Do you know what HELL is? It is a black hole inside your mind filled with destruction.

Depression, deceit, despair and desperation. HELL is the not knowing what to do or where to go for help when your child (no matter what age your child may be) collapses from exhaustion. HELL is watching your child slowly deteriorate of starvation to become on the brink of DEATH and desperately wanting to know how you as a parent can help them. HELL is looking into your bathroom bin and seeing something in the shape of a wig (when your child’s hair comes out in clumps. HELL is when you have to take your child to the hospital because of possible lung collapse. HELL is giving your child a kiss at night and kissing nothing else but bone. HELL is looking in on your child at night only to see a skeleton shaped figure under the sheets when you know the trouble they had in turning over throughout the night because of the sheets being too heavy on their frame. HELL is the waiting around the supermarket for an hour so your child can look at every single packet of food for the calories and you loose them and having to shout over the speaker for them to get back to you as you’ve waited long enough. HELL is when you know that they are telling you lies and are deceiving you. HELL is the watching them struggle to get out of the car because their head feels dizzy and cannot balance themselves. HELL is the stepping back and letting someone care for your child when everything that you as a parent have done and NOTHING has worked. This is HELL. This is ANOREXIA NERVOSA. HELL in this case is a parent that is living with their child with the life threatening illnessand this is me. This is the true feelings, fears, and other emotions that were involved in the beginning of the downward spiral circle of destruction. I hold no punches I have told it how it has been and how it is personally for me to this present day. 

This is my own story for parents everywhere that has a child with anorexia, by Jane Wilde.

I first ‘suspected’ something was wrong in April 2003. All I can say was that I had a ‘gut’ feeling. We as a family had just got back off holiday in May 2003 and things didn’t seem to feel right. I noticed my daughter hide food in her trouser pocket I just knew something wasn't right, but at that stage I didn’t know what. In the June of 2003 I took her to the doctors and I said to him that her periods had stopped he took one look at her and said ‘I know what is wrong with her’ somehow I just ‘knew’. I said to him don’t tell me ‘THAT’ word (meaning anorexia). Everyday that followed I cried not just tearful, but from the pit of my stomach it got to the stage where I became scared because this was not me feeling like this, but I couldn't help it. One day in the town I had to stop the car I said to my daughter I can’t go on I don't know what’s happening, happening to her, to myself and to our family now this had emerged. I was SCARED. It was the not knowing that scared me. Most mornings I would get up and wonder what day it was. When I look back at photographs I didn’t realise that I had lost weight too and some of my hair through sheer stress and exhaustion trying my utmost best to make my child better again because you know loosing weight is something you cannot see yourself unless you are trying to loose it on purpose. I think I’ve described my initial feelings well enough and I’m sure you get the picture. For those parents who have a child with anorexia this story will have meaning and you will know what I am talking about because you live with it daily just a I still do, but for those parents who thankfully have escaped this HELL I hope you will take it on board what I have said because anorexia has no respect for anyone no matter what age, race, creed or gender it can and will destroy the life of the sufferer and the family as a whole if it is allowed to do so. Life now is easier it has become a part of my life my daughter has been in hospital five times now and is still in I don’t know what will happen or how life for this family with this illness will work out, but there is ALWAYS hope and that is what we ALL have. Parents DON’T hide away from it you have nothing to feel ashamed of I know I hid away and now I am here to make a stand to fit back and help all those that need help whether it be the sufferer or you the parent. You can’t help your child if you don’t what to do or don't know anything about it. Can you?