Teen Girls, Anorexia, Cutting Themselves. A Real Life Horror Story
Without Prejudice
Yvette, middle at 29
An ugly subject matter but needs to be addressed. I am not a professional, just an experienced Mum. I had 5 teen girls, all close in ages. One died at 12 and that is a story for another day. Today I just want to address Anorexia, Depression, Teen girl angst and Cutting themselves. It's cold, dark and not for the faint hearted but it happens and it's hard to understand.
For Anorexia I have two in my family. One was Anorexic when young and one at 37. Anorexia simply means " Not Eating", Anorexia Nervosa is the illness, the disease, it can follow in families and usually means the teen feels her life is out of control. Not eating may be the only thing she feels can control.
Boys get it as well but its more likely statistically to be a teen girl thing.
I had one of my girls go down to 37 kilos and one more kilo would have put her in Hospital to be force fed. She was just turned 18. I read everything I could on the subject and watched, terrified as my child went down, down and down.
It began one day when her older sister, screamed when she saw Y out of the shower, and called me into the lounge room. Before that Y had covered herself in layers of bulky clothing. She had just had a baby boy who was three months. Her legs uncovered were terrifyingly thin, the knobs of her bones standing out in grim relief in the glow from the heater, making them red.
I felt sick. How had this happened? How had I not known ? How had it become so bad before we noticed?
I felt inadequate, helpless, worried sick. My daughter had the baby and two weeks later her baby Sister had died, aged 12, drowned. Instead of being a happy first time Mum she was plunged into grief, post natal depression and the only way she could cope was to stop eating.
The oldest daughter a steady and reliable child, always, and I decided to take over the care of the baby boy, my first Grandchild. Such a reason for celebration he was when he was born. And delightfully easy to look after. We insisted the baby was housed with us and Y was free to chase her
boyfriend, the teen boy of 16. As long as the baby was O. K. we felt she could sort out her own
problems.
I never, ever insisted she eat. I know that sounds unusual but I know my child and she had always been a picky eater. Her father tried to force her to eat vegetables when she was young and I knew from old that was a battle she was always going to win.she would sit for hours at the dining
table rather than eat.
I too had been a picky eater as a child, eating nothing but scrambled egg and tomato soup and it had to be Heinz cream of tomato and the scrambled eggs had to be dry not wet and sloppy.
Y as a baby was intolerant to milk but in those days it was not known about. She simply had a failure to thrive and gained little weight until she went on to solids. Solids consisting of peanut butter sandwiches or honey, no butter.
So we let her go and took care of K, the baby. She slowly recovered but will never be anything but tiny. A Mum of 7 with the body of a Teen girl. She forces herself to eat these days for the sake of her boys. She has found if she eats breakfast and is relaxed when she does, her body doesn't "forget" to eat the rest of the day. She now makes breakfast time a priority, a time to herself before the clamour of Family Life takes over.
Luckily we have a kindly fatherly Family Doctor who Y trusts and listens to. He advised when she was really bad to just eat one steamed dim sim and then the next day have another. To force breakfast to break the fast. She listened, she follows what he said to the letter.
She has explained what Anorexia is like. She says you feel hungry but your mind talks to you and tells you the food looks dry, will stick in your throat and so no matter how much you want it, you just
look at it. So you don't eat it and the hunger pains disappear. Simple.
After years of her body "forgetting" to eat, she has retrained it to "remember". She persevered for her boys as they needed a Mum around. Her photo is at the top of the page. She's 41 and can rock a bikini like no other Mother of 7 that I know. And in times of stress now crunches ice in her mouth rather than just not eating.
Cutting is more a new problem, it did not affect my girls so much. One has just turned to it after a period of severe depression and post traumatic stress. A is 36. I caught her two weeks ago and she didn't cry. Nor bothered to hide it. She said it lessened the pain, somehow and didn't hurt at all. I acted not shocked, although at first I was.
I had a Grand daughter cut her legs years ago and slapped her. When I asked WHY, she said her legs were fat, it lessened internal pain and a friend was doing it. She has grown, lost weight and met a lovely boy who she is engaged to. She also had a controlling Dad but he loved her so much. So she stopped almost immediately.
