Slave to My Daughter’s Eating Disorder

 

Then she went to school and a bigger school. In her big school, she changed. She was secretive and just wanted to be in her room. My both sons now had own their families and only lived short distance away. On weekends, we all got together and to me life was good.

She was a perfect Aunt, and loved everyone. But when she went to big school, she slowly slowly started disliking all of us. The first shock came when she turned 14 and told me that she didn’t want me to come to her parents evening, I asked why? She said the way me and my husband dressed was so outdated and so backward that she felt embarrassed. I said we both will wear our good clothes and that’s the first time she yelled at me. No, it doesn’t matter what you wear, you’ll still look the same. You guys are plain embarrassing. I was hurt, we really enjoyed hearing all the good things about her from her teachers. So I managed to convince my husband to stay home and my daughter in law went instead.

Dear Readers,

I spent last few days in conversation with this great mother. It really bought back so many memories from the days, when I refused treatment for my Eating Disorder. One day I refused to go to my outpatient appointment. I had lost weight and I knew if I went to Hospital, it will be another round of grilling from the ED team. I can never forget how much my mother cried while she was washing dishes in the kitchen. At the end, it was my mother’s sister who came and begged me to go. She said ‘your mother will die of a grief’. It’s very very difficult for a mother to watch her daughter die a painful slow death. I can never explain the relationship between a mother and a daughter, but it’s a relationship forever.  So after speaking to this mother I asked Allah to forgive me for causing so much pain to my mother. This Aunty told me to share her story with the readers, she said it may help someone. Shukria Aunty, I pray for your daughter’s healing.

 

They said a time will come when mother will give birth to a mistress. I look at my daughter and this illness of hers and I think what have I given birth to? What I bore was a pure innocent baby, all pink, cuddly born in a state of fitra, this is not my daughter but an unknown demon that is destroying my daughter and her loved ones

I knock on her door and I look at the breakfast tray in my hands and try to remember the measurements. I am panicking; today I measured everything from milk to spread to cereal without my glasses. My eye sight is weak and it’s getting weaker and weaker by the day. After four loud knocks my daughter opens the door. As soon as she sees me, she clenches her fists in anger, I see anger flashing in her eyes, her nostrils flare and she’s trying not to yell at me, “what”? “You’re breakfast beta”, (beta in Urdu means my child) She looks at me with sheer hatred for one very never ending moment, she grits her teeth, a pulse is beating angrily at the base of her neck and she snatches the tray from my hands. Within split second, before I could even blink, door slams in my face.

I should ask her to come downstairs and eat in the dining area, but I can’t, my husband is sleep after a long night shift. He’s 65 and he’s tired.

I know within five minutes, she will leave empty tray outside her door and then it will be a quick trip to bathroom and she’ll flash all the food down the toilet.

She was a late arrival, a very surprise unplanned arrival. I was 40 when she was born. Despite all the complications, I was happy. My husband was slightly skeptical, but once she came we both fell in love with her. A perfect toy. Both my sons were grownups and at the university, there was a huge age-gap between them, but without a shadow of doubt, we loved this little doll.

She’s a blessing, my husband would tell his brothers and sisters. Now our sons have another reason to come home on weekends, I would say to my husband.

 

All of a sudden, we both felt young and vibrant. We would take her to the park, to shopping centers and we would spend hours playing with her. Our relatives laughed at this madness, but I was blissfully happy. When she was four my son got married and within two years we had another addition to the family. My daughter became an aunt at the age of six. She would boss all her nieces and nephews around.

Then she went to school and a bigger school. In her big school, she changed. She was secretive and just wanted to be in her room. My both sons now had own their families and only lived short distance away. On weekends, we all got together and to me life was good.

She was a perfect Aunt, and loved everyone. But when she went to big school, she slowly slowly started disliking all of us. The first shock came when she turned 14 and told me that she didn’t want me to come to her parents evening, I asked why? She said the way me and my husband dressed was so outdated and so backward that she felt embarrassed. I said we both will wear our good clothes and that’s the first time she yelled at me. No, it doesn’t matter what you wear, you’ll still look the same. You guys are plain embarrassing. I was hurt, we really enjoyed hearing all the good things about her from her teachers. So I managed to convince my husband to stay home and my daughter in law went instead.

She then wanted to eat in her room because she had lots of studying to do. I allowed that. It’s good she’s studying, I thought to myself. I never knew what she was doing in her room. Every time I would try to enter her room, it was locked. Soon everyone raised the alarm, “why is she always in her room? Why does she look so pale? Why is she getting so thin?” I became very busy trying to justify her actions to my family . ‘She’s tired, she’s exhausted, we have to excuse her today, she was up all night, studying for a big test, etc.’

 

She was 15 when she was diagnosed with anorexia. She fainted during her PE lesson and she had a low blood pressure.

Doctors said her BMI was 15.5, how can that be? I stuttered in my limited English. So a translator came, and after a long session, I half understood my daughter was ill.

Nightmare started. Social services came. What have we done wrong? My husband looked at me. It’s my fault, I thought to myself, only If I had taken time out to learn English and computers and took her to cinema, this would not have happened.

I came to England when I was 18 and focused all my energy on beautifying my house and raising my family. I planted our little garden and kept our house very clean. I think my children never lacked for anything. I learned to drive and managed to get a certificate in Basic English speaking skills. I did grocery shopping, paid all the bills, and answered house phone in English.

No parents are perfect and we all make mistakes. Maybe we expected too much. Maybe our rules were too strict. All I know is we were strict on our sons, but my husband and sons were very lenient on our daughter.

