May 31st

Profound title is it not?  Per Vale’s request WalkingThroughWithVale has been deleted.  I apologize if that causes any inconvenience, he just felt he didn’t do enough on the blog and wanted it down for the time being.  Perhaps one day, he’ll pick up a keyboard and start blogging again.

Yesterday is one of the first days that I’ve been able to open my eyes to progress.  I am so thankful to our Heavenly Father for all his gifts, His goodness and His fingerprints all over Vale.

“Hope is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul 
And sings the tune without the words 
And never stops at all.” 
― Emily Dickinson

Fried Chicken Tizzy

Never knew that fried chicken could change your outlook and inspire hope did you?  Vale, out of the blue, told the family that for some reason he was craving fried chicken.  If you know anything about anorexic behavior, you know that they don’t crave *anything*.

Needless to say that the moment the family got home from church, Payne hopped on that computer to find the closest KFC.  A nearly mad scramble was made to obtain these nearly holy grail-esque poultry pieces.

Mom wasn’t home.  She’s in Rhode Island with Grey.

Vale reported… he ate like a boy. ;)

10 things I wish everyone knew about anorexia

by Carrie Arnold, F.E.A.S.T. Science Blogger

1. It’s an illness, not a choice. You don’t have anorexia because you’re a vain control freak on a mega-diet—anorexia is a biologically based mental illness.
2. Food is medicine. You have to eat in order to get well. You don’t have to like this, and eating may make you feel worse at first. That’s okay. Keep eating.
3. Anorexia often brings “friends” in the form of co-existing conditions such as depression and anxiety. Although it makes recovery more complicated, it doesn’t make recovery impossible. Staying healthy means managing both anorexia and any other mental illness you might have.
4. Weight isn’t the measure of how sick you are. Not that weight and health have nothing to do with each other, but you can be very ill with anorexia and be at a “normal” weight. Remember, you can drown just as easily in six inches of water as you can in six feet or six miles.
5. Anorexia is deadly serious. Eating disorders have the highest death rate of any psychiatric illness. The “best” anorexic is the dead one.
6. There is hope for recovery. Many people with anorexia recover and go on to live happy, fulfilling lives…and you can be one of them.
7. You will never be totally “ready” to recover. That’s okay. Most people aren’t- even those who have made a full recovery. Let someone else do the wanting for you until you can take over that job yourself.
8. Keep your recovery in the present tense. By all means, put your illness behind you, but remember to stay vigilant about your recovery. This takes a lot of effort, but eventually it does get easier.
9. There are no shortcuts. Recovering from anorexia means eating and gaining weight and being uncomfortable in your new body and new habits. There is no getting around this, the only thing is to get through it.
10. Anorexia is your illness, not your identity.

Facepalm!

Just letting you have a peek in on a conversation I’m having with one of Vale’s teachers:

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Me [04:31 PM]: Mrs. Health Teacher,
I’m going to do a preemptive strike here… during health, the 3rd Unit on Nutrition.  I’m guessing there are lessons about ED and calories, portion sizes.. am I right?
Mrs. Health Teacher [05:59 PM]: Yes, we do talk about all of that.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Me [12:53 PM]: That’s what I thought.  Could we be proactive and think of an acceptable work around?  Him ‘learning’ about various forms of ED or how portions are so much bigger, or how many calories are in an average McD meal is super unproductive. What could he do instead.  What about him doing a power point on ED that perhaps you could share with your students in the future.  LIke a look at ED from the inside.  Vale is an activist, and this just might be helpful.  What do you think?
 
Mrs. Health Teacher [01:08 PM]: Mrs. Vale’s Mom, what specific information is not helpful? In the lessons we talked about the importance of nutrition, nutrients, how to choose good/bad foods based on labels, how to eat healthy, maintaining a healthy weight, obesity, and fad diets/eating disorders.

Me [03:55 PM]: Well, all of that.  May I ask, what is your experience with people with eating disorders? =)

Ummmmm… where do I even begin with this…

 

Surreal

I’m sitting in a local bookstore waiting to tell a dear family friend that I’m pretty sure her daughter has anorexia.  I don’t know if there is any way to describe how I’m feeling right now.  Let me start at the beginning…

A couple of weeks ago my husband commented that one of his crew people, my friend’s daughter, recently came back from college and looked incredibly thin.  Of course, living the life that we live we always tend to suspect ED.  But knowing that, we try to second guess ourselves from jumping to unwarranted conclusions.  So my husband observed this young woman for a couple of days.  We’re pretty intimately involved with ED so when my husband saw this young woman take a salad (no chicken no dressing) and a water for lunch his suspicions grew worse.  When he saw that said salad was later tossed away half eaten, well, 2 +2 = uh oh.  He related all this to me and I told him I would talk with her.

