How do we teach girls to relate to their bodies? How is this relationship to be healthy when females are so objectified? When our bodies are so violated or on display. So many girls and women experience a push and pull with invisibility -- we want to be seen but as more than bodies. Perhaps, if we starve ourselves so people will see US, beyond the flesh. Conversely, our bodies can become fortresses of protection so we're never seen.
My nearly 18 yo daughter reached out to me today and said all she thinks about is food and her weight. Her cousin, my sisters daughter, has an ED and is making everyone’s life unbearable with lies, stealing, staying out late - advice?
First off, I'm really sorry you're in this hard place. I guess what I'd say about your daughter who is fixated on food and weight -- I think eating disorders usually are about control: trying to exercise control over the one thing under your power (when you're a teenager, say, and your body is changing and you have a mix of adult fears and desires with childhood limits), losing control (binge-eating), or springing back and forth (bulimia). What are ways she can exercise healthy control -- let's say autonomy -- over her life? What is she trying to express through her relationship to food that can't be expressed some healthier way?
Thanks for the response Eliza. Things came to a head last night, it is not just about ED. She lied to her Mum about staying over at a gf's house, it was actually a boy she had just met - her mum accessed her laptop and drugs are involved, boys delivering drugs to her - cookies and silver haze and god knows what else. She has been told to go and live with her millionaire Dad who has neglected her for the past 17.5 years! She is a mess.
How do we teach girls to relate to their bodies? How is this relationship to be healthy when females are so objectified? When our bodies are so violated or on display. So many girls and women experience a push and pull with invisibility -- we want to be seen but as more than bodies. Perhaps, if we starve ourselves so people will see US, beyond the flesh. Conversely, our bodies can become fortresses of protection so we're never seen.
My nearly 18 yo daughter reached out to me today and said all she thinks about is food and her weight. Her cousin, my sisters daughter, has an ED and is making everyone’s life unbearable with lies, stealing, staying out late - advice?
First off, I'm really sorry you're in this hard place. I guess what I'd say about your daughter who is fixated on food and weight -- I think eating disorders usually are about control: trying to exercise control over the one thing under your power (when you're a teenager, say, and your body is changing and you have a mix of adult fears and desires with childhood limits), losing control (binge-eating), or springing back and forth (bulimia). What are ways she can exercise healthy control -- let's say autonomy -- over her life? What is she trying to express through her relationship to food that can't be expressed some healthier way?
Thanks for the response Eliza. Things came to a head last night, it is not just about ED. She lied to her Mum about staying over at a gf's house, it was actually a boy she had just met - her mum accessed her laptop and drugs are involved, boys delivering drugs to her - cookies and silver haze and god knows what else. She has been told to go and live with her millionaire Dad who has neglected her for the past 17.5 years! She is a mess.