Any parent will tell you that holidays after kids, are certainly different. In many ways, they are much more fun. It’s such a joy to see the magic through their eyes. However, as we all know it’s never just about the kids. There are grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, eventually boyfriends and or girlfriends, and on and on. Everyone, wants the holiday to be special, everyone has an idea of how the holiday should go, everyone is extra emotional around the holiday. I don’t know about you, but for me the older the girls got the more I dreaded the holidays. No matter how hard I tried every year I felt like I was letting somebody down during the holidays. In our family we have both sides of grandparents in town The way we have figured out the best way to handle that is that we split holidays, one year Thanksgiving with my husbands side and Christmas with my side the next year we switch. It’s not ideal but it was the best we could do. This particular year’s Thanksgiving was with my husband’s side of the family. My husband has three older brothers but none live in our state. One was coming to town with his family, wife and three kids. One other brother was also in town on his own, he wasn’t going to stay for the holiday but ended up deciding to stay. We are a family of 5, Chris has both his mother and father still living, and at this time our middle daughter had a serious boyfriend who would be joining us for Thanksgiving dinner. I was going to do the cooking this year, so add those people up and it is a dinner for 14. None of this side of the family knew about what was going on with Caitie. So, needless to say the pressure was on.

I’m sure you are not shocked to hear that our written contract didn’t really work. I think it was the day after I left Caitie in Portales that I saw a tweet from her talking about how much fun she had playing volleyball that night. I texted her and reminded her of her promise not to exercise and she said playing volleyball isn’t really exercise. The blood work was sent to the doctors office and Dr. Tom wanted to see Caitie again, he was surprised she was still away at school. Despite these things, she made it through the week before Thanksgiving. She was scheduled to have classes Monday and Tuesday but we decided she was going to skip those days of school and come home early. We decided she should come home on Saturday. However, my side of the family who did know about what was going on had many opinions about how that should happen. Nobody was feeling great about her driving herself home. Caitie did not want us to drive to Portales just to drive her back home, she wanted to have her car and she felt she was fine. The only reason I really mention this is because this is just the start of well meaning family who have strong opinions about what should be done and how it should be done. This was just the beginning of the realization that maybe some of my loving family did not really trust my ability to handle this situation. I couldn’t really blame them, I didn’t trust my ability either, however, she was my baby and nobody would be more invested in doing the right thing by her than me. That had never been questioned before, but now things were different. In the end Chris and I met Caitie half way, and I rode with her into town. We made an appointment for her to see Dr. Tom again on Monday morning, and that afternoon Caitie and I had an appointment with eating disorders of NM. I still had work, as did Chris, the other girls were still in school so Caitie was left alone. She went to her appointment with Dr. Tom and we met at EDNM. At that appointment we spoke with a couple different people both separately and together. At the end of the interviews, the director told us that Caitie would need the highest level of treatment that they offer. Which is an extensive outpatient program. She would be at the facility six days a week for six hours per day. She explained that she would have a nutritionist who would work closely with her and she would need to follow their meal plan whenever she was not eating in the facility. They wanted her to start right away, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. However, they did say they would have to talk with Dr. Tom and see more about the blood work results and they wanted her to go for more blood work. We talked with a nutritionist who spoke to Caitie like a baby asking her if maybe she could handle eating a piece of bread with peanut butter on it for lunch. I felt overwhelmed, I still had to go to work the next day, I needed to complete grocery shopping for my dinner on Thanksgiving, I needed to clean, company was coming to town. I needed to convince Caitie to allow us to tell someone! At this point Caitie still felt even her sisters didn’t need to know. I hope you are getting the complete irony of this time. I’m on one hand trying to plan the most gluttonous holiday of the year for 14 people, while simultaneously trying to navigate my newly anorexic daughter’s treatment plan. Yep, I was a complete mess. So Tuesday we did more blood work, then Wednesday we went back to EDNM to discuss our arrival, so I thought. Caitie and I both spoke with a nutritionist for almost an hour. She discussed each meal in detail, she talked about what they would eat at the treatment center and how they would try to help her restore to a healthy weight. As we were finally finishing up, the director arrived and said she needed to talk to us. She sat down and in her very gentle counselor voice, said she was sorry but Caitie was just too sick to safely weight restore in an outpatient setting and because there is not an inpatient hospital in our town they suggested we go to Denver Colorado. Then she said that they had taken the liberty to call the treatment center in Denver, however they also didn’t feel it was safe for them to take her. They said she would need to go to an Acute Hospital also in Denver Colorado. It is basically an ICU type care hospital especially for people with severe eating disorders. They explained that the process of re feeding, is actually quite dangerous. At least it is when you are in the condition that our girl was in. I have not once mentioned in these blogs Caitie’s weight. We never talk numbers much anymore but we certainly did then. Eating Disorders are very tricky and the demon of the disorder likes to make it a competition, it likes it when the person suffering try’s to be more sick than his or her very sick friend. Numbers don’t matter. But I will say this, she was so far underweight that she wasn’t even close to being on any BMI chart. Her electrolyte levels were seriously out of wack. She was dehydrated and simply malnourished. Re-feeding when a person is in this condition can be fatal. It can cause seizures, heart failure, and comas. It was no joke, she had to be under constant medical supervision.

