top of page
Search

The impact on the family

Writer's picture: Amy HanleyAmy Hanley

One thing that I don't think is well understood is the impact an eating disorder has on the entire family unit. Without having gone through this myself, I would not have understood either.


In the early days of my daughter's hospitalisation, her dad and I were taking turns spending every other night in the hospital with her for a month. We had no idea about "Specials" (Health Care Assistants, or HCAs) at the time. This was our first hospital experience, we did not expect it to last that long, and we had no idea that we could even ask for one. A Special is someone who stays with the young person when a parent or caregiver cannot.


This resulted in me taking a month off work, spending a lot of money on tolls and hospital parking, and not being able to spend much, or really any, time with my oldest daughter. I was unable to care for my dog since I was gone so often, so my in-laws agreed to take him temporarily until things settled down. This also meant a month of no exercise, and eating very irregularly.


When she was transferred to the inpatient unit, life got a bit easier. I could go back to work because visiting hours were restricted, and there were only certain hours I could be at the unit. I still spent a lot of time driving back and forth, where the journey could take 35 minutes or two hours, depending on traffic (don't even get me started on the M50!)


The brief periods of time that my daughter was home from hospital (roughly 3 weeks in the past year), the entire day revolved around food. She had a strict meal plan with time limits, 6 times a day. We had to plan shopping and other activities carefully so we would not be late for a meal, as it messed up the entire schedule. Her and I were both quite frustrated about this, and we felt like we could not do normal things when the entire day felt like we were prepping, eating, or thinking about food.


When she ended up back in children's hospital again, I took 3 months off work this time, to spend every other day with her, and because all of this had taken a huge toll on my mental health, leading to severe stress and depression. We were now made aware about Specials, so we did not have to spend the night in the hospital anymore, which was a huge relief.


Since I had missed so much work, my salary went down to half pay after 3 months, which was hard on a single salary. I have been lucky to get things like tax refunds exactly when I needed them.


Now in our current situation, every time my daughter is transferred from the inpatient to A&E, either myself or her dad meets her there, and then once admitted the nurse from the inpatient unit returns to work.


I am an introvert, and used to find comfort being at home. But since I am not home often, the house rarely gets cleaned and it's turned into a place of chaos rather than comfort. I splurged once on a 5-hour cleaning, and it was the best thing I'd done in a long time.


I used to take long walks 3 days a week, but no longer have the time or the energy. My memory and concentration have gotten so poor from being in survival mode for so long, that I cannot even focus to read a book. The only way I learned to cope with the stress of this situation was to literally take each day, each hour at a time. It is extremely difficult to plan ahead.


The toll on my oldest daughter, who is 17, also cannot be understated. Her and her sister are really close, and it is hard with her gone. She watches her sister get a lot of presents from being in hospital and get a lot of attention. When people talk to her, they ask her how her sister is doing, not how she is doing. People forget she is a person who struggles with all this as well. We get tired of constantly updating people on how my daughter is doing in hospital. In some cases I just find myself saying, "She's not well, and that's why she's in hospital." My oldest daughter tends to ignore the texts and emails because it is tiring.


I do not always see her a lot, and can't often spend quality time with her. I constantly feel like I am being torn in two, and the guilt is hard sometimes.


My ex and I separated over a year ago now. This has made the family dynamics difficult, which adds more stress to an already stressful situation. All the household, pets, and child responsibilities fall to me, on top of trying to work full-time and go to hospital whenever I can.


The small bits of free time I do find for self-care often end up being filled with mindless things like video games, because I am exhausted and the focus is not there to do anything more productive. I travelled a lot in the past year, and that was exactly what I needed to get some rest away from the hospitals, house, and pets. The days of having a long, relaxing walk down to the beach are few and far between now, but the days I do have for self-care I cherish.

33 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page