<p>My daughter is a HS senior, heading to a state university in August. It's about a four hour drive away. </p>
<p>Our daughter had a six-month struggle with bulimia. She began treatment right away. The eating disorder had been completely under control for almost two years. Then just recently, it briefly returned. She claims she has regained mastery over it again. She insists she is ready for college and really wants to go. However, it feels very scary to let her go off to college in a few short months. There are psychological support services at the university. I do not know if they are adequate should she have a serious relapse. She is currently in therapy, working toward the transition. </p>
<p>We are torn between letting her go to college and hoping for the best, or deferring enrollment and keeping her home for a year. The latter option is not perfect -- having too much time on her hands is often an eating trigger. Also, she insists that living in our hometown where an abnormally high percentage of her peers are exceptionally skinny is a big part of the problem. </p>
<p>We will carefully weigh her therapist's recommendation, once she makes it. She is trying to get a handle on what caused our daughter's relapse, and how serious it is. </p>
<p>I am really hoping to hear any experiences and/or recommendations from parents who have faced this issue.</p>
<p>My strongest recommendation is to listen to her therapist’s recommendation. He/she will know the particulars.</p>
<p>At any rate, are you getting therapy for yourself? Or do you have adult support around this, becuase you are coming to the point where your daughter is going to have to learn to make choices and decisions about how to treat her illness, herself.</p>
<p>Eating disorders, as you know, are lifelong challenges, like all addictions, and she will need to take ownership of keeping herself healthy and getting help when she needs it, over the course of her life time.</p>
<p>My big question to you: does your daughter feel she is ready for college? Where is she at on this? Can you get a recommendation for a therapist in the town where she will go to college and get your daughter to sign papers so the at-home and away treatment can be coordinated? can you get her to sign papers which would allow the away therapist to contact you in times of emergency? This might put your mind at ease.</p>
<p>Good luck to you both.</p>
<p>Wanted to make one of the same points. This is a good time to bring up the HIPAA release form. Have her sign one. Have it on file with the school, counseling services, and their version of a “quack shack” (and any other place you can think about putting it). Good luck.
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<p>After getting the recommendations from the “treater”, if they say no, then it’s no… but a “tie” goes to “let her go”.</p>
<p>A few critical things to do:</p>
<p>Listen to her current therapist’s evaluation.</p>
<p>Work out an agreement that if she goes to college, she must work with a therapist who specializes in eating disorders. Your daughter’s therapist or the college counseling center can help you find one. </p>
<p>Insist that you, your daughter and the therapist she finds at college have some communication throughout the semester, so that you are aware of whether she is having a relapse or not, and can formulate a plan if that occurs. This will help with your anxiety and force her to be accountable. Sometimes this may involve getting weight checks at the health center, physicians visits, or sessions with a nutritionist who specializes in eating disorders.</p>
<p>Insist on having an in-person family session with her new therapist and her once she is established in therapy. If this is not possible, at least consider a phone session. </p>
<p>If you are entrusting her to be on her own far away at college with an eating disorder, you need to make sure that she has the appropriate safety nets in place to provide support for her. If these fail, then she needs to know that she might have to leave during or after the first semester to seek intensive treatment, if necessary.</p>
<p>Striking the balance between appropriate supervision and giving her the independence she craves is a tricky area when it comes to eating disorders. Good luck.</p>
<p>I would also suggest finding out from the university what policy, if any, they have about eating disorders. </p>
<p>I know of several girls with these problems, who go to different colleges. One school simply will not let a student with an (active) eating disorder stay. If they discover it, the student is sent home, immediately. Another school makes the students come in for a weekly weigh in (which, I realize, won’t help much in the case of bulimia) – for anorexia, if there is no weight gain or there is more weight loss, the student is sent home. </p>
<p>The two girls I know the most about both managed their illness (with a lot of therapy, both in college and at home, and with a few relapses along the way) and successfully graduated from college. So it can be done. </p>
<p>One thing that worries me is your daughter’s concern about the skinny girls around her at home. There will be skinny girls in college, too. And a lot of girls in college either start with eating disorders or develop them in college. Even kids without eating disorders often have unusual eating patterns freshman year. </p>
<p>Good luck. Eating disorders are really hard to deal with.</p>
