Hello Again

 I know it has been a while since I have written or shared anything here.  Next week is February which is so hard to believe.  We are exactly in the same place we were the last time.  I feel like all avenues are exhausted.  Maybe not, maybe I am just the tired one.  So many outbursts of anger, so many rude and just mean words being spoken.  My AN son is now 18, I don't know what that means at this point.  

All I feel right now is failure.  Exhaustion.  Hopeless.  I try and try and try, we have GREAT days, and then we have days like yesterday.  I was sick, stomach bug, food poisoning, maybe my body just cashing it in and saying enough, you overwork yourself so take a day.  I am kind of leaning towards the latter.  I came down to get more water, hydration is key when your body just releases everything, and he was sitting on the couch, I asked some questions, just average hey this happened, and whats going on, casual questions.  He flew off the handle, yelling, kicked the poor old dog, then immediately claimed he didn't.  The sink was full of dishes, the house a mess.  I said look I have been sick all day, really since the night before, and he just looked at me and said "I literally could care less about any of that, why are you even telling me"?  

I am just done.  Maybe tomorrow I will feel differently, and I know plenty of people will tell me it's the ED talking.  A sick brain.  Then he left to go for a walk.  A 3 hour walk.  If you are AN, you shouldn't exercise at all.  It burns up calories you just don't have to burn.  And a BIG part of me wanted to drive around and find him and cart his ass home.  But I didn't.  Why? Because he is 18, he wants to make these decisions, and I can't keep constantly coming behind him to rescue or clean up after him.  That is so hard for me to do.  How else will he learn though?  I know parents would disagree with me.  He is sick, he definitely has some mental health issues along with the ED.  Right now? All I feel like I represent to him is a place to sleep, food and transportation. It doesn't matter that I am literally killing myself to keep him alive.  It doesn't seem to matter I am single-handedly holding this house together, cleaning, cooking, bills, groceries and meals.  I hate feeling like this, I hate feeling whiny, I hate complaining.  

I want this space to be educational, for other parents going through this to feel heard, to have a voice.  Unfortunately with a disease like AN, there are so many bad days, it is hard to be positive and upbeat all the time.  I am constantly fighting to be positive.  To say affirmations, to speak great things into existence.  I don't know if there are actually any readers at this point, but I would love comments, anything to let me know I am not alone and falling apart for nothing.  

Much love

Toxic

 Let's talk about "diet culture".  If you're anything like me, most of your life, whether it was from parental force (how my story begins) or from restrictive behavior you put upon yourself, you have dieted in some form or another.  I remember being taught there were good and bad foods, even before the "clean" eating crew came along.  Good foods were things like turkey bacon, low fat or even fat free cheese, or egg white omelets which honestly is like eating tasteless hot jello with a hint of egg flavor. Bad foods were sugary cereals, regular bacon, BUTTER, Poptarts.  I fell for all of it.  I did Weight Watchers, lost weight, gained weight on it, and was JUDGED at meetings. I ate nothing but a pot of cabbage soup for 5 days straight! All in the pursuit of being thin. Why on earth do we think this is a healthy way of living? 

Diet Culture has trained us to view food and eating this way. And we have turned it into an Olympic event.  Patting ourselves on the back when we restrict calories and stick to 1500 a day, making sure to tell everyone around us.  

I even did KETO for about 3 years.  Eat all the fat you want but carbs are of the devil.  Satan lives in a loaf of bread.  

Guys, I was miserable.  Guilty for not going to the gym often enough, and hungry.

Then I discovered counting macros.  I learned food is food.  Not good or bad, food has no moral standings.  It nourishes you and keeps you alive.  But I was still handcuffed to calorie counting, and this time it also included weighing every gram of food that went in my mouth.  While it came with  more freedom, if I wanted a cookie, or wine, I could make it fit, but it was still restrictive in nature.  Better, but not great.

Enter my AN son.  All the pieces fell into place.  He didn't weigh his food, he wasn't counting calories, he wasn't exercising non-stop.  He simply eats barely anything.  Want everything you have ever thought about dieting, weight loss, and working out until everything hurts to be flipped on its head? Have a loved one with an eating disorder.  

