Week 5 Eating Disorder Recovery Update

Week 5 Goals/Activities

• Recognizing thoughts and feelings

• ACT worksheets

• Building positive thinking skills

• Take time for play

• Dietitian/Stabilising food intake

How it went

Dietitian/Stabilising food intake

Monday morning we met with our Dietitian. We reviewed what went well and what was challenging from week 4. The day where she over ate and felt sick has gotten Sam stuck. This worries me as I know from past behaviours it takes Sam about a month to get past a situation like this. Now she is not pushing herself enough and needs a lot of coaching to complete meals and the odd meal she is leaving a fork full of food. We did have a very good discussion about this situation and our dietitian suggested to us to keep the status quo with our meal plan reassuring Sam that it is not too much. As for me, I am very discouraged and disappointed over the situation as I now feel Sam is stuck. I feel that her ED is very happy and feeds on her fears.

Recognizing thoughts and feelings, building positive thinking skills

These two areas go hand in hand. To move forward in this area I feel it is very important for Sam to develop skills in being able to recognize her own thoughts and feelings. I have 2 thoughts here. She may recognize thoughts and feelings but is too scared to express them fearing she would be judged, or she really struggles with identifying her feelings due to autistic traits. We are proceeding as if it is the latter case therefore we now have several emotional wheels that are commonly used with ASD individuals. I have asked Sam to do a self check to look inward and pay attention to her thoughts and feelings and to identify them each morning. Then several times throughout the week, when I see her struggling, I’ve pulled out a chart to have her identify how she is feeling. Also, we continued with yoga, meditation and have watched many podcasts all centred around thoughts and feelings. I am learning how important it is to acknowledge our thoughts, give them space, challenge them and rewrite them. From Buddhist monks to Neuroscientists, TedX has many speakers on this topic, all delivering the same message. The damaging effect of negative thoughts, how they affect our well being and how important it is to be more compassionate to ourselves and become a positive thinker.

The Act worksheets

We are working on our thoughts and challenging ourselves to challenge them. Sam struggles to complete certain sections as I think she struggles on how to give her thoughts room and to challenge them. I do the exercises and by doing them I can give her some examples but this is an area that I will discuss more with our therapists.

Creative playtime

During our mornings as we are listening to podcasts and as I cook, Sam works on a creative project on her own. This week it is refurbishing barns that she has built over the years for fall fairs. We have 4 such barns collecting dust in our basement. She is cleaning them up and we will either be donating them or selling them.

Also, we have been having such nice weather, when we get a chance, we have been outside and started to build a fort. I think this activity is more for me than Sam. It has been moving very slowly as our days are very busy and we really do not have that much time for it.

Other activities

For me, I have been spending a lot of time with meal prep. I did another batch of perogies. These freeze great and are perfect for lunches. I think I am going to start making larger batches of food and freezing more in meal size portions as meal prep is very time consuming. Thanksgiving is coming up and it will be turkey time. The leftovers will be great for meat pies which will also freeze well.

Week 6 Goals/Activities

• Dietitian

• Weigh in

• ACT worksheets

• Playtime

• Practicing

  • Recognizing thoughts and feelings

  • Building positive thinking skills