Why couldn’t we see?

The second semester of school seemed to go well. Our daughter still had good grades, she made honor roll, she was actively involved in the sorority and seemed very busy. So busy that we really didn’t hear from her much. She wasn’t good about calling and I think she really only visited once that semester and it was for Easter weekend. I didn’t find that too odd, she was in college and should be hanging with her friends! Her and her roommate had gotten along well so it seemed and they were talking about moving into an apartment together with a couple other girls for the fall semester. I thought this was a great idea. On the surface everything seemed great. She did mention during one rare phone call that she was trying out Herbalife with one of her sorority sisters. I warned her against it because I felt it was expensive and not worth the money. She assured me she wouldn’t be spending too much money and wouldn’t be doing everything, just trying some of the products. I also got fairly regular Snapchats from her early in the morning, pictures of her at the gym. There is a free workout center across campus from the dorm and apparently she was going there almost every morning around 6:00 am. I was impressed with her dedication! When she came home for Easter we all noticed she had lost weight. She got many compliments, not just from me but from her sisters and aunts and uncles. She looked great! We were all so proud of her for not only NOT gaining the freshman 15 but losing it instead! I remember saying, “Who looses weight their freshman year of college? Wow!” We didn’t see her again until she came home in May, it was really less than a month but I do remember feeling surprised when we saw her, she had lost more weight! This time the reactions were more mixed. Most people were still quite complimentary about her slender figure. My middle daughter remarked several times about her completely flat stomach and how jealous she was of it’s perfect flatness! But some people asked me privately if she was okay. “Is she okay?” Of course she’s okay! She’s just skinny! What’s wrong with that?
As the summer went on, we started to hear that question more and more. Also, our daughter seemed different in other ways as well. She rarely went out, she didn’t seem interested in much of anything. Her friends just weren’t around much. She had spent the entire year living with her friend from high school, and they were talking about moving in together in the fall but she never did anything with her. They didn’t go out, they didn’t talk. When I would ask about her my daughter never had any idea what she was doing or up to. She seemed to have no interest in being with friends really at all. She did however have two jobs, so she was busy with that. She was working at my husbands work part time during the day and then would go work her high school part time job at the mini golf place in the evenings. She was busy. When we saw her eat, her diet was perfect. She would get up in the morning and measure out exactly ½ a cup of quick oats, she would cook them with water and add cinnamon. She would pack her herself a lunch that was usually salad with green peppers and an olive oil dressing. If I had cooked dinner she would sometimes eat with us before going to her mini golf job but sometimes she would tell us she was eating there. She had joined a gym that was near her day job, so when she got off from that job she would usually spend at least an hour sometimes longer at that gym. So, I guess I figured she was just busy and was trying to make money for her apartment next semester. She didn’t have time to hang out with her friends. She was fine.
At times my husband and I would ask each other if we thought she was too skinny? We would ask each other if we thought she might be throwing up or anything like that. We would always reassure each other that we would know if she was doing that! She lives in our house. She is fine, she is just eating very clean and exercising a lot! I’m certainly not going to tell her to stop doing that! I did admire her dedication, she never cheated, we would go for ice cream and she would say no. We would go for pizza and she would get salad. One day I was walking down the hall and she was in the bathroom, she hadn’t closed the door, I don’t think she had heard me coming down the hall she had just stood up and I remember feeling shocked, her legs were like sticks, the space between her thighs was huge, they didn’t look strong enough to hold her upright. Had I not seen that before? I just kept walking but I started to wonder, is she okay? Should I send her to the doctor? But, I didn’t, I convinced myself she was okay, she had always had thin legs, she just needed to gain some muscle. It would be fine.
Every year the girls go for a weeklong trip to church camp in Colorado. While they are at camp my husband and I spend the week at our cabin in Pagosa, we like to call it our “Adult Camp”. This year our oldest would be joining us, she was now too old to attend church camp so she would go to Pagosa with us! We were excited because although she had been home all summer I felt like we had hardly spent any time with her. My husband and I also felt we would know for sure if she was making herself throw up after this week together because it is a two bedroom one bathroom cabin. There is no hiding there. It was a good week, we did fun things. We went on long hikes, our daughter went fishing with her dad and got an amazing photo of him catching it! Her and I went on a two hour horseback ride together. It was a special week and I felt it had gone well. We were confident she was not throwing up, however she did seem to have some issues with food. She did eat meals with us but she would eat very slow and push things around, I’m not sure she ever ate all of anything, but she seemed to eat some of everything we put on her plate. She never ate between meals, I would snack on nuts while we played games, she wouldn’t even have one. If we had chips and salsa before a meal, ( a regular for us) she wouldn’t eat any of them, not one. And although this was different for her we still didn’t think it was all that bad. She just seemed to be making very sound choices. She also only drank water, no soda, no tea, only water. We talked about her maybe being “too skinny” and she agreed that maybe that was true. We talked about just changing her diet some to help her gain muscle and get stronger. She agreed that she would try to do that and make it a priority while back at school for the fall. I felt good about the talk. I felt I was giving her good advice and encouraging her without her giving up these good habits, I mean she had done so well to stay so slim, this was a good thing! I have always thought that being very thin was nothing but positive, why would we derail that train? I felt we had things under control. She would be fine. Is there such a thing as being too skinny?