 

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I invited this young woman out for some coffee and had a little chat.  To say that I sent to the chat a bit apprehensive would not be inaccurate.  What if we were wrong and now we offended this girl?  What if we were right and she lied…I have to say, praise to my merciful God that neither of these scenarios played out that way.  She was very honest.  She’s also in a lot of trouble.  Of course I have no medical degree, so I can’t exactly diagnosis her, but at the very least she has some seriously eating disordered behavior and thoughts.  Knowing the medical criteria for anorexia, however, I strongly suspect she is anorexic.  She no longer has her period, has dropped 40+ pounds, consumes approximately 500 calories a day and fears her hair may be thinning.  I didn’t think to check for lanugo hair, but I did look for a messed up forefinger indicating purging (didn’t really see any indication and she says that she’s not).  And she is so so thin.

Two things have been haunting me since our meeting.  1) I know more than her mother does.  I hate that.  Its far too big a burden for someone else to carry without the parent knowing.  But the young woman asked if I would help her talk to her mom, so I needed to carry on for a couple of days.  And 2) I’m about to turn this family’s world upside down with the news that Eating Disorders have now invaded their lives.  I don’t want to be the one telling them that!  Moreover, I’m not a doctor!  What if I’m completely wrong and way off base?  What if I’m just paranoid because of what our family has been living with?  But I’m not.  At the very least, this beautiful girl has some seriously disordered thinking about food.  *sigh*

Update:  Well I talked with the mom.  The daughter went to the doctor and advised her that it would be okay to go back to college and for her to visit a nutrition.  I find that rather frightening.  The one positive thing is that the mom and I are still friends.  I guess that’s a selfish thing to consider huh?

Vale has grown more and more interested in going out running.  Not a bad idea, it’s a great stress and anxiety reliever.  Lord knows, Vale’s got anxiety and then some.  He talks about going out for an hour run, comes back feeling good.

Vale’s also dropped 10 pounds.  We talk about this particular little tid bit and he doesn’t want to hear it.  I mention that if he keeps running like this without purposeful eating the weight is going to fall off.

Anger

Nasty

Yeah, I’m watching him like a hawk.

A Flashback to July 2011 - part 1 (A warning to ED moms)

I’ve been avoiding doing this for some time.  Why?  Because it’s hard.  Hard for two reasons; I have to go back and recap what happened, and hey, I’m innately lazy and the memories that need to be recapped are hard.  Back when I was keeping a more daily encapsulation of Vale’s recovery, I left everyone at the Ronald McDonald House in Harrisburg where Vale was undergoing Trauma Therapy.  I just stopped.  I stopped recounting what was going on in his circadian life and treatment.  It wasn’t pretty and I really don’t want to think on it, but for continuity’s sake, and for the sake of those who are also walking the road of recovery, I go back there now.  At least I’m going to try.

I did write about how we ended up in Harrisburg.  You can read that post here

The first week down in Harrisburg for treatment at the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute outpatient facility was okay, it was seeming to be profitable.  However I did see one issue creeping up, one that I struggle with Vale all the time: girls.  Okay, I get it.  Vale is a young, handsome, red-blooded, American male.  He’s naturally going to be attracted to young ladies, especially at his age, right?  Well with Vale, nothing is simple.  He doesn’t simply do anything, everything is complicated.  He doesn’t develop simple, cute, age appropriate attractions.  He dives head long into frighteningly dangerous and destructive obsessions with and over girls.

Although Vale was in a psychiatric treatment facility dealing with trauma, there were many young ladies staying in the Ronald McDonald House while attending the local eating disorder clinic, Briarcrest.  These young ladies found Vale to be quite attractive (who wouldn’t) and Vale became quite the novelty since he was the only boy.  And I foolishly, so so foolishly, allowed Vale to socialize with these other young people.  That was the biggest mistake I feel I’ve made with this entire journey.