It made me realize that restricting and eating in a "painful deficit" isn't healthy.  Not mentally and not physically.  See, the truth of the matter is, if you want to be a healthy weight, then its calories in and calories out.  Exercise if it makes you happy.  If you want to lift weights because you love it, do it.  If you lift weights because everyone else is doing it and you'll do anything to look like that model over there, stop it.  If you would rather do yoga, but your neighbor runs marathons and is naturally thin so you run too, STOP IT.  Go do some yoga.  If you want a cookie, eat the damn cookie.  Don't eat the entire sleeve of Thin Mints, that my friend is called binging, (and probably also involves eating some feelings).  Don't let celebrities with their "skinny teas", friends touting gross MLM shakes, and instructions to only eat "clean", rule your life.  

Diet Culture is toxic.  Evil.  In the US alone, this year, there are 24 million people suffering from an eating disorder.  This of course, are the ones that are known.  From eating disorders alone, there are about 10,200 deaths.  Read that again.  

Think about it, we allow our brains to be rewired by social media, by commercials, by people we don't even know personally.  Telling us that if we want to look just like them (which is impossible by the way) just eat the way they do, do their workout 2 times a day.  Cause yourself pain, and misery so you can be someone else's perfect ideal.  Isn't this also self-harm? It may not be taking a razor and cutting your skin, but it is harming yourself on purpose to feel better.  

Listen, I want to be thin and pretty.  Just like you.  Why do I have to hurt myself to do it? 

Much love!

Thoughts? Leave a comment :) 

Chaotic

Chaos seems to be the name of the game this week.  Monday was crazy, not because of my son or any AN issues rearing its ugly head.  Instead, both dogs and one of our cats decided right before I ran out the door to head up to my office and get some work done, to pee everywhere.  I cleaned up what I saw, only to come home to more!  Including all my bedding.  And my new curtains downstairs. I spent hours doing laundry that night.  Super fun Monday night, right?

Tuesday was full of the business of grocery shopping, which is an all day event.  My son came along for the ride along with his brother.  He was laughing, joking, helpful.  When we got back home, he was just exhausted and lightheaded and dizzy.  Then his brother, thinking he was funny, called him chunky.  I addressed it, letting his brother know this was not ok. Period.  As a 16 yr old, I get he doesn't understand the gravity behind words like that.  Later, I was already heading to bed, it was going on 10pm which in our house, means go upstairs and get ready because lights out is 10:30.  I have to get my 16yr old up at 6 am so he can get to school shortly after 7.  The oldest was giving me a hard time, but then ended up going upstairs but left every light on downstairs.  I turned them all off, begrudgingly, I was all cozy in my bed, and then I went to sleep.  

11pm roles around and my oldest is waking me up.  I am always scared when he does this because it could be because he is in pain, or any number of reasons.  He came in and said "Mom, I want to apologize". I thought he was wanting to say he was sorry for acting like a jerk that evening.  That was not the case.  He then told me he wanted to apologize for what he had done.  This got my attention and scared me even more.  I sat up, turned on my lamp, and he showed me how he had cut his upper arm, deep, although not deep enough for stitches.  In sheer desperation, he had taken apart an old dull razor to get to the blade and used that to cut his arm.  I cannot even begin to tell you how thankful I was that he came to me, in a dark moment.  He was able to stop himself from doing more.  When I asked him why, again it was the same anguish of feeling like no one was going to be able to help him and get him better.  

This, my friends, is heartbreaking.  Why isn't the fact that a child needs help, who wants to find away out of the madness in his mind that tells him he is gross, and fat, and that it's ok to hurt himself, enough to have a doctor RUSH to help??  Insurance companies play a part in this as well, I hear stories day after day about how someone's child had to leave treatment because the "insurance gods" figured they had enough treatment and must be all better now! 

