Bev Mattocks's Blog

By the beginning of 2010, my son's anorexia was getting worse and we still didn't have a date for treatment. Ben was changing in front our eyes into someone we didn't recognise: physically or mentally, and the doctors didn't seem particularly bothered. Plus, the learning curve was enormous - we'd never in a million years ever thought that our son would get anorexia.

I'm wondering if any of this rings a bell with you, if you're worried your son might be developing an eating disorder? That's why I've decided to publish the journal notes I made during the last few months of 2009 and start of 2010. It's quite lengthy, so this is Part Seven - written in note form.

From my 2010 Journal Notes.docx file (Part Seven):

Early 2010

Looking at family photographs was a painful, instant reminder of what my son used to look like and should look like, but didn't anymore. 

We had a thin waif for a son who looked like a concentration camp victim and whose mood was so volatile I was terrified every time I picked him up from school for fear of how his day had been. 

For any parent, watching your child suffer with anorexia is one of the most excruciating and painful things you'll ever face. I just wished there was a magic pill you could take and - Hey Presto! - our old son would be back. 

I wept every single day.Unlike a physical illness, you can't take any medication for anorexia (apart from anti-depressants). You can't have an operation and it goes away. Worse, the wonderful, level-headed, intelligent child you've spent 16 years rearing and getting to know has undergone a total transformation into a volatile stranger whose very sanity seems to have gone AWOL. 

[From my post on the FEAST Forum] I am sure that every one of you reading this will know what I mean when you feel heartbroken seeing your once beautiful, confident, intelligent, friendly, popular child descend into this wreck of a human being who spots the calorie content on some ciabatta he's supposed to have for tea, becomes a quivering wreck of sobbing, banging head against the wall as if he's about to break his skull... 

[More from my notes] Initially, anorexia creates a myriad of emotions in the parentYou feel angry. ("Can't he see what he's doing to himself / us?!") You feel frightened. ("How long is the anorexia going to last? Will he ever come through it? Will we ever get our boy back?") You feel frantic. ("What damage is anorexia doing to his body? Could something tip the balance and lead to the 'S' word we never mention and daren't even think about?")You feel preoccupied. (You can't think of anything but anorexia and the situation.) You feel jealous. ("Why is everyone else's child OK when mine isn't?") You feel guilty. ("Is it something we've done as parents? Should we have picked up on it earlier?")You feel frightened – an emotion that quickly changes to fear and terror as you scour the Internet for information about the illness and read the mortality statistics. 

Then you panic as you realise just how far away the first treatment session still is. [We were on a long waiting list for eating disorder treatment]

Anorexia also makes you feel very isolated. Okay, there are anorexia helplines you can call [the UK Charity BEAT] and a fabulous forum [the FEAST Forum, see link below]. But it's difficult to talk to a 'lay person' about it; to the outside world it's such a little-known, much misunderstood and even taboo condition. 

I knew virtually nothing about anorexia until our son contracted it. Over the following 18 months or so I became an anorexia expert! The learning curve was ENORMOUS – and necessary.And of course I knew NOTHING about EDs back then and couldn't understand the dramatic changes in his behaviour (which didn't appear to interest the GPs that much...)

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Looking for support? 

F.E.A.S.T. is an international charity that supports parents and carers of young people with eating disorders. It was a lifesaver for us.

FEAST website (Families Empowered and Supporting the Treatment of Eating Disorders).FEAST's Forum FEAST's (private) Facebook group (ATDTfb - Eating Disorder Family and Carer Support) 

By the beginning of 2010, my son's anorexia was getting worse. This was the UK New Year where the snow fell deep and I have photos of my skeletal son wrapped up in warm outdoor clothes on snowy walks in our local park as I tried desperately and without success to 'talk sense' into him. The contrast between my rugby-playing, handsome, muscular son of the previous year and this snowy January of 2010 was heartbreaking. Yet we still hadn't been able to access treatment for his anorexia despite first visiting the GP in the Autumn, because no-one believed he was seriously sick with what is the most deadly of all mental health conditions: anorexia nervosa.

I'm wondering if any of this rings a bell with you, if you're worried your son might be developing an eating disorder? That's why I've decided to publish the journal notes I made during the last few months of 2009 and beginning of 2010. It's quite lengthy, so this is Part Six - written in note form.

From my 2010 Journal Notes.docx file (Part Six):

February 2010

Ben used to love eating at Pret a Manger in the city centre. 

