Comes up frequently among parents of eating disorder patients: we work like crazy to get things to a better place and then just when things are on an upswing instead of feeling better we feel worse. MUCH worse. Broken.
I felt this deeply. Like something was permanently broken, irretrievable, and I envisioned the future as filled with loss and worry. I hear parents talk about this a lot and now I see it as a natural stage of family recovery. We are built to do the heroic work of parenting in a crisis and we save the pain for later - oh, what pain. It helps to have role models during this completely natural falling apart after the most brutal parts of caregiving. We have to keep our strength, and keep our focus, because ED may have abated but he's going to take advantage and come back if we allow ourselves to be so permanently damaged and therefore unwilling to stay the course ALL the way and when needed.
My role models? The parents on the ATDT forum, who so movingly describe that collapse after crisis and then the repair: I thought I would feel better.
Are you falling apart even though things are better? You are not alone, and it will get better!!
I felt this deeply. Like something was permanently broken, irretrievable, and I envisioned the future as filled with loss and worry. I hear parents talk about this a lot and now I see it as a natural stage of family recovery. We are built to do the heroic work of parenting in a crisis and we save the pain for later - oh, what pain. It helps to have role models during this completely natural falling apart after the most brutal parts of caregiving. We have to keep our strength, and keep our focus, because ED may have abated but he's going to take advantage and come back if we allow ourselves to be so permanently damaged and therefore unwilling to stay the course ALL the way and when needed.
My role models? The parents on the ATDT forum, who so movingly describe that collapse after crisis and then the repair: I thought I would feel better.
Are you falling apart even though things are better? You are not alone, and it will get better!!