e d

I woke up this morning with the memory of a college friend. Our families had known each other forever but were not particularly close so I hadn't seen her for years before we re-connected my sophomore year.

I was rooming with my sister that year. We first learned that our friend was bulemic the night she overdosed on laxatives and something that made her extremely drowsy. She called our suite asking for help and so we drove her to the ER and stayed with her all night and most of the next day. For several weeks after that, I tried to be supportive but she was so needy, so insecure, so all-consuming.  I had school and so many other commitments. I ended our friendship a few months later and she did not return to college the next year.

I've also been thinking a lot about a high school girlfriend who was anorexic. This was the early 80s and eating disorders were unheard of then, at least to kids growing up in small, midwestern towns. I remember standing behind her in the cafeteria line at breakfast and seeing her take nothing but a small bowl of granola as her food for the day. She used to exercise for hours at a time. She was literally down to skin and bones by the time her parents withdrew her from our boarding academy.

Eating disorders are scary.For me it's easier to focus on the drug addiction because the path is clear. Stop using drugs. Go to meetings. Work the 12 steps. If you relapse, start again. "It works if you work it." But there is no clear path for ED. You cannot stop eating food. There are no meetings. This is not a problem so common that the mantras have entered the common vernacular. There are no mantras. And the issues that fuel an ED are so deep, so painful that they may never be uncovered and food and body image issues can dominate for a lifetime.

As the parent of a child with ED, I see no middle ground. I am either consumed by it or I have to let go. I have chosen the latter route, preferring to watch and worry in silence. Refusing to try to get her to eat more or to ask if she has thrown up today. Talking myself down off the proverbial ledge in the privacy of my bedroom when my frustration and anger get to be too much. Focusing on the disease that I understand.

So this is my other reason for being grateful for residential treatment. The professionals will deal with this, figure it out. And once they have, they will tell me what I should be doing, how best to help my daughter.