Hi cathrineholm,
So sorry you are going through this. As the parent of a freshman d. with an eating disorder who was diagnosed in November, I sympathize. Our decision was to take our d. out of school in early December and have her take a MLOA and get W’s on her transcript for now. She is in residential treatment and we are hoping she will be able to get into a strong recovery. Her health is the most important thing. We took her out before her vitals became compromised although she was at an unhealthy weight. Luckily D. admitted that she needed help and this is a very important step for her. She is in an excellent treatment center and so far is compliant and reports are that she is doing well.
College will be there when she is able to attend. If she is still struggling when the MLOA is about to expire we will recommend that she apply to schools nearer to home so that we can support her in her ongoing recovery while giving her an appropriate amount of freedom and independence. And yes, we will lose some money and that is a bitter pill for us. D. was on a partial scholarship which was very generous but we lost the money we paid for her room and board this past semester. And the fact that she is on a scholarship also meant that if she was unable to focus on her classes because she was underweight and did poorly academically, her scholarship could be compromised and we might not be able to afford to send her to her dream school even if she did get well. So it was better to take her out. The school will let her return and redo the classes and hold the scholarship and tuition we paid for her. Kind of like a reboot. This will not affect her standing. They were very nice about the situation and I appreciated it. I’m sure they have seen it before.
So sad since she did so much hard work to get into a great college and was happy with her choice and her roommates and classes. She was a really exceptional student in HS and it is certainly a big disappointment for us to see her struggling and to accept that her life’s path may be different than we previously thought and include a serious mental health diagnosis. However we are sure we did the right thing for her.
I’m sure by now you and your D. are further along in the decision making process necessary to help her. Will she be taking spring semester off to focus on her recovery?
Best wishes
Palmra