And one Saturday in February we went into town and decided to go there for lunch. 

From the moment we went in, he was frantically examining the packaging for calories. Most were too high. He asked me what I thought he should have, then agitatedly picked up something totally different. 

The café had started making "half" sandwiches, so that was his natural choice. 

He must have picked up and put down virtually every sandwich in the shop. We even made it to the till on two occasions only to have him rush back and change his mind. 

Then he had some kind of breakdown, strode under the staircase and started to weep. 

So we tried again to choose lunch without success. 

In the end he strode out of the cafe with me frantically following him, chasing him through town. 

We did manage to get a quick bite to eat elsewhere (amazingly enough). But by then we were both totally frazzled, all thoughts of shopping totally gone. 

Meanwhile the city centre was buzzing around us, enjoying lunch, as normal while we were whizzing around this nightmarish surreal parallel world. 

This weird ‘parallel world feeling’ was something I’d get very used to over the next months… 

Anorexia robbed our son of his self-confidence, his self-esteem, his social skills and his sense of fun. He even lost his much sought-after 'six pack' as the anorexia began to eat away at the muscles in his body. 

By the end of 2009, his body was emaciated due to the anorexia. 

He had dark rings round his eyes, his face was gaunt, his skin was dry and flaking, his body was skeletal and he was permanently cold. 

Anorexia had lied to our son. 

But that's the nature of anorexia.

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Looking for support? 

F.E.A.S.T. is an international charity that supports parents and carers of young people with eating disorders. It was a lifesaver for us.

FEAST website (Families Empowered and Supporting the Treatment of Eating Disorders).FEAST's Forum FEAST's (private) Facebook group (ATDTfb - Eating Disorder Family and Carer Support) 

Right from the start of this blog in 2011, I've pointed families towards the charity, FEAST, the online network that supports parents and carers of young people with eating disorders through its website, forum and facebook group. Now that I'm kind of able to dip back into the world of eating disorders, following a lengthy battle with Complex PTSD, I've been talking with FEAST about possibly becoming one of their parent support volunteers. But first, I've been going through a stack of learning material to bring me up to date with evidence-based treatment and practice in treating adolescents with eating disorders like anorexia. It's an emotional journey!

The mix of emotions is enormous. Memories of our family's battle with anorexia, of course, which brings back a massive spectrum of emotions.

But also a great deal of anger at how virtually everything in our son's eating disorder treatment was the complete opposite of what is now considered to be the go-to evidence-based treatment of eating disorders in adolescents: Family Based Therapy (see this page on the FEAST website for more information on FBT for eating disorders).

Over dozens and dozens of therapy sessions for my c-PTSD over the last 10 years, I've often been told that anger is bad. That it's something I must overcome. That the eating disorder years are over - in the past - and I should "move on".

But more recently, I've realised that some anger is actually Good.

Because "good anger" makes people do stuff. 

History is packed with good things that were achieved because people were angry in a good, constructive, practical and active way.

Anger is partly what drew me to writing this blog from 2011 onwards. And my website and book.

Anger is partly why I've always wanted to do my tiny bit to help other families to avoid going through what we went through in terms of slow diagnosis and referral, and out-dated eating disorder treatment, along with pointing families towards fantastic support. I always say that FEAST and its forum were lifesavers. Literally.

I want these resources to help other families, too, in the way they helped us.

Yes, I am massively angry about our experiences with health professionals from 2009 onwards which made my son's anorexia worse, not better, and which I believe prolonged it, resulting in time that can never be recouped from my son's journey to adulthood.

But I'm no longer pushing this anger away and trying to force myself to "move on".

After all, the eating disorder, and the fight to get my son treated properly, took up a huge chunk of our lives, so how the heck can I forget it and put it behind me?

I am hoping that my emotions don't get too triggered by this re-visit to the world of eating disorders and that, in some way other than my blog, book and website, I can help other parents know that they are not alone - that others have been through this and come out the other side.

That full recovery is possible.

Getting there is punishingly hard, but it's a tiny bit less hard when you have other parents supporting you on the journey, as I found from 2010 when I first discovered the FEAST community and the amazing parents that are part of it, many of whom are still close friends.

And many of whom went over and above in offering support - like the incredible UK mum Charlotte who helped so many of us before cancer took her in 2014. 

I feel teary just thinking about Charlotte.

I've got a few more weeks to go before I've been through all the information FEAST has sent me so I'm not only completely up to date with evidence-based treatment for eating disorders but also up to date in the tools that families can use to get their children to eat and get well.

