MumOfAnAnorexicSenior Contributor
I'm not sure how much I should intervene (anorexia related)
Hi everyone.
My son has anorexia. He's 22 years old and I've been trying my best to take a step back but I just worry about him too much. I really struggle to let him make his own choices when I know it's making him sick. Recently he's got really bad. He's eating is not sustainable. He looks very unwell and pale and he can't stand up for long periods of time without feeling faint.
It's hard to find a balance without being controlling. Obviously I try to encourage him to eat different foods but he sometimes gets angry at me if I push him too hard. For some reason he accepts food more when he's just been feeling faint. He says he feels most comfortable eating high protein foods and liquid supplements. Unfortunately he's also scared of fat so he's limited to certain lean foods. I try to make those foods available because I'd rather he ate them than nothing at all. I also buy meal replacement drinks. It's the easiest way to get him to have enough food.
Deep down he knows he has a problem. He's seeing a psychologist but he mostly just talks about other things with her. He thinks he's not sick enough to get proper help but to me it's obvious that he's very sick, both physically and mentally. Once he threatened to do something very harmful to himself in relation to eating. Luckily I talked him out of it but I actually think that if I took him to a hospital they'd accept him, even just for his mental state.
I've thought about trying to force him into hospital because I believe he needs some intensive treatment. I've considered either just taking him to the emergency room or getting a doctor to come to the house and assess him but it would kind of feel like a betrayal of his trust. According to him he's not sick enough until he's almost dead.
I've also been questioning my parenting style. People say that I spoil him a lot which is probably true and I think I've got worse since he got sick. When he feels faint I get him to stay laid down and I sometimes put a movie on for us to watch together in the meantime. He also gets very cold so I make him hot water bottles and cups of tea. I've recently realised that he might be associating being sick with getting this positive attention.
I'm probably doing a lot of things wrong so I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice about how much I should be intervening. Would it be wrong for me to try to force him into hospital? And do I spoil him too much?