Worse was my gorgeous ex daughter in law. She had a hating Father who beat her. He told her every day of her life she was disgusting, that he would die for his Sons but she was Female and to be aborrhed. So she went to her room, her darkened room and cut.
A kindly teacher took her under his wing and helped her. Reported the Dad that beat her and things worsened for her. But she left the family, had a Son, my great Grandson, A , to my Grandson, K and began her life again.
I was the first person that she told that when drunk, her Father made inappropriate remarks and touched her body. A story told in her own words in another story.
A real life horror story.
I told My oldest daughter, and my Grandson and we made it urgent to get her out of the Family home. It took a while but we did it.
To the shock of her family, and Community, she was pregnant out of wedlock. But eventually accepted her and her wonderful child.
She had to return home and for the last time, once again, her Father touched her.
She rang her Mother at work and that night her Father hung himself. She saw him hanging in a tree near her home as her Mother and her drove around trying to find him.
She spotted him out of the corner of her eye. Didn't tell her Mother. She always was trying to protect her Mum.
She rang an ambulance and ran back with a knife on her own to cut him down.
The medics on the phone told her to give him mouth to mouth.
She couldn't as his mouth was covered in blood, she said.
He was already dead.
She had to deal with the aftermath on her own as the Community, her Church, her Mother, regarded him as a Saint. She hated him. Loathed him.
She hates the fact that she hated him. I told her she would need counselling. She at first said no. But having been through major trauma myself I knew she would need it.
She said she was having nightmares months after her Father died. I insisted she go get help every time I saw her.
I am happy to say she went to Counselling, finished her Fitness degree, and is One fantastic Mother. She is still in the family home but wants to move out.
She can't deal with her Mothers grief or pessimism.
I told her to stay for a while until she feels financially secure.
While at home she has the support of Family and being a Single Mum knows it's
not much fun on your own with a child. All the Family look to her Son as a source of Joy and delight. He's three now and a blessed child.
He is that security of love she always needed and never received. The unconditional love a girl usually gets from her Dad. Her Dad was left mentally ill after the War in her Home Country,
but she doesn't see that as an excuse for his behaviour.
And neither should she.
Yvette, middle at 29
An ugly subject matter but needs to be addressed. I am not a professional, just an experienced Mum. I had 5 teen girls, all close in ages. One died at 12 and that is a story for another day. Today I just want to address Anorexia, Depression, Teen girl angst and Cutting themselves. It's cold, dark and not for the faint hearted but it happens and it's hard to understand.
For Anorexia I have two in my family. One was Anorexic when young and one at 37. Anorexia simply means " Not Eating", Anorexia Nervosa is the illness, the disease, it can follow in families and usually means the teen feels her life is out of control. Not eating may be the only thing she feels can control.
Boys get it as well but its more likely statistically to be a teen girl thing.
I had one of my girls go down to 37 kilos and one more kilo would have put her in Hospital to be force fed. She was just turned 18. I read everything I could on the subject and watched, terrified as my child went down, down and down.
It began one day when her older sister, screamed when she saw Y out of the shower, and called me into the lounge room. Before that Y had covered herself in layers of bulky clothing. She had just had a baby boy who was three months. Her legs uncovered were terrifyingly thin, the knobs of her bones standing out in grim relief in the glow from the heater, making them red.
I felt sick. How had this happened? How had I not known ? How had it become so bad before we noticed?
I felt inadequate, helpless, worried sick. My daughter had the baby and two weeks later her baby Sister had died, aged 12, drowned. Instead of being a happy first time Mum she was plunged into grief, post natal depression and the only way she could cope was to stop eating.
The oldest daughter a steady and reliable child, always, and I decided to take over the care of the baby boy, my first Grandchild. Such a reason for celebration he was when he was born. And delightfully easy to look after. We insisted the baby was housed with us and Y was free to chase her
boyfriend, the teen boy of 16. As long as the baby was O. K. we felt she could sort out her own
problems.
I never, ever insisted she eat. I know that sounds unusual but I know my child and she had always been a picky eater. Her father tried to force her to eat vegetables when she was young and I knew from old that was a battle she was always going to win.she would sit for hours at the dining
table rather than eat.
