Welcome,
If you landed here, you may have questions or concerns about a loved one with an eating disorder (ED). I’m sorry that this is where I meet you, but grateful you have found your way here. In the Spring of 2017, we watched helplessly as our 11-year-old daughter nearly died from anorexia. As a result of our experience, I wrote this article for my hometown paper the Washington Post
Snow White and Snacks…
When I recently asked my brilliant, beautiful, and wise 15-year-old daughter for permission to share this specific story about her path to recovery, she laughed…
“You want to share Snow White?” I nodded. “Of course, Mom. Keep teaching parents how to get their kids well.”
As I outlined the story, we were alone sitting in our sunny backyard here in California; I watched her as her mind wandered… After a quiet moment, I asked her what she was thinking, and she paused…
“I can’t quite find the words— it’s going to sound weird.”
I thought maybe she didn’t want me to share this specific story. Which is why, I ask permission before I share any of them. I wanted to reassure her. Like so many times in the past, it was her old soul wisdom that stunned me…
“You need to tell them; they have to be…I don’t know hard? Firm? I just don’t know how to say it—I think too many parents are weak when it comes to anorexia…”
And I nodded…
“Ok. Good. Because it’s really beautiful out here and this conversation is boring me…”
I smiled at my Irish Princess… Because even in this strong recovery, she is still a teenager…
Parenting is hard in the best of circumstances. Parenting a child with an eating disorder is one of the most gut-wrenching parenting there is. Because in your bones you know that no matter what you do, you may lose this battle. That reality fills each of us with fear and anxiety that is palpable. It keeps us up at night, it makes us question all our parenting decisions and it makes us second guess ourselves.
I believe that there are two questions that helped us lead our daughter to recovery. And the answers to those questions are what solidifies her confidence, but it also strengthens her ability to sustain her own recovery.
What are you willing to do for your child?
What does your child believe you will do for them?
In the summer of 2017, we brought our 11 year old daughter home after a month of inpatient care at Rady’s Children Hospital. To say we had a bumpy re-entry home would be kind. The early days were brutal. They included, marathon meals, shaking hands, tears, rages, night terrors, micro-biting, and medical worries about lack of growth and bone loss. ED spewed horrible words and hurtful statements… The only thing going for us, we could get her to gain weight. To my husband’s astonishment, I could get our daughter to eat. I could peacefully and calmly sit through hours at the table. Gently but firmly getting her to “Pick-up your fork…. Ok, now I need you to take a bite.” I mean HOURS… Give me a caffeinated beverage, some water… I could just do it.
It mattered not that our beauty was becoming weight restored, because she was a disaster, mentally, emotionally, and physically. Along with my girl, we had too many anxiety filled sleepless nights to count. But as the summer waned and with the support of her team, she started a new school for sixth grade. We had tremendous support from the faculty. Along with my husband, we rotated supervising her school lunch. She had only one unsupervised food encounter during the day. Her morning school snack.
It was our first stress test. What we were attempting to understand was how much she could eat without support. One bite, no bites. It didn’t matter, what we wanted was for her to eat what she could and place whatever she did not finish in the lunch box. The team had privately told us, to then add the uneaten calories in the remaining meals and snacks at home. She would never know that the calories were being replaced.
It all seemed so logical and do-able. I was absolutely beaming when we were able to share, our daughter was a rock-star because she was fully completing her daily snacks! And that fantasy lasted but a moment…. And then, we quickly realized she was losing weight—the only possible answer was because she was dumping her morning snack in the trash. The ED voice was so loud she was unable to be truthful. It’s painful as a parent, when you know your child is lying. When confronted, she came clean. We tried everything over the coming days. She just could not stop…
I was both exasperated and terrified as I stood in our kitchen and realized that the ED voice had once again gotten her to throw out her snack. I was such a rookie; ED had such control over her. All I could think was we will never get her well… I was nauseous at the thought of going back to Rady. I distinctly remember thinking “HELL NO, we aren’t going back to Rady. Full stop.” It was early in our journey. I didn’t fully grasp extinction bursts and I certainly wasn’t getting that this “recovery” process was anything but linear. I was tackling problems as I always had. You identify the problem; you task resources towards them, and you solve it… It was that simple. But that works in business not in children. I was parenting from a place of fear, not from the place of knowing what was best for our daughter.
As my husband was silently chopping vegetables for dinner and my daughter’s eyes were lowered looking at the table. I was frustrated and even angry.
“What do I need to do to get you to understand that you cannot dump your food? Do I need to come to school dressed as Snow White and eat snack with you, too?”
Now let’s be honest, as parents we have all been here… That moment that you are so focused on the outcome you want to achieve that parental exasperation meets the horrible moment of words that tumble out of your mouth. As the words came out, I thought… “Shit.”
She raised her eyes from the table and offered one of her first teen-angst filled smirks. Thinking she had me…
“You wouldn’t dare MOM… you would never embarrass yourself like that…”
My beautiful husband of nearly 25 years stopped chopping and laughed. At the same moment, I looked at my brilliant, charming, mesmerizing daughter and dropped the anvil…
“You want to try me?”
And in that moment, she looked at her loving father for support. Thinking her mother couldn’t possibly be that crazy….
“Dad, she wouldn’t dare?”
And my husband, looked at our daughter with the most gentle but direct eyes and said.
“Don’t ever underestimate your mother’s love for you and your brother. And what she is willing to do to get you well...”
