Hi
I'm hoping someone out there can offer me some advice on how best to help my friends whose daughter is anorexic.
She works in the entertainment industry as a dancer and the pressure has always been on her to be thin. It's now totally out of hand and her parents are at their wits end as to what to do. Her dad has been providing her with an allowance, and he thinks if he cuts that off then she'll have to get a full time job so she'll have to be fit enough for that..ergo she'll have to eat. I'm no expert but I don't think that tactic will work as she's too unwell both physically and psychologically. All she does at the moment is sleep lots, gets up for a dance class - she knows just how much she has to eat in order to do that-goes home, sleeps again, gets up and does couple of hours in the pub, goes home, sleeps again. She's permanently cold and looks awful. If she's forced into a situation where she has to eat she'll eat a whole meal and then be sick. Lunch can be chopped cucumber and celery. She was home for Christmas and she's positively skeletal-she's like a baby bird, when you hug her, you feel she's going to break. She has no fat anywhere and finds it uncomfortable to sit for too long and she's uncomfortable in crowds. What scared me was a programme I saw on Sky on Friday called 'How can I help my child' - or similar- which featured two teenage anorexics. The girl on the programme was heading for inpatient care and she was nowhere as thin as my friends' daughter.
I'd really appreciate any advice from anyone with experience of this problem.
Heather