New to the Community

[Ana Bellini]

Hello!

I'm 15, so I understand what your daughter is going through. First of all, I love answering questions and talking - if your daughter ever needs someone around her age to talk about ordinary things or this fear, I would love to help. My facebook is my name ^^.

I have GAD, undiagnosticated psychosis, undiagnosticated depression, and emetophobia. Also, food issues are very normal around emets. I only eat two things - french fries and pasta with cheese. I'm trying to change, because eating those things made me gain A LOT of weight this year. So far, 25kg (55 pounds). I want to loose it all, so I'm slowly trying new things. It's working. Since the beggining of this year I tried like, 20 new foods.

Your daughter is underweight, but you know that. Slowly, offer her new foods. Fruits, first, fresh and washed. My parents used to offer me trips when I did something nice. Like, get good grades at school and we'll give you a laptop. Maybe you could ask your daughter what she'd like to have and make a deal with her. Also, consider taking her to a nutritionist.

Oooh, I have that too - I don't use clothes or blankets or foods that remember me of my stomach virus episode last year.

I agree with you - this forum is really trigger, and if she has bad emet, most likely she'll be scared or she'll gain more OCD habits. However, how do you think she would react if you told her that you found a girl around her age with the same problem? Does your daughter have friends? I only ask because I don't, that's why I always offer myself to help others.

If you mention me to her, tell your daughter that I wish all the best for her, and that it gets better. Don't ever let her think it doesn't.

[Devious]

Hello Ana! I do try to offer her new foods regularly. Some she will try (mostly fruits and veggies), but others no way - especially if she can't convince herself that they don't have cream/lactose in them. I don't offer her things like a laptop as a reward. But one thing I did do, was she was really into dirt bikes for a while (still is a bit). So when we would have a good visit at the doctor (we were going in weekly to check weight) and it showed she had gained weight that week - no matter how much, I would take her to the dirt bike store and let her look at stuff and sit on bikes as long as she wanted. She loved it, and it was a great reward for her. She is seeing a nutritionist - that is who she'll be working with at the eating disorder (ED) clinic.

I will see if the right time to tell her about finding other people with Emet presents itself. She is pretty self-conscious about it, and I don't think her friends even know. She does have friends, but only a few. The few that she does have, she becomes VERY good friends with and everyone else she doesn't really care about.

I tell her all the time it gets better Each day that she doesn't V is proof that the day before she wasn't ill. It is a work in progress and sometimes very hard to keep her positive - but she works really hard at controlling her anxiety and keeping up with her meals. She is a really good kid and it is hard to watch her have to deal with this.