I can’t really explain how I felt at that moment, I heard what they were saying, I knew it was true, but it felt unreal. It was like a flashback to about two years earlier when we had found out from blood work that my father had cancer. We went to that oncologist appointment thinking we would learn of his treatment plan, but instead were told there wasn’t a treatment plan and he only had months to live. I remember feeling numb,confused, and heartbroken all together. Feeling worried about my family members, wanting to heal their hurt but too broken myself to know how. I remember feeling so hurt for my dad, how awful he must feel to be hearing this news, and at the same time feeling like my heart was being torn out of my chest from the thought of loosing him. This was very much the same. How had we gotten to this point? How had we let it get this bad? And worst of all, what if we are too late to fix it?

Caitie, initially said no, she did not believe she needed such extensive treatment. She felt they were over reacting. I couldn’t blame her, I wanted to believe that too. My husband was confused as well, he hadn’t been at the appointment and was very surprised to hear what we were telling him. He called Dr. Tom who explained to Chris, that when he had seen her in his office on Monday that he almost called an ambulance to take her to the emergency room because her vitals were so out of wack. He told us the only reason he didn’t was because he knew she was going to EDNM and that if he sent her to the emergency room they would have pumped her up with IV fluids, she would have felt better and would not go get the help she needed. I can’t express how grateful I am that we had such an insightful doctor, who really understood the big picture of getting our daughter help. So we all agreed she needed to get to the hospital. Remember now, this is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The bookkeeper at EDNM had us fill out a bunch of paperwork which he rush faxed to the hospital in Denver. Everyone would be on vacation for the next four days, and we could not take her until she was cleared with our insurance. The Acute Hospital made that very clear. The paperwork said “Do Not Make Plans to Come Until We are Clear With Insurance!!!” It took a week to get that clearance. It felt like a month. In some ways I was grateful for the holiday because it kept me very busy, shopping, cleaning, cooking, entertaining company. Although my guests for Thanksgiving dinner really was like a bad joke. My mother in law who has a heart condition and has to be very strict with her salt intake, (and quizzed me about every dish and how much salt was in each item), my brother in law who was on a new total vegan diet, no meat, no cheese, etc.(he was not as adamant as my mother in law however he did want to tell us all about his new diet), the semi picky children, the wrestler boyfriend who needs to make weight, and my daughter with anorexia. Yeah, it will certainly go down as a holiday to remember. Caitie did however have a scare that day, she ate, probably more than she had eaten in a very long time. Then her and the cousins decided to try to go to the mall for Black Friday (Thursday) shopping. While there she started to not feel well at all and thought she might black out, she hid in a dressing room until she felt she could walk again and came home. She told her Dad and I about the incident, it had clearly scared her, she said she had never felt like that before. The next several days were just a waiting game to get the clear to go from the hospital. We finally got that clearance on Thursday, November 30th. So, on Friday the first of December, Caitie Chris and I loaded up the truck and left early to drive her to Denver. A six hour drive, they were expecting us by 1:00. You know how people say, “God only gives you what you can handle.” I think God was in our corner, we went there believing this would only be a two week stay, and then we would bring her home to continue treatment in Albuquerque. I know now that is not what they said at EDNM, but that is what my brain could process. It was all we could take at the time. Her stay in Denver would be much longer than two weeks, but we will talk more about that next time.

