It has become almost trite to advise parents struggling with the “severe pushback” of doing battle with their child’s eating disorder to remember that flight attendants caution parents travelling with small children to “first place the oxygen mask on yourself (really counter-intuitive for parents) and then place it on your child.” When I first heard this advice on a plane (astonishingly not what would have come naturally to me) I thought “of course! If I am unconscious then my (grand)child would have no one to help them put their own oxygen mask on.” And the thought gave—and gives—me chills.
Trite. Yes. But good advice? Absolutely.
And yet, it has been my experience that we have a hard time convincing parents who are struggling with the considerable pain and sacrifice involved in re-feeding and re-adjusting their child to a life without restricting and social isolation, to take time for themselves. For some it contravenes their cultural “stiff upper lip” ethos; for some they are ashamed, as if to say “other parents manage it, I obviously should be able to”; for others they are so overwhelmed that there’s simply no bandwidth left for them to contemplate their own needs.
And I am not just talking about re-feeding and weight-restoration, folks.
Since the earliest days of Kartini Clinic, in the mid 90’s, we have focused on (and have almost always achieved) weight restoration. It is the foundation of the house. But it is not the house. And although there are patients whose symptoms seem to abate entirely with adequate weight restoration and brain feeding, that is not always the case. Not by a long shot. And although this concept (”just re-feed the brain and everything will return to normal”) was a giant step forward in promoting weight restoration as the most essential tool of treatment to a profession that had never embraced it (!), it now has the sometimes perverse effect of making parents feel guilty when their weight-restored child continues to struggle mightily with the psychological devastation of their eating disorder. As practitioners, parents, and advocates we must strive to be alert to this and to avoid adding guilt to the burden that faces parents who are part of family-based treatment paradigms.
Last week a mother who has been extensively beaten up by her daughter’s eating disorder told me that she had found some solace and support (not surprisingly) on the F.E.A.S.T. forum. We give all parents in our practice a flyer which tells them how to connect to this advocacy group, and we recommend that others do so as well. What matters is that this is a forum for parents to shore each other up, to listen and give advice and good cheer. That is hard to find.
It’s hard to imagine that when you are weary from supervising all meals, from arguing, and from tears and accusations, worried about losing your job or not being there for the other members of your family, a massage, a yoga session or a walk in the Japanese gardens could restore your courage. But for some of us, it can. What else helps? An hour with a good book? Skype with a supportive friend? Meditation? What recharges your jets, oh parents who have been through this?
If you have anything to share for our parents who need a touch from someone who knows, please do so here. In many respects we are the flight attendants on this trip through hell to the recovery of a child or young adult. And trite advice is still good advice; for some it will be all they get.
