Life is a banquet & most poor suckers are starving.
Color sorted ironed shirts still feels like angels singing inside me. (Bild: Auntie SAM)
Dear Auntie SAM: My friend’s daughter developed anorexia. What can she do to help her?
There isn’t always an event that triggers this. But, for me, around the time my parents divorced, I noticed I had to start counting things in groups of two.
One, two. Left, Right. One, two. One, two.
If I touched one thing, even accidentally, I had to find its match & touch it, too. It was as if an engine deep within me condemned the mechanisms of my soul to endlessly – ridiculously – perform this tango. When I didn’t, it felt as if my head & body were discordant: tearing me apart in minor keys.
And then I discovered starving.
My compulsions honed like a laser into accomplishing one task: not eating. I no longer had to find pairs. I no longer had to linger at the market shelf long enough to touch two. I no longer had to run back to wherever I had been pulled away from to acknowledge a match.
It was such a relief. But a false one.
I won’t get into the details of how I managed my disorder. Sick minds will find their means. And, I won’t help you there.
But, my journey involved never feeling good enough to warrant existence and aspiring to be above – removed, even, to whatever situation I was in.
Being anorexic leaves you feeling superior and worthless at the same time.
It’s a fool’s endeavor, but a lot of really smart people fall for it.
It feels terrifying to watch a loved one suffer, knowing you can’t do much to help them. With this issue, the most obvious place to start is to micromanage her food intake. And food intake is important. But that is also where she’ll expect you to focus. Her disorder will be prepared for – perhaps, even, welcoming – that fight.
And, the likelihood is, at the stage most parents start worrying about their child, the child is still eating enough to survive.
So, what I’m going to propose may sound shocking. And, I’m just a girl with a blog. But you did ask me, so, brace yourself:
Feed her mind instead. Feed her heart.
Show her there are ways for her to accomplish what she wants – what the mechanisms inside her require – that will overcome the false sense of control she now experiences in exchange for true power.
Help her find ways she can feed her soul that are meaningful, inspiring, exciting, and delightful to her.
Let her mind envision a future where she can become the person she wants to be and start creating the world where she wants to be.
Be there for her in ways that support and encourage her full character – bitchy flaws and all. And, inside her, she’ll start to feel a hunger for life.
Then, her body will follow.
xo
AS
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