As soon as I got to Caitie’s house I could tell things weren’t quite right. She was upset and trying not to show it. None of her roommates were home so we just started talking about what was going on right away. She explained to me that there had been a sorority event at her house the night before. She said there was a lot of food there. Food that she wanted to eat, food that she knew she should eat. She had promised us she was going to eat, she wanted to keep that promise, but she couldn’t. I think it was the first time she was acutely aware of the struggle that was going on inside her. She knew she should eat, she knew she needed to eat, but for the first time she was aware, that something was stopping her, something she hadn’t let herself notice before. She was visibly shaken, the feeling had scared her, she felt unable to control her own actions and it was scary. I told her about my conversation with the nutritionist, we decided right away that I would extend my visit through Monday and go to the administration office and start figuring out how to withdraw her from school. Although she didn’t want to leave school, she didn’t fight this decision much, at least not yet. So, now we had the weekend of sorority events to attend, these fun light-hearted events but everything felt heavy and kinda depressing. My eyes were suddenly very open. I was finally “seeing” Caitie, really seeing her, she wasn’t just too thin anymore, she was frail terribly frail. I had a feeling of horror inside me the whole weekend. I felt like at any moment she would just drop from lack of strength. When we went to the parent’s day event I felt like all the other parents were going to run up to me and ask what was wrong with her! I felt a little surprised to be honest that they weren’t asking. Didn’t they see her? And no it didn’t really dawn on me that I had been looking at her for months, not “seeing” her, not acknowledging the truth. My daughter, my child, my beautiful, loving, funny, smart, kind, girl had been slowly starving herself to death. She wasn’t dead yet, but it was coming if we did not intervene quickly. It was very clear to me that day, I watched her pick at her sub sandwich at the luncheon, I watched her skip chips and take some fruit that went unfinished. I watched amazed as she seemed to even struggle to drink water now. We tried to do things, we went to Wal Mart, we visited her favorite coffee shop and took pictures by a mural. We visited some of the little local shops in town and bought new jewelry. I tried to just make it normal? Nothing felt normal. We took a trip to nearby Clovis to get her blood drawn. She knew where to go, but it did not go smoothly. The lab tech had to use a baby butterfly needle to get her blood. As the tech drew the blood, Caitie started to have a bit of a panic attack. Her face turned white, no color and she was sweating. The tech gave her water but she was having trouble calming down. She said her heart was racing, and she wasn’t able to stand or move. I was so scared that this was going to set her off and that she might not be able to recover. I wanted to tell the lab tech my fears and why I felt so worried, but I didn’t. I knew Caitie wouldn’t want me to tell her secret. It took her at least 20 minutes to be steady enough to leave the office, but she did get better and we went back to Portales. I was glad I was there, what would she have done if she had been there by herself and if she had to drive herself 30 minutes back to town? I spent the night at Caitie’s house the first night, we slept in her double bed together. I don’t think either one of us slept much. I couldn’t stop listening for her breathing. It reminded me of when she was a little baby and was sleeping in a bassinet next to my bed and I would just listen for her breathing. I could tell she was having trouble sleeping, I thought maybe it was just because she was sharing her bed with her mom! But the next day she started talking about all her reasons to need to stay at school. She had made commitments to her sorority, promises she did not want to break. Classes were so close to being over and if she could just stay and finish up the semester. It’s odd to me now how little she had to say for me to start second guessing the decision to take her home. We went to church and a few of the ladies there did know about Caitie’s illness and they wanted to know what our plan might be. I discussed the idea of taking her home before the end of the semester but we also discussed the idea of her staying to the end of the semester. They of course said they would do anything they could to help however we decided to go. One of the ladies knew the head counselor at the college and she had talked to her earlier in the week, she suggested I visit her in person on Monday. We went to lunch with another couple from the church and I watched Caitie try to eat, she was very good at “fake eating” I don’t know how else to describe it. She seemed to be eating and food would move around her plate, and mostly it would end up in a to go box. How had I let that fool me before? When it was time for dinner I of course wanted to eat again. Caitie did not. I made her go out to dinner with me, watching her try to eat that food was sheer torture! I thought she was going to pop right in front of my eyes. It reminded me of the movie Bridesmaids, the part where all the wedding attendents have eaten bad meat and are having symptoms of food poisoning. But the maid of honor is trying to fight it and starts to eat jordan almonds to prove she isn’t sick. Slowly chewing each bite, forcefully swallowing it down. It was torturous. She tried, but again most went into yet another to go box.