So she was referred to CAMHS and we were all put in a family therapy session.

They told us we were suffocating our daughter. What does suffocating mean? I asked my husband.

“Let her be free.” They told us, “let her make her own decisions.” We put our heads down, ‘OK we will let her do everything.’

After lots of long-interviews, social services said we were good parents. OK, that’s good, ‘Thank God, Alhamdulilah’ I said.

She went to hospital then because she was not putting on weight, and I said to the Doctor ‘tell me what to do and I will do everything you tell me to do. I want my daughter well.’

I wrote everything down in Urdu, so I don’t forget the instructions. She came out of hospital and she was all good. She was 17, when she was given all clear by the doctor.

Only few months ago, I started noticing that she was getting very angry. She wasn’t eating much. She was always in her room. ‘She’s losing weight,’ my daughter in law told me. ‘OK. I will cook her favorite food, I will try not to push her to come out of her room and spend time with us’, I made a promise to myself.

‘Are we suffocating her again?’ I asked myself time and time again that night. I always knock now, if I want to go into her bedroom. If she’s late, I don’t phone her, Doctor said let her be free and trust her, so I trust her. If she wants to stay at home and not go to her brother’s house with me, I let her, Doctor said, respect her, so I respect her. She doesn’t watch TV with us anymore and me and husband we watch 9pm  news all by ourselves.

What is happening? I ask my husband and sons? My son tells me, ‘keep an eye on her mum, and monitor her phone and her laptop, I think she’s visiting those websites again’. I can’t check her phone, I told my son, it doesn’t have buttons and a padlock appears if I touch it. And Doctor said to give her privacy. I see the worry in their eyes.

‘Did something happen in college?’ My son asks me. She finished college in summer before Ramadan and she’s not going to university, Doctor said let her make her own decisions, and we said it’s OK she doesn’t have to go to university.

‘And what are all these brown parcels that come in post?’ My husband asks me. She said it’s her vitamins. My son looked at the parcel in suspicion; ‘I don’t think these are vitamins.’ Our worst fears came true; they were some kind of weight loss pills, sealed in an aluminum packet, sent from Thailand.

‘Talk to her,’ my husband told me. ‘Don’t tell her we know about these pills. Just throw them away.’

So I spoke to her the way doctor told me to speak to her, ‘I am worried and I hope everything is OK.’ She became very very angry. So I let the matter drop. Few days later, she’s pacing up and down the hallway, waiting for the post to come.

I tried to speak to her again but she told me to leave her alone. Then I saw her pale skin, her little wrists, and my heart broke. I cried and begged her to go to doctors with me. She refused so my husband went to the doctor instead and doctor said they can’t do anything, and that we can’t force her to see a doctor.

So time passed and I begged her again. She agreed very reluctantly because I would not stop crying. And we went to the doctors. Her BMI was 14.9. They took her blood and Doctor said they will refer her to Anorexia Services. Doctor told me to bring her back in two weeks time. Those two weeks, I cooked many breakfasts, lunches and dinners. We had kept a copy of her former meal plans at home. Doctor said never force her to eat. So I cooked all her favorite foods and left them outside her room in a tray in her preferred plates. Sometimes the tray was empty, sometimes she would take few bites and sometimes food was simply untouched. The door remained closed. My hands got tired of knocking. When my husband came home, I would get very anxious, ‘did she eat’?, he would ask me in his tired voice? ‘Yes, No, I don’t know were my answers.’

I told him; look it’s only 8 more days before good doctor sees her and makes her better. Please keep patience. Remember we are not supposed to get mad. We told my sons and their wives not to come any more.

I counted the days on my fingers and I felt time had come to stand still. In those days, she lost more weight. I am a mother, I can tell.

So yesterday, I knocked 7 times. Her appointment was at 10am. At 9.20, she came downstairs to freshen up. 9.45 She was still in the bathroom. Me and my husband knocked many times. We somehow made it to doctor’s surgery very very late. The 10 minute car ride was like a lifetime journey for us. I read my tasbeeh, ‘Ya Raheem, Ya Raheem’.

Her blood tests are clear, doctor tells us, OK that’s good. But she needs to be weighed my husband tells him. The doctor looks at us and tells us it’s our daughter’s choice, whether she wants to be weighed or not. What? We were simply stunned. But Doctor my daughter is not well, I pleaded. “She’s 19 and an adult, we need her consent if she wants to be weighed.” My heart stopped. I looked at my daughter and said to her, please don’t say No. But she refused, because her illness is back, the monster is back and looks at me with a challenge.

 

Today, I made her breakfast. Maybe she’ll eat. Half an hour later, I see pieces of corn flakes floating in the toilet.

I am a slave to this monster that has over taken my daughter’s life. It yells at me, tells me I am a horrible mother. I am 59 years old, but I feel 90 now. I have aged so much in last two months. I rub my eyes, maybe my measurements were wrong, maybe it wasn’t 200ml milk that I gave her, maybe it was more. She hates it if food is not in perfect portion sizes. I will get the new glasses and will get my eyes tested again. My vision is getting blurred and blurred as I look around the bathroom for cleaning supplies to clean mess before my husband wakes up.

 

 Always Remember that a Sufferer Loves you but Some of them will always chose  Eating Disorder Over Love. This is because a relationship with an ED sufferer is inherently dysfunctional. Loved ones often ask,  “Why is he/she choosing Eating Disorder over me?” The natural, albeit faulty, conclusion is that the love is  there, but with the demon taking hold of sufferer’s mind  it isn’t strong enough to overcome ED addiction.