It begins again...

 So my eldest daughter has anorexia.

It started when she was 12

She's now 16 and has started to relapse for the third time

I don't think I can make it

The pain, anxiety and fear are unbearable

The mental health system, everywhere, is overwhelmed. Her life literally needs to hang in the balance to get admitted to the clinic

Getting heart scans to determine to what extent your daughter is at risk of a heart attack, because she has starved her body of food to 'control' her stress is a level of anguish I can't describe

Watching her eat less and less, watching the skin slowly stretch over her bones, skin recede into visible eyesockets, teeth poke out from a malnourished face all this is pain on an unimaginable scale for a parent...I do this every day, three times a day at meals, where I can think of nothing else...

I am 'preparing' myself for this process for the third time in 4 years...

By preparing myself, what I really mean is trying - and mostly failing - not to be consumed by a pit of despair. 

The level of will power required not to just scream in absolute frustration at your powerlessness to help the child you love, because it is literally your only job in life with any meaning, and you are powerless, ineffective, failing...

I was half an ounce of will power off it just last night, I was mildly assaulting the desk with a pair of scissors, and only just managed not to try to smash them to pieces while jumping up and down screaming - as the kids cheerfully brushed their teeth.

As a number of doctors have told me, this would not have helped, I understand the truth of this - in the abstract. 

This is the essential cruelty of having a child with anorexia, it will drive you mad, bring you to your knees, break you over and over again in small moments and big ones, but you have to try to retain some sense of control.

Cause if you crack completely, it will just make things worse for your child...

I don't think I can survive this time...

Many people tell me I am strong, that I can do this, that I have to do this for her...

They are right of course, but I don't believe them on the first bit anymore, I'm scared this time may break me - for good. 

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