Anorexia Nervosa and my cast member

Yesterday I had to call a dancer in my production and tell her not to come to rehearsal until she had eaten. It was so sad but she had passed that line that I know means the disease has hold of her.

I had to tell her that I knew that if she ate she would have a bit of a belly because thats what happens when an anorexic eats finally.. I told her that if I didn't see that little belly, she could not work.

I talked to a close friend who is an acclaimed psychiatrist first and it was his advice, again, as I've had dancers like this before and when I was a teen, a young dancer, I had it for a bit.

I felt badly also because this young girl had been very successful in theater in Seattle for some time until she got to be about 25 when the competition was stiffer because she went pro. She trys so hard and is not really in the league of many of the dancers.

Because she is not as strong of a dancer, her mother came to see me and told me that she had been rehearsing all night, night after night and exercising to extreme limits.

Her mother thought that her thinness was too thin but had not been educated in Anorexia. I gave her a therapists number.

They are strict Mormons. I have no idea if that affects them but I know that the mother does the same thing as the daughter in trying to be perfect! She was perfectly turned out and she too, was thin. She was "cosmetically thin," the kind of person who does not work out to be thin but starves. It is easy to see this if you are a Master Dancer, there are tell tale signs.

She also spoke of her daughters achievements and of her sisters achievements and their goals as if they were do or die about success! I could see where the young woman got her illness!

I have no idea how to get to her mother or her but I recieved a call from her sister saying that she had, indeed, eaten and was sporting a little new belly for the food to fit into!

What do you think? The mother was like talking to sommeone who was brain washed! I don't want to fire this young woman.

Dancer9

You're not going to get through to the mother, not if she's been this way her whole life. She has made a lifestyle choice -- that this is what a woman is supposed to be -- and to change would undermine the core of her existence because she doesn't see change as an option.

The daughter is a younger version of her mother. She got her values from her mother (and perhaps the larger Mormon society.) I'd also bet that the sister is lying for the girl because the mother told her to say that.

Yes, they are all brainwashed in a sense. No, you probably can't change any of them. They are taught a certain way, and they believe a certain way because they have chosen to be like that.

Ultimately, it's a lifestyle choice. And unfortunately, you'll probably have to fire the girl.

I know this wasn't the answer you wanted to hear.

I think Meredith is right on here.

What I find absolutely shocking is that the mother of a 25 year-old is going to talk to her dance instructor or boss, or whatever your title is to the gal. That in itself tells me she's an uncontrolable control freak. My youngest is 19 and I'd never go to his boss. By this time they should be living life without the confines of their parents. Don't you think? I find this terribly sad.

dancer, I admire you for making a difference in the lives of these young gals. They need you!

I agree, Dotsie, but stage mothers hardly let go!
I thought it might be because they are devout Mormon or something!

Strange,
Dancer9

Hi Meredith.
I think you are correct about the life style choice. There are three sisters, all the same.
Although she has eaten, I can see myself baby sitting this woman who is paid, for rehearsal as well, making sure she is eating.
I have decided to give myself a "three strike," deal with her and if I have to deal with her three times, she loses the role. I have an under study for her that I called yesterday and told to move into an understudy for that particular role. The understudy is thrilled, now she is in a paying gig. I'd rather use the understudy now. My original cast member has a very good voice and that's needed for theater but she does not have the lead. Her song can be done in a "theater voice," which is part talking so the pro in my is all over this problem.

I am not heartless though. I fear for this girl. I am speaking to "brain washed," types here with her and her Mom though so I can't make a dent. I wish I knew more about the Mormon religion. I have taught Mormon children to dance, ( It's big with them for some reason,) and have met up with them in a big fashion shoot I managed too. There was the same perfection personality to the point that until one of the models saw her shots that I designed and realized she "had never looked better," she had a problem trusting me as a professional with a big resume'! This woman wanted all the photos for her book and is now my fan, but it was irritating, to say the least, to hear her say, on location, "are you sure I should be this way?" (for a shot...)

Bangers, head bangers.

Thanks Meredith, my brilliant friend,
Dancer

No devout mormon I know of would allow themselves to become emaciated. They believe their bodies to be temples to hold Christs love. Thats not the reason she ill. The mother sounds like a nut case to me, that is unchangeable BUT you can help the daughter even if you have to threaten her job. Good for you Dancer.

thank you for the insight, Chatty.
I do know that this girl wants a perfect body like some of the dancers in the cast have...