So watch this space...

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Looking for support? 

F.E.A.S.T. is an international charity that supports parents and carers of young people with eating disorders. It was a lifesaver for us.

FEAST website (Families Empowered and Supporting the Treatment of Eating Disorders).FEAST's Forum FEAST's (private) Facebook group (ATDTfb - Eating Disorder Family and Carer Support) 

There are 4 additional PAGES tabs on my blog which may not be visible if you're using the app or a smartphone, so I thought I'd just do a quick post with links to them. I've just uploaded a fourth page which talks about what Ben is doing today, in 2025.

Ben in 2025: https://anorexiaboyrecovery.blogspot.com/p/ben-in-2025.html  

About us: https://anorexiaboyrecovery.blogspot.com/p/about-us-anorexia-in-family.html

Our story: https://anorexiaboyrecovery.blogspot.com/p/in-november-2013-i-gave-talk-at.html

Recovery contract: https://anorexiaboyrecovery.blogspot.com/p/recovery-contract.html

By the end of 2009, my son's escalating anorexia was getting worse. Supermarket shopping was a nightmare and Christmas Eve saw me in floods of tears as the anorexia robbed us all of our usual happy family Christmas.

I'm wondering if any of this rings a bell with you, if you're worried your son might be developing an eating disorder? That's why I've decided to publish the journal notes I made during the last few months of 2009. It's quite lengthy, so this is Part Five - written in note form.

From my 2009 Journal Notes.docx file (Part Five):

December 2009

In supermarkets he would examine food packaging meticulously, picking stuff up, then putting it down – or removing items from my trolley. 

I began to hate the people that decided it was a Good Idea to list the nutritional content on food. 

12 months ago, supermarket shopping was a nightmare with Ben picking up items, examining the nutritional content, and then putting them down again. 

He'd return items from my trolley to the shelves in horror. 

He would also spend AGES choosing anything, moving from one shelf to another, picking things up, then putting them down... It was horrible and I'd hate watching 'normal' people shop, buying everyday items without batting an eyelid. Our situation was surreal... 

But you quickly get used to crazy behaviour in public and the stares of ‘normal’ people… 

At Christmas I thought about all those parents everywhere who, at Christmas, want - more than anything - to get their 'little boy' or 'little girl' back, whether it's anorexia, other eating disorders, drugs, runaways, gangs, crime, drinks, going off the rails or worse. 

While everyone around us went about the festivities in the usual jolly way, we felt as if we were just play-acting in a nightmarish parallel world. 

As we went through another 'crisis' on Christmas Eve as Ben exploded in the kitchen about some calorie / food issue, I sobbed that I wanted my 'little boy' back. 

Christmas Eve was particularly poignant for me because it was the day, 16 years earlier, that I'd brought Ben back from hospital following his birth. 

Christmas Eve 2009 was our worst-ever. 

Curiously on Christmas Day itself, despite the worsening anorexia, Ben actually ate a full Christmas dinner and tea without much complaint. It was almost as if we'd been given Christmas Day off! 

But of course by Boxing Day anorexia had returned with a vengeance... 

He's convinced he's putting on "fat" and showed me his "fat stomach"... And of course he's still avoiding all "bad" foods...

----------------------

Looking for support? 

F.E.A.S.T. is an international charity that supports parents and carers of young people with eating disorders. It was a lifesaver for us.

FEAST website (Families Empowered and Supporting the Treatment of Eating Disorders).FEAST's Forum FEAST's (private) Facebook group (ATDTfb - Eating Disorder Family and Carer Support) 

By November 2009, my son's escalating anorexia was making him behave incredibly erratically and my stress levels were stratospheric. The simplest thing could send Ben into a nightmarish yelling and banging-head spiral. 

This was especially horrific if we were eating in public as this Pizza Express incident from late 2009 shows. And, remember, this is while we were still on the long waiting list for eating disorder treatment, so my husband and I were desperately trying to halt the progress Ben's anorexia on our own.

I'm wondering if any of this rings a bell with you, if you're worried your son might be developing an eating disorder? That's why I've decided to publish the journal notes I made during the last few months of 2009. It's quite lengthy, so this is Part Four - written in note form.

From my 2009 Journal Notes.docx file (Part Four):

November 2009

Theatre and Pizza Express incident. 