Soon after that trip we moved her back to college, her roommates had picked a four bedroom house near campus, we were supposed to be there to help them pick but somehow she had gotten the dates mixed up so they picked it without her. It was fine the house was nice, we had gotten some furniture and had fun moving her into the new place. I took pictures of her that day and posted them on my facebook. Three people personal messaged me after I posted those pictures and expressed concern about her weight. I know I know I told them, don’t worry, we have talked about it. She is going to work on gaining some muscle, she is fine I said, “She has always been thin, it’s just how she is.” But privately to my husband we questioned. Is she fine? I think so? Again, we convinced ourselves that being skinny was a positive, we want skinny. We are bombarded everywhere we look with skinny! Why are people questioning us about this? She is healthy. This is good.
After starting her sophomore year of college in August we did not see her again until October. We did not go to visit her and she did not come home to see us. We thought she might come home for Labor Day weekend but it was homecoming there and she wanted to stay. That seemed reasonable to us! It is also her younger sister’s senior year so we were busy with senior stuff for her this year. It was a busy time so worrying about her weight really didn’t come up too much. Although one friend of ours who had been asking did reach out to her and they talked about a diet plan she could follow to help her gain muscle. I felt good about that and was confident that whatever the concern was would be taken care of easily. She came home for a weekend visit in October for balloon fiesta. An annual event in our town! We were all so excited to see her, but my husband had to be out of town. Not to worry she said, she would be coming back the following weekend for an event for her sorority. When she came in the door my middle daughter hugged her and immediately said, “you lost more weight!” “ No!” she said, “ I think I have gained a little.” We ate that weekend, I watched her eat. I bought her a doughnut at the balloon fiesta and I watched her eat it. She’s fine I told myself, I see her eating, I see it. But I also see her, her eyes are sunken in, her hair looks odd, she is so very skinny. Something was wrong. Then one afternoon she said to me, “Mom, my hair is falling out, I think the perm I got ruined my hair.” True a perm can do that and she did get a perm right before going back to school to try and give her some more volume. She ran her fingers through her hair and a bunch of hair went with them. I asked her about the talk we had about gaining weight. She said, she had been trying but it just wasn’t working. I asked her if she would be willing to visit our family doctor when she came back the next weekend. If she could come early on Friday and we would make an appointment. Maybe her thyroid was off? I have a thyroid issue, that could be it? I believed that when I said it, I wanted it to be her thyroid. Something she could take a pill and be better. She agreed to see our doctor the next Friday. She went back to school on Sunday afternoon, with plans to return early on Friday, I would make the appointment for her on Monday.
I called the doctor on Monday, we are lucky because our doctor is easy to get in touch with and will call to talk to us regularly. I told him I wanted to make an appointment for our oldest daughter and told him that I was concerned about her weight. He asked how much I thought she had lost, I don’t know really I said certainly over 30 lbs though. He gasped, “Janet,” he said, “your daughter doesn’t have a thyroid issue. She has an eating disorder.” I was pissed. “You haven’t even seen her yet!” I argued. “Okay, I will see her but just prepare yourself, most likely that is what it is. It’s very common with young girls her age,” he told me, “ It happens a lot, and I’m confident that is what is going on here, you need to get her into me right away.” What a jerk I thought when I hung up. How does he know? He hardly knows her, and how could he be so certain with so few facts. I was frustrated with his directness, I complained to my husband about how rude I thought it was. My husband was quiet, he said “well, I didn’t see her this weekend so let’s see what the doctor says after her appointment Friday.” Turns out he was not a jerk. He is a doctor, a very good doctor, who saves people, and he saved us. If it wasn’t for him, who knows where we would be today. He was direct, he was blunt to say the least, but he was right. He was right and he did what was right to help her, and to help us. He was the first in a long line to begin her path to recovery, and survival.