<p>Now I’m not sure where your daughter is going to school so I don’t know how feasible this is, but I have had horrible luck with the college’s psychological services but really well seeking out a therapist, a nutritionist, and group therapy outside of school. In many ways, college can be a better place than home for a relapse. There is a lot of structure with dining services that can provide the consistency and rigidity that comes with inpatient or intensive outpatient treatment. Again, this was a really difficult decision for my family as well but ultimately we decided together to choose a school less than an hour from home and worked to set up a support system before leaving. I think that is key. Having everything lined up before arriving on campus.</p>
<p>I am amazed at the trust everyone puts in therapists, to be honest. How is your relationship with your daughter? I would say that you would be the best person to judge, as her parent. All things being equal, I would say that going and trying is a lot better than staying home, in terms of an eating disorder and general development and well-being.</p>
<p>Relapsing might be expected around the time of acceptance to college, which makes the coming transition more real. Bulimia can be a way of dealing with pain, and a person needs to develop other ways of facing the pain of leaving home, meeting new people, establishing new connections. Perhaps things will be easier once she is settled in.</p>
<p>If your daughter has some conflict between dependence and independence, this could get worse in college for awhile, especially if she is far away. However, I know kids who have gone to college with pre-existing problems in this area who have done fine. I also know two who were sent home.</p>
<p>I disagree w/the idea that bulimia is a lifelong addiction. For some, maybe, but it can be healed entirely, and the fact that it only lasted 6 months and was treated early makes for a better prognosis.</p>
<p>Not to be crass, but if affording college is a stretch for you, you might want to check out tuition refund insurance, the policy’s approach to eating disorders, and also the school’s policies. Some schools will send a kid home simply because other students are disturbed by his or her behavior w/eating.</p>
<p>I’m interested in how much knowledge you have about eating disorders compmom because I can’t say I have seen much research to validate your claims.</p>
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<p>Really? What schools are those?</p>
<p>As for disagreeing or agreeing with whether or not those who are once susceptible to an eating disorder being susceptible to this, under stressful circumstances, called: relapse, the evidence shows this to be true. Whether or not somebody can remain healthy is not the question, really. The susecptibility remains.</p>
<p>Although, some do turn to drugs or alcohol for the same relief. The connection is strong. The science supports it.</p>
<p>I wonder which schools send students home because other students are disturbed by his or her eating behavior?</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20090105/bulimia-tied-to-brain-differences[/url]”>Bulimia: Symptoms, Treatments, and Prevention;
<p>A dear friend’s daughter with much the same circumstances will be taking a gap year. While she has been stable for the past 18 months, the stress of college news/choices sent her into a minor relapse. She also deals with separation/anxiety issues. So the decision is to spend a year at home; daughter is expected to get a job (they don’t want her bored/hanging around) and to stay in intensive therapy especially to deal with the triggers for her ED. The family is also hoping she can do an extended service program in the spring to help her adjust to living more independently - and to assess her readiness to do so. It’s been very hard; this is a tough, tough illness, and I wish you all the best.</p>
<p>je<em>ne</em>sais_quoi,</p>
<p>Disclaimer: I am not a parent, rather a high school senior living with disordered eating. </p>
<p>Reading your post, I truly sense your genuine concern for your daughter’s well-being. I have a few grievances with some of the responses to your inquiry, but the rest present some viable solutions that could truly breed potential success for your daughter’s situation. Despite this, I kindly suggest that you be wary of what I consider to be the most prevalent parent-of-an-eating-disordered-child mistake: subconsciously (and even consciously) agonizing over the future of your loved- one’s disorder. Your daughter may adjust to college life immediately or she may experience a myriad of relapses along the way. Whichever the case may be, always view the monstrous disorder in a transparent fashion. In other words, remember that this is about your DAUGHTER, not the DISORDER. Someday she too will view herself in this manner. In the meantime, try not to fret so much about what MIGHT happen. Many of these replies seem to be offering hasty assumptions. Keep an honest line of communication with your daughter and her therapist. THINK ahead, but don’t FRET ahead. Your worries may perpetuate your daughter’s worries- and I can assure you she has enough of her own.</p>
<p>I know a woman with a bright, talented daughter with an eating disorder. Both she and her daughter now say that it is a life long affliction, and something she will always have to fight. She is in her mid 30s now. When it came time for her to go away to college some 12 years ago, she had a relapse, and this was after a couple of years of staying on track. It was a very bitter time when the parents felt they had to tell her that she had to live at home and commute; that they were not going to pay for her to go away to college. She had managed to get back on her feet, get out her applications, get some nice acceptances, get over her relapse in short order and was responsible about going to counseling and her counselor supported her giving it a try. But the parents had done research and spoken to a number of parents,some who had lost their children to the disease, many whose kids had some difficult relapses that lead to all sorts of grief, and these parents decided it was not worth the risk. </p>