I don't know.
D9

The "Be Perfect" belief is filtered down from every one who cares for a child.It is how the child gets "strokes" that is acknowledgemnt that they exist and matter.
The child adheres to it to survive.

Mountain ash

Dancer, do you know if there is any common denomination with these girls or boys who suffer under anorexia? I was just wondering if it is know if their upbringing has anything to do with it? Was food a huge topic in their families, or weight problems, or maybe putting down others who didn't look so perfect?
Just wondering if I chould avoid some topics with Anaiya as she grows older.

EW Striving to be something that is for someone else and not for oneself is so stressful.Academic parents who wish their child follow them. with a practical child for example.A child goes so far along the road then the rebellion can be shown as this illness.
So I applaud all achievemnts..from finger painting through to school work.Damce art music..it is that childs unique best.And praise her friends in her hearing.Build the inner confidence that Anniya is loved whatever and however she achieves. ignore the negative praise the real good try.Be a good citizen .as you are already.
I took my daughter to a dance class.purely for fun and mixing.The look in some mothers eyes as they looked us over...it was Scottish dance and even the kilts they wear are compared..I recognised a competitivness that was not healthy.Even when the mothers were being "kind" to their child is wasn't real. We found another place to go...
Mountain ash

Dancer I hope you find a way of dealing with the young woman. Best to approach as an older woman/dancer mentor rather than the pseudo-therapist route.

Would be good for her to have a coffee with you occasionally.

A good friend's sister's daughter ended up in the hospital with aorexia. She was 16 yrs. I am not certain what the family dynamics there were.

Treatment for anorexia and bulemia takes many months and it does involve counselling and supervision at stay-care facilities. A friend of mine did her social work internship at a eating disorders facility that was part of a teaching hospital. So I heard informally some of the treatment approaches.

A child needs to know from the start that if they fail at something they love to do, it doesn't mean others think less of them.

I agree with all you say, Orchid.
The disease is, from what I have
learned from my own 15 years of
treatment and my close friend being
a Psychiatrist, is a complex one.

From what I understand, it can have
many layers, and not one difinitive
answer, such as an abusive childhood.

The treatment is also complex and
requires inpatient, as you were
saying, in most cases as I understand
it.

The truth is that this is a
young woman, not a child. However
I have met her mother and the \
stressing of achievement in the
family as well as the reaching
for perfection were obvious and
glaring for all to see.

I had more information about
family life.

Three girls, all adults. They
have dinner together, with their
S.O.'s every Sunday as they go to
church. They invited me for dinner.

The young womens favorite movie
has been Pride and Prejudice, and
they are named "Bennet," as in the
movie. They told me how much they
related to the movie.

If you recall, those girls "made good,"
despite the odds against them in society.
They "raised themselves up," in a
world that almost out classed them
entirely.

It was telling. I have been
involved with this family once
before when I put up a play in
Seattle and one of the leads was
the youngest daughter, a very talented
and trained vocalist. I now have
to deal with the older, as luck would
have it.
When the younger daughter did not
get enough solos in highschool because
of what she felt was nepotism, she
went out of the school system and
joined a choir that would allow her
more attention.
The thing is that with my trained ear,
the girl getting most of the solos was
most definately the better vocalist.

This is telling.

Thank you for your interest
and I probably will stay with
this young woman's progress even
if I have to fire her.

Her understudy is a "cheer leader"
type and happy as can be. It is tempting
to fire the young woman, Kirsten.

Dancer 9, with dance drama.

Mountain Ash,
So good and wise regarding children,
good for you!
Dancer

Edelweiss,
When I was a young woman and I had anorexia, it was a combination of parents I could not please by being perfect enough and low self esteem. Feeling unloved is a big part.
I think I have seen this over and over again in a person with the disease.
Your grandaughters mother could very well be difficult to please if she starts living through her daughter.
I would watch for that. I think her giving up custody, as Merdith said, would be the best thing for this little girl and I've spent my life with girls and women, as a young girl and as an adult.
Dancers, Models, I've been around them all my life.

