My daughter has an eating disorder.

The best thing you could do is listen to her. If she is anorexic, there is not much you can do but support a healthy lifestyle. If her excuse is that no one cooks, you might have to just put food in front of her and see if she'll eat that. Maybe someone on this site who has struggled with ana can give you more insight.

Dealing with eating disorders is a very difficult road to travel. I have a 42 year old daughter that has been ill on and off since she was first diagnosed at 17. It has taken a great deal of counseling for her and support groups for me to get to the point we are now at. She has been in-house treated 4 times during that period. I would say that she is at least letting you know something now, for the first time.

My first suggestion would be to find a psychologist that specializes in eating disorders. That is a must ! It is not as much about the lack of eating, that is secondary, it's about her body image. She must really like her therapist or she will not open up about the reasons behind her restriction of food. It is a control issue. When she cannot control other things that are going on in her life she knows she can control what she eats.

I am on daily so feel free to vent your frustrations. There is also a good site you might want to look into for parents and love ones, it is called "Something Fishy ".

Your daughter is clearly a grown woman with responsibilities. You need to sit her down and tell her that her behavior is destructive not only to her, but to you and her child. Ultimately the decision to change must be hers. But as long as she is living under your roof you need to make it clear you will not tolerate her starving herself.

Finding professional help in our area is a huge problem. There is nobody local to us. She drove an hour and a half to go to the doctor she did go to. She doesn't have a car or license or gas money so she relies on other people to get there. Everyone in the family can see that there's a problem but nobody knows what to do. The worst of it is, I'm not sure that the eating disorder is the biggest problem. I totally agree that if she could resolve the psychological & addiction issues the eating disorder would work itself out.

It's a serious problem. Does anyone in your family have an employee assistance program line that you can call for referrals, support, resources? Obviously she doesn't see it as a problem but you need to get her to that point. She needs to get it. What is her boyfriend doing to help with the issue? Anything?

And - my heart goes out to you. Now you have a grandchild that you are looking after. My sister struggled with anorexia for years. I don't remember much of it as she's older than I am and was away at college and i was minding my own 8 year old business. I don't know what woke her up to get help but I know it was scary for her and my parents.

Make sure to take care of yourself, too I wish I could be of some real help to you but all I have is words!

I will use some tough love on you, Mom. The fact that the doctor is 1.5 hours away is not an excuse not to go.

Do you drive? Can you drive your daughter to get help so she feels that SOMEONE'S ON HER SIDE? Having other responsibilities is NOT an excuse not to see that her medical and psychological needs are met.

Love is a verb, not just a feeling. That means when you love someone and they're in trouble, you TAKE ACTION. She obviously can't make the best decision for herself right now so that's where YOU step in, Mom.

Anorexia is the most fatal of all psychological disorders. Anorexia could be the root of ALL her troubles.

I have a friend whose daughter was treated for anorexia. The mom is a single mom with a fulltime job who is responsible for another child and aging parents. She managed to get her child daily to a treatment program - it was over an hour's drive each way - for months on end. At times she made arrangements with responsible friends or family members to get her daughter to-and-from. She somehow managed to get her daughter to treatment daily and thus deliver the message to her daughter that "this is hard work for me but you are worth it". Other parents in this treatment program faced the same challenges of a long drive and other responsibilities but they, too, managed it.

If you don't help your daughter, who will? If you don't behave as if this is a life-threatening condition, who will?

No one loves their child more than a parent. She needs to know that she has you to count on, and that she is worth all the trouble.Don't drop the ball.

I suggest meeting with a knowledgeable, understanding physician who can lead you through this treatment, and push for answers, results and treatment.

Nothing you have to do today is more important than getting your daughter the help she needs. Good luck.

It sounds like she may have deeper issues. It's a really personal question so you don't have to answer, but... she's 23, has a kid and a boyfriend, lives with you, doesn't have a car or a license? It sounds like she really has very little control of her life and the AN may be aggravated by that. You mentioned addiction too. Eating disorders, addiction, and another mood disorder (depression, bipolar, etc) all often go hand in hand all together. A trifecta that keeps one down in the dirt.

Would it be possible to help her set up a new life closer to the treatment center? To help her get a job and apartment in that area, visit her often, make sure she's getting treatment? She needs help, but often times providing free rent is too much help if that makes sense. Having some initiative and control over her life may help her more in the end than leeching off of you (I am making assumptions here, please don't be offended but that's kind of what sounds like is going on). Is the boyfriend a deadbeat or what's up with that?

I'm not saying to dump her out on the street. You should absolutely still be involved but it's kind of like teaching one to fish. You can still help financially but there must be an end goal for her to meet.

She needs to eat, obviously, to stay alive but it's not the root of the problem. She needs treatment for the fact that she feels the need to do this to herself. As far as saying that nobody cooked, if she is anorexic she will come up with all kinds of excuses to not eat and may become very sneaky about it. She may start hoarding food and claiming she ate it, or purge it- it's not exclusive to bulimics.

This is a really hard situation to navigate, especially since she's an adult. It's a serious issue- people die from it and it can exacerbate other problems as well.

As someone who has lived with both sisters and a flatmate with eating disorders I understand what it is like to live with someone like this, although I do not know the heartbreak you will be feeling as a mother watching her spiral out of control. I think the secretiveness is the most problematic thing to deal with, because in my experience anorexics tend to lie and will do whatever they can do to prevent you from a) realising the extent of the problem and b) from intervening.

Because she is an adult you cannot force her to get treatment, however because she is living with you and there is a child involved it is something that you can't ignore. It is a very tough situation to be in, because the disorder is self-perpetuating, almost like an addiction itself, and it does get harder to treat the older someone is when they start showing the symptoms.

She needs to get to a point where she realises she wants to help herself, and that usually comes from hitting rock bottom rather than being pushed into it by others. That said, while she is living in your house you may have a level of influence over her in terms of you strongly suggesting that she get some sort of treatment if she wants to keep living with you (I personally think a degree of tough love would be better for someone her age than tip-toeing around her and continuing to watch her get worse, but I don't think this means that you don't support her at all - there is room for both). There are many websites for both sufferers and people who are trying to support anorexics to combat the illness, and I wonder whether they would be worth your while to look at - particularly so that you can get some support, because while most of the comments here are helpful it might be more useful to get support from others in a similar situation.

hi! I'm an occupational therapy student I messaged you. I really wanna help you. I'm still a student so my suggestions aren't guaranteed to work but it may.

Occupational therapists are health professionals (rehabilitation) who helps people to recover from their physical or mental disabilities/problems/issues by enabling them to do their everyday tasks independently and efficiently. Everyday tasks involve eating so it will help with anorexia nervosa patients to get back on track and eating right.