my thoughts on this

Jena

New Member
i've sat for hours, at a time thinking about difficult child, the non eating, the fact she began to eat with-no medications in her at all, etc.

than i did some research on it, eating disorders in general, not a food phobia like her's yet more general. again thinking of the attention seeking, the sep. anxiety that is part of her everyday with me, the constant never ending neediness, also the fluctuating moods she has no control over.

i think, and yea i'm just a mom. that she feels her world is out of control as of late, middle school was approaching she was petrified, i was getting married she doesn't like him by the way, easy child was getting older and detaching more, her moods were really kicking in, inability to sleep, etc.

i think in difficult child's own way this is her control. her own power. she knows it's not good for her yet she cant' control anything else right now. she can't control me now remarried, or the fact that the kids my step kids schedules are insane they come and go out of here there is never a calm day when their here, she has no friends, husband and i have been struggling BIGTIME to the point where marriage counseling starts after new year to see if we can make this work if not hard decisions will be made.......

this is the one thing she can control, her food intake, it's personal very personal all about her, and it affects a household and she likes control anyway....

eating disorders i've come to learn from researching again i'm not a doctor are partly a need for attention on some level, partly anxiety driven ofcourse and also a powerful way of getting control and a message across.

does she know what she's doing and why? def. not i dont' think so. not with this.

question is how do i get her to see that's what i think she's doing?? any thoughts??

i'm thinking list making with her, things she'd like to shoot for, "goals" and a plan on how to achieve them. can be as simple as cleaning her hoarded up room, than each day going over list at end of day and saying ok see what you did full control you achieved your goal and controlled that experience to your benefit not demise.

???? i think i'm onto something.....not sure
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Eating disorders, like things like cutting or hoarding, are Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) behaviors. They are ways to make a person feel in control of something in their lives even if that really makes their lives out of control. It is also an attention seeking behavior in a way. I have cut just in the hopes that someone would see how badly I was hurting. Sort of a ...SEEEEE ...LOOOK...Im this hurt that I would cut myself...why else would I do this to myself? Ya know?
 

Jena

New Member
ok maybe you could of told me that 3 hrs of research ago!! LOL :)

yea i can see it, anxiety grows due to her loss of self school the one friend she had, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) (unrealistic fear; choking) kicks in, and locks it down (obsessive thinking) and hence eating disorder.....than time goes by she sees reaction to it from the entire household cause how do you not react and boom = ongoing eating disorder.

i'm so sorry you cut, that's hard. i worked with a teen once that did it and no matter how much we worked with her she couldnt' stop. it became addictive, and she felt good after she did it. i always knew when she'd cut because id' go to the house and she'd be happy and i'd say oh you cut again? ppl say same about tatoos, it's addicting. it's rare to find a person with-one. i thought of getting one for my 40th yet said let me not than i'l have yet another issue LOL i'd be covered in tatoos in a mos. :)
 

Marguerite

Active Member
Another side to cutting - "I hurt this much; where is the physical evidence of it? If I can't demonstrate how much I hurt, then maybe the pain is not real. I have to make it real, then I can begin to feel better..."

That's basically what we got from easy child 2/difficult child 2. Also, she is very Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and when anxious, it shows in an increase in picking and other self-destructive things. I need to check with her husband that she hasn't started cutting again. She was always a secretive cutter and went years without letting us see her bare arms.

Marg
 
H

HaoZi

Guest
Sometimes cutting is also because you've reached the point where you're so numb you do it just to feel something. My half-sis and I were both cutters, I fixed mine by (you guessed it) getting inked. A decade later when I learned she was doing it, I told her that I had, too, and what I did. She also got inked, and it worked for her as well.

The friends I've had with eating disorders craved control over their lives. Not one of them was open to help until they wanted it, they found ways to trick people into believing they were eating, weren't losing so much weight, etc. Many were proud and would show off to each other how skinny they had gotten, because it was proof of their control over their eating. I did have one that finally turned to body-building as her way to control it, but a lot of the girls also had BDD, and saw themselves as "fat" no matter what the scale said. The good thing about maybe trying to point her the body-sculpting path (which is a bit different than building) is that a lot of the foods are high protein, like eggs and shakes (stuff you know she can eat). It gives her activity, and can really build self-esteem. It can open some other social groups to her (like at the gym) that she wouldn't know otherwise. Something to think about, anyway, and a possible way to catch it before it becomes something like full-blown anorexia (though some of them also over-exercise along with not eating). But sculpting as a hobby or even lifestyle is far healthier than not eating, and can give her a good deal of control and healthy body image.
 

smallworld

Moderator
You talk about "control," but the very definition of phobia talks about "lack of control." A phobia is:

An irrational, persistent fear
of certain situations, objects, activities, or persons. The main symptom of a phobia is the excessive, unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject. When the fear is beyond one's control, or if the fear is interfering with daily life, then a diagnosis of a phobia can be made.

I can only speak for my daughter's food phobia, but she was paralyzingly anxious about putting food in her mouth. She thought she would choke and die if she ate. It was only when we treated her with desensitization, cognitive behavioral therapy and appropriate anti-anxiety medications that her phobia went away and she began to eat. In her case, it was not about control. Today she is a healthy and happy 12-year-old. To look at her now you would never know that she almost starved herself to death because of her choking phobia.

My own personal opinion is that you should consult the professionals before you decide on a course of treatment for your daughter. But I'm not a doctor either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_desensitization
 

Jena

New Member
so sorry to hear of the cutting stories both Marg and Haozi. It is always very sad to watch your child, or someone you love mutiliate themselves or as i was talking about starve themselves.

Small - I know how you feel about the subject and each of our experiences are different and our own journey with it i believe because we all have very different children. I am not taking it upon myself to treat her, and the professionals have no answers to be honest and i've seen some really good ppl since i got her out of the hospital. Only difficult child and her alone knows what's really going on.

as far as your child is concerned i'm so glad that for her it was nipped in the butt and ended she was much younger and she also is a totally different person than my difficult child. To "get" what i'm speaking of you would have to truly know her. It is also stated in alot of literature that any type of eating disorder and this new one food phobia is a piece of needing attention, wanting it, control to some extent. my difficult child controls everything or at least tries to in her environment always has since birth. she's one of the best ppl i know and also the most complicated short of husband lol.

you dont' need to take offense to my words or thoughts on my daughter's eating disorder at all. like i said it's everyone's own experience with-it and luckily yours ran it's course and got better and yes she's healthy and you would never of known. Excellent! my child is very different, complicated and multi layered. she always has been got dealt an interesting deck of dna from her dad's side and some stuff from my mom's side. it happens.

proof is she began eating with-zero medications in her. that speaks for itself. time will only tell, but yes i as her mom will def work on diff approaches at home i'm def not a dr. but i'm incredibly determined to help her help herself and right now that is def a piece of it. she admittedly stated tonight when we spoke that her stating she wanted to return to school,and me having the mtg today could be cause of her stopping the food again slowly since she spoke those words. that is def. not a phobia. hands down.

only time will tell, yet we shove on cause well that's what all of us do. :)
 
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