I’m going to have to split this post up into a couple different parts, because this is getting long and also because I’m really struggling with writing it.  I do want to get this out though before I close this post.  If you are going to put your eating disordered child into a clinic and must stay in a communal place like a Ronald McDonald House, do *not* allow your child to socialize much at all with the other eating disorder patients.  They feed off each other, and it will be so disruptive to your child’s recovery.  Limit their interaction and keep your child busy outside the communal home and away from the day-to-day behaviors of the other patients.  Your child will learn new tricks, new ways to be evasive and techniques to ratchet up the level of their eating disorder.  They take and compare notes, become jealous of one another and the level of control each has and strive to become ‘perfected’ in their eating disorder.  It will wreak havoc on your child and everything you wanted for them.

We learned that the hard way.

**I included a lot of links in this post to aid any other parent looking for resources.  I hope it’s helpful.

Excellent Article on Eating Disorders in Men

Sunday, May 29, 2011  03:15 AM

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Michael Whitehead was 16 when a doctor diagnosed his eating disorder. He now is 18 and still gets care at Nationwide Children's Hospital.
JEFF HINCKLEY | DISPATCH
Michael Whitehead was 16 when a doctor diagnosed his eating disorder. He now is 18 and still gets care at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.


When Michael Whitehead started losing weight almost three years ago, it seemed like a good thing.

“I was overweight and made fun of for most of my life. Relentlessly,” said the Fairfield County teen. “But then I became extremely obsessive.”

He dropped more than 100 pounds in six months. He began to eliminate many foods from his diet, eating almost no fat. At his lowest point, he ate about 700 calories a day and exercised at least three hours.

He felt that he couldn’t stop.

Whitehead was 16 when a doctor diagnosed anorexia. At one point, the 5-foot 9-inch teen had shrunk to 120 pounds.

He now is 18 and a senior at Amanda-Clearcreek High School. He has been through two inpatient-care programs and continues to get care at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. His weight is up to about 180 pounds, and he’s on medication that helps ease the obsessive-compulsive disorder that helped fuel his illness.

Whitehead is troubled by advertising that depicts young men who are impossibly thin and yet still have muscles. Images such as that contribute to the disorder by encouraging people to attain an impossible physique, to seek “perfection,” he said.

And he’s adamant that people, including doctors, should be better at recognizing eating disorders in boys and men. Initially, he said, doctors “were like, ‘Oh yeah, you’re a guy, you can’t have an eating disorder.’

“I think that society really needs to know that this is not just a female problem.”

A population-based study published in 2007 found that men and boys were one-third as likely as women to have anorexia or bulimia and more than half as likely to have a binge-eating disorder.

“I think it’s still viewed as a predominantly female disorder, and I think that’s going to be a hard thing to change,” said Dr. Terry Bravender, chief of adolescent medicine at Children’s.

There are many obstacles, including doctors who don’t recognize it and patients and families who resist getting help, he said. “I’ve seen boys and young men embarrassed to come in because they think they have a girls’ disorder. And I think a lot of times boys have to be really impaired to be identified as having an eating disorder.”

In male patients, problems typically arise a little differently, he said. They often start to eat healthier and exercise more in hopes of building muscle. Then other mental illnesses - including obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and anxiety - lead to development of the disease.

Anorexia and bulimia can lead to osteoporosis, heart problems and, in the most extreme cases, death.

Signs of eating disorders should be taken seriously, and professional help is essential, said Lynn Grefe, president and CEO of the National Eating Disorders Association.

Those involved with someone who is ill should take care not to approach the situation with anger or find fault with the patient or his family, she said.

“It’s not their fault. Nobody is to blame here,” Grefe said. “Blame can really get in the way of treatment.”

She said she has heard more stories about men with eating disorders in recent years and pointed to one study that suggests hospitalizations are increasing faster among males than females.

Recognition of eating disorders in men - preferably earlier on, before serious damage has occurred - must improve, said Grefe, whose organization is working to increase physician education on identification of the disease in both genders.

Laura Hill, CEO of the Center for Balanced Living in Worthington, said there’s work afoot to change the mental-illness diagnostic manual that psychiatrists and others use. She said the manual is skewed toward women. The diagnosis for anorexia, for example, includes criteria based on the patient’s menstrual cycle.

“It’s underdiagnosed,” she said. “You’re looking at other things … and it often only surfaces after you’ve eliminated and ruled out other problems.”

Family and friends play an important role in helping patients get well, Hill said, and their support and understanding go a long way toward recovery.

