Posted by iris2 on October 5, 2004, at 11:11:34
In reply to I'm taking advice from all » headachequeen, posted by stressed on October 4, 2004, at 8:18:23
I think you are doing excellent on the message board. I have been doing this on and off for about a year and you are better at it than me!
Kudos to you for admitting you are controlling.
Even realizing that you are controlling is difficult and hard and then to admit it to us and I do not know who else tells me that you are very caring and sincere in wanting to help your daughter.I was concerned with your posts because you always spoke of your daughters weight so much. It is really not the most important thing here. If she gets better and does not loose a pound that would be a great success. Plenty of us with eating disorders have lost lots of weight; I ended up weighing 56 pound at 5'2" before I started to eat much again. I still looked in the mirror and thought I was fat. Loosing all the weight did nothing for my disease. I am better now. I still always feel like I am overweight. But when I weigh like 120 or so (I never weigh myself) I just tell by how I feel and how my clothes fit I feel pretty good about myself and am not not wanting to go out or embarrassed for others to see me. My body image is still not perfect, but whose is and I definitely make my weight affect my mood and my life way too much. I am not what would be called a great success story. But now so many years later the medical community knows so much more about it all.
I have seen people with eating disorders get overweight while in therapy and they were fine with it because they were not so absorbed in what they weighed. My sister is so overweight yet she is probably happier (not happy) with herself than I and does not let her being overweight stop her from doing anything she wants to in life. Not like me. I am still ill to some degree.
The reason I am so proud of you about talking about being controlling is that you realize or are beginning to that your daughters problem is a family problem she is just the one with the negative symptoms. Sometimes especially if the person is young and living at home the entire family dynamics must change not just your daughter. People do not realize that most of the time an illness like this is an illness of the family not just of the one showing the symptoms. It will be much easier for her to get better and follow her therapy if you and or others in the family make some needed changes too. Please do not take this personally. It is simply a known thing that many psychiatric illnesses or problem children are the "symptom" of problems in a family. I do not mean that your family is irregular or has something very wrong just that the particular mix is causing it to be poisonous for your daughter. Of course she still has to be the one to take most of the responsibility for her getting better.
I myself at 45 sometimes forget this and am still trying to change my parents. Make my mother more active and quit talking about food incessantly. Stop my father from being the control freak he is. Both are caring and well meaning parents. I do not want to seem like I think differently. It is hard to recognize ones "faults" and even harder to change them. That is why I am so proud of you. I am still having problems after umpteen years of therapy recognizing or admitting my faults. I cannot change something I will not admit to can I?
Good luck, I am sure we will speak again,
irene
poster:iris2
thread:5053
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041002/msgs/399160.html