Additional "mom" thoughts . . .

Following the last blog entry, here are some thoughts from the mother of our guest speaker.  All I can say is "I concur".  These are very good:

 

In hindsight, I wished that I had been better able to stand up against ED sooner  than I ended up doing.  In those days I thought that doing what my daughter wanted (like late nite grocery store runs) was helpful to her and would make things easier for her at a time I knew things were plenty difficult. I  But what I now see is that what I ended up doing was making things easier for ED… creating a comfy place for ED to roost…a place where ED called the shots and bullied everyone in the family.  I see now that although standing up to ED may have elicited a negative response from my daughter at the time, in the long run she needed her parents to take that strong position against the disorder because she herself could not do so.  I also realize that standing up to ED earlier was not likely to have made any difference in the duration of my daughter’s journey to recovery, but it WAS likely to have made me feel better about not being pushed around by the disorder, and  it MAY have created a better home environment where we had better boundaries.

  

I am a firm believer in doing things that “support recovery”.  You could hear me say that phrase over and over when faced with questions or situations that sounded more like “ED speak”.   I would say to my daughter things like, “Doing (xyz)  doesn’t  support recovery”  or  “Buying only xyz kinds of foods doesn’t  support recovery”.  It’s a nice way to address the issue while letting your loved one know where you stand.

 

As your loved one gets more rooted into recovery, sometimes it’s easy for parents to forget that struggles still come up for them.   Continue to be mindful of careless comments about body, looks, weight, size, how much the person sitting in the restaurant next to you is eating, etc.  I was reminded recently by my daughter that hearing me complain about my changing body was hard for her to hear.  Still learning! 

 

Good stuff and we thank her for sharing some additional insight.  I especially like her thoughts in the second paragraph.  We must always remember to not give the eating disorder any additional power or control.  We all want to avoid the rages of the eating disorder behavior -- it can get ugly, but cowering to it's threats will not make it go away.  Strength, perseverance and consistency is the key.

Saying to them when they are being irrational, statements such as "Honey, I love you, but I will talk with you when I feel respected," will let them know they are loved while still setting a very strict boundary of what you will and will not tolerate.