Daughter's eating habits... what to do?

My husband and I are at wit's end about what to do about our daughter. For the past two years she has been very obsessed with food. She has gone from eating under 1000 calories a day to binging on all of the food in the house. She eats up all of the food I buy, and we can't afford this! We continually tell her to not eat our food, and we even put notes on some of the cookies and other snacks that we do not want her to eat. We even hide food. But in the end, she finds it all and eats it all up. Sometimes she even throws it up--we caught her a few months ago. We take her to a psychiatrist, but she seems to be very hard headed (I'm not at most of the meetings, her father is, so I don't have the best idea of how she acts) and won't listen to what the psychiatrist says. She is VERY VERY obsessed with losing weight, although she has gained some weight due to overeating. I don't understand! She had such self-control when she was undereating, and although we constantly tried to get her to eat more, she would not. Now she is basically EATING AWAY our MONEY. She claims to have periods where she simply loses control and cannot help but eat. We tell her to simply stay out of the kitchen in order to avoid eating, but she says she cannot do this and that she simply has no control. So, she continues to eat up everything I buy. She finds the food we hide and selfishly ignores the notes we put on it, and eats it anyway. She often seems to be depressed because of this, and often she is very angry and argumentative.

We have told her time and time again to simply NOT EAT OUR FOOD--but this is obviously not working. My husband has tried to get her to keep a log of what she eats, but she says she will not do it because it only worsens her depression when she sees the food written down and causes her to eat even more. I think she is just being lazy and wants to rebel. What can I do to keep her behavior in check? Her behaviors are destroying our family.

Original Post by whatisbeautiful:

Original Post by choose2loose:

 

 

You and your husband seriously need parenting classes! You guys seem to care more about "your food" than your own kid!

thank you.

took the words straight from my mouth.

 Mine too. I think the daughter needs to visit us for some love. I want to give her a hug.

As a daughter who is anorexic with bulimic tendancies, please hear me out. She is not doing this "to you" and your husband. Clearly she needs intervention. When I was in treatment with other bulimic girls, their parents had gone so far as to put locks on the fridge, cupboards etc. because they couldn't afford to "feed" them.

I had a friend who would sit up at night crying and trying to break the locks. It didn't get rid of the disorder to padlock everything, and so asking your daughter to simply "not eat your food" is not going to help one bit.

It's pretty much out of her control once that binge drive takes over. She can focus on doing things to distract herself from binging, but this is extremely difficult once a person feels the pull to binge and purge.

The main propellent of eating disorders is DENIAL. Your daughter likely denies that she has a problem because by using self talk to convince herself that "everything is fine" and "she doesn't have a problem" she genuinely starts to believe that (even though I know that you and your husband are sitting back thinking, "Hello??!! This is a very very big problem, daughter!")

She probably sees that her behavior is affecting only her, and will not be able to appreciate that what she is doing is weighing on the entire family. You can't see that when you are this far gone into your illness.

Things you can do:
-sit with her after meals, 1 hour, 2 hours, whatever.

-work on trying to coax her to eat regular meals, this predictable regime of increasing blood sugar suppresses binge drives, because your body doesn't feel like it is starving.

-seek out a treatment facility and/or support group

-keep in mine that she may be binging now because she was so restrictive before - our bodies go into a state of "panic" that they may not be able to get food again for a long time, and takes advantage of the abundance of food that she can have now (since her body is worried that she may begin to restrict her diet again - it's a very vicious cycle)

Things you SHOULD NOT do:
-tell her that she is destroying your family

-in any way transmit to her that being restrictive was "better" because at least she wasn't eating you out of house and home.

-tell her that she is eating away your money

-tell her that you can't afford to feed her.

Doing this will only send her further into depression. She won't interpret these things as being "done out of love". While she denies any problem, she knows, somewhere in her heart of hearts that this is not good, but her eating disorder clouds her ability to think rationally and to put things in perspective.

Good luck. Please message if you need anything!

I'm not even going to comment..this whole thing just p*sses me off too much.

I can't believe a "caring" parent would write such a load of bullsh*t in one paragraph alone.

