Embarking on the journey to help a teenager with an eating disorder can feel like navigating through a complex maze. As parents, it’s instinctive to focus solely on finding the way out for your child. But what if part of the solution to helping them lies in your own healing journey? 

The correlation between your inner healing and your child’s recovery from an eating disorder might be more profound than you realize. In this blog, we’ll explore this intriguing link and discover how our collective experiences can illuminate the path to wellness.

Critical Piece in Eating Disorder Recovery For Teens

In our clinical experience, the impact of parents’ inner work on their teenagers’ recovery from eating disorders is profound. It indicates that recovery rates can increase significantly when parents engage in their own healing journey. It’s a pivotal insight that can reshape the approach to eating disorder treatment.

Parents’ Inner Work: A Turning Point in Teen Recovery

Susan experienced this first-hand. Despite her outward success, unresolved traumas cast a shadow over her relationships. These issues, though concealed, manifested in her daughter’s battle with anorexia. 

Susan’s story isn’t an isolated case; it mirrors a recurring pattern we’ve observed in many families navigating eating disorder treatment.

Susan’s Real Story: A Mother’s Role in Healing Eating Disorders

“I had a challenging childhood marked by abandonment issues from my biological parents. My adoptive father also left when I was only three years old. These traumas shaped me into a person who lived life behind many layers of masks, struggling to trust and allow intimate relationships. 

Despite my financial success and diligent parenting, there remained an invisible barrier within me, preventing me from fully loving and receiving love. I became a “functional” wife, mother, and participant in other relationships. 

After 17 years of marriage, my husband proposed a divorce in 2015, which was a traumatic experience for me. I felt constantly tested by the universe, despite fulfilling my roles as a daughter, wife, mother, friend, and citizen.

Devastated, I struggled to regain financial stability and made several bad decisions. I contemplated suicide, feeling overwhelmed but concealed my pain, suffering in silence. I had been on a personal development and spiritual discovery journey since 2003 and built a career in the field. 

However, during this difficult period, I not only failed to help myself but also doubted the value of all the knowledge and resources I had accumulated.

My daughter was diagnosed with anorexia at 13. Initially, I thought it was just a teenage phase, but the severity of the situation soon became apparent. 

My daughter engaged in self-harm, pushed me away, and even ran away from home once, leading to a police report. She was hospitalized four times, teetering on the brink of death.

I felt lost, filled with pain and self-blame, feeling like a terrible mother. Despite my efforts to help others, I couldn’t help my own daughter. Both my daughter and I contemplated suicide, mirroring each other’s internal struggles. The intensity of our mother-daughter experience during that time was indescribable.

While rescuing my daughter and managing hospital visits, I unintentionally neglected my son, who was 14 at the time, adding to my guilt. I lost my full-time job after just four months, serving as a wake-up call.

Internally, I knew that if I didn’t heal my traumas, my daughter couldn’t fully recover. So, I asked my ex-husband for help in caring for my daughter, giving me the space to heal while looking after my son. Although this decision was my last resort, it was not without great sadness. I cried for three days after my daughter left.

From that point onward, I focused entirely on myself. I practiced self-care and self-love, engaged in extensive inner work and detoxification, and sought help from spiritual friends. 

It took approximately one year, but I finally began to feel grounded, peaceful, and open to new possibilities. I am grateful that my ex-husband loves our children, even though he may not love me. 

My daughter, with the support of her stepmother, was well cared for while I had the opportunity to heal myself. My inner transformation had an incredible impact.

My daughter made a complete recovery from her eating disorder roughly a year after I began addressing my traumas. It was as if my healing unlocked her own path to wellness. 

She has also become financially independent and a strong, confident young woman who knows exactly what she wants in life. And our relationship has grown much more intimate and loving.”

The Power of Inner Work: A Collective Approach

Susan’s story illuminates the profound connection between a parent’s inner journey and their child’s recovery from an eating disorder. It underscores the importance of healing ourselves as a vital step in helping our children heal.

Our collective approach in treating eating disorders involves unveiling the hidden dynamics behind the disorder. Through family constellations, QHHT, or exploring Akashic records, the goal is to unearth and confront the root causes from the hidden dynamics behind eating disorders. 

This discovery process is an essential step in creating a tailored and effective recovery strategy for eating disorders.

And using Hypnotherapy and Havening can be a powerful tool for rewiring the thought patterns and behaviors associated with eating disorders in kids and teens. By guiding the individual into a relaxed, focused state, hypnotherapy allows access to the subconscious mind, where deeply ingrained beliefs and habits reside. 

During this state, positive suggestions and imagery can be introduced to challenge and alter negative thoughts about body image, food, and self-worth. 

This process helps in creating new, healthier neural pathways, gradually reducing the hold of the disorder and promoting more balanced eating behaviors and self-perceptions.

In a Nutshell

Facing a teenager’s eating disorder can often prompt the question: is the solution solely about the child, or do we, as parents, have a role in their healing? Our collective experiences and stories, like Susan‘s, affirm that parental involvement and inner work are pivotal. 

It’s about delving into the hidden dynamics and messages behind the disorder, identifying the root causes, and committing to a path of personal healing.

This journey isn’t just about healing ourselves; it’s about paving the way for our children’s recovery and wellness. Our stories remind us that the journey to healing is one best traveled together. Book Your Free Consultation with Our Experts Today!