The following article was written by the mother of a teenager who developed bulimia due to her being painfully shy. The report below is unedited. It was kindly submitted by the mother who feels very strongly that stories such as those of her daughters ought to be told so that parents in a similar situation can find the right help for their children.
Journey out of teenage bulimia using EFT
I am writing this in the hope that other parents may find this account when searching for answers to their child’s Bulimia. My wish is that these parents can know that there is a technique that can help towards curing Bulimia and not just provide coping skills to live with the condition.
This technique is EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique)
This account is not long, in fact I have tried to make it as brief as possible whilst hopefully getting the message across. It has been written in diary form to keep it as simple as possible. It is quite appropriate that this account is brief because that is how I would describe my daughter’s journey out of Bulimia.
EFT made this journey brief and in my eyes is a Modern Day Miracle
New Years day and it is confirmed what I had suspected for a few week’s our daughter is making herself sick. In a way it is almost a relief that we now know, maybe now it is in the open we can get help. Although we are very concerned about health implications it is the underlying cause to the Bulimia that we believe the help needs directing to.
· I would describe the underlying causes as:
o Felt different from her friends
o Uncomfortable in social situations
o Didn’t know what to say to people
o Felt people didn’t want to talk to her or be her friend
o Desire for confidence and comparing herself to other people who she perceived to be confident.
o Being consistently told through out school life by teacher’s and peers that she was quiet
o Incidents involving emotional bullying through out school life
o The final such incident resulting in moving High School
· Saw our GP who made a referral to the local Eating Disorder Unit. Was told this could take about 3 – 4 months but in the mean time try to not be sick as much. Was told therapy offered would include coping skills to help deal with uncomfortable social situations. Our daughter was weighed and told that her weight was within the acceptable body mass for height.
(I want to say here that I am not criticising the Medical professionals because they can only offer the therapy’s that are available to them but we did not feel optimistic when leaving the surgery because we were left with the feeling that it was going to be a long, hard struggle to overcome this. Also having been weighed and told the figures my daughter then knew that is would be quite safe for her to continue being sick as there was room for her to loose more weight and still be within the acceptable body mass.)
· Weeks pass and still no appointment. Our Daughter is getting worse. Believes she will always feel like this and what is the point. There is no light at the end of the tunnel for her.
· Look into what help she will actually receive when appointment finally comes through. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Food Diary’s. From the literature read can see that is the belief that over coming or living with Bulimia can be a hard struggle. Very few people totally overcome it but learn to live with it. I don’t want to condemn my daughter at such a young age to have to ‘live with Bulimia’ I want the Bulimia to be gone which means removing the cause.
I don’t claim to be an expert on Cognitive Behavioural therapy and am sure it has positive results in certain situations but how can being taught to cope with certain situations deal with the past events in my daughter life that have finally brought her to situation where she wants to hurt herself by being sick.
· Am starting to doubt the route we have taken but feel as much as I believe in alternative therapy’s I would be irresponsible to go down this road. We are brought up to believe that the Doctor knows best. Although I don’t always follow this belief am still worried that I could be playing around with our Daughters health.
· Finally get an appointment at the Eating Disorder Unit but still have to wait another 3 weeks. That’s a life time and even with the appointment made do not feel confident that it is the right help for our Daughter. Start thinking seriously about EFT as the road to take and ringing Tania Prince??
· Talk to my daughter about EFT and explain how it works. She wants to try it as she is not too keen about going to the EDA Unit
· Finally make the phone call to Tania. Although my heart tells me it is the right thing to do am still nervous.
· What a fool I was to be nervous. From the moment I explained what the problem was felt such confidence in what Tania said to me. I really believe It is possible to clear all these past events and without them there is no place for the Bulimia. The most important help I want for my daughter is for her to be totally happy in being herself, for her to have the confidence and belief to know she is a wonderful person, for her to enjoy her life as any teenager should.
· Talked to my husband about the phone call and up and coming EFT appointment. It is strange but I am no longer worried because I know this is the right road to take. From this moment on things will only get better, I just know it.
· Day of first appointment which turns out to be the first of only 7 (6 really but I will explain about appointment 7 at the end) Because Tania wants to make some headway in the first appointment, which will increase my daughters confidence in EFT it is going to be for 2 ½ hours. My daughter is quite subdued on the journey there and for want of a better explanation her emotions seemed “flat”. Leave the surgery to return in 2 ½ hours.
· Return at end of appointment. The first thing that hits me with a WOW factor was the SPARKLE in my daughter’s eyes. When I left her they looked greyish but now they are sparkling, there is a twinkle in her eyes that I hadn’t seen for a long time.
· After first appointment cancelled appointment made at Eating Disorder Unit.
· I am not going to write about all the sessions as rightly so I wasn’t present in any of them. I want to say though that from that moment onwards things dramatically improved. There was nothing slow about it; it was almost like a switch had been turned on. Knew that she was possibly still making herself sick but definitely not as much. Knew that things had to be cleared first and eventually the Bulimia would disappear so was not concerned about it. Also explained this to my daughter
· It was such a pleasure for me and my husband to watch our daughter socialising with such confidence and obviously enjoying herself. Even though I believed in EFT I couldn’t believe the dramatic change. It was like:
· BEFORE THE FIRST APPOINTMENT (HEAVY AND DARK) AND
AFTER THE FIRST APPOINTMENT (LIGHT AND HAPPY)
· From that moment onwards things just got better and better until we arrived at the point where our daughter:
o Has made an enormous group of new friends who were right for her
o Is out more than she was in
o Has become the social secretary almost for her and her friends
o Is no longer afraid to speak her own mind without worrying about the consequences
o Is no longer making her sick
o GENERALLY HAVING A GREAT TIME
· That 7th appointment!!! Left my daughter and after 10 minutes got a phone call from Tania. There is nothing left to work on. So we all went for a coffee and a bite to eat instead. The whole experience from start to finish from my perspective was positive. There was no struggle, no long haul, no having to cope with things. It was a pleasant journey to watch my daughter come out of this dark phase and become the person she always was but afraid to be.
· Without EFT I believe we would still be in the dark phase. Just 6 appointments were needed to dramatically turn someone’s life around. Because it seemed so easy you underestimate the enormity of what happened. 6 sessions instead of months of therapy. As I said earlier:
· EFT IS A MODERN DAY MIRACLE THAT EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT.
