I am currently deep into the writing of my new novel, hence the radio silence for some time. As I mentioned in my note at the end of The Burning, my youngest son had been ill and this has delayed the process on the new book by a few months, but I am trying my best to catch up and am finally on course to finish (and this will be news to my poor publishers) towards the end of January. Thankfully he is now much better, but I shall admit that since April this year, my wife and I have been through the most testing months of our lives. In short, he is one of the increasing number of teenage boys who have suffered with an eating disorder. I am sure I was one of the many people who believed such things emerge only as a response to emotional trauma or bad parenting, but my eyes have been well and truly opened to the fact that anorexia is a disease that can strike out of a clear blue sky no matter what ones psychological history. In his case, he had had a very happy life. My wife (a journalist, and like me, a former lawyer) will try to write something informative based on our experiences in due course, but the essence of what we have learned is that a teenager may reduce his or her food consumption for a number of reasons (in the case of boys, it is often because they want to look muscular, and, ironically, big), and this very act of restriction, before it even becomes physically dangerous, seems to trip a little understood switch in the brain which in turn causes an escalating number of mental and inevitably, physical symptoms. Conversely, when the sufferer is restored to a normal weight, the psychological symptoms fade away and normality is slowly restored. We have learned that the medical profession is only beginning to understand the condition and, in the UK at least, and with the exception of a few specialists, is at least 10 years out of date. US based websites have been our main source of information, and through them we learnt just how uncompromising and determined you have to be as care-givers to ensure complete recovery. It has been a very lonely experience for all of us. Quite understandably, people are very nervous of a family which is dealing with such a problem. However, we have emerged changed people, I feel - including my youngest son. He has been through something incredibly testing at what is a difficult time of life for everyone. If he hadnt been ill Im not sure we would ever have truly known him as well as we do now (despite our best efforts). So, there we go. Life has tossed one of those missiles into our midst which happens occasionally. Weve emerged from the rubble, still blinking, but seeing dawn break at last. Hes at school, doing well and sitting GCSEs this year. If you know of anyone with a child who has stopped eating or is restricting, please do not hesitate to tell them to get help ASAP. It really is a race against the clock to stop it becoming serious and life- threatening. The best information out there and the chief source of our knowledge and successful treatment has been: feast-ed.org. Next time back to books (and screenwriting, which has suddenly come back into my life in a big way). I apologise to all those who are waiting impatiently for the next book, but it will be there earlyish next year.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 20:58:07 +0000
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