I'm glad she aint my mammy!

I think the majority of people who replied to this post were very harsh. This woman deleted her profile, and all of the posts that actually offered constructive advice will not be viewed by this OP. 

Look, the OP obviously doesn't understand EDs. I admit I don't understand EDs...they are very complex and complicated. I think it's very rude and just mean for people to say things like "thank god you're not my mom." The OP is very mixed up and probably needs professional help of her own, but responding with such anger and rage is only making things worse. The poor daughter of the OP obviously needs help, and it makes me so mad that many of you didn't take the time to offer constructive advice, but rather took the time to bash the OP. Yelling at someone and basically telling them they're stupid is not going to help. I'm willing to bet that the OP is more indignant than ever. People don't respond well to being attacked, and understandably so. 

Anyway, my point is to try to be a little nicer in postings. I'm concerned about this daughter who probably isn't getting the help she needs. Perhaps if the postings had been a little kinder and more empathetic, the OP would be more willing to change and seek help herself. 

Original Post by jcl76:

I think the majority of people who replied to this post were very harsh. This woman deleted her profile, and all of the posts that actually offered constructive advice will not be viewed by this OP. 

Look, the OP obviously doesn't understand EDs. I admit I don't understand EDs...they are very complex and complicated. I think it's very rude and just mean for people to say things like "thank god you're not my mom." The OP is very mixed up and probably needs professional help of her own, but responding with such anger and rage is only making things worse. The poor daughter of the OP obviously needs help, and it makes me so mad that many of you didn't take the time to offer constructive advice, but rather took the time to bash the OP. Yelling at someone and basically telling them they're stupid is not going to help. I'm willing to bet that the OP is more indignant than ever. People don't respond well to being attacked, and understandably so. 

Anyway, my point is to try to be a little nicer in postings. I'm concerned about this daughter who probably isn't getting the help she needs. Perhaps if the postings had been a little kinder and more empathetic, the OP would be more willing to change and seek help herself. 

 I agree. Thank you.

I understand it's harsh...but her tone was harsh about her poor daughter.

The things that irked me the most were "She had such control eating 1,000 calories a day." Like that's a good thing? Hello! Then bashing her for eating too much like it was far worse. (She claims her daughter doesn't come out to her and talk...then how does she even know how many calories her daughter was eating? She must have told her mother as a plea of help. That doesn't sound like she wasn't reaching out.)

The fact that it's THEIR food. Meaning hers, the fathers and the other child...isn't this other girl a part of this family? Don't families buy for the whole entire house?

The fact that she can't just go into about the problem, but sit there and call her daughter selfish and negligent?

There were various other things that bothered me, but  I won't get into it.

As someone who has battled all three EDs, it just rubbed me the wrong way. I'm sorry.

Naturally when you go online, you are going to hear some disheartening things from people. That's why this woman should be telling a therapist then to people online. Most of whom come to the H&S forum have battled an ED.

I understand people don't understand EDs, but it gives no right to come on here and b*tch about it to people. Like I said, that's what a therapist is for. My parents don't understand EDs either, but I know damn well they wouldn't be on a forum complaining about me. (and how odd on a CALORIE COUNTING site?! For that fact, I almost thought it was a troll post.) That's just disheartening to their daughter and very disrespectful..almost as disrespectful as how she probably felt people were being to her.

She couldn't handle the truth so she left the site. Maybe she can actually talk to a liscensed professional then.

Original Post by silentdeadlyrose:

I understand it's harsh...but her tone was harsh about her poor daughter.

 

 Harsh? Yes.  But aren't parents allowed to ever get frustrated and say and do the wrong things sometimes?  Aren't they ever allowed to vent?  I think some of the comments here to her were increadibly unhelpful and mean.  This lady needed help.  She obviously didn't understand what she was doing and what her daughter was going through.  Now, she may never get so see some of the actual good advice that some posters wrote to her.

maybe if you thought about money less and the fragile feelings and emotions of your teenage daughter she will open up to you more...then you will be able to figure out the bottom line in this....the fact that your daughter has a problem and you call her "selfish" might be contributing to the problem!