Love to you,
Dancer9

dancer, eating disorders are huge in our area. HUGE. From what I've heard, it's most noticable in high school cafeterias. I've heard teens who don't have a disorder, talk about the kids who do and it's pathetic. I've told them they need to have heart to hearts with the poor kids who are suffering. So many just need the love of others. I know it's not that simple, but it's a part of it.

How's your little dancer this week?

Thin is and always has been "In". Young girls are swamped with TV Hollywood Stars, Magazine Covers and Skinny Peers. Unfortunately it always has and always will be this way.
Dancer, I hope you can help this woman.

Dotsie,
I will see my dancer tomorrow. I heard she has a job at a "Bebes", which is the WORST place she could work! I'm just amazed as this unfolds!

Dancer9

A feminist take on anorexia: it is a "disease" of choice, where girls/women believe that they are not good enough, for whatever reasons. The reasons may be society-at-large, the media, their religion/culture, or their particular family dynamics. Anorexia is a way of controlling one's body, in a situation where the person feels they don't have much control in anything else.

As such, I'd expect that anorexia rates are higher in abusive families, and in families/cultures where women are considered 2nd class or subservient to men. It's about the woman taking control in any way she can, even if that way is destructive. She's destructive because she already feels destroyed (whether that feeling is justified or not.)

It also ties in with an unhealthy competitiveness -- where the fewer choices one has, the more important "success" in these choices becomes.

Just my observation, and it doesn't solve anything. Dancer, your kindness and care for this young woman shines through.

Meredith:
Competitiveness it is, between these sisters and thier mother, as you mentioned, is behind this.
I have gotten to know this family as they have pulled
me in, "get in with the choreographer," is the game.
I see three sisters who play off eachother and their mother.
Each is gifted in an area but the one I am dealing with has bnot shown any success after graduating highschool. The one younger than her has made her parents glow by going to BYU, their dream for her.
The youngest has an opera voice that is being well trained, is beautiful and tall. She is also the baby of the family so she is well attended to. She has had many community theater parts as I understand.
The mother has an immaculate home and has gone back to school,
so this sister is "average," and drops out of college to work for "bebe," where the clothes are obscene and get's thinner and thinner in competition with her sisters and co-workers.
She is doomed in this production because she does NOT stand out and will be just a "player," because of it. I would like to help her to improve but she has one trait:
Stubborness,
that will stop her from listening.

She came to work with a tiny belly of food. I let her work.
I just have to keep watching.

By the way, her family cooks one hell of a salmon dish.

Dancer.

( I'm in Seattle, did I tell you that?)

Get the recipe dancer if you can and put it in the recipe section. I LOVE salmon...

I'll try, Chatty.
Dancer

From my understanding one of the things that sets these girls up for it is an extremely controlling environment. They figure if they can't control things going on around them the one thing they have total control over is there eating. Of course, they may not be aware of this reasoning, it may be all subconcious. It is a very serious and often fatal disease.

You are spot-on, greene!
Dancer

I just want to thank you for your answer Dancer and Meredith too; Interesting observations.

Our neighbours have twin adult daughters. Both are beautiful young ladies, except that they are so skinny their collar bones look like they swallowed boomerangs. Their parents are kind gentle people. Both daughters have doctor degrees. They work our every day for hours. I’ve been invited to their homes, which appear not only modern but sterile. Everything is black and white, lots of steal, chrome, and leather. A single white orchid in a black vase is just about the only knick-knack in their spacious homes. They eat like sparrows. Both have two children, but you won’t see any food lying around; Never mind a crumb on a kitchen counter.

You could blow me over with a feather if these girls don’t willfully starve themselves. Isn’t it weird that both of them are like that? Makes me wonder if Anorexia can be a genetic ailment.

Edelweiss, I'd say NO because there's no anorexia or related eating disorders in 3rd-world countries where food is scarce, or in societies where full-figured women are the ideal.

However, being twins they were raised in the same environment, and (especially if they're identical) may have a similar response.

