Once again I am happy to treat you to another “Guest Blog” from Dan.
________________________________________
I Missed That Bulimia Was Consuming Her
Even though my daughter has been home from treatment for over a month, as her dad, I still question what I missed as the bulimia was consuming her.
How could it have been going on for four years without me taking it seriously?
In 8th grade, with very little training, my daughter could run a 62 second 400. She could easily trounce my wife in tennis, and my wife had played at the college level. She was one of the most natural breast-strokers coaches had seen. Her shoulders and arms were naturally strong and she could wall-climb with incredible ease.
Over the course of three years, I watched her well-toned, naturally muscular body slowly dissolve before my very eyes.
She lost almost all of her strength and became very lethargic. By senior year, she could hardly walk a 400 without being exhausted. Tennis was impossible. She loved to dance hip-hop. She enrolled in a class and had to quit because she had no strength.
To demonstrate how “out of touch” I was. When she was a senior in high school, I insisted that she participate in winter track, so she’d be in shape for the spring season. I wanted her to get in shape because then she would feel better about herself and she would be forced to feed her body.
That seemed logical.
But I forgot about her inner drive. Instead of starting slowly and building endurance and stamina, my extremely competitive daughter went all out. Anything less than best, was not acceptable to her.
It still confounds me that she believed she could simply pick-up where she left off 3 years earlier. Her reputation as an athlete was still important to her. How could she possibly think she could compete so quickly?
Well…after 3 practices, she was in so much pain that she had to drop out.
I think between the hip-hop lessons and not being able to endure even a small track workout, she finally realized that her body had changed. Significantly! And it was not for the better.
What did this realization do for her? She just slept more.
“It Is All About Control”…Or Is It?
While getting treatment, we continually heard that bulimia is “all about control”.
“Your daughter feels like her world is out of control and her eating is the only thing she can control.”
Again, the logical, rational part of me could not comprehend that thought process. “If she is in control of her eating and overall food consumption, why is she ordering her life around it?”
It appeared to me that the eating disorder was controlling her, not the other way around.
Did you know that a bulimic will frequent the same restaurant once s/he finds one where they can purge without being noticed? Familiarity and routine becomes all-consuming. They plan their activities around the ability to purge.
If my daughter’s friends wanted to try a new food or place to eat, Grace would not join them. It was too risky. She wasn’t absolutely sure she’d be able to purge after the meal.
Another little detail about eating will also become evident. The bulimic will, through a long process of trial and error, discover which foods are easier to throw-up later. So s/he will begin to limit the type of food they eat.
Also, since “routine” becomes a priority, her daily activities were planned around the convenience of purging.
Again I ask, “Who/What is really in control?”
As bulimia continues to become more a part of their life, it consumes a greater amount of resources – time and money. Binging and purging takes about 15 – 20 minutes. If done once a day, it’s not a big problem fitting it in.
My daughter was purging at least 7 times per day.
That’s about 2 full hours per day that she spent nurturing her disorder.
That does not include the shopping time needed to buy food. The food cost money and the binge/purge routine consumed a large percentage of the limited awake time she had.
But the most undetected time-thief is the constant mental preoccupation with the routine of binging and purging. This obsession steals otherwise productive time.
Grace could not hold a job. She found every excuse she could to miss work, leave early, or quit. The structure and rigid scheduling of a job could not be coordinated with the routine that her disorder demanded. Something had to be eliminated from her schedule, and it was the job. It didn’t matter that she needed the income to buy gas, or food, or pot, or clothes.
It didn’t allow her the freedom to binge and purge. The wages from her job were not more valuable to her than the disorder.
Tell me again how bulimia is about “being in control.” What a lie! And yet, the person suffering from this disorder believes s/he is in control.
Be Engaged!
So why didn’t I take action when I saw all this stuff happening?
My daughter traded her friends, her jobs, her hours of being awake, her school work, her athletics, her joy, and her family relationships for her eating disorder (ED) and the co-addiction with it.
We took her to counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and even checked her into a hospital when she was a threat to herself.
I thought we were doing all we could.
The fact is, I was ignorant about the magnitude of this disorder.
I simply didn’t know what I didn’t know. That’s not an excuse. I should have jumped on this thing with both feet early on in the development of it.
Because now I know that if your loved one isn’t showing improvement, they’re getting worse.
Seeing someone once a week cannot off-set the other 6 days of ED having control.
Dads, be engaged!
Don’t leave this up to your spouse or the therapists you’ve chosen.
You can’t check it off and move-on that easily.
