It was not surprising that Meg, over weight and friendless in Hawaii, suffered from the most harmful cruelty of all: the cruelty from her peers. Immediately Meg’s grades began to plummet. When she applied herself, Meg’s grades were great; in Virginia, she was a member of the National Junior Honor Society. It must have been hard for Meg to concentrate in class with other students snickering behind her back.
To our horror, she failed math the first semester. Still trying to earn my degree in my forties, I said, “Meg, I went down the road your on and believe me you’re not going to like it. It’s no fun.”
Regretfully, in our family, I always felt like the prophet Cassandra in the Greek tragedy, Agamemnon. Cassandra always knew exactly what catastrophe would befall her fellow Trojans, but would they listen: no. Kae, in her senior year, accused me of being psychic, a lot of good it did me. But actually my intense awareness of my daughters developed out of necessity.
Because Joe’s military mission often took him away from us to fly in other parts of the world and because we had no roots in our new destination, no favorite aunt to confide in or cousins who accepted you without question, I became their taproot until they were settled in. But Meg seemed to be having a much harder time during this transition. Although she’d never admit it, she missed her sister terribly.
Now Joe and I both wanted Meg to have the same opportunities as Kae. So we took some drastic actions that she fought against mightily. First, we found a math tutor, a wonderful young man who eventually became a friend—thank God. Second, we required her to attend Saturday math help taught by a dedicated teacher who became a mentor. Third, she enrolled in a school program that required students to have all their assignments signed off by each teacher every Friday. If she didn’t, she didn’t go out that weekend. Slowly her grades improved, but she was still overweight.
Meg’s overweight condition was exacerbated by the only part-time job she could find: slinging hash at KFC. She became the heavy girl with the great personality (outside our home) that every “pretty” girl would love to have for a best friend. I realized that this nightmare had actually come true when I finally met Meg’s only girlfriend. Victoria, a statuesque blond with a killer tan, cared nothing for learning or sports but only for boys and teen clubs in Waikiki. As parents we felt we had only one alternative: to keep Meg so busy she had no time for this bad influence. So we tried to convince, more like threaten, Meg to get involved in areas where she’d previously shown natural ability. After all, she needed more than grades on her college applications.
In the past, Meg had always been our little fish learning to swim at the age of three. She never liked the beach, but she loved a pool. So we coerced her into trying out for the swim team. During tryouts the coach wanted to see her best stroke--she had a wicked butterfly--so he took her on in spite of her weight. To Meg’s dismay, coach made the team run and lift weights before swim practice. She soon slimmed down, went to the prom with a fellow swimmer, and in general, became a happier girl. She also joined the drama club and landed a singing and dancing part in the school play and lost even more weight. At church, she joined the Catholic Youth Organization and started making some kind and loyal friends. But then the boyfriend she went to the prom with left Hawaii. Retreating again, supposedly, to “wait for him,” Meg regained all the weight she’d lost.
It still hurts to recall this particular example of humiliation Meg experienced. Months after her boyfriend left the island, a guy who graduated ahead of her called and asked her out. He had been in charge of lighting for the school plays, and remembered Meg as the great looking girl in the drama club. I was so happy; Doug was such a fun guy with an open-honest face and rugged-good looks.
Meg did her best camouflaging her weight gain with makeup and a new outfit. But the shocked look on Doug’s face when he saw Meg before he recomposed himself said it all. She was back home in an hour. Tears pricking my eyes, I asked her what happened. She explained calmly that they went to the drive-through window at Taco Bell and talked in the car while they ate. Then he remembered he had to study for a test. He didn’t want to be seen with Meg in public; we both knew it. My heart broke with hers. She went into her bedroom and closed the door. How many rejections like this had Meg endured? There’s no telling. At such an impressionable age, what did treatment like that teach her about the world? Does anyone ever recover from such assaults on their spirit?
Now reading Meg’s story today everyone probably realizes what was missed; what was never brought up by any doctor. Why Meg was overweight in the first place? Why did she turn to food for comfort? But now I see it clearly. She was depressed. Yet Meg never lost her sense of humor. She may have been sullen and difficult at home as are many teenagers, but she could always turn on that Irish charm in public. She liked portraying herself as a girl who had it all together.
The doctors we were privileged to see because of Joe’s flying status were supposedly the “Top Docs” of the military, the Air Force flight surgeons. Yet depression never came up when they saw Meg. When I expressed my concerns about Meg’s weight to doctors in private, I was told I should just accentuate healthy eating and exercise which I always did. After all one said, “Look at the rest of the family; she’ll eventually follow suit.” What they didn’t understand was that while Joe, Kae and I were from the beginning striving, marching in lockstep to John Philip Sousa, Meg was always dancing to a different strain of music perhaps John Coltrane’s “Blue Train.”
The doctors gave me the impression that if I concentrated on Meg’s weight, I might hurt her self esteem, as if it wasn’t being brutalized everyday at school. Remember, this all happened between 1986-90; we were not yet on the Information Highway. There were no TV reality programs like the “Biggest Loser,” no Google to look up “Teenage Depression /Overweight” on Web MD. And I never remember hearing about a teenager who was put on antidepressants or young children on Ritalin as they so frequently are today.
Now my questions are: What if Meg was put on antidepressants then? What if a doctor recommended she see a psychologist? Would these interventions have prevented her future anorexia? What if I let her dance to her own music from the beginning? Would she still be here? It’s the “what ifs” that keep me up at night.
Next, Meg turns a corner.