Everyone always talks about women or girls when it comes to an eating disorder. You can search and search on every streaming channel out there, and maybe come up with two that pertain to men or boys. And why am I looking for these? Why am I searching for this subject matter? Because my oldest son, who is 17 years old, is Anorexic. It is hard to know what to think or where to go for help. You can find centers for eating disorders, however, the majority of them are for women.
I think we all know what Anorexia Nervosa is at this point. Its calorie counting, in an unhealthy manner, its restrictive eating, or not eating at all. The point my son is at, is keeping his calorie count under 1000 for the day. If he does eat something he enjoys, the next day he eats barely anything. There is a lot of guilt that surrounds a person struggling with an eating disorder. Guilt for what they eat, guilt for feeling guilty.
On top of this, or maybe hand in hand with this, comes depression and anxiety. To make it more interesting, there is self harm. It was cutting for a while, then burning, then back to cutting.
When you find out your child is struggling with an eating disorder, you want to ask all the questions. At least I did. How on earth did I miss this? When did it begin? How long has it been going on? Why doesn't anyone have much to say about boys in this situation? Our particular situation is the results of a chubby 12-14 yr old boy, who hadn't hit his growth spurt yet, and endured a lot of teasing and shaming for his weight from kids at school. In response, he learned to hate what he saw. Abhor it even. Then he grew, quite a bit. He hit 5'8 and thinned out. And kept thinning out. He also inherited my body dysmorphia. He looks in the mirror and still hates what he sees. Critiques every inch, and deems it unworthy.
Now we search for help. I may have mentioned earlier its hard to find. We have GREAT insurance. For the most part. Ok, we have Tricare. To those who don't know, as a military family, we are covered medically. Until you aren't. I have called, and emailed, and reached out. Our first conversation with a pediatrician in our doctors office, there wasn't a lot of honesty on my son's part, but all that was suggested was a nutritionist. This doesn't even begin to delve into the mental pain and anguish that accompanies an eating disorder. I scheduled a tele-visit with his actual physician, and he was honest. However, and here is the fun part, it was entirely up to me to find someone, anyone, anything, make sure they take Tricare, call our doctors office back, and wait for them to send in a referral to our insurance company, and then wait for a letter in the mail.
Guess who can't find a psycho-therapist or a residential center who takes our insurance, or is taking new patients? Now I have a new list of 30 therapists and psychologists to call and find one who not only takes Tricare, but takes Tricare East, which apparently makes a difference.
Here is the point of all of this.The point of this first post on this blog. It shouldn't be this hard to find help. It shouldn't be this hard to reach someone to help my son not starve himself to death. This morning I watched the documentary, Thin on HBOMAX. All women and teenage girls. Heartbreaking. Painful. I cried through most of it. Some of the patients, their insurance ran out, so they were forced to leave. To figure it out on their own. To battle a disease that has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. One more thing to worry about. One more thing to imagine.
I am hoping, by writing about this journey, sharing our struggles and pain, now and what is to come, sharing any resources and info that I can, that I can somehow make boys and men with an eating disorder, not such a mythical beast that most people will tell you don't exist.
Much Love
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