Luna develops Anorexia Nervosa at age 12 and gets admitted to the hospital because she stopped eating and drinking. Her eating disorder gets stronger no matter how much treatment she gets. After 6 years, her body is so damaged, weak and at a extreme...
Finally some peace returns to our lives. Sometime I look at Luna and I can hardly imagine that last summer our happy girl was a shadow of herself, who stopped talking and stood like a statue for hours with her chin on her chest. She looks normal again: a giggling girl, a grumpy teenager, and just our headstrong Luna.
Only during eating moments do we see that her illness still has a grip on her. But that grip is getting smaller and smaller and the healthy Luna is gaining ground. When I watch her run across the hockey field I see how much fun she's having. Hockey makes her happy. It must've been terrible for her that she couldn't play last year.
With a smile I think back to the days in Berlin last Christmas holiday. The relief that everything seemed to be normal again radiated from all of us. The girls laughed constantly at things Maria and I totally didn't understand. Our eyes crossed each other then: look, how nice, those three are so happy together again.
Looking back at everything that happened when Luna got sick, I realize we had no idea what would work and what wouldn't and therefore trusted the standard protocols too much. Now I think maybe more help at home should have been organized.
Accommodating a child of thirteen in a clinical environment had afterwards also see major disadvantages. Only now do I realize how lonely she must've been. Such a little girl among all those far older girls, no father or mother to wish her good night in the evening, no sisters to chat or fight with.
How much better wouldn't it have been if Luna had just kept going to school, maybe just a few hours a day, but still; if conversations and therapy had been at our home, if a supervisor could have helped her eat, so it wasn't a battle between her and us. Maybe conversations with the whole family about why she's not eating would have had a much more effect. Now it took months for us to realize how much she felt unloved, a burden.
How not eating was also a way of dealing with her fears and insecurities, demanding our full attention to make it clear that she was not okay. But she also of course never foreseen that it would result in hospitals stays and clinical treatment centers. In the end, it might have gotten her less attention than ever. We were only running back and forth between the day treatment, conversations, work and home where two more girls needed attention.
How good it would have been if there had been more guidance for Maria and I right from the beginning, if we had been given more knowledge and guidelines on how to deal with Luna. Now the focus was mainly on making sure she ate enough, that she followed her eating lists. Of course, the primary concern was making sure that she would survive her illness, but besides that what she really needed wasn't food.
The one time I went to a meeting of parents with children with anorexia is etched in my memory. I was hoping to find support, hear tips on how to deal with Luna. But one dramatic story after another was told. About years of struggle, emaciated daughters and also sons, about the tricks the children teach each other.
No hope, only despair. Maybe it's true that the parents of recovering children don't attend such a meeting. I hoped so and decided that we fell into that category: parents of a child who has overcome her anorexia. We're not there yet, but rock bottom is behind us.
(A/N note: I recently had to go to the vet with one my of my bearded dragons (he's fine now) and I'm really struggling with alcohol addiction and anorexia. I promise to try to update as soon as possible!
(A/N: I'm sorry I'm barely posting again, I'm really struggling with my alcohol addiction but I promise I'll update soon and to not be one of those authors who starts a book/story and doesn't finish it!
(A/N from late May 2024; I'm going to rehab soon and I promise to continue my cousins story's after that! I promise!)
(A/N: posting this picture here because Wattpad keeps removing it from the banner)
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