I have been suffering for days.  My mood has been extremely volatile.  Oscillating between intense pangs of anger, bouts of mind-numbing fear, prolonged interludes of unabated sadness.  I have barely expressed it although a few people know what I’m going through.

My sweet 15-year-old munchkin is going through early stages of potential anorexia.  Just a few months ago she was a tad overweight. Being a weight/food nut, I talked to her a lot about it.  Now, my words may have contributed to her detriment.

How does this get started?  It happens so fast and you don’t even notice until something happens.  In her case, it was the swim trials.  Had a very hard time keeping up in spite of being a consummate swimmer.  A few days with gramps in Mexico didn’t help much…  Poor eating, exposure to altitude, little exercise.  Came back in poor form.

My suffering is mine and I need to remain very clear about it.  What am I to do as a dad?  I’ve already talked to her till I’m blue in the face about the dangers of what she’s going through.  We talked about the Karen Carpenter story, showed her charts (she’s still within a normal BMI but 10 lbs less would basically put her on the verge of being hospitalized), arranged a nutritionist, new pediatrician (yes, at 15 it’s still the pediatrician) and potentially arranging therapy.  But it’s so difficult for her to even see that she has a problem…

We have talked a lot about personal accountability and responsibility.  I may die inside but ultimately she is not in my hands.  She is in her hands and her hands only.  And actually I believe that the more her mother and I try to control her, the worse it will be.  I’ve read that “weight management” is yet another way of exercising independence in light of controlling parents.

What to do?  Let her be?  Give her the tools and the advice, the independent “consultants” and hope for the best?  I’m not sure there’s another better way.

It’s so hard for me to believe that one simply cannot see oneself.  That a slim 100 lb body looks fat to the beholder.  Yet that’s what all the literature talks about.  How to change that perception?  Is “talking therapy” enough?  Is information?  Is pasting a “112 or bust” poster in front of her bed an incentive or just another annoying imposition from freakish dad?

I was a boss for a long time before I became a parent.  I was never even too sure I wanted to be one.  So I played along.  When you’re a boss, you probably have some control.  You give direction, set goals, measure outcomes, compensate, hire and fire.  Not so with kids (particularly teenage kids!!!).  They are well along on a road to independence and they’re full, whole beings who have no choice but to be responsible for themselves.  Who can watch over a 15 year old all the time?  Would you even want to?  Would it help?  Probably not.

I love my two girls dearly and right now beyond the anger that her attitudes and responses may prompt in me, I see no other way but to be utterly, completely and unconditionally loving.  My words may help and I will remain true to myself in what I say to her.  But I am inclined to believe that it’s the glow of love from her parents that she needs most.  Regardless of what’s going on: growing pains, peer pressure, general cultural disposition, neurosis from critical/controlling parents, a dad that’s hammered eating habits too much, an actual physical condition causing her stomach pain that blocks her desire to eat, whatever it is, my best bet is to be loving.

But in the end, the outcome of her situation is solely in her hands.  We are each fully and totally responsible for ourselves, even kids.  After a while, parents become little more than coaches, cheerleaders, therapists, sponsors.  Certainly, we don’t own them and cannot control them.

Yet I’m still in pain.  The dangers are too real.  The outcomes all but uncertain even at this early stage.  In racing, once a car hits the wall, the driver becomes a passenger, takes the hands off the wheel, feet off the pedals and watches the outcome.  Little more to do here other than giving her all the resources she needs.  And a lot of love…