This plate, for me, was a symbol of hope during my daughter’s eating disorder recovery journey.

At 15 years old, my darling girl was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa….as a recovered person myself, this was shattering. It was 2 weeks before Christmas…she was marched straight from the appointment with the specialist into the children’s ward at the hospital. On admission, she chose silence as her protector and did not utter another word to me for 11 months and 10 days…yes, I counted every second.

So where does the plate fit in?

Well, just a week before she was diagnosed and hospitalised, we were shopping for Christmas ideas together…. Walking around the mall, coming up with ideas for family and thinking about what we would like too…. She saw this plate covered in little cartoon Avocados, in one of her favourite shops and commented on how much she liked it. Looking back now, if only I had known the journey we were about to set foot on and how that plate would be such a massive part of it…

Christmas shopping had ended abruptly for us, when my girl was hospitalised.

Fast forward to two weeks later and there I was, walking numbly, aimlessly around the mall, taking a break from the hospital vigil.

So much life going on all around, the hustle and bustle of the mad last minute festive shopping, the Christmas music blaring out of every doorway and me, standing looking at that plate again, not sure how I ended up back in that shop but there it was, right in front of me…

After staring at it for what seemed like hours, I decided to buy the plate as part of her Christmas gifts….’Not a great idea’ I hear you say…’for a child with an eating disorder, determined not to eat’…

I totally agree now, and I did then too but, well at this point, I simply had nothing to lose. I bought other gifts, little bits and pieces I thought she might like, even though she remained curled up in a tight ball with her back towards us every time we came near to her bed…

I wrapped them all, wrote the labels and on Christmas day, took a deep breath and we took them into the hospital, hoping against all hope and likelihood, that there would be a glimmer on this most magical day of the year…

It didn’t quite go how I had hoped….

Christmas and New Year were spent in the hospital, the gifts remained wrapped – total refusal to open any. …I packed the gifts back up and took them home, placing them on her bed, ready for when she would return home one day….6 weeks later, she was home. The gifts were placed silently on the floor in the corner of her room, and I was told (via handwritten note) that she would not accept any gifts as she did not deserve them. The eating disorder would not allow gifts.

I was determined that the gifts would be opened, no matter how long it took. I had to tread gently and try to help her to see that she WAS worthy of the gifts.

We reached a compromise. One gift would be opened per week until they were all unwrapped.. this took until March….

The first gift she chose to unwrap just so happened to be the Avo plate! I had visions of her throwing the plate against the wall, yet she just gazed at it, no smile but a softening in her eyes. It was the first moment I felt hope.

From that day on, all meals had to be on the Avo plate, it was used, washed and placed ready for the next meal. This did not mean that every meal was eaten but she had connected to something.

Did this allow for a sabotaging behaviour? Yes, she had come up with a new rule, all food HAD to be eaten from that specific plate, was I willing to risk her not eating due to a plate?

No! So all meals were served up on the Avo plate. It became a solid part of our story, frustrating at times, having to make certain that it was always ready for the next meal but also part of our team, helping to bring my girl back to the table again and again.

With recovery every journey is unique, it is important to meet the sufferer where they are at. There were lots of tears, and sleepless nights… yet the plate remained our one connector throughout the hardest of days.

There were times when I was petrified of that plate getting broken, it had turned from what could be seen as enabling my daughter to ‘stick to rules’ with her eating disorder to one of the greatest tools we had.

Today, my girl is fully recovered. It wasn’t quick or easy, it was bumpy and squiggly and she fell down and was pulled back up many times but eventually she was able to see that life without her eating disorder far outshone life with it…..Oh and the Avo plate….it’s somewhere in a drawer…