Our son liked to 'admire' cakes (in a cafe or shop) in the way you or I might admire paintings in a gallery. 

Of course he would never eat any. 

He was reasonably OK until theatre in afternoon when we took a drink and a slice of fat free tea loaf as a snack. 

Took a swig of the drink and didn't eat the tea loaf. 

At the interval was obsessed with showing me the array of cakes available in the café but of course had no intention of eating any of them.

Then we went to Pizza Express, having agreed in advance what he was going to have via the PE website which lists calories. 

As he had tonnes of calories left [I was trying to get him to eat a certain number of calories based on what I was reading online about eating disorders like anorexia] he went with the suggestion of a normal pizza rather than the low calorie one he almost chose. 

However he left around a quarter of it, including all the outer crust. 

Instead of going for the agreed fruit juice he went for a diet drink. 

At the end he had a frenzy about the fact the pizza was bland and he hadn't enjoyed it. 

This grew into a bigger frenzy which meant we had to leave the restaurant pretty quickly as Ben walked out. 

He ran from us, along the main road. 

Eventually we found him standing on the kerb edge as if he was going to run in front of a bus. 

There followed a MASSIVE scene as we walked home including some violence towards me. Loud screaming hysterics. 

After more of this plus his dad breaking down once we got home, Ben calmed down and made one of his sundaes and watched the telly. 

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Looking for support? 

F.E.A.S.T. is an international charity that supports parents and carers of young people with eating disorders. It was a lifesaver for us.

FEAST website (Families Empowered and Supporting the Treatment of Eating Disorders).FEAST's Forum FEAST's (private) Facebook group (ATDTfb - Eating Disorder Family and Carer Support) 

I remember when I asked CAMHS (the treatment team treating my son, Ben, from 2010) if their treatment involved eating plans for weight gain in anorexia, they produced a printed sheet called Eating Plan 6 (there was no mention of Eating Plans 1,2 3, etc...). 

At first, I thought: "Wow! This might just work!" and on the way back from the therapy session, we stopped off at the supermarket to buy the foods shown on Eating Plan 6.

But even as I was filling my supermarket trolley with Eating Plan 6 foods, I began to realise that this wasn't going to work. No way was Ben going to eat any of this stuff. Not in a million years. Especially without any practical help or support in implementing the eating plan.

But, because I was desperate for Ben to put on weight, I decided to try it. 

Ben did actually put on some weight. But implementing the eating plan was a nightmare and I quickly found myself tweaking it to appease the eating disorder in order to make some kind of progress. 

After a couple of months, it was decided that "mum's eating plan" wasn't being helpful to Ben.

The eating plan was dropped and replaced with Ben being permitted to be in charge of his own meals except the evening meal which I cooked (the cooking of which was meticulously "policed" by Ben... you can read all about this horrible episode - and more - in my book "Please eat...")

Unsurprisingly, Ben began to lose weight after that.

I often mention the charity FEAST on here - the charity that supports and empowers parents and carers of young people with eating disorders and which was a lifesaver - literally - for Ben and for us, his parents.

FEAST has also produced a fantastic series of videos to empower families in the punishingly difficult task of getting your child to eat and put on weight - FEAST's Caregiver Skills Program. 

These short videos are packed with help and advice from eating disorder experts on getting your child not only to eat but also to put on weight, both of which are SO VERY TOUGH when you're fighting something as powerful as anorexia or other eating disorders.

So please take a look if you think these resources might be helpful to you.

Meanwhile, here are links to FEAST, its Forum and its (private) Facebook group (ATDTfb - Eating Disorder Family and Carer Support) which I encourage you to consider joining if you're faced with getting your son or daughter through an eating disorder. (ATDT, by the way, stands for Around The Dinner Table which is what the FEAST Forum started out as.)

By October 2009, my son's emerging eating disorder was raging. We'd eventually managed to get the GP to refer Ben for eating disorder treatment, but - to my horror and panic - we'd been put on a waiting list which could mean a 18-22 week wait before an assessment, let alone the start of treatment for his anorexia. And who was to say that treatment would immediately stop the eating disorder in its tracks?

I'm wondering if any of this rings a bell with you, if you're worried your son might be developing an eating disorder? That's why I've decided to publish this document. It's quite lengthy, so this is Part Three.

From my Notes.docx file (Part Three):

November 2009

Around mid November, things came to a head after two particularly bad weeks.

In desperation I had a talk with the school nurse who had a long talk with Ben which seemed to do some good. 

