What Parents Want Eating Disorder Treatment Professionals to KnowLearn About What Parents Want Eating Disorder Treatment Professionals to Know

“You know something is wrong with your child. You feel it in your gut,” activist, blogger, and mother Cherie Monarch writes. “If you can recognize, intervene, and treat fast, you can have this in your rear view mirror.” Drawing from her family’s treatment experience, she now has several ideas that may aid others in opening dialogues and improving the process. Along with her words of encouragement, Ms. Monarch offers a list of suggestions to help treatment providers and parents build a strong foundation for recovery. “As you and I travel this journey together,” she says, “I think it’s imperative that we support each other and collaborate.”

An Open Letter

If someone you love has an eating disorder, Cherie Monarch urges you to join Mothers Against Eating Disorders or Fathers Against Eating Disorders. “No one should walk this journey alone,” she says. She also encourages eating disorder professionals to meet with these groups so they can learn and grow from one another. In an open letter to eating disorder treatment specialists and families of loved ones with EDs, Ms. Monarch outlines 25 steps to create more effective communication. Her complete set of guidelines are available at this link. An edited and abbreviated version of these steps is listed below.

  1. The keyword is COMMUNICATION! COMMUNICATION! COMMUNICATION! Together, at admission, let’s develop a communication plan including frequency, medium, and how you should be contacted if there is an urgent, life-threatening situation or I feel my loved one is at risk of harm. This will help alleviate my concerns and fears.
  1. Let’s empower each other.

My goal is not to challenge you or to be adversarial. My goal is to help you understand my child as best as you can and to give you as much information as possible. Please respect the fact that I have vital knowledge, and use me as an essential resource and an integral part of the team.

  1. Please include me as part of the equation.

Just as I am integral to the equation financially, I am also integral to the equation from the standpoint that I am their mother and I will likely be the one supporting them when they discharge from your treatment program. It is important for me to have all the facts so that I can assist my loved one in making knowledgeable, life-sustaining decisions.

  1. Teach me that there cannot be a crack in the window.

Teach me not to undermine the treatment team in front of my loved one. If I have concerns or questions, encourage me to come directly to the treatment team without giving the appearance that I am aligning with my child, and allowing EDs to jump through the gaping hole as a result.

  1. Please listen to my concerns when I contact you.  Please don’t immediately dismiss me as an enmeshed or over controlling mother. Please remember that I know my loved one best.
  1. Tell me and please recognize that my child’s brain is malnourished, even though they have BN, BED or OSFED, and that they are going to distort things. PLEASE take the time to check in with me, the rest of the family, and have separate family sessions to ascertain what the truth is.
  1. Teach me how not to enable the eating disorder.

Teach me the words to say. If my child calls complaining about the treatment center, crying, hysterical, angry, telling me they don’t belong there, they’re not sick enough, promising the world if I just let them come home. Encourage me to receive outside training or therapy on how to set boundaries and how not to enable the eating disorder.

  1. Teach me how to tolerate their distress so that I do not jump on the roller coaster with them.

Teach me how to endure feeling their pain. Teach me not to rescue them. Encourage me to gain skills to remain emotionally regulated and tolerate their distress.

  1. Please understand the hell that our family has likely endured before my loved one entered your treatment program.

Our family may be in ruins or struggling to survive. Please hold my hand and help me navigate the day-to-day challenges. I am a critical piece to this equation.

  1. Teach me that my loved one will not be magically cured.

That treatment is a journey and will have many twists and turns in the road. Tell me it may take from 2 to 10 years for my loved one to recover from their eating disorder with lapses and relapses along the way. Tell me that FULL recovery is possible. I need to be able to hold on to hope while managing my expectations.

  1. Please update me regularly as to how things are progressing…both good steps and not so good.

I need to understand the challenges, whether it is difficulties with treatment, my loved one, insurance, or psychiatric or medical stabilization. I do not want to be surprised and may be able to address some of the challenges before they escalate. We would like to avoid a crisis if at all possible.

  1. Please don’t assume that I am enmeshed with my child just because I want to be involved in decisions and their treatment.

Whether my loved one is an adolescent or adult, I likely have been fighting to save their life. Because of this, I am concerned and invested in decisions that are made regarding their treatment. After all, I am the one that will be left picking up the pieces if things crumble.

  1. Teach me how to validate their feelings effectively and how to be vulnerable. I want my loved one to be able to feel and to know that I respect their feelings and that their feelings are valid. Also, help me to understand that it’s important to show our vulnerability in front of our loved one, so that they have permission to show theirs.
  1. Teach me that my loved one is going to call about the food.

