Good morning @Missmum87
I had a full-on day yesterday, and managed to fall asleep on my way to answering this post ... oops .... but I am here now .... 😊
Thanks for the call-out @utopia .... 💕
I have a hubby lost in the throes of an "alternative" form of an eating disorder, one where he is managing (so far - heading into our 8th year) to dodge the usual markers that would alert a GP ... but I reckon an eating disorders specialist would have him spotted on sight ....
It appears to be a different form of anxiety disorder that has channeled itself into a severe control of diet and exercise that we refer to as The Regimen .... but it's much bigger than that ... his controlling behaviour and the systems he uses to manage that mean he is over-bearing when his systems are crossed, and those systems are invasive and loopy, but not so much to the outside observer .... and one of his e.d. behaviours, currently hidden, is a certain give-away ....
Up-shot of all this is that we are battling, and prone to situational depression, but determined to walk him home, cos out guy is stuck in there somewhere, and to us he's worth fighting for.
As @utopia has described, I have suffered a couple of panic attacks which sent me to the doctor for cardiac assessment .... I'm okay, it was just the supymptoms of the panic attack which were unfamiliar to me at the time. I learned quickly to recognise those symptoms, and as @utopia said, move into my strongest self-care capacity .... cos unfortunately if I go down, we all go down.
I had to come to terms with the fact that while my hubby was in the denial / hostile stage of something called the Stages of Change model .... all we can do is make ourselves as comfortable as possible and wait it out .... or leave.
Here is a link to the Stages of Change model ass applied to an eating disorder, but if you search the net you will find it applied to many, many other circumstances as well -
https://www.eatingdisorders.org.au/getting-help/for-family-friends-and-carers/stages-of-an-eating-disorder
Here is a diagrammatic model -
Pit really helped to see that what we are experiencing is part of a cycle - although ours is a very long one. It means there is an order to what is happening, and we will arrive at a surfacing in his cognition / understanding of what he is caught in, and the need to get on board with seeking help.
🌷💜
