Eating Disorders Article: The Devil and the Angel on My Daughter's Anorexic Shoulder

Eating Disorders Article: The Devil and the Angel on My Daughter's Anorexic Shoulder

This may sound a bit hokey, but the title gives a vivid picture of what your daughter experiences when she tries to eat. There are many cartoons, movies, and television commercials depicting this epic battle, but they don't even begin to describe the angry conflict your child has over food.

Why is it so important for you to understand this struggle? Because it helps you understand your child's life and death situation. There's a part of him that wants to eat(angelic voice).However, in the midst of an eating disorder, the part of her that is too afraid to eat(devil voice)is stronger and louder.

Harriet Brown in her bookBrave Girl Eatingdescribes this very well. She even observes during some crisis points when her daughter takes on a “demonic” state. She is not possessed or under the control of anything demonic. The eating disorder is so powerful that it unleashes anger, despair and self-hatred that you could never have imagined coming from your child.

This experience is actually not unusual. I have heard several times that when parents go back to feeding their child, they see behaviors that shock and frighten them. Parents remove siblings from the dining room so they don't see this. Sometimes they remove their daughter because she is aggressive, kicking, biting, hitting and screaming.

It is frightening for parents to see their child in this state of mind. Not every family goes through this struggle to such an extreme; but some do. This is one of the ways you know this eating disorder is not your child. It is objective evidence that you need to separate ED from her because she would never do this. It's like it's been taken over by an alien or something. The eating disorder is not your child.

I want you to understand that your child is not showing the struggle in such an extreme way, but experiencing it. Her thoughts go back and forth all day and she doesn't know who to listen to. The “angel” reassures her and tells her that she can eat, she will be fine. The “devil” condemns them and rages at them not to give in and break the rules he has set.

This epic battle continues until she eats and gains enough weight so that her mental state can be reset to what it was. as Harriet Brown calls it,“BA or anorexia.”Know that if you feed your child again, you are fighting something very strong. You have to know the tactics of the eating disorder and be stronger than them to save them.

Inspired by Lynn A Moore