My loved one is going to call pleading that the food is not good, or it’s not healthy, that they want to go to a different treatment center that has “healthier” food, that they’re being overfed, that their stomach is hurting and distended, that they’re constipated. It is important that I am prepared for this call.

  1. Please know that my child did eat cake.

Please have the dietitian speak with the family. The patient is not always truthful with the RD. Please remember that I am a witness and am an asset to recovery. Please use me as a resource.

  1. Teach me how to support and empower my loved one through meals and behaviors.

Role play with me to help me understand what to say or what not to say. There needs to be a firm plan in place. Even if it’s an adult, the family needs to know HOW to help.

  1. Teach my loved one and my family the physical symptoms and phases of recovery.

Clarify how this typically results in a feeling of discomfort, pain and distress for the sufferer. When we don’t know, we assume you are over-feeding them, because that is what the sufferer tells us. Teach us how to support them and encourage them through this phase.

  1. Please teach me that I did not cause their eating disorder, and that they did not choose it.

It is imperative that I understand that I did NOT cause this. It is also critical for my loved one to understand that they did not choose this, that the eating disorder chose them. Help free both of us from the guilt and the pain.

  1. Teach me that self-care is critical.

Tell me that self-care is mandatory, even though it is counterintuitive. Encourage me to obtain my own therapist and find peer support groups to help me learn coping skills and tools to navigate this journey with my loved one.

  1. Advise me and my loved one that they cannot discharge from your program and immediately return to college.

Tell me and my loved one NOT to entertain college before they are solidly in recovery and abstaining from ED behaviors for at least six months. Inform us both that even having an air-tight contract with a full treatment team in place at college will not protect them, especially if they are just out of treatment. It is important that we have this information as early as possible so that expectations can be managed.

  1. Teach my loved one that no one can recover from a life-threatening illness alone.

It is imperative that they have a support system. Making a decision to discharge from treatment and live alone, across the country from family and friends, is isolating and can be deadly.

  1. Let’s design a roadmap together on what the next step looks like and assemble a support team.

Please don’t discharge my loved one without a solid plan in place, without an appropriate and educated outpatient team, and without appointments being scheduled. We want a recipe for success, not for failure.

  1. Please make sure that I am informed, educated and prepared when my loved one discharges.

I need to have a step-by-step plan and marching instructions, especially if my child is an adolescent or young adult. Please give me tools. The only way for our family to provide adequate support is if we have knowledge.

  1. Teach me how to support my loved one after discharge with a focus on RECOVERY and LIVING LIFE.

Teach me and my child that recovery is THE top priority, that school and jobs can wait.  However, whether my child is an adolescent or an adult, it is imperative, at some point, that they reintegrate into life and start living life.

  1. Please teach me how to be an asset in my child’s recovery.

Empower me. Please reiterate to the outpatient team that I can be an asset and an integral piece to recovery. After all, I am the one left picking up the pieces when they collapse.

The Center for Discovery Difference®

For nearly 20 years, our family-inclusive approach has been helping families find their way to long-lasting recovery. Our behavior modification programs are tailored to meet the needs of each family. To encourage greater understanding in the mental healthcare community, Center for Discovery is currently hosting panel discussions with leading mental healthcare professionals and Mothers Against Eating Disorders.

Recovery is Always Possible

If you suspect that someone you love may have an eating disorder, we urge you to call Center for Discovery immediately at 800.760.3934. We provide personalized integrated multi-faceted care options that range from residential treatment, intensive outpatient treatment, to partial hospitalization, for adults, adolescents, and teens that suffer from eating disorders, depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, self-harm behaviors, gender identity, oppositional defiant disorder, and most major mental health disorders.

Call Us Now at 800.760.3934

Call today and you’ll be able to speak with one of our highly trained admission specialists right away. Or click on the link below for a free assessment or virtual tour. All calls are completely FREE and strictly confidential.

 

Sources

 

March Against Eating Disorders: What We Wish Eating Disorder Treatment Centers Knew, by Cherie Monarch. Retrieved November 14, 2016.

Huffington Post: 8 Things I Wish I Knew When I Went to an Eating Disorder Treatment Center, by Shannon Kopp. Retrieved November 14, 2016.

Mothers Against Eating Disorders- Project Heal: Anorexia took her away – so I will march, by Debra Schlesinger. Retrieved November 14, 2016.