Trust me, if you attend to these signs quickly, it will free you up later.
Dan DeValk
________________________________________
Dan, thank you so much for this powerful message. I appreciate your openness and your insight and know that the Dad-EDs blog readers do to.
By the way, everyone, Dan’s daughter, with buoyed by the incredible love, encouragement, and support of her whole family and a carefully chosen professional recovery team, continues to progress in her recovery.
Respectfully Submitted -- Dexter Godbey -- Dexter@DadEDs.com
Great post, Dan! Every time I read another story of someone with ED, it still breaks my heart.
I can relate with your daughters disorder, although I was much luckier in that mine wasn’t as bad. I got out before it totally consumed me. I did however, find elation when I found a private bathroom at my work that was down a hall with a lock and a faucet that wasn’t automated, so I could leave it on and no one would hear me. It was my own private place. Reading your post made me remember it and at the time, I never knew this was something most people with ED’s do.
The notion of control is an ironic one. I think it starts out as a thing people with ED’s (especially bulimia) can control, but you are never really in the drivers seat.
My heart goes out to you and your daughter and hope she finds peace with her recovery.
Thanks, Andrea.
Every ED story breaks my heart too. That’s why, I guess, I’m doing what I am doing and encouraging others to also speak up and speak out.
I appreciate all you are doing in that regard and applaud Dan for this and his other contributions.
Best…
Dexter
I especially am glad he mentioned that seeing a person once a week will not offset 6 days of the ED feeding it. Its so true that its a moment to moment battle, a daily struggle, we have good days and not - and most of those who struggle or are recovery have probably figured out the way to portray ourselves with a therapist to appear more well than we really are. That denial piece is huge. It plays a part in the denial that we are so far out of control, with an illusion of control. I think its the illusion that there is a way to manage our daily lives. we may not have effective coping skills to manage everyday struggles and it becomes the only way we know how to do it. And think about the positive reinforcement a behavior that occurs 7 times a day (morre or less) has on our brain reward pathways.
Its like a smoker, if you puff 10 times on a cigarette and smoke 20 cigarettes a day - that is 200x a day - thats incredible reinforcement for an unhealthy behavior, and very difficult to break.
Being engaged is so important, and frustrating to the one struggling and those around feeling such a sense of powerlessness.
This especially struck me: “undetected time-thief is the constant mental preoccupation with the routine of binging and purging” - a time thief, a thought thief, a life thief…..this is the biggest part - when you have no other ways of coping, or other ways to relate to struggles, you are doing what you know. Its like they say with addictions - it undermines the value of competing interests. There isnt 1 pathway out of it, and its such an individual disorder, but I really felt this was a well written, honest expression of a Dad feeling a powerlessness and confusion but ultimate resolve to be involved no matter what.
Thank you for sharing.
Kendra.
Thanks for your comment, support, and insight.
Everything you are doing is appreciated by me and I know Dan will appreciate your response to his heartfelt post.
Best…
Dexter
Andrea and Kendra,
thank you for your honesty and transparency. I’m glad and humbled that you identified with a small part of the post. I find that this whole process is continuous. I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to look back and say, “I’m glad it’s over.” We dads have a tendancy to fix things and move on. Check it off the “To Do” list. This is one of those things that we can easily write-off as being handled. After all, that’s what I’m paying the therapists for. It’s like hiring someone to mow your lawn. I write the check and know it’s taken care-of. That’s how we approach problems. EDs and the accompanying addictions force us to get in the trenches and engage in hand-to-hand combat. We can learn how to do it, but it takes some training and a lot of scars. I can’t tell you both how much your feedback is appreciated. My daughter also read your comments and found them helpful. Dan
Andrea and Kendra,
thank you for your response and transparency. I’m glad and humbled that you were able to glean some helpful information. We dads have a tendancy to “fix” and move-on. We check-off the problem as handled. If I hire someone to mow my lawn, I simply write the check and consider the job done. We approach EDs, and the accompanying addictions the same way. We write the check for the therapists and the problem should be taken care-of. But it’s not. So we add to the list of therapists or have someone try something different. Actually engaging in long-term, hand-to-hand combat in the trenches is not an appealing thought and we avoid it at all costs. ONLY as a last resort will we get that involved, when it’s a matter of life and death. That’s where I fell short. I didn’t realize that it was a matter of life and death early enough. It’s so much easier to fix the problem when it’s small. Grace read your comments and found them to be “right on”. Feelings aren’t very easy to describe accurately, but you both do it well. I soncerely appreciate your feedback. Dan