For the first time, he actually admitted there was a problem and explained how trapped he felt by it all – and how it wasn’t actually achieving what he had set out to achieve, and that it was a ‘control’ issue. 

He felt almost imprisoned by it all. But he felt he didn’t have the personal strength to get out of this alone. 

We eventually got the GP to refer him to CAMHS (eating disorders), however we were told that the waiting list for eating disorder treatment was 18-22 weeks. 

After lots of long talks and support from us, his parents, I felt that we might actually be doing some good and preventing the eating disorder from getting worse. [However we were quickly proved wrong as the eating disorder began to fall off a cliff.]

Ben was terrified that he'd get out of control with eating and would get fat (like his ‘puppy fat’ days at primary school). 

He was still under-eating. He needed to lose this need for control, this fear of eating the ‘wrong’ things. He needed to lose his obsession with food. 

With the CAMHS treatment so far away, we started to panic. We simply had to do something to stop our son from disappearing in front of our eyes, physically and mentally. 

In the end we managed to find a private therapist who provided a bit of 'stop gap' treatment, but it wasn't ideal (thankfully we had some private health insurance which helped a little with the fees). 

But the Good Thing that came out of this was that the therapist got Ben to start putting together a 'positive diary' of daily positive thoughts and actions. [In the event, he ditched the diary, throwing it across the room, yelling that it was a waste of time because he didn't have any positive thoughts; they were all negative.]

But still the CAMHS waiting list loomed ahead. What state would Ben be in by the time our place came up at Easter? And how many assessments would we have to go through before the actual anorexia treatment started and, more crucially, began to take effect?

[I had no idea at this stage, that eating disorder treatment can take years. I truly thought anorexia was something that could be fixed quickly.]

A few weeks ago, I was interviewed for a national newspaper about eating disorders in boys and to talk about my son's battle with anorexia and eventual full recovery. I'm so grateful for that opportunity to raise awareness of the fact that boys and men get eating disorders like anorexia. But then another publication contacted me, also wanting to raise awareness that boys get eating disorders. I said yes, I'd be happy to be interviewed. But it's not going to happen, and here's why...

Unfortunately they wanted me to sign a contract which I couldn't agree to. Why couldn't I agree? Because it effectively said that I wouldn't be able to talk to any other media for a full three months after publication - whenever publication might be.

I emailed them back to say:

Unfortunately I can't agree to Point 1. It may be that no other media contacts me within 3 months from publication, but (a) I don't know when your article might be published - it could be weeks away - which would mean I wouldn't be able to raise awareness of this deadly illness and how it affects boys just as much as girls - for potentially months, and (b) the reason I blog, write, do talks and media interviews is solely to raise awareness of this horrible illness and to help other parents.

I am sure you will understand that I can't, in effect, say no to helping other parents and raising awareness for what might be months! I am happy to agree to the other points, but not Point 1 as I believe it is so important to raise awareness and help other families. 

This is not a sensationalist story - it is a deadly serious story. Young people die [from eating disorders]. Knowing about how deadly eating disorders can be, how could I agree to your Point 1 knowing that I'd be effectively forbidden to help other parents via any media enquiries and all the other things I do? 

I hope you understand the above. Best wishes

They replied, saying "That’s fine, I completely understand."

What I wanted them to say was: "That's fine, I completely understand and we are willing to be flexible in this instance because of the fact that the word needs to get out there that boys get eating disorders too - we understand that your story isn't a 'scoop' or sensationalist. Like you, we want to help our readership to identify eating disorders in boys, to show that others have been through the same nightmare and, most importantly, to show that there is hope while not preventing you for continuing to raise awareness of eating disorders in boys and males".

But they didn't.

So, I sent an email back saying:

It's such a shame that there isn't flexibility in your contract, because ours isn't a 'scoop' or a sensationalist story. Your readership may include families for whom our story would have been tremendous help at a terrifying time in their lives, but sadly they won't read about it or get the links to the support they need which I include in our story - or, of course, realise that there can be hope; that young people can and do recover, and, in the case of my son who now works in mental health services, can go on to do amazing things by helping others.. 

Best wishes

Part Two... of some notes I kept as a record of what was going on in the lead up to Christmas 2009. 

Ben's emerging eating disorder had begun to be evident during that summer and by autumn, I was desperately trying to get him diagnosed with anorexia and referred for eating disorder treatment. 

