I am so proud of my son! At 28-years old, he's been working tooth and nail at an MSc in Psychology with the goal of using his own experiences with mental health (eating disorders in particular) to help others. What could be better? As his mum, I am 1000% behind him in his passion for psychology and am floating on air. Back in the days... months... years of his terrible eating disorder (anorexia), I could never have dreamed that he'd end up so passionate and knowledgeable about mental health issues and use his experiences to go on to help others. Just... WOW!!! Anyway, we need YOUR help... As p ..read more

If anything good has come out of the Covid pandemic, it's that lockdowns, pressure on NHS staff, etc has raised the profile of mental health issues. Increasingly, celebrities and people in the media are 'coming clean' about their own struggles with mental health. Unlike when my son began to develop the deadly eating disorder, anorexia, in 2009, there is much, much less of a stigma attached to mental health struggles. It seems completely bonkers that, back in 2009, I felt pressurised to keep my son's emerging eating disorder as a secret to avoid being blamed as a 'bad mother' i.e. the cause of ..read more

 I struggled for a long time with Chronic or Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) as a result of the horror, trauma and stress of battling to get my son through his eating disorder (anorexia). For what seems like years I was unable to face anything to do with eating disorders and that included writing this blog and talking to the media about the issue of eating disorders in boys / males. It was just too triggering. Thanks to some wonderful therapy, I am now at the stage where I feel I can face the world of eating disorders again without it triggering me too much. I'm taking it ..read more

Things have changed enormously over the past couple of years, and not because of the covid pandemic; it's better news than that. I'm trying to remember where I left off in Ben's story, so here's a quick recap for those who want to know how Ben is getting along these days. Ben completed his primary school teacher training PGCE in 2020, the latter half of the course hindered by the emergence of Covid restrictions. After a lot of thought he decided that, for now, teaching isn't for him. Not because he didn't enjoy teaching and certainly not because he was bad at teaching - he received some fantas ..read more

I've had a tricky 7 months since my last post. My son is fine, going from strength to strength, whereas my own mental health and PTSD has been going in the other direction and I've found it impossible to write about or face anything to do with eating disorders. I have also been referred for more therapy in an attempt to get my head sorted out and get rid of the effects of the years of trauma. In the meantime, I have started a companion blog. I've been meaning to do it for some time, but - like so many things at the moment - have found it too overwhelming. So I'm starting small, in bite size ch ..read more

Over the last month or so I've found it impossible to even so much as glance at anything to do with eating disorders let alone do anything useful and worthwhile. I even had to make my excuses to the January meeting of the Men Get Eating Disorders Too charity at which I am a Trustee. I seriously couldn't face anything to do with eating disorders. Nothing. Zilch. Zero. So that's why I've been keeping a bit (or a lot) of a low profile for the past few weeks. I'm also seeing my therapist, Steve, again to try and tidy up the loose ends of the Chronic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) althou ..read more

In the summer of 1993 I remember walking along the South-West coastal path in South Devon. I was six months pregnant and my emotions were all over the place. I remember sitting down on a bench overlooking the sea and bursting out into tears. The reason? Because the sheer responsibilities of impending motherhood had just hit me like a ton of bricks. Did I have what it would take to be a good or even reasonably good mother to the son or daughter inside me? Even an average mother? The sheer enormity of the task I was about to undertake suddenly seamed impossible. With my hormones all over the pla ..read more