Whitehead said, “The worst thing you can do is try to make them eat. You need to tell them that you care and that you love them and try to help them get some professional help.”

mcrane@dispatch.com

Spotting trouble

Common signs that a person might have an eating disorder:

• Drastic weight loss

• Preoccupation with counting calories

• Weighing oneself several times a day

• Excessive exercise

• Binge eating or purging

• Food rituals, such as taking tiny bites, skipping food groups or rearranging food on the plate

• Avoiding meals or wanting to eat only when alone

• Taking laxatives or

diuretics

• Smoking to curb appetite

• A persistent view of oneself as fat that worsens despite weight loss



Understanding eating disorders

• As many as 10 million females and 1 million males in the U.S. have anorexia or bulimia. As many as  13 million more struggle with a binge-eating disorder.

• Eating disorders affect people from all walks of life, including young children, middle-age women, men and individuals of all races and ethnicities.

• The peak onset of eating disorders occurs during puberty and the late teen and early adult years, but symptoms can occur as young as kindergarten.

• A recent study of hospitalizations related to eating disorders cites data showing a sharp increase from 1999 to 2006, up 18 percent overall, 24 percent among the elderly, 37 percent among men and 119 percent among children younger than 12 (although that age group accounts for fewer than 5 percent of cases).

• Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.

• For more information or to seek help, go to NationalEatingDisorders.org

or call (800) 931-2237.

Source: National Eating Disorders Association



 

Hey, you don’t have to post this or anything, but I wanted to tell you that I understand what you’re going through, and I nearly envy you. You are so, SO strong and brave for getting help, it’s amazing. Inspirational even.
I also started self-injuring when I was around 14, it may have been 13 I can’t remember too clearly, and I am currently struggling with an eating disorder.
Just remember you’re never alone.. you have amazing support with your family, and not to mention your therapists and everything.
Thank you for sharing with us… it is very impressive
“Hey, you don’t have to post this or anything, but I wanted to tell you that I understand what you’re going through, and I nearly envy you. You are so, SO strong and brave for getting help, it’s amazing. Inspirational even.I also started self-injuring when I was around 14, it may have been 13 I can’t remember too clearly, and I am currently struggling with an eating disorder.Just remember you’re never alone.. you have amazing support with your family, and not to mention your therapists and everything.Thank you for sharing with us… it is very impressive”
A poster to Vale’s tumblr.

Makes our blog have meaning.

Correcting a disservice

I was convicted about a disservice I had done to all our readers.  I talk so much about the anxiety and the strain but so little about the sustaining faith that gets us through it.  That just can’t be.  So over the next few Sundays I’m going to post something about what God is doing in us and through us, even in the midst of all this heart ache.

Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.  He reminds me of the absolute truths of His Word.  These truths are something I cling to like a shipwrecked man hangs onto a rock in the deep.  And honestly, even in the times when my faith is rattled, I know that I can go back to Him, and He’ll grasp my hand and hold it firm.

So many young people read and follow this blog.  Their stories are so difficult, so full of pain and affliction.  I have nothing to offer really, besides the fact that they know that there are others on a similar path, but I wonder in the long run what benefit does that give?  I see in their blogs the number one commonality is loneliness.  Well I want to tell you that there is a God who doesn’t want you to be lonely.  He is a Savior who said, I will never leave you alone, or forget about you.  He says he never slumbers nor sleeps.  He tells us that His arm isn’t so short that He can not reach you, wherever you are.  And most of all, He longs to reason with you.. so that you can be as pure as clean, fallen snow.  Could I take you to Him?  Would you allow me to introduce you?  May I join your weary and heavily burdened hand to His?  It’s a choice you’ll never regret.

Therapy is wonderful.  Medication definitely has it’s place.  But these are all temporal, the only reach so far.  All the therapists and psychologists and therapies and pyschopharmacuticals and alcohol and drugs and sex and cutting and starving and binging and whatever else you do to help with your pain will only reach you on a certain level; whether for good or for not so good.  There is only once source of true help… of true relief.  That’s why we say our God is a very present help in a time of trouble.

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.”  

~Jesus Christ, found in Matthew 18:28-29

Last Friday (the good part)

I didn’t get to post since Friday because the weekend went by pretty quickly.  Vale was able to go to his first equine therapy session and he *loved* it.  We are trying to put in place different therapies that didn’t require talking.  He does have Biblical therapy once every other week (because we have to pay out of pocket for it) which is more of a talking therapy, but besides that he has art therapy twice a week and equine therapy once a week.

