Help for Parents
Eating Disorders are family disorders, as they have an affect on each and every member of the family. Some members of the family may develop anxiety concerning the ill members state of health.
Some siblings feel neglected as the sufferer becomes the focus of attention.
The family's communication and other activities can be disrupted in order to accommodate the sufferer's needs.
The good news is that although this is often a painful and stressful process, the family become closer if the family or at least some members have a desire to change.
- Family members must realise that there is no change without confrontation. It is important that your concerns, fears, and observations are addressed in a loving and non judgmental manner.
- Denial is always the first stage of the illness that the sufferer and some family members often experience. Your confrontation may be met with anger, excuses, and attempts to deflect from talking about the real issues. Do not take this personally, and try to understand that this is a defence against you trying to ''take away'' his/her coping mechanism. Parents cannot cause eating disorders , but they can trigger a person to think something negative about themselves that causes them to use food to cope with it.
- Throw your own guilt out the window. Guilt is a negative emotion that can paralyse you and sap your energy that you need to use more positively.
- Do
not try to find a rational answer to an irrational problem. You could
waste a lot of time trying to find out ''why?''. A person has the problem
and it needs to be addressed, despite how or why or when.
- Stop trying to find a single cause or cure for the eating disorder. They are complex, multifactor, problems that have emerged over time from various different emotions, experiences, biological and psychological conditions. Each individual has her/his own history to make their eating disorder unique. The recovery process can be slow so patience is needed by all parties.
- Personality changes, emotional outbursts, and mood swings are all
part of eating
disorder behaviour, and while the sufferer feels guilty afterwards for their behaviour, they are often unable to control such behaviour without professional help and nutritional stabilisation i.e. balance of blood sugar. - Accept that you are powerless to make the sufferer eat, stop eating, stop bingeing, or stop vomiting. The more you try to control their behaviour, the worse the behaviour will become. Avoid conversations about food and their behaviour, weight, and their appearance. As long as the focus is the food or weight then the real issues are not being addressed. The food is the coping mechanism, the weight is a physical sign that something is wrong, and the actual problem is the way the sufferer thinks i.e. it's basis is psychological. Parents should just be parents offering unconditional love and support and let the therapist work through the issues with the sufferer.
- The sufferer will not let go the eating disorder until they have
something to replace it with.
The eating disorder has been described as the sufferers only friend or comfort
and only way of coping of what is going on in their mind. They will not let it go
until they have a sense of themselves and knowledge of their strengths, resources, gifts, traits, and talents, which up to that point they were unaware of. This fills the ''void'' or ''vacuum'' or sense of emptiness that many sufferers so often experience. - Do not let the sufferer to dominate or manipulate the entire family's
functioning.
You must set certain limits and boundaries to ensure the rights of all the family
members, especially in reference to missing food, emotional outbursts, stealing,
lying, and physical violence. - Be
sure to pay special attention to the other family members, especially
children. Separate the behaviour of the sufferer from the person they
are. They are not their behaviour, as their behaviour is the negative
condition which is at the root of their thinking. A thought generates
a feeling, and the feeling generates the behaviour. If a person has
a negative thought, then the resulting behaviour will be negative. You
need to emphasise that you love the person but dislike the way they
are behaving.
They need to be reminded that are not ''bad '' people and unlovable. - Finally do not try to be the family therapist. It will not be effective
and may seriously damage the relationship between you and the other
members. Nobody can fill the need of a loving parent, sibling or spouse.
Help your loved one by finding a professional who has had experience
treating people with an eating disorder.
LOVE AND SUPPORT are the two most important aspects of recovery from an eating disorder. Take care of you too. !
How to help if someone you know has (or might have) an eating disorder
- Do talk to them
- Don't focus on food and eating
- Do tell them you care
- Don't walk on eggshells, dare to be honest with them
- Do give time to listen to them
- Don't tell them what to do
- Do accept and appreciate them as the unique person they are
- Don't try to get them to eat or stop ezercising
- Do realise you can't force them to change
- Don't keep watching them and questioning them - especially about food
- Do see them as an unhappy person
- Don't see them as an eating disorder
- Do take time to build trust with them
- Don't lecture or nag them
- Do realise their fear of gaining weight and becoming fat
- Don't be afraid to talk about your feelings
- Do realise that it is not easy to change behaviour
- Don't be impatient, change will take time
- Do realise that non-food factors are at the heart of the problem
- Don't pretend it will all just go away
- Do make sure you have enough support
- Don't carry an overwhelming burden of anxiety and worry alone
- Do tell someone you can trust if the burden becomes too much
- Don't give confidential details to others - stick to the facts
- Do phone a Helpline if you are unsure how to handle the situation
- Dont give up if your attempts are rebuffed
Director & Founder, Certified Trainer in Practitioner Skills for Eating Disorders.
Phone 01 4953577
Mobile 087 2056560
Email info@eatingdisorders.ie
Website www.eatingdisorders.ie
Suzanne Horgan director & founder Certified Trainer in Practitioner Skills for Eating Disorders and Obesity Contact Us today..........info@eatingdisorders.ie