I apologize for leaving my name off my last post (about parents of eating disorder patients being pretty much like everyone else out there). I did not mean to - I've never encountered a blog that did not have identifiers.
I'm sad, very sad, that such a chasm exists between understandings of this illness. That's not good for patients. I am glad to see that the eating disorder world is leaving behind some of the older ideas, just as had to be done with schizophrenia and autism - and ADHD and ulcers. When parents first started to stand up against being blamed and marginalized with those illnesses they were also accused of denial and self-interest.
I hope those who make these assumptions about cause and families will try to imagine what it is to have to fight desperately for a loved one's care and then be told to back off. To be blamed and chided despite the evidence, and to be accused of self-interest or denial when standing up for other parents.
Parents are never perfect (and some parents are truly bad), but when you falsely accuse or undermine parents you don't just hurt them - you hurt patients. I would gladly have taken full responsibility for my daughter's illness, but it wouldn't have helped because that wasn't the cause. She was ill because she had a brain disorder. She is well now because we treated her brain disorder with food and love and time and clinicians who believed in our whole family. Families deserve clinical support based in well-grounded understanding of the illness, good research, optimism, and human kindness.
Comment Reply
I apologize for leaving my name off my last post (about parents of eating disorder patients being pretty much like everyone else out there). I did not mean to - I've never encountered a blog that did not have identifiers.
I'm sad, very sad, that such a chasm exists between understandings of this illness. That's not good for patients. I am glad to see that the eating disorder world is leaving behind some of the older ideas, just as had to be done with schizophrenia and autism - and ADHD and ulcers. When parents first started to stand up against being blamed and marginalized with those illnesses they were also accused of denial and self-interest.
I hope those who make these assumptions about cause and families will try to imagine what it is to have to fight desperately for a loved one's care and then be told to back off. To be blamed and chided despite the evidence, and to be accused of self-interest or denial when standing up for other parents.
Parents are never perfect (and some parents are truly bad), but when you falsely accuse or undermine parents you don't just hurt them - you hurt patients. I would gladly have taken full responsibility for my daughter's illness, but it wouldn't have helped because that wasn't the cause. She was ill because she had a brain disorder. She is well now because we treated her brain disorder with food and love and time and clinicians who believed in our whole family. Families deserve clinical support based in well-grounded understanding of the illness, good research, optimism, and human kindness.
Laura Collins
June 8, 2009 - 9:13amF.E.A.S.T.
www.FEAST-ED.org
This Comment
Reply