<p>So she went to a local school, did brilliantly and then relapsed while going for her master’s at an ivy league school, still commuting but looking into living on her own. She’s been good for 5 years now, but she understands now the severity of her condition and that she is always at risk.</p>
<p>Please make sure all potential roommates are made aware of the issues. I had a bulimic roommate placed in my room with no warning. She cooked late into the night, vomited on the suite toilets to the point where the staff refused to clean the stall, used all the available toilet paper to hide the vomiting, and stole food from all suitemates.</p>
<p>She was ultimately placed in a private room, but not before wreaking havoc on an entire suite.</p>
<p>We didn’t have fancy names back in my day but I lived in a house with a girl who was anorexic and one who was bulimic and it is a pain to live with and “see” but I don’t disagree that owning up to her problems when she’s comfortable might not be all bad and give her a support system of people who understand…I would find a local therapist and make she has regular counseling. Do be aware that my boys tell me “lots of girls” use Ritalin or Adderall in college for “weight control”…that isn’t an acceptable alternative if her problem is her self-image. You are going to want someone she feels comfortable with but also sees her frequently enough to assess whether she is maintaining weight.</p>
<p>OP, I think you have been given really good advice. It is hard to offer an opinion based on your brief history. So often, bulimia begins with a bad m/f relationship, some form of abuse, etc. I am leery of your statement that she began treatment ASAP. People tend to purge in one form or another over a period of time. As the behavior continues, it begins to take on a life of its own. It’s only at that point that people living with them become aware of the Bx. </p>
<p>I do hope her current therapist is an expert in this field. You do not mention if she is taking medication… IF you let her try a semester at college, obviously you would want to know as much as possible what the counseling center has to offer. Some colleges hire therapist with this specialty, as it is so common. Others refer to local experts. Curmudgeon, wise man always, is spot on about your need to have contact with therapist. My own approach is to call family with client in the room. Another poster mentioned insurance, which is excellent advice, in case your DD needs to withdraw.</p>
<p>Hail to curmudgeon, his DD, and her cat. Miss your wry opinions.</p>
<p>Excellent advice on this thread. A close family member is currently at home after anorexia developed during her first semester at college. The school has been incredibly supportive, and she is making good progress in gaining weight. Her mom is right now considering whether to let her go back in the fall.</p>
<p>mom3030, she is under no obligation to make her roommates or the school aware. It is actually very surprising that you had a roommate like that. Most eating disorders are characterized by extreme secrecy. At some colleges (particularly competitive ones), over a quarter of all females suffer from eating disorders. I assure you they are not all living like that. All roommates are obligated to provide the other with a comfortable living environment regardless of health history. The issue is not the disorder but instead the way she behaved.</p>
<p>Without going into great detail, just to clarify…a couple of weeks after my daughter began purging she told a friend, who encouraged her to talk to the HS social worker. The social worker told my daughter she had tell us or she would. That night our daughter told us. I had seen some bingy eating in the few prior months (which we discussed), so it didn’t surprise me too much. The next day we contacted the best eating disorders center in our area, and she began treatment. From that first appointment, she only purged once or twice more. Even so, she stayed in treatment for the next two years. A couple of months ago her therapist noticed some weight fluctuations that coincided with depressed mood. She has not been prescribed anything for any of her problems, though her therapist now wants her to see a psychiatrist for possible dysthemia. She has an appointment soon.</p>
<p>My daughter’s issues revolve around anxiety about gaining weight. She is, and always has been, of normal weight, on the slender side. We live in a town where being super-thin is pretty much the norm. Her other issue is feeling chronically out of place at her preppy, conservative HS, and having difficulty finding down-to-earth, like-minded friends. She was/is REALLY looking forward to college where she would finally be among more similar folks. She has worked very hard at building a more solid core of confidence and security. I don’t mean to blame the social culture of her high school, but I can see how it certainly seems to erode her best efforts. </p>
<p>My beloved daughter is so much more than this “disorder” and not at all how we define her. She is a highly talented artist and musician, sensitive and considerate daughter and sister, and loving, compassionate friend. She is wise and insightful beyond her years. As most parents, we just want to remove any obstacles to her making the most of all her abundant gifts, and finding the fulfillment and joy she so richly deserves. </p>
<p>I greatly appreciate how generously you all have shared your experiences and suggestions. I am so grateful for the invaluable support, advice and recommendations which will undoubtedly help us in the coming months. Thank you all very much.</p>