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What does recovery look like? A sunny road of constant progress? You wish. With eating disorders, at best it's "two steps forward, one step back." For my family, the key was finding the right person to help our daughter, Lisa, get started.
There's an overwhelming industry out there, eager to take chances with your money. What will it be? What kind of therapy? Residential treatment? Medication? All of the above? First, the patient needs to be medically stable. Then, in our experience, nothing worked until Lisa signed on, which meant finding an expert she could trust. As Lisa wrote in our book, Hungry: A Mother and Daughter Fight Anorexia (Berkley/Penguin, 2009) about their first meeting:
"Her manner was never critical or too aggressive. She knew I was incredibly fragile and let me go as slowly as I needed. I lay on her couch, just staring blankly at her. ... I needed time to open up and be in the world a bit."
That's what Lisa needed. Another patient might need someone to lay down the law. The key is trust. Recently I got an email from a mother who shared a heartening story of this. It all started a year ago last Mother's Day:
"I write this with very mixed feelings of despair and hope on behalf of my 24-year-old daughter. She has had an ongoing battle with anorexia over the past ten years. Today she remains very ill and her weight continues to be dangerously low. There was a scene in your book you described when you were racing to get to your daughter's apartment in Santa Cruz and you were questioning if it could possibly be the end, because you just felt that you would know if it were so. That's where I am. I truly believe this will be the last Mother's Day I have with her. I don't know what to do. I feel helpless. I love her so.
"Julie" had therapists, family counseling, nutritionists, intensive outpatient treatment. She managed to get through college maintaining a very high GPA, returned home.
She is dying. I see it every day. She continues to starve herself and will even exercise, if she can get the strength to do so. She is isolated and lonely and so very, very sad.
Of course I have talked to her, expressed my fears, cajoled her back into therapy - all for naught. The last therapy she agreed to she told me she would do it because I asked her to but she said she knew it wasn't going to work and she wasn't really willing to try to make it work. It is a mental illness that has completely taken over her ability to have a rational thought when it comes to anything that has to do with her appearance, her diet, her self-esteem. Now, our family lives in crisis and we are all victims. Our son has become apathetic about his future and our teenage daughter recently announced she is "vegetarian" - of course, sending a shiver right up my spine. My husband and I struggle to remember what it feels like to enjoy anything together as we both live in fear of what we know is coming.
I know there is no miracle cure. I've read the books, done the research, tried the therapies. Unfortunately, loving her is not enough. I just don't know how to continue - with her now - and without her in the near future. How will we live without her and how will I live with myself? .... If there is anything you can think of that perhaps I haven't, I am certainly anxious - desperate - to hear it. I love her so. Thank you for your book. You and your daughter are an inspiration to me. You are so blessed to have come through this with your daughter still with you every day."
That was so true. Lisa was still struggling, but working, and finishing college. She and I wrote back to this distraught mother, basically encouraging her to keep going, to never let her daughter go, to keep looking for the right help. Four months later, they seemed to have found it at a residential treatment center, but after a month her insurance was "stepped-down" and she was released. The mother wrote that her daughter "has never been at a worse place emotionally. I am so scared for her."
Ten months later, I heard from the mother again. Fearfully I started reading ... but Julie had found the right person, to whom she addressed an eloquent letter that they have allowed me to share. My hope is that it will affirm for you, as it does for me, the value of finding that person who "gets you."
"When I began seeing you I had no idea that I was about to meet someone who would help change my life forever. I had been to a lot of therapists and my experiences were always less than optimal. Honestly, coming to you was my version of a half attempt to appease my mom and maybe find someone who could help me with my anxiety. I was simply a scared girl who couldn't even imagine a life without "Annie," let alone a life worth living. However, it took only a few sessions with you to convince me that there was more out there. Listening to your ideas and hearing the spirited way in which you embraced life left me wanting more. I finally saw what I had been missing for so long. Your effervescence, your passion and your compassion were characteristics I longed for.
I quickly came to trust and admire you, two things I was unused to feeling. I confided in you during sessions; I attempted to put into practice the skills and thought patterns you preached in your office. Whether I was with you or not, I reflected a lot on what you said to me during our bi-weekly meetings. Until you, no one had ever given me a good enough reason to want anything but the lifestyle I was leading. You changed that. You helped lead me to a life of freedom and happiness.
... I am no longer a slave to the predetermined rules I had concocted for myself. I live for new each day and I can enjoy what I'm experiencing in the moment. I go out to eat and I hang out with friends; I have a new job as a content writer at a company I love; I laugh all the time and my family agree that they have their sister/daughter back.
My mom often reflects back to my time spent with you, and every time she expresses her belief that you were "such a turning point for me." I couldn't agree more. We both see how you were able to do for me what no one else could. It is appreciated so much - much more than words could ever express."
I am so grateful to this mother and daughter for getting in touch with me. No one has any illusions of smooth sailing, but we can all help each other keep going, and find the right help.
