Sometimes A Mother Doesn't Know The Answer

I thought it was all good to speak from my experience but that gives a narrow perception. I asked my mother to write about her experience of my eating and weight, from what she can remember and beginning of the alcohol dependence. This too, like my other blogs has not been altered, I asked her to be honest and just write so here it is:

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Juliette is 6- round gap toothed, with a lisp, and a head full of curls- like a tumbleweed- her dad’s name for her, but very round.

7 years old, still fun, still round- I am starting to be concerned. Jule could finish a large pizza and still have, "space for a chicco the clown ice-cream after dinner."

Guy her dad is concerned. He was fat as a child and mocked relentlessly. Beachball and moon face were names he had to deal with! Jules only mentioned 2 instances when people were cruel to her about her weight, but I know, because I am a mom that there were many other stories.

How does a parent deal with a child who has been humiliated by other adults in front of her peers, and try to build up self-confidence???

I have never seen such a small person put up such a brave front, and pull herself through such difficult and embarrassing situations; trying to wear trendy clothes, bikinis, the latest hairstyle- all totally unsuitable for her size and weight. My heart broke so many times and I cried so much for her.

In my wisdom I started her at a dietician who weighed her and encouraged her and me with new recipes and tricks to make her lunch boxes interesting- what?

Jules had a salad everyday, she must have gone mad, even the teddy bear serviette at the bottom of the lunchbox must have irritated her!

Once she swapped her salad: no problem mom it was also a salad! Oh good darling what salad- potatoes, mayo and egg mom, so delicious!

I hated that people noticed that she was overweight and had a huge appetite. I felt it reflected on me and how ineffectual as a mother I was. I had to hide any treats I brought for Nick and Gina so that Jule couldn’t find them- no chance.

I took her out of desperation to the doctor who actually said to me, "Mals watch this little person; she is a prime candidate for an eating disorder- what??? Not my child- why???

By standard 5 or grade 7, Jule weighed 72kgs, I was frantic and so was Guy- but he couldn’t deal with it- he was a fat kid and did not want her to be. I prayed so much for her, even telling her to imagine a little angel sitting on her shoulder, encouraging her to resist any edible temptations. She flicked that angel right off her shoulder… literally.

In March 2002 on the 23<sup>rd, Guy was away in the bush with some friends when he suffered a major heart attack. He died with some dear friends around him but far away from his family. It was devastating and completely unexpected. This larger than life human being was gone forever.

Losing her dad at such a vulnerable age sent Juliette on a path so dark and painful. Grief is a very long, personal and lonely road; there is no pill or band-aid big enough and I was heart broken for myself and aching for my 3 children. I turned to food for comfort and so did Juliette. We were inseparable- Nick and Gina her siblings went back to Cape Town to finish their degrees and Jubes was the centre of my focus.

The furthest thing on my mind was dieting.

In 2003 Jubes was with a friend and met a woman who was promoting a diet called lean for life. Juliette was intrigued and asked me to buy the book and the various vitamins, protein bars etc that went with it. I did it willingly and Juliette set her mind to it and the weight started shifting as it had never done before. We were beside ourselves with excitement.

Clothes shopping was no longer a nightmare and Juliette single mindedly and rigidly stuck to her eating plan. At this time she learnt another lesson: a fat friend is a safe friend, a thin friend is a threat!!

I was so happy to see her losing weight and apparently gaining confidence. I did not notice the darker signs creeping in!

In 2004 I remarried and naturally and understandably the children on both sides were very stressed. Because Juliette lived at home still, she of course was with us all the time and she was extremely difficult and resentful to Tony (husband).

She continued her diet but had now added some new sidelines to it! anything she read about speeding up metabolism, flushing out your system etc, she did. Our coffee consumption trebled, she exercised frantically and eventually started on the herbal tea.

2005 she begged to go to boarding school and against my better judgement I allowed it. She had started on her course of trying to be accepted, she had lost weight, she always had to be funny, she had to look pretty- always searching- always running from herself in an attempt to feel better.

Boarding school was a mistake! She was anxious about the food- either binging or starving and the herbal/medicinal tea her beverage of choice. I know too she was very homesick and the weekends were a nightmare- and at this very lonely.

I was beside myself with anxiety torn between wanting her to realize that she had embarked on this boarding school mission and knowing that I really wanted her home.

6 months into the year we went to Granny in Durban for the weekend and she took me aside and urged me to take Jule out of boarding school and back home- what a wise piece of advice and one that I followed. On the way home, car packed and in high spirits we drove out of the school gates and that is when I noticed the scratches on Jules arm. She told me she ran past a girl in home-ec who was holding a grater and had grazed herself, and I fell for it!!! Unbelievable I know, but I was not sure I wanted to believe the truth.

Back at home Jule was getting thinner and thinner but still binging at times- I was still in denial.

One hot morning I got a call from school, "please can you come, Juliette has collapsed. Bring some clean clothes, she has soiled herself." I was beside myself. I tore up to the school, shaking to fetch my skinny, pale, shaky child with eyes like saucers and shivering.

We went straight to the doctor and then onto the neurologist where she underwent every imaginable test, EEG etc. I never stopped praying for all my children but I was terrified at this point. None of the tests were conclusive so we just bumbled on as before.

One day our housekeeper came to me with a whole pile of laxative wrappers. I had never heard of them, but suddenly Jule’s haunted skinny look, all made sense. She was hooked on laxatives. The way they made her feel purged.

When I look at photos of her at her std 9/grade 11 dance- I cant believe what I missed. She was pale, gaunt and her pupils were so large. She was terrified of eating carbohydrates, but the laxatives were like a ticket to binge.

We started on a rollercoaster of psychologists and therapy a very painful journey trying to find the right people and in the meantime dealing with the ongoing addiction.

On one frightening occasion she collapsed after having who knows how many laxatives and she just clung to me crying and saying, "Mommy I am sick. Please help me," words that can cut into a mom’s heart like a blunt teaspoon, it was so painful.

I am not sure when the drinking started, I think probably at the end of standard 9 going into matric. That period in my life is like a blur.

Seeing my child’s unhappiness at school, and her difficulty with Tony etc, was a nightmare. Tony was very aware of eating disorders and all that goes with it, having dealt with it in his own life and I think Juliette knew this and was a little wary of him because he was onto her and knew all the deviousness of people with these disorders.

Alcohol was just another way out of facing up to unresolved grief, and self-acceptance and Juliette embraced it with gusto.

I am not going to enlarge on this period except to say it tore our family apart. We; Nick, Gina and myself were beside ourselves. She could never say no and never knew when to stop. She wanted to be the life and soul of every party, she wanted everyone to come home to our house and party till dawn. Her behaviour was frightening and unacceptable.</sup>