I'm wondering if any of this rings a bell with you, if you're worried your son might be developing an eating disorder? That's why I've decided to publish this document. It's quite lengthy, so this is Part Two.

From my Notes.docx file (Part Two):

October 2009

A typical day might go like this… 

Getting teenagers ready for school is a nightmare at the best of times. But getting an anorexia teenager ready for school is a million times worse. Every single morning was a battle. Not 'your usual' teenage battle, but something altogether worse and much, much darker. Even before we left the house we'd have screaming ED rages which meant verbal abuse all the way to the bus stop or complete silence, usually lots of tears and finally the violent slamming of the rear passenger car door as the incredibly distressed 16 year old slunked off down the hill to the bus stop to stand way apart from the other kids. 

I would invariably drive back home in tears, unable to cope with the morning ahead - and definitely unable to work. 

Within an hour or so I'd get the first text. Sometimes it would be on my mobile; other times it would be one of those sinister 'robotic' voices you get when voice texts on the land line which would be even more sinister and frightening with the robotic woman's voice relaying Ben's latest anorexia-fuelled message along the lines of "I can't go on like this" or similar... 

Meanwhile, at school, Ben might be locked in the toilets, keeping away from people - or hiding away somewhere in the school. He might not turn up for a lesson - or he might walk out. 

This was totally uncharacteristic of Ben who, before the anorexia, had been a well-respected, conscientious and immaculately behaved boy - a star pupil, academically and on the sporting front. 

With anorexia comes the need for compulsive exercise and he'd ask to be excused to visit the toilet only to snatch the opportunity to run round the grounds a couple of times. 

A typical school dinner with his anorexia would comprise a bit of salad and some fruit, maybe a small bowl of soup, but not always. 

I'd be in regular contact with the school nurse who was well aware of Ben's anorexia and hugely supportive. Often she'd have to rescue Ben from the toilets or act as 'agony aunt' when Ben used the school medical centre as a bolt hole. And she or Ben would call me, asking me to pick him up on days when the anorexia meant that school got too much for him. 

Once Ben bolted out of the school dining room, the anorexia making him unable to cope with the pressure. A member of staff ran after him as Ben headed across the school field towards the river, thankfully catching up with him and bringing him back to school. 

Another time Ben stormed noisily out of class and had to be restrained by staff. He ended up in the Deputy Head's office and I had to come to school to collect him. 

On days when he managed to stay until 4pm, my anxiety levels would be sky high as I drove to school or to the school bus to pick him up. I never knew what kind of mood he would be in, but I'd have a pretty good idea... 

Separate from all the normal looking, chatting and joking school kids would come Ben - getting thinner and paler by the day with black rings round his eyes. His mood would be rock bottom and he'd either remain in total silence or have frightening outbursts on the way home - a known side-effect of anorexia. 

Teatime would be a nightmare as the anorexia meant that Ben ate next to nothing. Dessert would always comprise dried fruit which he would ritualistically chop up into tiny pieces, taking ages over the process. 

My anxiety levels would be primed for the regular disturbance at mealtimes. Something, perhaps the fact the food wasn't piping hot - or there was a food that freaked him out on the plate - or, more often than not, the portion size was too large or too small (because the anorexia made it impossible for Ben to gauge what a normal human portion size of food was), would result in him slamming down his knife and fork and storming out of the room. 

Outside the room the anorexia would make him stamp and crash around, thumping things and bashing his head against the wall while screaming in agony like a primeval animal in pain. Or he might break crockery. 

It was absolutely terrifying for me to watch this or know how to cope. All the anorexia advice says that you should remain calm and supportive, but it's virtually impossible to do that when your child is behaving like this. 

As things gradually improved over time (a small bit) he might come back into the dining room and resume eating, always acting as if nothing had happened, but in an ultra-stressed and silent way that made me terrified to say anything in case the anorexia behaviour kicked off again. 

The rest of the evening would be a mix of violent tears and hysterics; the transformation which anorexia had on my son was astonishing. He was a completely different boy - deeply depressed and howling like an animal in pain. I'd try to talk things through with him, sometimes reasonably successfully and other times not, but always knowing that whatever was said or agreed would be forgotten by the next day. It wasn't that he didn't want to keep his promises and resolutions; the anorexia had made it so he couldn't. The anorexia was in total control. 

So I'd go to bed dreading what anorexia would bring me the next day which, for me, would often start before dawn as a sleepless me sat in the living room nursing a coffee and biscuits.

[end of part one - see next post for part three]