When you embark on the path to creating a family, your mind is filled with visions of giggles, laughter, food fights, night time snuggles and day time naps. You know there will be times where things are not rosy. That is to be expected.
The last thing you expect, though, is to be thrown into a life or death battle with the very devil, who is residing in the very soul of your young child. The thought never enters your head that you will be kicked, scratched, bit, cut to the bone when it's time to eat. Or that your even younger children will be there watching. That even your health, as the caregiver, is affected.
We've been struggling a lot with some very big emotions from the very youngest of us. Emotions that she doesn't know what to do with. Emotions that are made even stronger because her whole world changed overnight. Suddenly, everyone is home all the time. No parks. No friends. No school. And no reprieve from the very real toxicity that fills a home when your child has an eating disorder.
Eating disorders are toxic. They are a slow, sneaky poison that sneaks in and slowly sinks its claws into not only your sick child, but every member of your household.
I worry about my very quiet, intelligent boy, who somehow seems entirely unaffected by the chaos around him. I know he must be, somewhere deep inside, but he doesn't show it. It comes out sometimes, in innocent phrases. Like the simple statement how she's "just afraid of getting fat." Or "just doesn't like to eat." He knows something is not right. But he's not talking about it.
Eating disorders are toxic. They are seeping further and further into my head to where the shear exhaustion of thinking about what to have for dinner puts me in full on avoidance mode. I am trapped, alone in my head with no way out.
There is this song that has been running through my head for a while now. It puts into words the things I can't say. But they are 100% true.
Shawn Mendes - In My Blood
Help me, it's like the walls are caving in
Sometimes I feel like giving up
But I just can't
It isn't in my blood
Sometimes I feel like giving up. But I can't. It isn't in my blood. No, in my blood is a fighting spirit so fierce it takes me by surprise sometimes. No matter how many times I get back up, one thing never fails. I get back up. You can't keep me down. I got back up from the miscarriages. I got back up from the NICU. Twice. I got back up and got my daughter's tonsils removed despite the brick wall in my face who refused to see outside their own pre-judgment.
Someone help me
I'm crawling in my skin
Sometimes I feel like giving up
But I just can't.
I'm very worried about the future. I know you shouldn't be. It's not here yet. An inordinate amount of things could happen between now and then that will entirely shift course to a completely different destination. I know this from experience. But how do you stop poison?
Sometimes I feel like giving up
But I just can't.
It isn't in my blood
It isn't in my blood
It isn't in my blood
