Your Teen Will Hide Their Eating Disorder: Here’s What You Should Look For
I was 13 years old the first time I put my fingers down my throat.
Over the next few years, the practice of forcing myself to vomit became an everyday — sometimes every meal — habit.
For a long time I hid it by taking a shower and counting on the running water to mask the sounds of my disorder. But when my dad overheard me and confronted me when I was 16 years old, I told him it was the first time I’d ever done it. That I’d just wanted to try and I would never do it again.
He believed me.
I started driving to fast food restaurants every night, ordering $20 worth of food and a large coke, dumping the soda out, and vomiting into the empty cup before going home.
In college, it was Ziplock bags sealed and hidden in a trash bag under my bed.
And then I was living on my own and I no longer had to hide.
No matter where I was, I found ways to evacuate my meals in secret. Bingeing and purging became my routine for over a decade.
Looking back now, there were so many signs. So many things anyone paying attention should have seen. But I didn’t really have that either — people looking closely enough at me to notice. And so I was able to hide.
As Mom to a little girl today, my number one goal in life is saving her from going down a similar path.
I’ve done the work to heal myself so that I can set a better example for her. But I also strive to make sure she’s seen, so that if anything like this ever does come up, I’m able to catch it and address it early.
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