Reddit reviews Brave Girl Eating: A Family's Struggle with Anorexia

I'm the father of a 15 year old daughter who has been in AN treatment since she was 9. She's been in individual therapy, iop, partial, residential, and inpatient through a program where I live (not Emily program). It can indeed feel overwhelming. Personally, I found the the most important things to remember were:

1. She's still your daughter. Love her, no matter what
   
   
2. Your daughter is ill. She is not just being stubborn, or rebellious. She needs help.
   
   
3. Her care team has a lot of experience with this. Work with them. Don't be afraid to ask questions.
   
   
4. Look for, and cherish all improvements, no matter how small.
   
   
5. Take care of yourself. It's not a sign of weakness if you need help getting through this yourself
   
   
6. It's not your fault she has an eating disorder
   
   You don't mention which ED she has. These are a couple of books I really liked. Obviously AN-oriented.
   
   Brave Girl Eating: A Family's Struggle with Anorexia - by Harriet Brown
   
   Decoding Anorexa - How Breakthroughs in Science Offer Hope for Eating Disorders by Carrie Arnold
   
   The folks at Emily Program can recommend others. Learn as much as you can.
   
   
   Never give up hope.
   
   
   Feel free to pm me

Thanks for the kind words.

I would heartily reccomend that you educate yourself on metabolic damage.

The best source I've found on this, bar none, has been Matt Stone from 180degree health.

I was on board with you the first couple of times we went through recovery. Up those calories slowly and let your body acclimate.

The problem is that your body won't fix metabolic damage like that.

Here are a couple of articles that you will, undoubtedly find difficult, but have been instrumental in helping my wife overcome her ED:

I need how many calories ?!?!?

and

MinnieMaue guide to recovery

Additionally, the #1 thing you can do is find support. Your chances of successful recovery without significant repalse are over 1000% better (not made up) with stable support. I understand that it's terribly frightening and difficult to talk with friends or family about this, but you really could use someone in your corner. Someone who can help you differentiate between the times the ED is talking to you and when you're actually talking to yourself.

I'm that for my wife and I can tell you that I really didn't truly understand or appreciate what she was going through until I read Brave Girl Eating by harriet brown. I understand you're a university student and money may be tight, so if you want a copy and can't afford one, PM me and my wife and I will be happy to send you a copy :)

I'm not going to post how many calories my wife had to consume publically because I think she frequents this sub (and I'm not going to post what she eats NOW, after reversing metabolic damage), but feel free to PM me for details about her recovery process, what we went through, pitfalls we experienced, and anything else you'd like to know.

*edit:

Also, the single best thing you can do for yourself today is to throw away your scales. Any and all of them, body weight scale, food scale, the works. There is nothing that is so destructively triggering as someone with an ED looking at numbers on a scale. Remember, those numbers are meaningless. If they made a scale that read "Healthy" instead of having 3 digits, I'd be all for it. But until then, chuck them!