FROM A PARENT

For so many years I felt I was the worst mother in the world. When my daughter was diagnosed as having an eating disorder I did not realise just what was ahead for us. At first I thought it could be worse. She will start to eat and put on weight; she will be cured and everything will be like it used to be, I thought. How naïve I was back them. Ann, my girl, was always a little roundish, not too much, just nice. Everybody loved the way she looked. She was a beautiful child. Not because she was mine, but everybody else said it too. She even won a beauty contest in our parish centre. Then when she was about l5 the weight started to fall off.
At first I thought that there might be something wrong with her tummy. She seemed to be forever in the toilet. I started to ask her what was wrong. But she just snapped at me, and
shouted that I was paranoid. She insisted that I leave her in peace and not be following her all the time like she was a little child. Initially I thought maybe it was just me being paranoid.
Maybe it was nothing at all and I was over-reacting. A couple of times when I would go downstairs late at night Ann would be in the kitchen making herself sandwiches. I was
delighted that she was starting to eat and my mind was more at ease.
However, her behaviour was getting worse. I found it very hard to talk to her. She had no time for me at all. Nothing I could say was good enough. It was becoming impossible to live
with her. Slowly she was taking over the whole house and we were all afraid to say anything. To make it worse, her weight was dropping more and more. She was looking pale and very sick. I
knew something had to be done.

One day when I came home from work Ann was sitting on the sofa, crying. I sat down beside her and asked her to talk to me. She poured out how unhappy and lonely she felt, how she
hated herself and told me everything that was happening. I couldn’t believe that what I was hearing was real. It was like a nightmare. Not my girl! It couldn’t be true. But it was. We
decided to go to the doctor. Ann protested but in the end she decided she would go. She knew she needed help. Our family doctor was very sympathetic and recommended we see a
specialist in the hospital. We made an appointment and it took three months before they could see us. I cannot begin to describe the living hell that time was for us, but somehow we
survived. I reminded myself constantly that as soon as we got to see the specialist in the hospital, things would be different. Little did I know what was waiting for us. The hospital specialist saw Ann for about twenty minutes. He told her to stop this behaviour, not to be destroying her life and to pull herself together. Nobody spoke to me or advised me what to do. We were back in the dark, even deeper than before. Things were getting worse. I started to read about this illness, but that made me even worse, especially when I discovered that people who suffer from bulimia are usually from dysfunctional families. Naturally, I started to analyse our family. I was angry with myself. I was also getting angry with my husband. The guilt was unbelievable and continued to get worse. I reached a stage where I couldn’t sleep at all.
Each time Ann’s door was closed I worried whether she was getting sick. I was watching everything she ate. I was really becoming paranoid. In the end I had to go to the doctor myself
as I couldn’t eat or sleep. I felt so desperate and I wondered if I could cope anymore. I couldn’t tell anybody what was going on. I felt so ashamed. I felt I had failed as a mother, failed as a wife
and failed as a person. I just had no strength to go on. I started to hate everybody, even Ann. In my mind I was blaming her for ruining my life too. Our doctor was nice, but too busy to talk to
me. I was given some antidepressants, which I took even though I am very against tablets. I was simply so delighted to have something to give me the will to go on.

Now, I am not a person who believes in miracles, but I think I may change my mind. One day Ann came to me and showed me an article in the Sunday paper. ‘Mum, read it,’ she said. It
was the story of a girl who had had an eating disorder and was now fully recovered. There was a helpline number! Ann started to cry. We had a good talk and she asked me if I would help her
to get out of it. We both felt as guilty as each other and we both felt we finally had to do something. Yes, we found help and Ann is really progressing in her recovery. We had a few family sessions too. We were told what to do and how to cope, living with someone with an eating disorder. I realised that I wasn’t on my own and that there is no need to feel guilty. What
happened to Ann was not my fault.

Sometimes I still feel confused. What is it all about? But the more I learn about it, and learn to accept the whole situation, the easier it is to cope. It’s all getting easier as time goes by.

I don’t know if reading this is going to help anybody else, but I would love to hear from another parents to help me to understand more.

Mother