Hope?

 Lets call this one The Hope Post! We don't always know when hope is right around the corner.  Things can look bleak at best, as it did for us at the beginning of this week.   But things are good.  Treatment is going well, and I am so proud of my son for doing this.  It is incredibly hard I can't go see him, but they have a no visitors policy in place due to a certain illness.  The 10 minute daily phone calls however, totally make my day.

He seems to be doing well, the food isn't the best, I got a very strong "EH" when I asked about it, and he misses my cooking.  I know they are giving him Ensure to drink, which is fairly typical for someone with an ED to make certain they get at least some of the nutrition they need.  As long as things continue to go well, he should be able to come home on Monday.  His psychiatrist has put him on Prozac and has already upped the dosage because he was doing so well on the initial dose.  From here I would imagine a team will be put together to work on the AN and his mental health issues.  Monday should be interesting to say the least.  He did ask what was for dinner that night, and since it is Valentines Day, it will most likely be dinner out.  Something fun to plan for.  But also something to potentially worry about.  

This feels like the first steps on a long road to recovery.  I would love to say this will be the one and only time we find ourselves in this situation.  It would be delusional of me though to think we couldn't end up here again.  For my S18AN, the cutting seems to be triggered by hopelessness. When he feels things are not getting better, when he feels like the support from the professionals is deeply missing, he cuts.  Usually superficially. That isn't always the case, nor will it always be the case.  I am hoping (there is that word hope again) they are helping him find other means of coping with this desire to self harm. I have read several ways to do this.  Rubber bands to snap, taping up the tools they use so when they feel the need they have to take the time to get the tape off, and then usually by the time they do, they don't want to, or need to.  I am  not sure this would work properly as he has taken to dismantling razors he uses to shave with to get the blade to cut.  Talk about patience.  

In spite of all of that, all the unknowns, I have hope.  And that is what I am going to focus on for now.

Much love 

Help Wanted

 I had to do one of the hardest things in my life late Sunday night.  I had to take my S18AN into the ER and Baker Act him.  If you are unfamiliar with that term, it means to put someone under a 72 hour psychiatric hold.  72 hours at the very least.  I thought we were doing well.  I thought he was eating enough, I watched him eat.  Sunday night, around 11:45pm, he came in and woke me up, to show me he had been cutting again.  He hasn't in quite a while, he has been happy, working, FaceTiming his girlfriend, and eating pizza and burritos.  

This time he had not only cut on his upper bicep, but had cut down closer to his wrist.  Deep cuts.  Deep enough I felt that they needed some attention.  Going into the ER, with self-harm, immediately means they will Baker Act the patient.  I asked him why, and he told me he wasn't getting any better.  He hadn't eaten anything on Sunday.  He weighs 121 pounds.  This was a cry for help.  This was my son desperate for someone to see him, and finally help him.  

We spent the night in a bed in the ER, the staff was kind, but we saw very little of them.  The ER we went to, doesn't have a psychiatric floor.  Maybe that was the reason, but no one came in to bandage his arm.  I watched his blood pressure every time it was automatically taken, he was hypotensive, meaning he had low blood pressure.  I watched his heart rate drop low enough to set off the alarm on the monitor, no one came to do anything about it.  Not sure if there was anything that could be done though.  

The next morning, we were told he would be taken by ambulance at 9:30 to a treatment facility up in Stuart, Florida.  And that I couldn't go with him.  The hospital staff promised someone would call me and update me on what was going on.  So I ran home, so I could bring him contact lens solution, his case, his glasses. I brought him some clothes to change into and then kissed and hugged him goodbye.

It's now Tuesday afternoon.  I called the treatment facility at 10am.  The front desk person could not give me any information because I didn't have a 4 digit code.  How on earth would I have a code, when no one is calling me to tell me anything.  I left my name and number for the Nurses Desk to call me.  So I wait.  

This is hard, and it hurts.  I am worried, I know he is in a good place to begin to get the help he so desperately needs.  I just want to know what the treatment plan is, will he be staying past the initial 72 hours? Are they putting together a team to cover all of his bases? Is there going to be medication prescribed? I want them to make sure he is eating.  Eating heals the brain, what if they don't cover that? 

I am trying to trust that this is the beginning of healing.  

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