And in that moment, the teen smirk was gone and fear swept across her face.
“You would embarrass me like that in front of all my new friends over a stupid snack?”
And I replied.
“I don’t want to, but If I need to show up in Snow White costume for you to understand how serious I am, I will. You need to eat what you can… If you can’t, I want to see it. I know how hard it is for you to eat at school. If for any reason you get stuck, we all need to know. You cannot hide or lie anymore. If you don’t eat something, leave it in your lunch box and bring it home. There will not be consequences, if you dump food there will be.”
The conversation ended.
That night, as I climbed into bed, I handed my phone to my husband…
“Which one?” I said… and he replied, “This one.”
As my husband leaned over to kiss me good night, he told me our mantra. “Kathryn, we lived to fight another day, we’ve got this and I love you.”
Three days later, a box arrived at our front door. As I opened it, my heart fell because deep down in my heart I knew it was very possible, I was going to have to wear it. That the terrorist had more control over my daughter than my love did. That I was losing the battle.
With a heavy heart, I pulled the costume out of the box. And hung it on the outside of the coat closet door. And said nothing. I waited. Several hours later it happened.
She walked by and froze. Absolutely froze.
I was sitting with my husband and our sweet girl turned and looked at us and said…
“What is THIS?!”
I calmly looked at her and said, “You tell me. What is it? And why is it here?”
She sobbed and screamed. And she told me she hated me. She also told me it wasn’t fair and that our therapist would never stand for it… My poor sweet child, she miscalculated me.
The next day we roll into therapy. And my girl tells her tale of woe to the therapist. And when she tells her about the costume, the therapist looks at me and said, “Really?” and I simply said, “Yep...” and she had this knowing smile as she turned back to our girl and continued to listen.
And the therapist had my back.
“Well it seems clear to me, stop throwing out your snack and your mom will never put on that costume. Throw out your snack and Snow White will be joining you and your friends.”
She was FURIOUS… ENRAGED…
We spent that entire session discussing, exactly what the expectations were. I promised to never surprise her by wearing the costume. I promised that I would ONLY wear the costume if the clear expectations weren’t met. I also committed that we would discuss the day I would wear it. There was zero ambiguity.
In that session, my incredibly ill daughter did the most extraordinary work. It was in that session she learned in her bones that I/we would do anything to get her well. That was the first session she begrudgingly made a concrete decision about recovery. She did not even know it, but the therapist and I did. She made her first active choice. She decided, that dumping food wasn’t worth the visit from Snow White, which would lead to all sorts of questions and explanations and attention. Better to follow the rules, than suffer the consequences. That was the first breadcrumb of the long and winding road of her recovery.
I need to be clear; I didn’t want to embarrass my daughter. The last thing I ever wanted to do was to hurt her. But I had made a statement. I needed to own my word. This wasn’t about shaming her. Along with my husband, and our team, we knew we were at a tipping point. We had made it clear we were done with food dumping. Eating disorders hide in the shadows, in the darkness, in secrets and lies—through it all ED is woven with shame. Snow White was a VERY bright light! You dump food, Snow White is coming at snack time!
She never dumped another meal. AND I’ve never even tried on that costume.
The costume stayed on the outside of the closet door for two months. And then one day she asked if It could be moved. I agreed, I placed it in the closet. Every time we grabbed a jacket or a tennis racket you saw-it. At some point, we just forgot that it was even there. Because just today, three and half years later… I went looking for it. It was in the back of the closet. I had totally forgotten it was hanging in there. I no longer see it because I didn’t need to… Today, I moved it into the garage. That’s recovery in action.
My daughter always says I wasn’t scarier than the ED. I was just more powerful. My daughter also knew in her bones, I would stop at nothing to get her well. If that meant wearing a stupid costume. So be it.
You don’t beat eating disorders from a place of fear. You don’t scare, shame or bribe your children into recovery. You parent with confidence that you know what’s best for them. You allow them to lean into you. Your child needs to trust you to know what’s best for them. You parent with confidence. EVEN if that means you fake it till you make it…
You tell your child, “As your mom, I know what’s best. You don’t have to like it or like me. I can take your anger, your rage, your frustration. Nothing will ever be too scary, messy or ugly and I will never leave you. We will get through this, I’m with you every step. You will get better. Full recovery is your reality. Because you are my child and I love you.”
That’s what you say, and how you do it…
Which leads us back to the question…
What are you willing to do for your child?
What is your line in the sand? Can you bench your child from the travel soccer team, ballet, tennis or pull them from their dream academic program— their AP and IB high school course load? Will you tell them they cannot be a dairy free, vegetarian, pescatarian or vegan? Tell them they will take meds? Are you able to tell your child, “No, you are not going away to your dream college? You are home working on your recovery.”
Will you show up at school unexpectedly to eat lunch with your child? What about go to your teen’s place of work to bring them their breakfast you found in the trash? Will you stay at a separate hotel just to eat with your child while they are on a middle school camping trip?
Will you take away their phone, car, computer, their allowance, and their job? Will you remind them that you hold their insurance and financial freedom? Will you obtain legal counsel if they are over 18 and not well? Will you admit your child into a treatment program thousands of miles from your home?
How you answer, what you are willing to do, is the key to supporting your child into full and complete recovery.
And that answer will define…. What your child believes you will do for them…
Peace be with you,
Kathryn - PilgrimageGal
(photo credit: PilgrimageGal)