I got a hotel room Sunday night, I felt we both needed some alone time to let the weekend sink in. Caitie had an early class on Monday, so I told her I would go to administration and see what I could get figured out without her and she could meet me there during a class break. I was lucky to get to talk with someone right away and although she couldn’t help me much without Caitie being with me, she did give me some key peoples names and numbers which I greatly appreciated. Next, I set my goals on the counseling department. I went and told them I needed to speak to the head counselor, they said she is of course busy but they would see what they could do. I dropped the name of our friend from church and she took me into her office and agreed to talk with me. I trusted that the head of the counseling department in a University would have some knowledge about eating disorders. I believed that they would know how to help us and that they would give us good advice. I am sad to report that was not true. Sadly, later I learned that it is actually quite common for counselors and doctors to know very little about the correct way to cope with eating disorders. Even head counselors in University settings! (eating disorders are most commonly found among young people between the age of 16-24. Also, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any other mental illness. It causes 12 times more deaths than ANY OTHER illness among girls aged 14-24, these statements are found on NEDA, National Eating Disorders Association website.) It seems to me this is important enough an issue for maybe a little extra training on the subject, but, I don’t know.

The Counseling director encouraged me to allow Caitie to stay at school. She suggested we sign a contract, Caitie and I. A contract where Caitie would promise to eat, and not exercise. Where she would promise to drink at least one drink a day that had electrolytes. To help keep her heart going. (Yes, let that sink in for a minute, to help keep her heart going.) The counselor promised me she would make sure Caitie saw her school counselor weekly and suggested she visit the on campus health center so a doctor nearby could keep up with her. She said maybe she could skip the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving to visit the eating disorder center in Albuquerque, then after Thanksgiving break there would only be three weeks left of school, and one of those weeks is finals week. She suggested maybe we try to get permission for her to take some of her finals early, so she could get home sooner. It’s funny how you can know something deep down inside of you as to be one thing, but if that one thing isn’t really what you want, that you can so easily convince yourself that it is actually another thing. I listened to this counselor, I allowed her to convince me that this would work. I listened to her and not the knot in the pit in my stomach that knew it was wrong. I wanted Caitie to stay at school. I wanted to believe that writing a contract would be enough, that fixing her problem would be that easy. I wanted that to be true so I believed it was true. Caitie of course also wanted that to be true! She jumped on the idea of signing a contract, making a promise, one she wanted to keep, but I am sure deep down she knew as well as me that she couldn’t. Something else inside her wanted to stay away from me and the people who knew of her struggle. She did not want to face the truth any more than I did. I took her to Wal Mart and bought her food. Trying to find things that I thought maybe she could manage to eat. We bought Ensure shakes, vitamin water, tuna and crackers, low calorie frozen dinners, and halo top ice cream. I tried to buy things that wouldn’t be scary for her to eat, things that would help her succeed. Her contract was asking for 1000 calories per day. And to either maintain or gain weight. I did not know the reality of how much I was asking. So, the decision was made, she would stay at school again and I would leave and go back to Albuquerque. Easier said than done. We called my husband, Caitie’s dad and told him our plan. He probably knew it wasn’t right either, but what could he do? I listened to Caitie crying to him on the phone, promising to eat, promising to follow her contract. Promising to stay alive until Thanksgiving. I can’t explain these things, it’s just how it went. I hated leaving her there, I found that this was just the beginning of the internal struggle we were about to endure. From here on out for the next 6 months every decision, every idea, every thought seemed to have so many double meanings, questions, concerns. Nothing was just a simple yes or no. Black or white. Everything had layers and layers of what if, and what next, and why, and what about this or that, and mostly why don’t you know more? We just didn’t know. So even though my eyes were open and I could see, I still didn’t believe them, I still couldn’t listen to the right people, the people who did know, at least not yet.

