Do you have a child (of any age) you suspect may be developing or living with an eating disorder?
Do you often find yourself uncertain or lost as to what to do?
Do you sometimes feel inadequate in your attempts to offer help or feel that every attempt at help you do offer only seems to make things worse, shut them off and push them further away?
If you’ve found yourself in the position of your son or daughter developing an eating disorder no matter their age or how long they’ve been living with it for my heart goes out to you. Truly it does.
I have anxious, frustrated and mad parents every day joining their loved one in my office, speaking to me over the phone to arrange an initial consultation or via email and at the core of all the anxiety, all the frustration and all the anger is fear.
The pain of witnessing someone you love more than life itself seemingly intentionally starve themselves to where death or at the least permanent physical and psychological damage seems inevitable cannot be captured in words.
It is soul destroying for all involved.
The parents who contact me have often tried “everything” with limited real changes. They are scared to death that they may lose their loved one and it’s not my place to downplay and placate with bland words of reassurance that things will turn out ok because the reality of eating disorder recovery is that the stats are high for things not turning out ok.
Therefore, it is my place to tell the truth and to help their loved one out of the depth of torment they’re in.
It is my role to help their loved one find new ways of existing and being in this world that leaves no possibility for an eating disorder to be a part of their lives.
Because there is only true way anyone touched by an eating disorder is going to be able to feel reassured, feel safe and ultimately live their life and that is when the person who was suffering is visibly building the skills and resources they need to think, feel and behave in new ways through their own responsibility and choice.
Having said this as I sit down to write this blog my intention is to provide you, if you have a child (or a loved one because this information applies to those with partners, friends, patients, other family members and even a parent) living with an eating disorder 5 things you can actually begin today, and which will truly make a difference as they travel their path to recovery. Because while your actions may not be able to spontaneously cure this illness, they certainly will make an impact.
And the first one is…
- Encourage Self Trust
Allow your loved one to feel that you see them as a unique and valuable human being living with an eating disorder versus as an eating disorder full stop.
Encourage your loved one to come to their own insights, epiphanies, conclusions and importantly to make their own decisions.
When we outright tell people what they “should” and “shouldn’t” do we are more often than not met with immediate resistance. I am sure you can likely bring to mind some instances in your life where someone has told you to do something and even if it was something you were going to do anyway you suddenly no longer want to do it.
In eating disorder recovery many parents are fearful that if they put any “control” in the hands of their child they will starve themselves/do the maladaptive behaviours more and believe me I understand this fear but I’ve also been through the medical system from both sides of the hospital bed both as a patient and as a health professional treating people with eating disorders and the way to cure someone is never to take their power away and always to empower them.
The whole purpose of recovery from an eating disorder is to begin to create more and more a life in which they are in charge.
A life in which they take full and competent responsibility for their actions.
Therefore, the more that old model of taking their power away, questioning their capability to make decisions that are best for them is promoted the more we are siding with their self-doubt and fear that they are already terrified of (even if they don’t admit this) that they can’t do it.
In all instances look to where and how you can assist in fostering confidence and empower your loved one in this moment and into the future.
2. Be The Example
“Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others, it is the only means”. ~ Einstein.
This is one of my most loved quotes. When I was sick with anorexia the procession of health professionals I saw and the myriad of input I had along the whole messed up journey was nothing short of ludicrous.
At the time I didn’t have the words to describe the disrespect and lack of trust I held towards people who were telling me to do one thing and themselves doing a different thing. I do now. Hypocritical (and in the same breath I forgive them all because just like me, just like all of us they were doing their best).
Are you ready to hear perhaps the number one most important thing you can do to help your child recover?
Sort your own “issues” out.
Not to be perfect but to actively show that we all have issues and the best we can ever do is be proactive in seeking assistance with improving day by day.
It is not what you tell your son or daughter to do but what you show them that matters.
First and foremost, ensure that they see you taking care of yourself and not in a fake way (because the truth always shines through) but because you honestly are taking care of yourself or taking steps towards improving your self-esteem, self-worth and self-love. If you genuinely know in your heart of hearts that you don’t do a great job of this in terms of emotional regulation, setting and upholding boundaries, resting, eating, spending time with friends and so forth then put some time into learning how to do these things and growing yourself.
Consider seeing a dietitian, a clinical hypnotherapist or a psychologist.
Your actions speak far louder than your words.
Demonstrate with pride and openness that this is something many people do for assistance with the hard things in life and to learn new skills versus something that only broken, or mentally unwell people do.
They will benefit immensely.
And so will you.
The best thing you can do for them is the best thing you can do for you.
3. Be Certain
Living with an eating disorder is about the most uncertain, unstable way there is of existing in the world.
Imagine for a moment that you have no other way of dealing, of even slightly coping other than to starve your mind and body to a place of numbness in order to be so exhausted that you get some microscopic sense of relief?
This is your child’s reality.
I have never again felt as uncertain as I did within the years I lived with anorexia nervosa and I don’t imagine I ever will.
It was utter chaos and inner emotional turmoil 24/7.
Your loved one is starved and malnourished (it doesn’t matter their body size, if they are eating irregularly their physical body and mental ability is going to be compromised). A starved and malnourished brain is a fearful, uncertain and untrusting brain and this shouldn’t come as any surprise given that starvation is incompatible with life.
