If you haven’t read any of my earlier blogs you may not know that I have two amazing girls ages 14 and nearly 17.

We’ve had an interesting few years which I think, have contributed to many of the stresses and issues that we have faced; sometimes together and often in our own individual way. I’m confident in saying that our individual stress buckets have, at times, been very full.

Our saving grace has been my work. Not because I always practice what I preach (in fact I’ll let you into a secret; I’m not very good at putting it into practice much of the time. I’m a Mum and this tends to override many things) but because we all have an understanding of how our brains’ can often hijack our thinking and behaviours when we are facing a perceived crisis or problem. This has been highlighted over the past years in my eldest’s battle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (or ME) which in turn led to orthorexia. (A subject that I have written honestly about before). I can speak from experience when I say that when a child has an eating problem the whole family is affected. It’s hard. It’s mentally exhausting as a parent (and sibling) and you often feel completely out of control whilst being aware that you are being controlled by them (unintentionally). You spend some time hypothesising the worst case scenario; in this case death through starvation , which is unbearable,  coupled with looking back at the past and feeling enormous guilt for the reasons that you attribute to causing it! I know; I’ve done it over and over and over….

But, when you re able to step away and see things for what they are you realise that in fact the only thing you can do is do what you can do now, in this moment. What’s happened in the past may well have had some bearing, in nearly all cases that I have seen, our own included, it often starts when the

“bucket“ is too full. As you will see if you follow the “bucket” links the fuller your bucket the less intellectual control you have and you become governed by the thinking and actions of your primitive survival brain.

The root cause of many eating disorders is often unknown but we can safely assume that it stems (in many cases) from a need to regain a feeling of control.

A brain that faces uncertainty or feels unsafe will respond in the same way. The activation of our lymbic system (survival) dictates certain behaviours. In addition to anxiety, anger and depression (flight, fight & freeze) the brain looks for past patterns of behaviours that it associated with our survival; obsession and need for control being one of them.

The parts responsible for our survival have no intellectual capabilities; referring to past patterns of behaviours that it associated with our problems. The more we focus on the problem the bigger it tends to get. If what we did last time ensured our survival we will be encouraged to do the same again.

Controlling and withholding food, purging, and selecting only foods deemed healthy are often behaviours that start with a conscious intention (loose weight often being the reason; to be healthier another) but which at some point switch to a controlling behaviour that the person no longer can rationally control.

We also have to consider that when a body is in a state of perceived crisis the brain will dictate certain behaviours that affect the gut and our eating behaviours. Let’s consider that we ran into a polar bear, a very scary polar bear; the brain would impair intellectual control (it would not want you to think about whether the bear had eaten and was full) and the primitive “survival” brain would take over; raising your anxiety levels preparing you to run away as fast as you could to survive. In doing so it would elevate your heart rate, increase adrenalin and often make you sick or need to go to the loo and in some cases restrict your throat. Knowing that you can run faster with an empty tummy. So this is why some people find that they stop eating when they are stressed. This in turn then becomes a learned behaviour that the primitive brain associates with crisis and the person gets stuck; when they get stressed they stop eating and then this in turn creates more stress, so they remain stuck in a self feeding spiral of stress dictating more of the same abstention.

We can then find that as the brain re sets when the crisis is over and starts flooding the body with cortisol we are encouraged to reach for the sweet and fatty foods that it craves. The Metabolism is slowed and the two hormones associated with eating stop being produced effectively; leptin (a protein produced in our fat cells that regulates our appetite and fat storage, telling you to stop eating) and ghrelin (which signals to your brain to eat). The primitive response thinks that because you survived the crisis you now need to be prepared for it to happen again.

It was October 2019 when I first noticed that we had a problem ( I often ask myself why I hadn’t seen the signs earlier, and remind myself that it doesn’t matter) and since then we have fought “Damien” (our name for it) and Won! You will see in earlier blogs that it has had a tremendous effect on our lives but obviously most of all my daughter’s. It has stopped her from being able to do the things that a teenager should be doing (Dare I say it but I think Lockdown has helped us to beat it; removing many of the external expectations and pressures that were supporting the negative behaviours), she withdrew from society from the embarrassment that she had allowed “this” to happen. At times, she has little or no energy (starvation or CFS?), becomes obsessed with exercise, and scares following ECGs that her heart was failing… you name it. As a parent I know I have not always made the right call (when do we ever?). But, I feel very strongly that our success has been due to our ability to work with the problem through nurture and understanding rather than fighting it head-on (which is extremely tempting to do).

We went to CAHMS, dieticians, nutritionists and eating psychologists… you name it in the early days; (and as I say we were not so bad that we needed medical intervention thankfully) I wanted to be “Mum” and not therapist so was desperately trying to find the help that we needed elsewhere.

However, the turning point came when we stepped away from the problem and my daughter realised that she could win. It was her determination to succeed that got her into the mess and it was her determination that saved her.

I am relieved that she has now hit a healthy weight for her (we know this because her periods have returned and she looks well) but there are still things that we are working on. She still feels the needs to weigh and log certain foods but this is decreasing daily, and you could argue that this has been essential in her fight to eat more. She also worked with one of my colleagues several months ago to “ditch” the controls very successfully and I am grateful to him for his help. I know that the way that we work as Solution Focused therapists can really help but I also am Mum, and have to accept that I can not “therapy” my children (unless they want me to, which they don’t)  The way that we work helps you to regain clarity of thought and control through optimising your intellectual control and calming your lymbic, primitive brain.

Thank you James https://theliberatedmind.co.uk for helping both my girls to move forward. I am forever grateful to you.

Thank you for reading. I really hope that I can offer hope to those who are struggling. If you are a parent and would like  a chat please do get in touch. I know from previous blogs that I have written that i am not alone and I am grateful to those who have kindly reached out and shared heat stories with me too.

We are definitely stronger together.

Holly x

Note: Eating disorders that result in food withholding and starvation must always seek medical help in the first instance. I believe that we were very lucky to “get hold’ of this when we did but CAHMS and the eating disorder clinics do know what they are doing and can offer the medical intervention that is unfortunately often needed. Feeding the brain enough food has to be the priority. As you will have read, if the brain thinks it’s in crisis due to calorie deficiency it will shift to primitive behaviour. So feeding the brain and body has to be the priority at all costs.