From what I gather from Vale, he spent his time with two different horses in an enclosed arena making obstacles and then trying to encourage the horses to go through it.  He worked with two different equine therapists who helped design and build the obstacles and instructed Vale as to what to do.  I believe this all was a trust building exercise.  One of the horses is afraid of water, so they simulated water with a blue tarp and Vale had to encourage the horse to trust him to lead her through the ‘water’.

Whatever went on there left Vale in a terrific and hungry mood.  As we got into our car he said, ‘I’m hungry!’  That’s a first in a long time.  Vale just doesn’t get hungry any more.  We stopped for some fast food and he ate really well.  Kinda twisted when we rejoice over our son eating chicken nuggets, huh?  Shows you where we’re truly at!

But above all of that, Vale really had a ‘break through’ (listen to me borrowing pop psychology).  Vale admitted out loud that he hated himself and blamed himself for his past abuse.  I asked him if he could tell me just one thing that he thought he may have done wrong and he replied that he couldn’t remember telling his abusers, ‘no’.  Of course I reassured him (or tried to) that it didn’t matter.  He was a little boy, and no one has a right for any reason to do to him what they did.  I don’t know how much of my assurance sunk in, but I was so proud of him for being able to admit to himself (and out loud even!) that he blamed himself for the rape.  In the past, Vale would have a very nonchalant attitude about the abuse, like it really didn’t matter to him.  That apathetic attitude will keep him imprisoned.

Vale then went to a youth group meeting with our church and came home very excited about that as well.  He discovered there was someone in the church who is in the profession that he wishes to pursue.  He mentioned how much he enjoyed talking to another one of the adults from the church and even interacted with other young people.  Vale’s brother also reported that Vale had something to eat at the gathering which was great!  Vale also pulled out his communication color cards and laid light blue in my lap which means, “I feel great!”  That was the first time since we started using the cards that he has used that one.

Over all, it really was a terrific, progress making day for Vale.  What a relief!

Out of character.. in the flesh

Today is not a good day.  I’m angry.  At Vale.  He’s been making digging remarks about my weight but today was the worst.  I asked him to set the table for breakfast, I made some nice gingerbread pancakes.  He set me out a meat serving fork instead of a regular fork.  Because I “eat so much, and this way I could shovel it in faster”.

Really.

He thought he was being funny.  This from the boy who couldn’t complete his physically taxing jobs (that he agreed to do.  that he gets paid for) today because he’s too weak and wearies too quickly.

I want to slap him up side the head.  No, I didn’t whisper out loud: Foolish, scrawny, eating disordered, disrespectful punk.

I can’t say any of that.

Not only because it’s sinful to talk that way, and I would be ashamed at myself for being so unkind.  No, a mother shouldn’t ever let herself get in the way of doing right, but that’s not the only reason to watch what I say.  If I were to do so, he would go purge, or cut, or restrict…(and off he goes to the bathroom now.. )

He tried to apologize for what he did, tried to give me the whole, “it was only a joke” excuse.  No, you were being a jerk, Vale.  

Jaw sets

Anger

Walks away

Guess he wasn’t that sorry in the first place?  I’m so angry I don’t even care.  But really why.. because I’m that ashamed of myself.  I’m so ashamed of being this overweight.  Even more so now in contemplating that I may be a daily cause for his ED.  His self destruction is because I wanted a cheeseburger or an extra slice of chocolate cake far too many times?

He just came back from the bathroom… do I even ask?

  • Just stop eating as much ~ Just start eating more
  • Just start exercising ~ Just stop exercising
  • Just start controlling yourself more ~ Just start controlling yourself less
  • Just make better food choices ~ Just stop making so many food choices 

I’m going to sip my coffee (black, no sugar thankyouverymuch) and calm down.  I will not continue in this anger.  It’s wrong.  It’s not in the best interest of my son, who’s needs supersede my own right now.

I found another blog about a boy with eating disorders! Woo hoo!

Link: I found another blog about a boy with eating disorders! Woo hoo!

How anorexia has affected our family and why recovery from anorexia is possible. Our (then) 15 year old son developed anorexia in summer 2009. Following rapid weight loss and personality transformation (typical with anorexia), we got on the waiting list for UK treatment with CAMHS (Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services) which started in March 2010. After a rocky start, by Autumn 2010 our son finally turned a corner. Anorexiaboyrecovery blog is about his recovery from anorexia in 2011.