The Miss [Our City] Royalty were invited to participate in a podcast recently. The topic was resilience, and each of the girls were asked to share an experience of something that had been very hard for them to deal with and through which they had learned resilience.
Elannah, who had been briefed on the topic a few days before the broadcast, told me that she had decided to talk about her struggle with bulimia, an eating disorder.
I was surprised but pleased she chose to talk about this subject. I know a lot of kids--both boys and girls--are struggling with eating disorders, and I was glad that she considered herself to be in a place where she could talk about something so personal and difficult in order to possibly help someone else who might also be struggling.
I haven't talked about Elannah's struggle with bulimia (and to a much smaller extent, anorexia) before because I didn't want to "out" her without her permission. Now that she is sharing this publicly, I have permission to talk about it here.
When Elannah first came to me over a year ago and admitted that she'd been struggling with bulimia for her whole high school career, I was shocked. I was also horrified that, as a parent, I hadn't figured it out before (she's never become dangerously thin, which would have been a tip-off), and I was really upset that she'd gone through it for so long on her own. But if there is one thing I've learned from the various suicide-prevention and identifying-abuse workshops I've had to attend, it's to contain your shock, horror, or disgust and remain neutral in your tone of voice, your choice of words, and your facial expressions so that the person who has chosen to tell you about their experiences will feel safe to express themselves.
Elannah and I had multiple long talks over the next few weeks and months. I wanted to get her into therapy, as I wasn't sure how much of a stranglehold this eating disorder had over her and if I was at all equipped to help her get through it, but she didn't want therapy. However, once she had finally confessed and was confident that a) I wasn't angry or disgusted with her, and b) that I was not going to force her into anything she didn't want to do, she started opening up about her experience.
We talked about her body image, why she chose to vomit up or deny herself food when she did, and how it made her feel. We also talked about the damage that bulimia can cause--both mentally and physically--and why she needed to find ways to de-escalate the urge to vomit. She was open with me when I asked her if she'd made herself throw up on any particular day, and she started coming to me when she was tempted to stick her finger down her throat and needed to talk something through or be distracted.
We talked about not classifying food into "good" and "bad" categories because eating foods from the "bad" category was one of her triggers. She wanted to remain slim, but she was having a very difficult time knowing what to eat and why she was so weak in the face of temptation for certain foods; vomiting a large meal of "bad" foods she'd binged on made her feel better, as if she'd erased her weakness and mistakes. It was then that all my research on the keto diet really came into play. I was able to teach her which foods to avoid--not as "bad" foods, but as foods that would not contribute to her health--and how many delicious foods she could eat to satiation without feeling guilty. For her, feeling full also made her feel guilty, which tempted her to stick her finger down her throat.
I told her to never say to herself something she wouldn't say to a good friend, which is a mantra I have learned to internalize for my own emotional health. She would never pick apart a good friend or criticize every little thing about a friend's appearance. This advice was something she took to heart, as she talks about in the podcast. Even her close friends might not know how hard she has been on herself or to what unrealistic standards she has held herself in the past.
In the end, she was the one who made the necessary changes, of course. She took to the keto way of eating very well, and I helped her with cooking and prepping. She liked being able to feel full without also feeling guilty for feeling full. She quickly lost some weight and slimmed down--though not to an unhealthy degree--and likes how she feels mentally, physically, and emotionally. She also started practicing speaking more kindly to herself, even when she didn't really believe it, and it has now become a habit.
As far as I know, Elannah hasn't felt the need to voluntarily vomit up her food for nearly a year now. She now knows how to eat so that she can lose weight in a healthy way, so she doesn't feel so frantic and upset if she eats something she used to put in the "bad" category. If she feels like she's putting on too many pounds, she starts eating keto in earnest again. In this way, she can eat real food, avoid damaging physical rituals like throwing up or seeing how long she can go by depriving herself of any food whatsoever, and get the nutrients her body needs to be healthy while also maintaining a healthy weight.
Obviously, we have a problem with unrealistic body expectations in our society, and the face-tuning and body photoshopping we're seeing all over social media is a symptom--as well as a cause--of that. I, myself, have struggled with the disparity between what I think I should look like versus what I do look like, and I have had to remind myself repeatedly that I am not merely my body and that I am a worthy person no matter how I look. I barely participate in any social media platforms, much less the platforms for more narcissistic expression, like Instagram. How much harder is it for these poor kids of this generation who are constantly inundated with false, unrealistic, and sometimes bizarre notions of what beauty is on all these social media platforms as well as from all the usual pop culture suspects?
There was a very cringe-worthy moment once at church a few months ago (in the Before Time) when a woman who has lost a lot of weight and maintained her weight loss for several years (and who is a health coach in a weight loss MLM) looked Elannah up and down and complimented her on her slimmer physique. This was after Elannah had been on keto for a few weeks and had lost enough pounds for it to be noticeable. The woman meant well, of course, but she had (and has) no idea of the struggles Elannah has gone through regarding her weight. Elannah felt the compliment and was gracious, but it was a mixed emotional reaction, which we talked about later. I resolved right then and there to never, ever comment on any woman's body, whatever her body shape. I have never fat-shamed anyone in my life, and these days I have no room to judge (and I know for a certainty that fat people know they're fat and don't need either reminding or shaming. Shaming only encourages destructive behaviors.), but I will also never compliment a woman's slimness ever again, either. I'm just not going to make comments about body shape at all. We are not worthy or unworthy because of our bodies. Slim bodies can also be unhealthy. We just have no idea of the mental struggles so many women (and men, of course) are going through, and commenting on bodies can be far more destructive than we could ever know.
I would link to Elannah's part in the podcast, but it has a lot of identifying information. Though anyone worth their internet sleuthing salt would have already sussed out long ago what my real name is and who my children are, I like to retain some anonymity from those who aren't stalkers. Neither my nor Elannah's name are important here, anyway. The message is.
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