Genetic? That's something I never considered. I wonder if that has been studied. My opinion is much the same as Meredith's. I form my thoughts based on personal experience as well as facilitating workshops/therapy sessions for adult survivors of child abuse. I recall studying Psych 101 in first semesster college 1973. The picture of anorexia nervosa was ONE black and white picture of a male, and ONE paragraph. I weighed 98 pounds at the time, at 5'5. My cousin (my best childhood friend) and I did indeed compete in terms of weight. If she got to 104, I tried to get under 100. I just had no appetite, or so I thought. She was willful, as EW observes, willfully starving herself. We had 1) same famly dynamics 2) patriarchal dogmas 3) subservience 4) forced obedience. As Greene says, in my cousin's case, it was a matter of the only control she had over her own choices and activities. A couple years later, I silently smirked when she went to 133, and I was a mere 110. I weighed less than her, and it was a victory. How twisted is that? As Dotsie says, eating disorders are not only more talked about, but they are also actually, factually more prevalent. It's odd that there is more help available, yet the disease is so pervasive. When I was 22 I was hospitalized for "unexplained weight loss." I had an IV. I actually asked how many calories the IV drip had. Really, the doctors had no idea what they were dealing with. When my cousin was hospitalized for the same reason (underweight, no thought process, no energy, no proper bodily functions, just coffee and cigarettes) the general DX for her was "nervous condition." Fast forward 30 years to social work profession: there wasn't a one group member who did not or had not had some form of destructive relationship with food. Tonight I saw a segment on the soap opera star Lisa Rena and her husband Harry Hamlin. Lisa is 45. The focus of the article was on how great she looked in her bikini. And the segment producer compared photos of her in bikinis "over the decades." Wow, how very important the media makes women's size. Of course, Harry's size was not discussed. I have a neice who has been a dancer since she could walk. Her major in college was theater and dance. She played "Karen" in "The Red Shoes" for community theater. Triple threat: voice, dance, acting. Anyway, she auditioned for a cruise line dance troupe, and did not make it. My step-father, who told me I should strive for a body like Cheryl Tiegs (in the 70s) said about his step-granddaughter, "I bet she did not make the cruise due to the way she bulked up. Have you noticed how much weight she's gained? I hope she doesn't get huge like her mother." Wow. What messages. What judgement. The family dynamics is a HUGE part of the pervasive problem. I think that anorexia turned from one page in a text book to a disease worth exploring with the death of Karen Carpenter. Not a solution in sight. I wonder what the long term life recovery rate is? I hope it's higher than I think it is. Just my 2 cents worth.

I know that in some areas anorexia is treated very much like alcoholism. There is even a book on the market about overcoming eating disorders using the 12 steps. It is part workbook where one can write out the steps as they go thru them. The thought being that they are as 'powerless' over the eating disorder as an alcoholic is over alcohol.

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Genetic? That's something I never considered. I wonder if that has been studied. My opinion is much the same as Meredith's. I form my thoughts based on personal experience as well as facilitating workshops/therapy sessions for adult survivors of child abuse. I recall studying Psych 101 in first semesster college 1973. The picture of anorexia nervosa was ONE black and white picture of a male, and ONE paragraph. I weighed 98 pounds at the time, at 5'5. My cousin (my best childhood friend) and I did indeed compete in terms of weight. If she got to 104, I tried to get under 100. I just had no appetite, or so I thought. She was willful, as EW observes, willfully starving herself. We had 1) same famly dynamics 2) patriarchal dogmas 3) subservience 4) forced obedience. As Greene says, in my cousin's case, it was a matter of the only control she had over her own choices and activities. A couple years later, I silently smirked when she went to 133, and I was a mere 110. I weighed less than her, and it was a victory. How twisted is that? As Dotsie says, eating disorders are not only more talked about, but they are also actually, factually more prevalent.

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Princess you were terribly emaciated when you had anorexia. I am 5'1" at 100lbs. I am at a good weight for my small bone structure.

What further clouds the whole problem now, is that in general in North America, many people are much more overweight than they were 30 years ago. So people start thinking that is "normal" and look at a small person like myself as abnormal or anorexic...

What I used to eat in terms of food volume, surprised many men much taller than myself when they saw my meals. But now I eat less but still same weight, because of age and metabolism slowdown. (I used to cycle at least 25% more annually than what I do now.)

If you saw me with many other Asian women (which is very easy in Vancouver to get this real-life context), I am normal and healthy.

I don't agree that anorexia is genetic. yes, some people look naturally slim or "skinny", but one needs to look at their weekly dietary intake and portions of food.

EW, those doctor-women-mothers sound quite different from my sister who herself lost weight, has a child ..but tries to keep an ok neat home stuffed with many colours, shapes, etc.