Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
DD18 seeing nutritional response practitioner (NRP)
lighter:
I'm feeling super validated and understood right now.
Thank you, CB, Tupp, Hops and Amber for showing me different perspectives.
Tupp: I've always believed and understood your struggle with your mum and the harm she's done. It's really difficult to go there, but once the evidence continues churning and slapping us around....it comes into focus and we can't afford to become confused about it anymore. Not while attempting to protect children and maybe it's bc we couldn't protect them we GOT IT completely.....sans the angst one normally feels without this much evidence.
No one wants to believe sweet old Grandmas do these things. We certainly didn't want to know either. We didn't get a choice. Couldn't afford to keep going all confused and ognirant once the kids were being harmed.
I'm glad so many people don't understand or believe it, bc they don't have the point of reference to make sense if it. So very glad.
I do wish Judges and Ts had enough education and competence to deal with it. They should be qualified and held accountable, but they aren't.
Instead they're paid to feel put upon/bitter/ understandably overwhelmed while often adding more damage, ime. It's a very rare thing to see a Judge get it 100% right, ime. I've seen it happen twice, if imperfectly. Judges with common sense AND enough information they couldn't get stupid and ignore the facts.
I do feel share certain tragedies and unlikely truths people go DIM thinking over...denial/ignorance/minimization. I've never felt I had to prove anything to you...I always feel, sadly, we've been carrying similar shields and wielding similar strategiescabd tools. Evidence is a weapon. Documenting is everything. Failure is terrifying to contemplate. I've believed every word you've shared about your struggles. Every one.
When I read your earlier post, about dropping everything except "good mother" actions, interests, measurable visible DOING...that struck a chord. I put down everything....for years....I posted very carefully here, afraid the In Laws would use it....stayed away from martial Arts and...I understand, Tupp. Where are we now the kids are of legal age? I guess we'll find out together.
Hops: Thank you for sharing your views and lessons with me. I might not always agree, but you make me question, think and verify. I find myself more centered, bc of our discussions. I know it costs you something to share some things. I'm grateful.
CB: I feel steadier bc you've shared your trials and tribulations with kids and food. I appreciate what feels like Amazon CB holding a lantern up the trail, showing me the path you've walked. It really helps.
Amber, you posted last, so I responded to you, at length, but thanks again for your views and shared wisdom.
Lighter
lighter:
Anorexia hasn't let go of dd18. DD asked for help, embraced it, but certain things drag her back under. She dissociated. She recognizes it.
Social engagements. Time alone. She's angry with food too. Wants food to taste comforting....misses her "safe" foods...foods she always felt safe eating the last 2 years. All off the list.
Tonight was pretty awful after my niece's bd party, which was an enjoyable gathering. DD had a nice time. I did too.
DD didn't eat breakfast or lunch. She was super hungry on the drive home and going out of our way to find gas made the drive longer.
By the time we got home she'd been silent for an hour and a half. She watched me eat chicken and vegetables then explained she was starving. She wanted to eat, but couldn't. She looked....so....lost. I don't understand what shes5dealing with.
She took a time out, bc my trying to fix it wasn't helping. I did some laundry, then hear DD in the kitchen.....she'd been weeping for a while. Was on the verge and I just sat near her and listened.....I stopped trying to fix and I calmed myself down. It helped us both... a lot.
DD asked me what comfort food was. My answer wasn't her answer. She wanted her answer and it's always grilled cheese.
I heated the last Against The Grain gf roll, used parm cheese and ham.....she was comforted and took her supplements the first time that day.
Then she asked for chicken noodle soup. She chose gf penne pasta and I got out the bone broth we just made. She had 2 bowls.
This wasn't really comforting, bc she considers this binging and that throws her back into a spiral, but sha seemed to feel better. She's sleeping. I'm wide awake.
I have to keep breathing. Keep looking for the missing piece......dd has a T and nutritionist, but neither deals with anorexia.
DD is trying to gut her way through this, but she needs support from someone who deals with eating disorders, specifically.....that's how it looks to me.
The calmer I stay, the more quickly she'll askl for that help, think.
I find my face up against the glass....nose on the Pebble....catch it.....breathe....pull back.......become more present and responsive.....present and responsive is better than reactive and neeeeeding DD to be ok for me to be OK.
I imagine this will get easier with practice and focus.
I'm ready to go home for a while. Tomorrow.
Lighter
Twoapenny:
Lighter, I don't know anything about eating disorders but I have always associated the act of making food for other people as one of caring. As I read what you wrote I could only think that DD watching you put together a comfort food substitute for her - taking that time to find something that might fill the gap, without derailing the work and making the problems worse, putting it in front of her, sitting with her as she ate it - I can only imagine that the act itself would have been enormously comforting to her, even without the chemical hit she might be craving at the moment.
These sorts of things are so difficult to navigate through but can you imagine how much easier all of your struggles would have been if you'd had someone there to cook you healthy meals, drive you to places, talk through things that were troublesome, give you a hug and tell you that you're amazing, strong, loved, wanted, cherished? That level of comfort you give to your girls, along with the practical skills and just the investment you're willing to make in them - they may not be fully aware of it at the age they're at but it's setting them in such good stead for the future. They'll get there, Lighter, it might not be in a linear way, it might not be quick and it might seem a bit inelegant at times but they'll cross that finish line, because they've got you. xx xx
sKePTiKal:
I can't imagine what it must be like to want to eat - and not be able to. To consider chicken soup and a sandwich "binging". That latter sounds like a distortion of perception, but I couldn't possibly know the why's of that. It maybe has to do with a one-time experience or off hand statement, when she was in a really sensitive receptive state?? Societal pressure??? (Just some ideas from recent convo's with Hol, who is getting self-conscious about being over 40.) I do know, that when I'm really stressed emotionally - I just don't eat. The smell, sight, taste of food makes me nauseous.
It has be torture for you Light. I get that part; watching Hol go through this latest maturing phase and some of the nasty judgemental stuff coming out of her mouth - side by side with the kindest more compassionate understanding - can make me crazy if I get too attached to picking an outcome I want for her. I have to remember not everything she SAYS is really what she FEELS; she knows that deep down... so I don't get the extra step/layer between real and interacting with people. But nothing she's going through is on a scale close to what your Ds are sorting out.
I've heard it said that eating disorders involve issues of control. But I don't know if that's still accepted or not. Seems too simplistic to me. Maybe feeling safe? Dunno.... maybe it's time to start trying to locate a T that specializes in eating disorders, if she's ready to work through that. At 18, I imagine there are lots of OTHER things way more interesting to her. But maybe this is awful enough for her that she'd be motivated to resolve it or at least learn how it works in her case.
Hopalong:
I so agree with CB that releasing the fantasy that you can fix this, is the only path, and releasing it/them to a specialized professional (PsyD/PhD/MD professional, not just nutritionist) eating-disorder therapist (with you entirely hands-off and not asking) is essential.
Torture. So incredibly hard to accept your limits and let go. But it could heal all of you in time. Even if it won't, it releases you from the prison of the delusion that you can through sheer love and will and desperation, pull them back from the brink. You can pull YOU back from the brink, so their illness doesn't become yours, or yours theirs, or any combination. (Which is so very common.)
It reminds me of the "three C's" that someone told me about when I was fighting with all my soul to save my D, and had to release her outcome at the same depth:
I didn’t cause it – it is their private battle
I can’t control it – I have no power over an adult person's choices, even my child's
I can’t cure it – their illness may or may not resolve; I get neither credit nor blame
Feeling for you, Lighter.
hugs
Hops
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