A Thought for Christmas

With the Christmas festivities out of the way and during the lovely, restful hiatus between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve, Ethan is always in my thoughts but at this time of year my thoughts have wandered to a previous Christmas where I noticed that Ethan had started to lose weight.

Ethan had always been snake hip thin as a child, still wearing age 5-6 shorts when he was 9-10. He couldn’t wear 5-6 trousers, he was too tall, but due to his slim build he could carry wearing some of his favourite clothes throughout his childhood years.  Ethan always loved his clothes and fashion – he loved coming out with me to the shops, unlike many others of his age (including his siblings), and looking for something new to wear.  He had his own style, loved a pair of Blundstone boots teamed with skinny jeans, a leather jacket and some Aviators at the age of 7. 

So, when he started to put on weight during puberty, as many teenagers do, I think it came as quite a shock to him.  Ethan went from a very active child - even playing console games, he was constantly up on his toes, dancing around as he zapped the aliens, sling-shotting an unfortunate human in PAIN or playing with Sackboy in LittleBigPlanet – to an adolescent who retreated into himself, stayed in his room, never went out with us as a family.

Of course, this only exacerbated his weight issue, as he became more sedentary in his room and probably started comfort eating.  He had always been a picky eater as a child, having been born 3 months premature I was always pleased when he ate something, he would eat one favourite food for days at a time - steak was a firm favourite, cucumber another, chorizo, milk to drink.  One day he had an apple juice and really liked it, so I bought him more of that – something that I thought was a healthy drink for him to have, but of course it is full of fruit sugar so water would have been so much better.

When I collected Ethan from school, I always brought him a snack to have in the car – we have never been a cake and biscuits family preferring savoury foods – but I would offer some fresh fruit, probably crisps, a carton of fruit juice – as I always worried that the packed lunch was not being eaten.

The weight gain was gradual, not excessive.  We had seen it before with his brother and sister, years before, during adolescence, and after an active summer the weight always dropped off – what used to be called “puppy fat” and something that came with adolescence for some – only Ethan didn’t see it like that.

Anyway, one Christmas, Ethan started to lose weight and coming out for family walks again.  Great! I thought – he’s turned a corner, everything will be well.  The problem was, that he kept losing weight to the point that I thought he must be ill – something to do with his prematurity – some liver / gastric issue perhaps from too much apple juice – so off to the Doctors Surgery we went.  About 3 minutes into the consultation, the Doctor asked Ethan if he wanted to talk to her on his own, he said that he did.

That was the start of our anorexia, body dysmorphia and mental health journey.

I don’t know what I should have done differently.  Perhaps the changes in Ethan were so gradual that I thought it was part of puberty; I didn’t want to make weight gain an issue – it was normal; he didn’t want to come out with us as he was a teenager – why would he want to hang around with his parents; he stayed in his room - don’t all teenagers to that; his siblings were the same – but everyone is different …

Knowing what I know now, I would have been much more aware of mental health and neuro diversity issues from an earlier age – especially premature babies – and not assumed that because we had two grown up children, Ethan was going to get through puberty and the whole new social media and Internet world unscathed.

I thought I had done all that I could to protect him – but it turned out not to be enough – so please do look for any warning signs, every child is different, and always be there to listen.

Ethan in a favourite outfit