I was sitting in my college freshman English class when I got the call from my roommate’s mom. “She’s in the hospital—room 135,” was all she said. She didn’t have to say why. I already knew. Everyone knew. It was a call her friends had been expecting for months, even if we hadn’t been quite brave enough to admit it. I called back to let her know I’d be coming, asking if I could bring anything from the dorm room I shared with her daughter. What I didn’t tell her was the thought on repeat in my mind: It so easily could’ve been me.
When I was 15, a friend told me how her older sister had taught her to use laxatives and binging and purging to stay thin. I’d always been tall for my age, thicker around the middle than most of my friends, the power hitter on the softball team, and center or forward in every basketball scrimmage, so I couldn’t help but be interested. I knew I could never hide something like bulimia from my parents, so I dipped my toes into the seductive pool of anorexia instead. It took two years and countless tears before I felt free from my eating disorder, and that freedom helped me stay strong when I ended up in college with an anorexic roommate. Sadly, researchers have found that most eating disorders are long-lasting and those who suffer from them struggle long-term. But even if the struggle doesn’t go away, there is hope. If you have a child who has disordered thinking about food, here’s what makes surviving a teenage eating disorder possible.
A Friend’s Kind Words
Thankfully, I had plenty of friends in my life at the time who saw my anorexia for what it was and called me out on it daily. We’d go to the movies together, and they’d remind me how much I used to enjoy sharing snacks with them. We’d go out for ice cream, and they’d joke about it being fat-free to convince me to eat with them. As kids, they didn’t know what to do to help me, and even though sometimes their antics hurt me and made my disorder worse, they were trying to show me they cared.
Their biggest help came in the moments when they would sit me down and give it to me straight with words like, “This isn’t you,” “I miss the real you,” and “I’m worried about you.” In dark times, those words healed me. My friends made such a difference, and eventually, their voices became louder than the voices of my other friends, who constantly worried about weight, counted calories, and made negative comments about their bodies.
A Mom’s Loving Attention
It didn’t take long on my journey into anorexia for my mom to notice something had changed about my relationship with food and my body. At first, she was afraid to talk about it, but when she spoke up, it made a huge difference. After letting me know she knew something was up, it didn’t take long for her to identify the problem as anorexia—and for me to respond unkindly with rejection and rudeness. After that, she and my dad brought it up at meals, on weekend outings, all the time. These conversations were painful, but it affected me to know that my parents noticed what I was doing and the harm it was causing.
They told me how worried they were about me, that they thought I was beautiful, and that my mood, schoolwork, relationships, and athleticism were all suffering. They pointed out my odd habits, my disordered thinking. They never gave up. They kept loving me, kept fighting for me, kept lovingly pushing until I was free.
A Professional’s Help
Because eating disorders are serious and have long-term effects in most cases, seeking treatment from a trusted professional is the recommended way to recover. Specifically, family-based treatment has been recommended for sufferers of anorexia, especially since it’s an issue that can manifest in stressful seasons and since people can relapse throughout their entire lives. While professional help in the form of therapy and counseling wasn’t readily available to me when I was a struggling teenager, other professionals like school counselors, teachers, and church leaders stepped up to fill that gap. Thankfully, professional help for eating disorders is more accessible today.
Ultimately, the decision to escape my teenage eating disorder had to be my own, and I remember the moment I knew I was free. I was at summer camp with my church group talking with my mom about how to cook for that night’s group dinner when it hit me—What if I didn’t have to worry about this anymore? What if I could be having fun like the other kids instead of always worrying about food? What if I just stopped? And then, a still, small voice in my soul responded, “Yes, that’s freedom.” Coming home from that trip was the first time I felt like myself in over a year. I could breathe again. I could live again. I could smile again. That decision was the first step toward freedom.
What has helped your body image issues or your relationship with food get to a healthier place and how are you trying to pass that on to your kids?