The events that happened next were confusing and frustrating. I’m not sure I can write about these weeks and make any sense. However, I’m going to try my best. As life always can be things were pretty crazy the weekend she was coming back home. Caitie is the oldest of my three daughters,( I haven’t mentioned her by name yet in these posts, not sure really why?) our middle daughter was 17 at this time and in her first semester of her senior year of high school. The youngest was 13 and in the 8th grade. So they were both in milestone school years, one finishing high school, one finishing middle school. My brother lives close to us and he has two boys who are close in age to my girls. His oldest son was also 17 and in his senior year of high school. The Friday Caitie was coming home was a very busy day. Her appointment with Dr. Tom was at 2:00, I told the doctor I wouldn’t be there, so she would feel free to talk to him. She is 19 so medically she doesn’t have to tell me anything anymore. I got off work at 2:30, picked the youngest up from school at 3:00 and had to get over to a cross country meet by 4:00 to see my nephew’s last cross country meet of the season. It was his last chance to qualify for state so it was important! I got home with the youngest to drop her off and change before the meet. She also had a guitar concert that night at 6:00 so she wanted to practice and change before her concert. Also, earlier in the week her dad checked on Caitie’s grades for her good student discount on her car insurance. Caitie had signed paperwork that gave us permission to look at her grades. She had never had anything to hide but it was convenient to be able to look whenever we wanted. Her dad called me shocked, Caitie had two F’s! Two! She was failing two classes! She had never had an F in her life! Could that be a mistake? We would need to ask her about that.
Caitie came home, we greeted her and were happy to see her, after a bit I asked about the doctor appointment. “Well….” She said, “he doesn’t think it’s my thyroid.” I looked at her worried, she then said, “he is going to call you. I gave him permission to call you.” I really didn’t have time to discuss it because I was already running late for the meet. Okay! and as I was going out the door to drive to the meet he called.
So now the truth comes out. Basically Dr. Tom tells me that our daughter was very honest and forthcoming. She admitted to obsessive calorie counting, and extreme food restriction. She is a classic case of Anorexia he says. It’s the things he said next that got me scared. “If I were you,” he said, “I would not let her go back to school on Monday. She needs to get into treatment right away.” He told me that her heart rate was very slow, dangerously slow, and that just light movement was causing it to jump in rate drastically. He said she admitted to getting light headed when she stands up and having low energy. He said it would account for her bad grades too, he said her brain didn’t have enough calories to think straight. He said she probably shouldn’t be driving. And shouldn’t be left alone. I felt so confused, she just drove herself 3 and ½ hours to get to that doctor appointment! She is still going to the gym every day! I’m sure she is tired! She was just standing in front of me and she seems just fine. Take her out of school? Can he be serious? She will lose her scholarship, she is half way through the semester. He said he needed her to get blood work done so he could evaluate further her condition and we should talk more on Monday after we had talked to her about it over the weekend. My head was spinning, I wanted to cry but I had a cross country meet to watch. So I got out and yelled for my nephew, running from one end of the track to the other. My sister in law by my side showing me where to go. After it was over I told her what the doctor said, that Caitie has Anorexia, she looked worried but also didn’t know what to say. It will be okay she assured me, we will help you figure it out. I hugged my nephew and hurried home to get ready for the guitar recital! When I got home we only briefly talked about it, my husband wasn’t home yet, her sisters were there, we had somewhere else to go! We hurried to get ready, my husband came home I told him what Dr.Tom said hushed in our room. We all hurried off to the recital. We didn’t have time to eat dinner. As we sat waiting for our daughters turn to play her piece I just kept running the words over and over in my head. It’s a classic case of Anorexia. What does that mean? Of course I had heard of the disorder but what did I really know about it? All this time I think I truly believed there is not such thing as too skinny, I was wrong.
