Bulimia and Social
Phobia: From a Shy to Confident Teenager
Using EFT
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.
|
