that it numbs the mind. Emily can't really remember much about the weeks before she went into the hospital because she was so starved that it is all a blur to her, but she does remember that it wasn't as hard to endure as the first month of treatment was. So now she has the opportunity to learn how to express her feelings in appropriate and productive ways so that they don't fester inside making her need to rely on Ed to help her suppress them.
The challenge of course is that Derek and I are both emotional suppressors so it means that we have to learn to do this ourselves so we can model emotional intelligence for her. Many of us think that suppressing our feelings is a sign of emotional maturity but in fact it is not because suppressed feelings not only cause sadness and a host of mental issues like passive aggressive behaviors and depression, they also cause physical illness. The alternative is to use our feelings to guide us through our lives by using them to understand what makes us feel good or scared or joyful or anxious. Today as I listened to the news about the Canadian dollar reaching parity with the US dollar I started to enjoy a happy memory of a shopping trip south of the border, but then the reporter started talking about how bad the rising dollar is for Canadian truckers, my little moment of joy got squashed by feelings of fear for the economy and sadness for the truckers. But I chose to use that feeling to guide my actions and change the damned radio to a station that was playing soothing music that took me back to my nice memories. Bad news makes everyone feel bad and yet we willingly expose ourselves to it relentlessly in the name of what 'social awareness'. How can we justify trading off our mental, emotional and physical health for a cursory knowledge of current events? I know that from reflecting on my own life and from watching Emily suffer so much that we ignore our feelings at great peril. But man oh man, it's gonna take a lot of work to change 50 years of conscious and unconscious habits. How ironic that the song, 'We've only just begun', by Karen Carpenter, who died of anorexia, is rattling around inside my head as I ponder this stage of treatment.
Well I gotta go finish cooking up my newest recipe, peanut chicken noodle something or other. Fingers crossed that she'll like it.
The advantages of her reaching the goal weight are that she can switch from 2% to 1% milk, her hair has stopped falling out and she is able to take on more physical activity. She will be starting phys. ed. tomorrow, but is only able to let her heart rate reach 120 beats per minute for this week, and she plans to start walking to school. I was concerned that she would have to increase her caloric intake to compensate for her physical activity but that is not the case because once she is at the goal weight she would have needed to reduce her intake in order to not continue gaining. But by adding physical activity she can maintain the same food intake and maintain her weight. Well that's the theory at least. The down side of reaching her goal weight is an increase in acne because her body is producing estrogen again and I am sure many of us can relate to the horror of teenage pimples.
Healthy Emily is present so often now that when Ed shows up it is readily apparent. She becomes totally silent, motionless and gives off a very troubling aura of intensity. I can spot Ed at 50 paces these days, I don't even have to see her face to know when it is happening because the change is so dramatic. Sadly she turns into the girl she has been for the last year so we are very familiar with what Ed looks like only now we get to see it in contrast to healthy Emily.
Emily has managed her morning snack at school with no problem and we have progressed to me bringing lunch for her to eat in the car and she takes her dessert into the school to eat with her classmates. Her motivation is to have more time to socialize with her classmates. She is really enjoying school, and the people there a great deal. She started taking German and Mandarin and I am in awe of her ease with speaking German. Her teacher asked her if she had taken it before because she sounds so natural. She is also playing the piano again and she has been jamming at school with a couple of other students, both of whom are outstanding musicians. There is a school fundraising event this weekend, a bake sale on Spring Garden Rd. in front of the Gardens, on Saturday between 10-2. She is looking forward to participating and even hopes to be able to make some marble squares to sell. So if you are in the area on Saturday bring your cash and get some goodies.
Today, she set the goal of taking her school blazer off during class. She is the only student who wears her blazer so she is starting to feel like she is standing out. When I met her at lunch she said she did it. It was harder than she expected it to be at first but it got easier after a while. Ironically, she noticed that a couple of kids left their blazers on today. She also commented that she has the most 'fitted' white shirt which made her feel a little awkward. In fact the white shirt, which is one of her H&M purchases from the weekend, is very flattering, so although no one said anything about her not wearing her blazer I am sure that the boys in her school noticed.
Emily thinks she might try lunch on her own at school tomorrow. Derek and I are both apprehensive about that but we have to let her decide if and when healthy Emily is ready. And we will have a contingency plan to compensate for any uneaten food. She is planning another weekend of socializing with friends just like a real teenager - phew that's a relief.
Her session with the Team yesterday gave her some tactics to use to reduce her Ed thoughts at meals. She is going to tell herself that 'yes this meal is hard, but it will be over soon and then I don't have to think about eating again for another three hours'. She is also going to try to go to school all day instead of just mornings, so today is the second afternoon she has stayed this week. She has been avoiding Thursday's drama class and can't quite articulate why, so it will be interesting to hear what she discovers about herself today.
She told me last night that she feels like she is not in the same league as the rest of the students in her class because they all seem to be very smart and accomplished at one thing or another. She said she is the least motivated student in the school. I missed the opportunity to ask her how that made her feel but today when she told me she signed up for an extra course, grade 11 biology, I realized that she might be feeling the need to work harder to feel like she belongs and deserves to be there. I plan to explore that with her tonight and give her the chance to label and voice her feelings rather than suppress them. I have been reading up on how all eating disorder patients suppress their feelings through starvation because the process of restricting food intake is a very time consuming distraction from all other thought processes and activities and one of the physiological affects of starvation is that it numbs the mind. Emily can't really remember much about the weeks before she went into the hospital because she was so starved that it is all a blur to her, but she does remember that it wasn't as hard to endure as the first month of treatment was. So now she has the opportunity to learn how to express her feelings in appropriate and productive ways so that they don't fester inside making her need to rely on Ed to help her suppress them.
The challenge of course is that Derek and I are both emotional suppressors so it means that we have to learn to do this ourselves so we can model emotional intelligence for her. Many of us think that suppressing our feelings is a sign of emotional maturity but in fact it is not because suppressed feelings not only cause sadness and a host of mental issues like passive aggressive behaviors and depression, they also cause physical illness. The alternative is to use our feelings to guide us through our lives by using them to understand what makes us feel good or scared or joyful or anxious. Today as I listened to the news about the Canadian dollar reaching parity with the US dollar I started to enjoy a happy memory of a shopping trip south of the border, but then the reporter started talking about how bad the rising dollar is for Canadian truckers, my little moment of joy got squashed by feelings of fear for the economy and sadness for the truckers. But I chose to use that feeling to guide my actions and change the damned radio to a station that was playing soothing music that took me back to my nice memories. Bad news makes everyone feel bad and yet we willingly expose ourselves to it relentlessly in the name of what 'social awareness'. How can we justify trading off our mental, emotional and physical health for a cursory knowledge of current events? I know that from reflecting on my own life and from watching Emily suffer so much that we ignore our feelings at great peril. But man oh man, it's gonna take a lot of work to change 50 years of conscious and unconscious habits. How ironic that the song, 'We've only just begun', by Karen Carpenter, who died of anorexia, is rattling around inside my head as I ponder this stage of treatment.
Well I gotta go finish cooking up my newest recipe, peanut chicken noodle something or other. Fingers crossed that she'll like it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)