The weekend was a blur, my husband and I talked privately to Caitie about the appointment, she told us a lot of things that we didn’t know about how little she was eating, but she didn’t tell us everything. She didn’t want anyone else to know, not even her sisters. She definitely did not want to leave school. I’m really not sure how but we agreed she would be okay to return to school. She would need to get the bloodwork done and she promised to see a school counselor. It’s a college, I’m sure the counselor’s see cases like this all the time, right? It seemed like a good plan, it made sense at the time. The next weekend my middle daughter went to visit her at school. They had a nice weekend together. She made an appointment with a counselor at school. I wanted to talk with the counselor as well, but she was not willing to talk with me even though Caitie gave her permission. Over these couple weeks my husband and I are doing more research and what we are learning is frightening. I called the eating disorder treatment center in our town. When I told them about my daughter they said they wanted to see her right away. I told them she was at college and made an appointment for her to see them over her Thanksgiving break. I called our doctor and he was frustrated with us for not following his directions. Also, Caitie had not gone for her bloodwork! When I asked her why she said, “do I still need to do that? We know what’s wrong with me, I’m anorexic.” Okay…. Yes sweetie, you still need to do the bloodwork, we need to know what this anorexia is doing to your body? She hates having her blood drawn, so she didn’t want to do it. Her sorority was having a parents day that weekend so I agreed to come into town early and take her to get the bloodwork.
The days were a blur, we were trying to get information wherever we could, but she didn’t want anyone to know so we were also trying to keep it secret. I am not very good at secrets, especially when I’m trying to cope with something troubling. So, unsurprisingly, I blabbed the problem to a mom friend who happened to know a nutritionist at the eating disorder center in our town. She gave me her number and I called her and left a message. She didn’t call back. A couple days later I was driving to Portales to see Caitie, and my friend texted and asked if I had spoken to her friend the nutritionist? When I told her she hadn’t returned my call I think she must have called her because about ½ an hour later she called me. I told her my story. I told her how much weight she had lost, her hair falling out, the extreme exercise and the miniscule amounts of calorie intake. I told her about what Dr. Tom said, her slow heart rate and needing to get lab work. She was very honest and very real with me. She said, “I have been working in this business for over 10 years and if I was you, if she was my child, I would drive her home with you this weekend. She is at high risk of having a heart attack at any moment. Don’t wait, take her home and get her help now. If you don’t and her heart stops, how important will her scholarship be then?” I cried the rest of the way to her school. I couldn’t get in touch with my daughter, she wouldn’t answer her phone. I was picturing her dead in her bed, having had a heart attack and none of her roommates knew to check on her. Finally, when I was just minutes away from her house, convinced I was going to go inside and find my daughter dead, she called me. “Sorry mom she said, I over slept.” I tried to act casual, but I have never been more happy to hear her voice in all my life.