The good news at the end of this particular week is that I reached out to our insurance, I had some things I needed to take care of, and managed to connect with someone who really wanted to help me out.  I had received a print out from the doctors office and noticed that the referral said it was "processed, but missing information".  I asked the lovely insurance lady what that meant and what did we need to do to get it pushed through.  What was missing, was a very specific term.  Tricare needed to know why we needed a referral to the treatment center in the first place.  Is the diagnosis of AN not enough? If you are wondering, it is not.  The missing term is "medical necessity".  I called the doctor's office and let them know (they are less than helpful as front desk staff so who knows if they did what I asked) what needed to be changed.  There is hope, although I am not holding my breath.  If I did that, I might die.  

Much love

Slices

 We made it through Thanksgiving.  I hear a lot of parents talk about how hard the holidays can be.  For us, it was the days leading up to it.  When we have a holiday, or visitors coming, and this year we had both, I create an in depth cleaning list and then pass it around and let the kids initial next to what they want to do.  I use the word "want" very lightly.  I handed it to my oldest, and noticed his upper arm was sliced up.  I simply pulled his sleeve back down and looked at him.  

Earlier that morning, I had gone into the garage to get the extra fridge organized and cleaned out so there would be space for pies and Thanksgiving sides and found a lighter on the arm of a beach chair.  I took it, and hid it.  His little sister then told me she had seen his arm the night before, and that it looked fresh. It looked fresh that morning.  My heart sank.  While I know self harm doesn't just stop, I had kind of hoped it had.  Hiding things constantly gets harder every time because you run out of places to put things.  My drawers now hold all sorts of "unmentionables".  

I called his dad to let him know, as this always brings up the question, is it bad enough to have a 72 hour hold placed on him?  I did not want to do this right before Thanksgiving.  There is always the fear when you put an ED kid in the psych ward, that only the mental issues will be addressed.  Most of those floors are not well versed in handling someone with an eating disorder of some kind.  So if that patient doesn't want to eat, they don't really do anything about it.  Wouldn't it be better to have him home, so I could make certain he eats some delicious calorie laden holiday foods? Food in this situation is medicine.  Feed the body, feed the brain, erratic behavior and the ED voices begin to lose their hold.  

So I pulled him aside and told him to come upstairs so we could talk.  He knew I was aware of the cuts and he knew he had to tell me about it.  I want him to always feel like he can be honest about how he is feeling and how he is handling those feelings.  Even then it is still hard for him to tell the truth.  This was a Monday, the cuts on his arm were very fresh, as in it looked like the blood had barely dried.

When?

His answer was a few days before his dad had last come, which he had just gone back the day before.  I knew instantly this was a lie.  The lighter in the garage, he acknowledged he knew it was on the arm of the chair.  Burning and cutting himself.  Pain caused by pain.  

Why?

He feels like he will never be better.  HE FEELS LIKE HE WILL NEVER BE BETTER.  My son wants help, he wants someone to help him, and it is taking MONTHS to get him into a program, for someone to take us seriously.  So he cuts, because that is a pain he can control.  

I explained that this was honestly enough for me to Baker Act him.  Did he want that? Not yet.  Which to me, means he at least has a little bit of hope left that there is help out there for him.  

Much Love

Messy

 Somehow in the midst of all that is going on, I have become this person I don't really like.  I feel like I constantly need validation that I am handling this well.  Big surprise, I am not.  It has been a very long time since I was the person who needed a shoulder to cry on, someone to hold my hand and listen to my sob story.  Turns out being the strong one that my friends came to for answers was a job I enjoyed.  Now I feel like every time I text someone, its to whine about our problems.  

There are good things happening, my son will hopefully be in treatment soon, which means there is light at the end of this chaotic tunnel.  Two of the positions I sent in my resume to have set up interviews with me this week, which is super exciting.  Being able to work in the field I got my degree in, to be able to make a difference and see some good come out of it, and feel like I am contributing to my family feels really good.  

With all of that, why do I still feel like I need people around who are willing to scrape me up off the floor? I would much rather be the helper and not the help-ee. 