I too had been a picky eater as a child, eating nothing but scrambled egg and tomato soup and it had to be Heinz cream of tomato and the scrambled eggs had to be dry not wet and sloppy.
Y as a baby was intolerant to milk but in those days it was not known about. She simply had a failure to thrive and gained little weight until she went on to solids. Solids consisting of peanut butter sandwiches or honey, no butter.
So we let her go and took care of K, the baby. She slowly recovered but will never be anything but tiny. A Mum of 7 with the body of a Teen girl. She forces herself to eat these days for the sake of her boys. She has found if she eats breakfast and is relaxed when she does, her body doesn't "forget" to eat the rest of the day. She now makes breakfast time a priority, a time to herself before the clamour of Family Life takes over.
Luckily we have a kindly fatherly Family Doctor who Y trusts and listens to. He advised when she was really bad to just eat one steamed dim sim and then the next day have another. To force breakfast to break the fast. She listened, she follows what he said to the letter.
She has explained what Anorexia is like. She says you feel hungry but your mind talks to you and tells you the food looks dry, will stick in your throat and so no matter how much you want it, you just
look at it. So you don't eat it and the hunger pains disappear. Simple.
After years of her body "forgetting" to eat, she has retrained it to "remember". She persevered for her boys as they needed a Mum around. Her photo is at the top of the page. She's 41 and can rock a bikini like no other Mother of 7 that I know. And in times of stress now crunches ice in her mouth rather than just not eating.
Cutting is more a new problem, it did not affect my girls so much. One has just turned to it after a period of severe depression and post traumatic stress. A is 36. I caught her two weeks ago and she didn't cry. Nor bothered to hide it. She said it lessened the pain, somehow and didn't hurt at all. I acted not shocked, although at first I was.
I had a Grand daughter cut her legs years ago and slapped her. When I asked WHY, she said her legs were fat, it lessened internal pain and a friend was doing it. She has grown, lost weight and met a lovely boy who she is engaged to. She also had a controlling Dad but he loved her so much. So she stopped almost immediately.
Worse was my gorgeous ex daughter in law. She had a hating Father who beat her. He told her every day of her life she was disgusting, that he would die for his Sons but she was Female and to be aborrhed. So she went to her room, her darkened room and cut.
A kindly teacher took her under his wing and helped her. Reported the Dad that beat her and things worsened for her. But she left the family, had a Son, my great Grandson, A , to my Grandson, K and began her life again.
I was the first person that she told that when drunk, her Father made inappropriate remarks and touched her body. A story told in her own words in another story.
A real life horror story.
I told My oldest daughter, and my Grandson and we made it urgent to get her out of the Family home. It took a while but we did it.
To the shock of her family, and Community, she was pregnant out of wedlock. But eventually accepted her and her wonderful child.
She had to return home and for the last time, once again, her Father touched her.
She rang her Mother at work and that night her Father hung himself. She saw him hanging in a tree near her home as her Mother and her drove around trying to find him.
She spotted him out of the corner of her eye. Didn't tell her Mother. She always was trying to protect her Mum.
She rang an ambulance and ran back with a knife on her own to cut him down.
The medics on the phone told her to give him mouth to mouth.
She couldn't as his mouth was covered in blood, she said.
He was already dead.
She had to deal with the aftermath on her own as the Community, her Church, her Mother, regarded him as a Saint. She hated him. Loathed him.
She hates the fact that she hated him. I told her she would need counselling. She at first said no. But having been through major trauma myself I knew she would need it.
She said she was having nightmares months after her Father died. I insisted she go get help every time I saw her.
I am happy to say she went to Counselling, finished her Fitness degree, and is One fantastic Mother. She is still in the family home but wants to move out.
She can't deal with her Mothers grief or pessimism.
I told her to stay for a while until she feels financially secure.
While at home she has the support of Family and being a Single Mum knows it's
not much fun on your own with a child. All the Family look to her Son as a source of Joy and delight. He's three now and a blessed child.
He is that security of love she always needed and never received. The unconditional love a girl usually gets from her Dad. Her Dad was left mentally ill after the War in her Home Country,
but she doesn't see that as an excuse for his behaviour.
And neither should she.