The best thing you can do is provide certainty in a world that feels incredibly scarily uncertain.
Be compassionate and empathetic but more than anything be certain.
Because even if they don’t say they are or you don’t believe they are they are going to look to you for what to do.
They are going to pick up on any cracks, hesitation and uncertainty because they need to know that what they are doing (recovery) is the right thing to do as they develop their sense of self and ability to trust themselves and their inner guidance.
Offer them that certainty if it comes in the form of “should I eat this sandwich?” or “Can I eat less at this meal?” or “Can I miss this dietitian consult?” give a clear and certain answer.
It is a great deal easier to be certain if you know what things they need to be doing and why they need to be doing them (i.e. what things are more likely to increase their chances of reaching a full recovery).
Which leads us on to the next really important point of…
4. Educate Yourself
You can be as certain as you want but if it is certain of the “wrong” thing you’re not going to be doing your loved one any favours.
Eating disorder recovery is a world away from anything you’ve likely seen or experienced yourself believe me those of us who are hurled into it are in every sense of the expression thrown into the deep end.
Therefore, to truly be in a position to help will require some learning on your part to ensure you are providing your child with the right information and care they need.
The number one thing to educate yourself on is the amount of food your loved one is going to need to eat in order to reach recovery. This never ceases to amaze parents because in all honesty it can be at least 3-5 times the amount of food they were eating pre-starvation.
When I say educate yourself, I want to be clear that this does not take the place of working with professionals.
It is too big a job and too close to home to take on alone and the plethora of information out there on how to eat is overwhelming to say the least.
The biggest “mistake” I see and in hindsight probably the biggest mistake of my illness was not having intensive treatment immediately.
There are a number of reasons why I didn’t and why it ultimately may not have even been possible to do so at that time. However, knowing what I now know I wish the younger me didn’t reason and fight so hard to be kept out of hospital, to go it alone and I wish my parents didn’t believe my certain, confident, intelligent and absolutely believable but absolutely deluded certainty that I could “do it myself.”
Your child is likely incredibly bright and intelligent.
That is not up for debate.
It seems to come as a surprise to parents, doctors and people in general that those living with eating disorders are actually rational, intelligent human beings with fantastic insight into life and I can understand why (because being intelligent and bright obviously goes against the logic of what they are doing to their bodies). However, there is a reason why an eating disorder goes against logic, rationality and intelligence and this is that eating disorders do not operate from the conscious, logical mind level.
Eating disorders serve as coping strategies sometimes developed consciously which have gone on to operate and be sustained at the unconscious level or they may have only ever existed at the unconscious level.
There is no lack of intelligence and no need to argue for your loved one’s intelligence.
Intelligence does not come into it.
There is a need for you to become as informed as you can as to what will help them and to me with my experience this is skipping the small talk and working directly with the unconscious mind (aka the level at which the “problem” exists).
5. Be Open and Honest
As much as you may find it difficult to talk about the eating disorder with your loved one or as uncomfortable as they may appear to be when you do bring it up, please continue to do it.
One of the greatest perpetuators of eating disorders is shame.
I have reflected upon the question as to whether shame had not been such a big part of my illness would I have suffered so long?
Would I have stayed sick so long?…
I see shame rear its ugly head regularly in the women and men I work with today as they address their years of living with an eating disorder.
I hear shame in the voice of a client as he says, eyes down “but I’m a 40 something year old man, not a 14 year old girl”.
I hear shame in the voice of a client as she says angrily “but I’m a doctor, I should know better”.
I hear shame in the voice of a client as they admit with frustration “I know I shouldn’t do it (make myself sick, binge eat KFC in my car, insert any number of things you can imagine in here) but I can’t stop”.
I hear shame in the voice of a client as she looks towards mum and says hesitantly “Some days I eat good, some days I can’t eat, and my sisters think it’s a lie that I have a problem”.
The walls of my office hear a lot of stories of shame.
Let your loved one know their struggle is valid and you are meeting them where they are because shame can make an eating disorder drag on for what I can only describe now as an entirely unnecessary length of time.
Please be open and honest with your child by asking them how they are, what is going on for them in their world and always replying and communicating with them with honesty, compassion and curiosity to their experience. At the end of the day you don’t know their experience, be open to learning without judgement or imposing your “how you think it is”.
Summary
At the end of the day please know that while you can do many things to assist your child in their recovery and make it more likely they will recover it is not your role to recover for your child.
That is impossible, in fact that is the antithesis of the definition of recovered.
Recovered is when your child (or loved one) can do everything, they need to do in order to maintain their health and wellbeing (mentally, physically and spiritually) and when they don’t know how they trust within themselves that they are capable of finding and learning the how.
While you can’t do the journey for them and the frustration and heartbreak is palpable, please rest assured that you can be a part of contributing to their journey to health.
I hope these 5 short tips (there’s a lot more to all of them that is impossible to capture in a short blog post) leave you with some practical and real-life ways you can begin to do just that today.
I hope they also empower and offer you increased hope and renewed inspiration and determination because you matter on this journey too.
With my whole heart I hope you found this information useful and insipring.
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.
