Mothers, Addiction and Recovery by Peterson Wendy;

Author:Peterson, Wendy;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Demeter Press
Published: 2018-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

III.

Prevention and Treatment Approaches for Mothers Living with Addiction

8.

Confronting the Addictive Nature of Eating Disorder Behaviours

How Mothers Can Provide Support to Daughters with Eating Disorders through a Meaning-Centred Framework

CAITLIN SIGG AND LAURA LYNNE ARMSTRONG

“LIZ” KNELT OVER THE TOILET gazing intently, and thought to herself, this has to be the last time … just one more time. Given the large amount of food she had frantically consumed at dinner in front of her mother, she became increasingly determined to rid herself of the calories. She pushed her face deeper into the toilet and forced her finger toward the rear of her mouth. Within moments, Liz convulsed and regurgitated a mouthful of partially digested food into the toilet. She proceeded to repeat these steps several times, and felt a surprising sense of relief from the clandestine nature of her behaviours. Liz had been engaging in binging and purging more frequently throughout the past few months, as she strongly believed it would give her a more covert sense of control in her life. However, these recurrent episodes soon provoked a terrifying sense of loss of control and self-disparagement in her. She felt alone, ashamed, empty, and unsure of how to tell her mother about her compulsion to binge and purge.

This clinical vignette accentuates a young woman’s attempt to fill a void—an insatiable hunger—with disordered eating behaviours. In many ways, the case example is not solely limited to the experience of one young woman; rather, it is a painful expression of psychological, emotional, existential, and physical distress that resembles the experience of many women suffering from disordered eating syndromes and other addictions. Eating disorders, such as bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa, often serve as an illusory mechanism for coping with deep chasms, including, but not limited to: loneliness, emptiness, and despair (Knapp 17; Levine 243). From an existential-humanistic perspective, such behaviour can be conceptualized as an addiction to fill a sense of meaninglessness (Frankl 107; Thompson 457). Like other addictions, behaviours appearing grossly disordered—compulsively gorging and vomiting, as in the case of bulimia—seemingly oppose the human experience of connection, fulfillment, and hope. An attempt to fill the void ends up incarcerating the sufferer in isolation through attempts to hide the behaviour from others.

Given that many individuals with eating disorders tend to be reluctant to receive treatment and support from both parents and professionals (Fassino and Abbate-Daga 282; Jarman and Walsh 774; Kaye et al. 110), they are often perceived as complex disorders to treat. The chronic nature of these syndromes—especially the potential medical risks and complications—often leads to many challenges for caregivers, particularly for mothers of daughters with eating disorder syndromes (Tuval-Mashiach et al. 620). Mothers of these young women are often forced to reexamine and rethink their own mothering roles, especially since such eating disorders have “unfolded right beneath their roofs and around the kitchen table” (Hoskins and Lam 157).

Eating disorders are demanding not only on the individual but also on the caregiver and family unit. Secrecy, guilt, and shame remain central themes for both mothers and daughters in the presence of these illnesses (Hoskins and Lam 158).

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