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.

DON’T BLAME ME…. BLAME THE BOYFRIEND.

When my oldest daughter finished high school we were very excited!  Her last four years had really been great! We were so proud and excited for all her accomplishments.  She was in the top 20 of her class, honor society, French honor society (yes, this is weird but whatever… it’s an accomplishment!), She went to state in DECA, she played varsity volleyball and basketball, she had even been prom queen!  She had made some really good friends and she had her first real boyfriend, she seemed to have nothing but greatness ahead of her. As excited and proud as we were, graduation is a difficult time.  There are so many decisions, and big decisions! The kind of decisions that can shape the rest of your life! Everyone is constantly asking, “What’s next?” Where will she go to college? What does she want to be? Those questions are great when you know the answer! When you don’t…. they start to get on your nerves!

So let’s take a step  back to “the boyfriend,” I hurried past that, he is important, however after this blog, I will try not to talk about him again.  He had a part in this and that is all, a part in this puzzle.   I was always confused why boys didn’t talk to my daughter.  She is very pretty, funny, smart. But she was shy, but don’t boys like a challenge?  What was wrong with these boys?  Why didn’t she ever have a date?  I started praying for her to meet a boy, someone she could share her senior year with. Someone to make her feel good about herself! Help her to see what a great catch she was! How could I send her to college without ever having a boyfriend? She was 17 years old and had never been kissed.  It just felt like time to have that in her life too!  There had to be someone at that high school of hers!  Well, be careful sometimes what you pray for, because you just might get it.  A young man asked her to homecoming.  He came to the house with her best friend.  He had flowers and a sign, something about “setting” him for a homecoming date?  She was the setter on the volleyball team so it was cute.  I thought Finally! One of these boys has woken up!  She was happy and after that date they continued to see each other throughout the year.  It didn’t take long for me to realize I didn’t really like him.  He wasn’t very nice to her, her wasn’t nice to her friends.  He didn’t seem to care much for us, except for her littlest sister, he was nice to her, oh!  And Grandma, my mom, he was very nice to her. She was paying him to help her with her computer so it was benefitting him to be nice to grandma.  I wasn’t too worried though, I mean it’s a high school relationship how long can it last?

So we start applying to colleges.  Even though she had a lot of high school success, she wasn’t the best tester and did not do well on her ACT exam.  Scholarships were difficult to come by but  in our state they offer a lottery scholarship to all local students as long as they attend an in state college.  So, that narrowed things down to really just three schools.  Our local college that is a Division I school, or two others that were just about 3 hours away from home.  I started encouraging her to pick the Division II school that was a little bit away from home.  I thought it would be a good experience for her to be away but not too far away.  It was smaller so the classes would be smaller and less intimidating for the first couple years of school.  Especially since she did not know what she wanted to have as her major. They also offered her a small scholarship for academic success.  Also…. The boyfriend was staying here to go to school.  Perfect!  And like she always does, she listened and decided to attend the school I wanted.  I thought for sure her and the boyfriend would break it off, long distance never works!  But, they didn’t, they stayed together in hopes they could make it work.

I thought I was preparing her appropriately for college.  I felt like I was talking to her about all the right things.  We found a roommate, one of her friends from high school whom she had played volleyball and basketball with.  She was a friend although not one of her very close friends, but I knew her parents and knew they were supportive and knew this young lady well enough I thought they would be a perfect fit.  She is very outgoing, while my daughter is more shy, I thought it might help her to get out and meet more people.  The school is small and has a very small Greek system but my sorority was one of them so I was excited about that as a possibility.  We attended the church there and found people that we had known from long ago and felt it would be a nice place for her to attend.  I talked to her about never going to parties alone and always being aware of her surroundings.  And of course we warned her greatly about the dangers of the “freshman 15!” I mean she had been an athlete, she was used to regular workouts, she would be quick to gain weight if she wasn’t careful!  Dorm food isn’t always healthy! The kids will want to go for fast food runs late at night, you better watch it!  I have to be honest, of all the things we need to prepare for in college I’m pretty sure the thing we talked about the most was gaining the freshman 15.  As if gaining weight would somehow change her as a person! As if a silly 15 pounds would make us love her less.  If I had known then what I know now….. Of course we learn from our experiences but it is funny (not funny Ha Ha! But odd) to me how important that seemed at the time.