Much Love 

Strong

One of the things I wish people would stop pushing, is how strong the military child/family is.  November is Military Family Month, which means all month long, while they honor military families, they will also be talking about how strong and resilient military families and children are.  You want to know a secret? While we are sometimes, we aren't always.  This proclamation of our strength and ability to handle anything, it promotes this belief that we can handle all of the things, that nothing phases us, that when deployments and times away happen, we carry on.  And we do.  But it comes at a price. 

What doesn't get discussed is the blow our, and our children's mental health can take.  My main squeeze, and my kids Dad, we have been married for 20 years now, came this weekend for a surprise, one last visit before his upcoming deployment.  Part of me wanted to say no, we had already done the goodbyes the weekend before.  Our oldest son, whom is dealing with his ED, and all the mental health issues that come along with it, had broken down at work last weekend, I didn't know if this was a good thing to put him through again.  At the end of the day, we still want to see him, and spend as much time as we can as a family.  

It was a good weekend, of course it was! 24 hours of him home, and spending time with our kids.  Driving our anorexic son to and from work so he could get some extra time with him.  And he got to share his worries, he eats a little more when his dad is around, the dynamic is different.  He loves his dad.  So the more we are pushed and told to be strong and just get through it, the more irritated I get.  

I sobbed last night. I put so many expectations on myself.  To be this perfect parent who can fulfill all the roles, raise excellent people, take care of a house, our finances, and find time to work and fill in all the gaps.  It is A LOT.  So guess what.  I am not strong.  Not all the time.  Some days I am barely holding it together.  I don't think any of us truly are all the time.  

That is ok.  It is ok to fall apart, break down, and collapse under the pressure of everything.  And stay down for a day or two until you can get up again.  

Much Love

Heard

I think any parent in this position, with a child with an ED of any type, worries about being heard.  Will this person, this medical care giver, listen to us, really HEAR what we are saying? A lot of the time the answer is no.  You get shuffled through a system, a number, another blurry face in a long line of people.  You have anxiety, all you need to do is breathe, you're a boy, boys don't have eating disorders.  You're thin now, that's great! Such willpower!  

Today we were heard. In order for the treatment center here to allow him to start next Tuesday, there were lab tests, and an EKG that needed to be done.   I had made an appointment last week for today, and mentioned what it was for, they should have in his file what has been going on.  I haven't been super pleased with the front office staff at the doctors office, and the past two visits haven't really felt like we were listened to.  Turns out third time really is the charm, as is the third doctor! 

When she came in, she thought we were there for a yearly well visit.  Ok, strike 1. the office did not take note of the reason we were coming in, even though I made it clear it was for admittance into an eating disorder treatment center.  As soon as I said, we are here because he has an eating disorder, specifically Anorexia, she wanted all the details, asked the right questions, and immediately had suggestions, referrals, and help.  We talked about his chest pains, around his heart and how it feels when he breathes.  

Cardiac issues are a huge part of Anorexia. One of those is Bradycardia.  This is low heart rate, which can mean different things for each individual.  I have been closely monitoring my son's heart rate, he wears my lovely rose gold Apple Watch daily.  The watch face at the moment is Hello Kitty, super cute! And it makes me smile a little knowing he walks around with Hello Kitty on his wrist.  He has gotten down as low as 43, and the other day while stumbling around a roller skating rink clutching the side, it shot up to 175.  

Again she listened! 

Before they did the EKG, they did the Orthostatic test.  This involves taking blood pressure and heart rate while laying down, having the patient stand up, take it again, and then have them sit and take it a third time.  If there is a big jump, say 20 beats per minute, this can be indicative of something called POTS.  Otherwise known as Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.  Blood flow should be steady whether you are sitting or standing or upside down.  When you have POTS, your blood will stay in your lower body when you stand.  This is common in ED patients because lack of food and low weight, and low heart rate causes the heart to have to work harder and thus slower.  

We also talked about his depression, his self harm, and his suicidal ideations.  She looked directly into his eyes when she spoke to him.  There was encouragement to reach out, that when thoughts of suicide invaded his head, to know he needs to reach out, to treat it like an external force that he needs help fighting.  I feel certain, she made sure he knew he was worth fighting for.  We are fighting for him.  And today we were heard. 

Much love