Helping with an “Eating Disorder”
Dear L— [see ‘Eating Distresses and Parenting’ article by L—],
My sixteen-year-old daughter started having “eating disordered behavior” when she was fourteen. She still struggles with eating and appearance issues. But she has made progress, and I am no longer terrified for her. I tried professional help, but it didn’t work. She resisted it, and she got good at hiding what she was doing so she would “look good” to the professionals.
The trigger for my daughter was related to boys and sexism. She developed an interest in boys, but they either “liked her too much” for her to “go there” [respond] or they wanted to treat her as a sex object. Closeness, connection, intimacy, and respect were not available to her in a sexual context.
I talked with her about internet pornography and how it has affected the culture of dating for young people. We talked about how real sex is nothing like pornography. I told her that she could fight to make space for herself in spite of everything.
I also started having lots of sessions on my own adolescence, particularly on sexual exploitation and the messages I received about what it meant to be a woman. I am still having those sessions. Doing that is what helps me be most relaxed about my daughter’s struggles.
I found it useful to ask my daughter to listen to me a few times. In those sessions, I talked about how much I loved her and how I would literally do anything for her. I said that I had fought for her since her conception and that she had always been a gift to me. I cried about how I could not change sexism fast enough to protect her from it and how powerless I felt in the face of what I knew she would have to deal with as she moved through her adolescence. “I am just one woman,” I said. “And this is a whole culture of oppression.” Her response? “You may be just one woman, Mom, but to me you are the face of the Goddess.”
I had to change my perspective on what “success” looked like. My daughter’s eating choices were an attempt to have control over something. I had to let go of some control and trust that she was growing up and could handle what she would face. Whenever she told me about a struggle, I considered that a success. Your daughter told you about her struggle—that is a success.
It is a success when my daughter and I laugh together. It is a success when we have a meaningful conversation about anything. It is a success when she wants me to teach her friends or boyfriends about something. It is a success when she wants to introduce me to someone she likes. It is a success when she calls me for help. It is a success when she says, “I knew I could tell you.”
Once she said, “I’m afraid to tell you what happened,” and I responded, “I’d rather know what happened so I’m not making up horror stories about things that might have happened that are actually worse than what happened. When you tell me, I know you have access to me, and that is more important to me than whatever trouble you got into.” Then she laughed because she thought that was a funny thing for a mom to say, and she told me what had happened. That was a success.
The most important thing I tell her is that she can handle her life. The problems are big, but she is smarter than the problems. She is “up to the job.” Other people can give her resources and help her learn about options she didn’t previously know about, but she is the expert on her own life. She gets to make mistakes, and I trust her to learn from them. She gets to do things I don’t like, and I will still love her. I trust her to “self-correct.” Her life is her own. She can organize safe spaces in which to discharge and can create relationships that work for her.
Taking a perspective like this might mean not being counselor for your daughter. You asked several questions about how to counsel her. My primary insight from my own experience is that I needed to stop controlling, stop counseling, stop treating my daughter like a child, and let her grow up and get into messes. I needed to focus on my own sessions on how confused I was as a teenager and how long it took me to “self-correct.”
While I do listen to my daughter discharge, give her information, and require her to try out resources, those are just “frosting.” The “cake” is that I am here to love her, which mostly means that I need to be able to face what she is dealing with without freaking out [becoming very upset]. Teenagers can “smell it” from a mile away when an adult cannot handle the truth about their lives. I want to be able to handle my daughter’s truth without restimulation.
Most of us never want to go back to our adolescence and experience the sexual exploitation, the confusion, the internalized sexism, and so on. We’re just glad that we survived it! Still, I have to go back there and give myself a hand [some help]. That’s how my daughter gets to have me.
Good luck!
USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of parents
(Present Time 204, July 2021)