Her first semester went well enough.  She joined my sorority and my sister in law and I went to initiation.  It was fun and she seemed happy. I was pleased because she was looking great! I think she had lost a little bit of weight! Not that she needed to lose weight she was a perfect weight for her height but to not be gaining the dreaded freshman 15! Way to go kiddo! I praised her greatly! She was having some trouble with the boyfriend though.   He was mad at her for going away and was constantly telling her to come back home and  even from 300 miles away, he was telling her what to do and who to do it with.  I pleaded with her to break it off.  She agreed and did, but he fought back.  He called her over and over again. Threatened to harm himself if she broke it off.  Promised to change and not be so controlling, and support her more. We were sitting in church together and her phone was vibrating every minute.  I was furious, but it worked and she got back together with him.  I started protesting more and more about how I felt about him over the next few months, and then she came home for Thanksgiving with a diamond ring on her left ring finger!! He had gone to visit her in October and had given her the ring.  She did not tell me, I just saw it on her finger. I tried not to panic but I felt panicked.  I needed a new plan, change of action! Telling her we didn’t approve was not working, so we did a 180 and went with full approval.  The boyfriend had decided he was going to transfer to her school in January.  So over Christmas break we were super welcoming.  We invited him for Christmas and New Year’s, bought him presents, clothes with the colleges letters, the whole nine yards!  And then out of nowhere, the night before they were supposed to leave for school he told her he had lost his scholarship due to his first semester grades and could not go with her to school.  We were all shocked.  She left the next day on her own for the second semester of school.  After just a few days back she broke up with the boyfriend.  He didn’t fight as much this time, I think he knew it wouldn’t work.  I was pleased!  More than pleased really, I thought finally she could be at college and just have fun like she should have been doing from the start! But little did I know this was going to be a spark, something that ignited a demon, a monster that was lurking inside my daughter that I had no idea existed.  This horrible thing would take over so quickly, so fiercely,  that we wouldn’t even recognize it when it was staring us directly in the face.  It was a sneaky demon, full of tricks and isolation and lies.  We fell for its lies hook line and sinker. We made excuses for it, convinced ourselves it wasn’t really there.   I thought I had prepared my daughter for all the things college could throw at her, I thought I had done all a mother should be doing to protect her, and give her the skills to get through school.  But I was wrong, so wrong that we could have lost her forever.

Hi! I’m starting a blog!  I have no idea what I am doing here, so please bear with me as I try to get started.  My name is Janet I have 3 daughters, they are 20, 18, and 14.  As you can imagine, we have a lot of drama in my house!  I am married to a wonderful man, who is clearly odd guy out!  He doesn’t even have a male dog!  Needless to say he is well adjusted and a wonderful husband.  We are all lucky!  I have spent a lot of my years being a stay at home mom, but since the youngest turned two I have had several part time jobs.  Pre-school teacher, Educational Assistant, and part time realtor.  Just this summer I quit my school job and have started real estate full time.  So, that is just a little bit of information about me.  However, this blog isn’t really about any of that.  My oldest daughter has an eating disorder.  She has anorexia.  Our struggle has been difficult, but it has opened my eyes to so many things, and I just feel the need to share my experience.  I am currently working on several posts that tell our story.  After I post them, I want to talk about more than just our story but the story of so many people who struggle in this life with eating disorders.  So that is all for now, I just wanted to introduce myself and soon I will post more as I figure out this blogging life! I hope to be helpful in sharing my story with people who need to know they are not alone.

On a quick side note, I just googled images with the word pretty, every picture that came up was of a perfect looking girl.  All thin, all dressed lovely, hair perfect, makeup perfect, everything perfect.  Ugh!  This is all we can do with pretty?  Not one sunset? Beautiful flowers? A boy! Maybe even a chubby girl?  This urkes me! Every picture the same? And we wonder why our children struggle, how can that be realistic?  There is a lot more to pretty than a face, or a body.  I think a laugh can make you pretty, a brain, a strong spirit, creativity, ideas, self worth, respect, commitment.  I find that pretty!

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton