Dear moms, this is a true story how it all happened, and what's important to know...
She woke up somehow restless, her heart was beating very fast. The kids were at school and her husband was at work. She was alone in the house. Some instincts told her to go check their rooms, look into a few drawers... in the son's room everything OK, in the daughter's first drawer was OK, but in the second drawer, a small black pencil case! As soon as she saw the pencil case it started screaming at her to open it. You know that feeling when you're in love and those butterflies dance in your belly, now imagine the opposite - the little black cockroaches biting your womb and you can't get them out. She felt like that when she saw a bloody tissue and a sharp nail-size blade... It ruined her whole world at that point.
Her cheerful, beautiful and communicative girl was suffering ... why?! Since when?!
She was crying for hours... she didn't know what to do nor what to say. What did she do wrong, what kind of mother was she? How didn't she notice something was going on... honestly she felt like shit. She calmly waited for her daughter to get home from school. When she arrived, a new and completely strange world begun. Her daughters big blue eyes filled up with tears and looked like everything was falling apart in front of her. It was so hard to see her so broken. They cried together for a long time... Mom thought about how much her daughter hated her because she searched her room, at the same time daughter felt relieved knowing someone finally knows what's happening to her, because she couldn't tell anyone.
Mother realized that her wonderful creature wanted to disappear, wanted nobody to look at her, or ask her anything. Daughters world started to fall apart when she experienced bullying in front of the school at the age of 13. Mother was immediately in principals office making demands that police officer watches out and guards the kids. Everyone got involved, every day someone had waited for her ( her sister, husband, grandma, grandfather, friends, or her) because her daughter was afraid to get out of the school. After a while, the daughter said to her that it is not necessary to wait for her anymore because everything was OK.
But it wasn't …
That happening left a big influence on the daughter, disrupted her self-confidence and self-respect so hard that she thought she was worth nothing, but she couldn't say it. Mother didn't recognize that something was happening, because at the same time they moved into a new house, she was working overtime every day plus applications for high school started... stress! She did not recognize anything until she found that black pencil bag. She started to judge herself on what kind of mother was she when she didn't see anything… but she has a great life partner and friends who told her that she is super mom and they helped her to get herself back in focus and upon her feet... Don't blame yourself, you have no ability to read others minds, you're not perfect. It's okay. Bravely go forward.
Her explanation for self-harming was: “ then I don't think about anything, it calms me...”, but she was actually replacing her emotional pain with the physical pain.
Mother immediately started looking for help. The first thing they did was “psychotherapy of self-confidence”. That stuff was deep in her daughters head, she wasn't able to solve it alone and she was afraid that it will go on.
Try to accept as soon as possible your daughter has a problem and you need help as a parent, don't be shy, talk to people and do not run away from it.
What about anorexia?
Anorexia went parallel with self-harming, but the mother didn't notice it at the beginning. The first couple of pounds lost weren't visible on her daughter. She didn't track how much her daughter was eating because she always liked to eat and the mother wasn't at home when the daughter was eating. People who get to that world of fear and control will so cleverly hide everything and actually convince you something completely different. They usually wear baggy and black clothes like it is modern, throw school lunches in the garbage, throw lunch at home, and over-exercise when no one sees them, burning more calories that way than they take in.
Summer has come, mother quit her job and then for the first time she noticed that her daughter lost her weight, but it was too late, the daughter was so obsessed with her body. She had a distorted picture of herself and thought that she was still fat...
Fat with 45 kilograms!!! Before everything she weighed 59 kgs and she wasn't fat at all.
They talked again, the mother looked in her drawers again and found the skeleton drawings that had writings on it saying no one understands her and wishing to die... she even wrote a letter to her mother, but she didn't have the courage to give it to her. She suffered even more...
They started seeing a psychiatrist for adolescents suffering from eating disorder and support group where daughter realized she wasn't alone and the only one feeling that way. She decided she has to fight. In support group daughter has heard other girls experiences when they were hospitalized. After that she was frightened.. said she doesn't want to experience it. Something unbelievable happened after first group appointment, her daughter told her exactly these words “I don't wanna end up like them and I'm glad you noticed my problem because I wanna be healthy again although I know it will be a long and tough way. “
So moms, don't expect this to disappear all overnight, it's a long and hard way. I want to tell you to follow your instinct, get informed, talk to someone about how you feel in this situation, believe me even if you are strong as lions, you need support too.
Here is some advice that helped my friend:
• Do not let your child manipulate you, you're the parent!
• When you ask a daughter for something and she starts talking about other things, STOP right away! Ask for the answer and afterwards she can tell you what she wants.
• Try to stay calm, honest and don't play the emotions. Let her see that it's okay to be sad, angry, cheerful or whatever you feel. You have to be an example in showing her it is normal to feel and show emotions. She will become open and express her feelings only if you show her it's good and okay to be an open person.
• Their relationship with food. It's important to get informed about their relationship with food by talking to them. They have so-called “safe and fear food“, with knowledge of that you should prepare their meals. It could also be good if you let them cook with you because they will feel more comfortable knowing what they eat. “Fear foods“ are something really scary for them, so you should challenge them with small things. To you it might seem ridiculous, but to them it will be a huge step towards recovery, so respect it.
Here is some funny but effective advice:
• Do not allow door slamming!
Daughter slammed the door because she was angry. Mom came to her room, and without a word she took off the door for a week ... quite effectively !!! It never happened again.
Thank you for reading!
Image was taken from: LINK