My daughter was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa in January 2021. She started restricting early in 2020 but we thought she was just trying to eat healthily by cutting out chocolate and snacks. The restricting slowly increased over the next 10 months, and by April 2021 she was taken out of school because she was at risk of her heart and other organs not functioning properly due to her body being in a starved state. In May 2021 she was admitted to general hospital for medical stabilisation. 

Her condition deteriorated quickly and she was transferred to a specialist eating disorder hospital in August 2021. She has been an in patient since then and for the majority of her time in hospital she has been tube fed. She has recently  been encouraged to have an oral diet and is finding this extremely difficult. 

My daughter has strong eating disorder thoughts and behaviours. She suffers with extreme anxiety, particularly around food and states that she does not want to recover. 

Anorexia is a serious mental health condition and recovery is a very long and difficult journey,  not only for the sufferer but for their family too. The specialist ED services available in the 5 months from diagnosis to hospital admission were  inadequate. We commenced family therapy of just 1 hour per week over zoom in the April (3 months after diagnosis). This was the only formal support and intervention we recieved from eating disorder services. Of course, Beat were an invaluable source of information and support, and luckily our GP practice was supportive and responsive (many others are not as lucky with their GP), but they are not experts. 

By this time the eating disorder had already taken full control of my daughter; we were struggling to cope and unable to manage the eating disorder thoughts at home, despite our best efforts. Fighting the eating disorder as parents is like trying to destroy an evil monster that we cant see or hear, and have no idea what its next move is! But this evil thing destroying our daughter is the only thing that she can hear and she believes everything it's telling her! Because of the brain being in a starved state, any attempt to rationalise things for her was an impossible task. 

Once admitted to hospital, initially to medically stabilise her, but then to tube feed her, we had a 12 week wait before a place was available in a specialist unit. Whilst the staff on the children's ward did their best, they did not have any training or knowledge on how to support people with an eating disorder. 

I believe that if more services and support were available for people with eating disorders, and if staff in acute hospitals received adequate training on these conditions, my daughter would be much further along the road to recovery by now. 

Eating disorders are a taboo subject and anorexia has the highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses. Unless you have lived experience it is difficult to explain the devastating impact they have, and unfortunately many people do not fully understand how they affect the sufferer and their families. It's important to get rid of the stigma attached to  eating disorders, talk openly about them and raise awareness.  

My daughter is aware I am doing this challenge. She is ashamed of her illness because it is a mental health condition, so I wanted to show her that it is nothing to be ashamed of. She didn't choose to have anorexia. Fighting this illness is one of the hardest things anyone can go through, and I know she will beat it. Shes strong and courageous and she amazes me everyday. 

I want to help Beat in their campaign for more training, more support and increased understanding of these devastating illnesses across society and health services.