In 2003, when my daughter was 15 she began to disappear.
What do I mean by that? After all she was in the middle of her teen years and there were bound to be a few bumps along the way, or so it seemed. But it turned out, she had a new secret friend. Eventually this new friend became her ‘best’ friend… to the exclusion of her real friends, her family, her love of dancing. This new best friend was a thief and nearly stole her life.
As quiet secrecy and lies loomed large, my daughter became a small and tiny shadow of her former self. As she continued to disappear, her new friend slipped slyly in through the back door and was to become one of my greatest challenges.
As time went by I watched her falling down a very dark rabbit hole with her new found friend, advisor, and kidnapper – her eating disorder.
I lived in the midst of anger, frustration, exasperation, helplessness, guilt and despair for a time. But what I want to share with you now is that compassion, patience, acceptance, love, empathy were in fact to become my greatest allies. Allies in both my fight to get her back and in maintaining my own sanity.
Any anger and frustration were best used within the struggle to get the best help possible, to get my daughter into a mental health system full of gaping holes. No doubt, this can be difficult and challenging.
While I can’t speak for other mums or dads, having been around my daughter’s eating disorder for many years, here is what I have learned as a mum.
Take care of yourself.
Although it might sound selfish – it’s not. That is, it’s vital to learn to mind yourself first. Travel advice about putting your own oxygen mask on first before your child’s, is especially true on this journey. If you can’t care for yourself, it will be much harder to help your child to help themselves.
This journey can be exhausting at times. Dealing with the mental health system will call on your strength, so get cracking to find resources for yourself:
- A counselor that you can talk to on a regular basis ensuring ‘a place’ and a space just for you to vent and get or regain a sense of perspective.
- When you feel trapped in the eating disorder mindset, when you find this is all you think and talk about… stop and regroup. While it can be like an ever-present dark cloud, it’s vital that you find solace and enjoyment, keeping your own life on track too.
- Perhaps walking in nature, meeting a friend for coffee (with the agreement of talking about anything other than the eating disorder), going to a movie, taking classes in Mindfulness, yoga, in other words YOU time. This is not selfish, if anything, it’s leading by example.
- Remember if you have other children, they too may need help. Feelings of distress, fear and confusion are common. Ask a counselor, doctor or friend to help you to find help for your children. After all you don’t have to find this all on your own.
- Love your child. You may not see him/her but love that child you know has been kidnapped by the eating disorder.
- Remember this is not your child’s fault. This is a mental illness. Your child has been taken over by a force stronger than he/she can manage at this time. No one wants to be afraid to eat.
- Remember this is not your fault either. It’s not anything you have or have not done. I repeat, this is not your fault.
- Feeling a range of difficult emotions such as anger, fear and guilt is normal. Wanting to shout ‘will you just EAT’ is normal also. It’s human to experience some of these emotions and thoughts. While you may want to vent these emotions to your child, it won’t help. It can attack their self-esteem, leading them to turn to their ’best friend’ – the eating disorder, and yet again ‘it’ wins. It’s like trying to fix a television by banging it on top, it’s not lasting and doesn’t really sort much.
- YOU cannot fix this. As a parent you may want to fix it but you can’t.
- Expressing compassion, love, tough love and non-judgement has a much better chance of success for both yourself and for your child.
- As best you can, keep your sense of humor!
Did I get it right all the time? Absolutely not. Am I the perfect parent? No, but I do my best.
It’s now 2017, thankfully my daughter has turned herself around to a greater degree. With a lot of work she helped herself to emerge from the rabbit hole and I helped myself enough to be there with a full heart to meet her.
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