Parenting and Eating Disorders
Around March this year my teen decided she was going to be vegetarian. While somewhat inconvenient, it was something we could manage as parents to pivot meal planning and accommodate. She had already often opted to fend for herself for most breakfast and lunches and was trending towards mostly plant based meals already.
Unfortunately in the past year she's lost an unhealthy amount of weight. Her dad and I, her godmother along with a couple of our close friends have all had concerns regarding restrictive eating and too much exercise, and voiced them, but ithere were two main times that she lost most of the weight and those times corresponded with explainable increases in activity. 30# down during an intense volleyball season freshman year, and another 20 after she got a fit bit and walking pad for Christmas. Another 10 after her diet changed.
She has already had lifelong constipation issues but it was mild and we felt never really 'bad' enough to warrant medical investigation/interventions. Also explainable, kid needs more water intake, kid needs more veggie fiber, kid needs more protein and less reliance on over processed fiber and protein bars.
A few weeks ago she saw a really dumb food documentary, got grossed out by puss in dairy, was already upset about the factory farm food industry and declared herself vegan despite mastering what it takes to get the proper nutrients as a vegetarian. I can emotionally support her reasons behind it but I am no dietitian/nutritionist and am not prepared or educated enough to properly feed a vegan. I communicated as such and told her we really needed her to help research put together a meal plan so we can do this right.
All along since March, she went from very sparse occasional over-snacking binge eating to binging once a month, then once a week and then barely eating anything for days because she felt bloated and like crap. Coupled with the exercising - we knew she had entered eating disorder territory. After a particular bad out of control binge followed by a tear filled conversation on her constipation, and confession of how out of control she felt when binging, we decided to get her into the doctor.
I feel so much guilt and shame for not getting her in sooner. The doctor and nurse borderline flipped out about her weightless and I felt they thought I was too nonchalant about it as I explained we weren't concerned since we identified that it was related to increased activity and diet changes.
This ended in a referral to a therapist, a referral to a GI specialist [she had some slightly off liver enzyme tests, probably related to her veg diet], and to an eating disorder program.
I did the initial screening intake call with the eating disorder program and the team of doctors who reviewed came back recommending a 6-8 week residential pprogram. My husband flipped his shit. Declared they were a greedy money seeking organization and of COURSE they'd have recommended in patient. Our kid caught wind and she HELL NOed it. They both made me out to be blowing things out of proportion and overreacting.
She still needs help though. After sitting through a really awkward call between my husband and the initial intake care coordinator as a 3rd party fly on the wall, eventually it was agreed we'd sign her up for the intensive day program, and while it would normally run 6-8 weeks we'll probably be pulling her out once school starts because she doesn't want to miss school and her 2 AP coarses.
My kid hates me for this. Literally said so verbatim. I've ruined her summer. And her life. She will likely miss volleyball try outs thus ending any sports she'll ever participate in whilst in high school because she won't make the team in futute years if she isn’t on it this year, and her chances were already low. This might fuck up her AP classes and won't get college credits. She can't get a job at the state fair at the end of summer. I didn't give her a chance to "fix things on her own" and I had no faith in her so now she doesn't trust me.
Ugh this all sucks so much. I know in my mama heart I did the right thing. I know she doesn't really 'hate' me. I wish I could have made it all better with a magic wand. I just feel backed into a corner. If we don't get her this help, I just see it all getting worse and she's already wasting away to a fraction of herself.
Unfortunately in the past year she's lost an unhealthy amount of weight. Her dad and I, her godmother along with a couple of our close friends have all had concerns regarding restrictive eating and too much exercise, and voiced them, but ithere were two main times that she lost most of the weight and those times corresponded with explainable increases in activity. 30# down during an intense volleyball season freshman year, and another 20 after she got a fit bit and walking pad for Christmas. Another 10 after her diet changed.
She has already had lifelong constipation issues but it was mild and we felt never really 'bad' enough to warrant medical investigation/interventions. Also explainable, kid needs more water intake, kid needs more veggie fiber, kid needs more protein and less reliance on over processed fiber and protein bars.
A few weeks ago she saw a really dumb food documentary, got grossed out by puss in dairy, was already upset about the factory farm food industry and declared herself vegan despite mastering what it takes to get the proper nutrients as a vegetarian. I can emotionally support her reasons behind it but I am no dietitian/nutritionist and am not prepared or educated enough to properly feed a vegan. I communicated as such and told her we really needed her to help research put together a meal plan so we can do this right.
All along since March, she went from very sparse occasional over-snacking binge eating to binging once a month, then once a week and then barely eating anything for days because she felt bloated and like crap. Coupled with the exercising - we knew she had entered eating disorder territory. After a particular bad out of control binge followed by a tear filled conversation on her constipation, and confession of how out of control she felt when binging, we decided to get her into the doctor.
I feel so much guilt and shame for not getting her in sooner. The doctor and nurse borderline flipped out about her weightless and I felt they thought I was too nonchalant about it as I explained we weren't concerned since we identified that it was related to increased activity and diet changes.
This ended in a referral to a therapist, a referral to a GI specialist [she had some slightly off liver enzyme tests, probably related to her veg diet], and to an eating disorder program.
I did the initial screening intake call with the eating disorder program and the team of doctors who reviewed came back recommending a 6-8 week residential pprogram. My husband flipped his shit. Declared they were a greedy money seeking organization and of COURSE they'd have recommended in patient. Our kid caught wind and she HELL NOed it. They both made me out to be blowing things out of proportion and overreacting.
She still needs help though. After sitting through a really awkward call between my husband and the initial intake care coordinator as a 3rd party fly on the wall, eventually it was agreed we'd sign her up for the intensive day program, and while it would normally run 6-8 weeks we'll probably be pulling her out once school starts because she doesn't want to miss school and her 2 AP coarses.
My kid hates me for this. Literally said so verbatim. I've ruined her summer. And her life. She will likely miss volleyball try outs thus ending any sports she'll ever participate in whilst in high school because she won't make the team in futute years if she isn’t on it this year, and her chances were already low. This might fuck up her AP classes and won't get college credits. She can't get a job at the state fair at the end of summer. I didn't give her a chance to "fix things on her own" and I had no faith in her so now she doesn't trust me.
Ugh this all sucks so much. I know in my mama heart I did the right thing. I know she doesn't really 'hate' me. I wish I could have made it all better with a magic wand. I just feel backed into a corner. If we don't get her this help, I just see it all getting worse and she's already wasting away to a fraction of herself.
46-50, F
