To secretly judge my friend for abandoning her hospitalized daughter, and also wanting advice on asking her to come back and support her daughter

[questionzzz]

I am friends with a woman older than me, whom I respect and admire very much, and who has been very good to me professionally over the years (we met at the workplace).

About 4 years ago, her daughter developed an eating disorder. It has been horrific for this family. Currently, the daughter is hospitalized (involuntarily). She is an adult, under 25.

My friend left a few weeks ago to her home country, telling me she is unable to deal with it anymore. She will be away till the end of summer.

yesterday the daughter called me (my friend had told me she had passed on my contact info and told her to call me if she needed anything) and asked me to visit her.

So I did. I was so shocked by what I saw. Just imagine the worst stereotypes of anorexia, that's it.

Anyway, I can't help judging my friend (and her husband!) for leaving their daughter at this time and going overseas, although I rationally understand that I am not in her shoes and I shouldn't judge.

Also I really really want to ask her to come back and support her daughter. Although I understand it is not my place to do so. She is quite an intimidating woman, very successful socially and professionally.

What should I do? Is there a gentle or tactful way of doing this? Should I acknowledge it is not my place and just continue visiting the daughter as and when i am able?

Any advice would be appreciated. I have no experience of dealing with these issues.

I think that your friend is exhausted. She needs time to recharge as the whole process is physically and mentally draining. You wouldnt want her to break down. I would let her decide when is best to return.

My daughter has mental health issues of depression and anxiety.

She is in her late 30's and has her own small house.
She has recently been unable to work due to it which was obviously causing her (and me) more anxiety. Especially when she went onto half wages which she can't pay her mortgage on.

I have my own financial problems at the moment that are causing me severe anxiety and sleeplessness too.

She has a good GP and is on ADs but it's very much a 3 steps forward 2 steps back.

I want to look after my baby so much but can't do anything practically as my debt is increasing month by month too. Whenever she tells me she is feeling crap it cuts me like a knife, I feel sick and it ramps up my anxiety.

I still check in with her every day. Her health is more important than my anxiety. BUT I can, kind of, understand why, with an ongoing situation, her mum needs a break. She needs to be able to look after herself in order to be there for her daughter and if she is 'drowning' she is not going to be able to provide support.

I do hope that her mother soon feels able to come back and support her daughter but I suspect it is really a case of can't rather than won't at the moment.

I am someone who was anorexic from 22 - 27 years of age and struggled to support myself and generally survive, but my parents did not let me move back in with them in spite of my asking them several times. Decades later I understand how complex the situation was and I'm pretty sure I would not have recovered if I had been allowed to move back home so I'm okay with the hard line they took. Every situation is different but I can only say that you can't assume that proximity to her parents would help her. Nonetheless, I think you owe it to your friend and her daughter to be honest about what you have seen.

Eating disorders can stem from having bad/neglectful parents and having a bad childhood. Does this woman want her mum visiting?

I think you need to keep your beak out. It's possible that the daughter's illness has made her very manipulative and controlling, and she is trying to use you as a way to further 'punish' her mother. As PP have said, the mother may well be at the end of her strength and need a break - and, with her DD in a safe place, feels she can take one. You bleating at her to come back and criticising her could make things worse for the whole family. You are not a mental health professional and it is not your responsibility to meddle when you don't know the full story.
By all means visit the girl and be kind to her, but don't get into participating in the family's collective issues when you don't know what you're doing.

I think if I were you I would support the daughter the best you can and not get involved in the relationship between her and her mother. You don't know what has been going on there and the reasons why her mother has decided to go away for some weeks.

Living with a loved one suffering from anorexia is like being held emotionally hostage. The first thing my parents did when I was admitted to hospital was to bugger off on holiday. It suited me to play the abandoned daughter at the time.

Looking back, I don't blame them. They needed to get away and regroup.They needed a holiday from anorexia and the constant fear, the walking on eggshells, the frustration and the feeling of utter hopelessness.

You cannot know the intricacies of parenting a mentally ill child unless you've been there yourself.

Your friend is powerless to stop her child starving herself to death. Imagine how that must feel.

This young woman is in the best place possible for her recovery. Your friend clearly needs a respite break to survive herself.

Be kind to them both.

What country is she from? I only ask because certainly places like China continue to demonize mental illness and I wonder if that is maybe playing a part in her apparent rejection of her daughter.

I wouldn't try to pressurise her parents into coming back. It may well just add to their torment. Dealing with MH problems within a family member and basically watching a family member slowly try to kill themselves takes a huge toll.

Remember, if a plane is depressurising you're told to put on your own oxygen mask first - you're no good to anyone unless you look after yourself.

I have an anorexic sibling, and the impact on the family is horrific.

The stress and difficulty of keeping her alive has made all of us ill at different times. It is absolutely all consuming.

There have been periods where for my own sanity, or to save my job, or my marriage, I have had to take a step back, and have little contact for a while.

My other sibling and my parents have done the same. You just have to sometimes, for your own sake.

In fact we were strongly advised by her professional team to do that as otherwise we’d have burned out.

So please don’t judge.

Do keep your friend informed, do offer her a supportive ear, and do visit her daughter if you can. But please don’t judge, it’s a terrible thing to go through.

Op, not being rude but you have no clue. Honestly it is not the same as being in hospital with a broken leg and I got blame the parents for escaping for a while.

You clearly have no idea what it's like to watch the person you love the most trying to starve to death, slowly, for years on end.

OP please look after yourself as well. You are doing a very kind thing, but please don’t compromise your own well-being.

My daughter has this horrible illness although she has it under control at the moment and is leading a full life. But for two years she was very ill and we feared she would die of it.

I don’t judge the mum or dad at all for taking a break, I didn’t do it myself (well only the odd night away), I was always there but I think if I had somewhere else to go I might have run off. The strain on the whole family was indescribable.

It may seem heartless to you OP but they’ve had four years of living with this illness and ultimately the only person who can get this girl well is her. No one else can engage in treatment for her or eat for her. She has to do it by herself and for herself.

I also agree that the parents might have their own issues with eating or other MH problems so their presence isn’t necessarily going to be helpful. I know in the early stages of my DDs illness I cried and blamed myself a lot - definitely NOT the right thing to do adding guilt to her burden. I wised up quite quickly but I don’t know if I could have held it together for 4 years, 2 was more than enough.

Finally, remember that one of the features of anorexia ( like other addictions) is using deceit to protect your behaviour. I wouldn’t take everything the patient says as absolute truth. Lies my daughter told us in the grips of the disease are still coming to light now. When she is well and healthy she is very honest and we are very close, but when she was seriously ill she told any lie she needed to to avoid eating.

Certainly let the parents know what you saw today but please don’t judge them.

I'm a mom myself, and to indulge in self-righteous ranting, I feel if we were in that situation, god forbid, wild horses etc etc.

But you’re not, are you? You’re on here complaining about a woman that is probably at the end of her tether, because the very little interaction you’ve had with this young woman has affected you emotionally. Now imagine what being a mother to a young woman that is slowly killing herself, NO MATTER what you do is like. No matter how much you try imagine it or blather on about what you would do if that was your daughter. You.have.no.idea! If you can’t support this poor woman for a short time, by having contact with her daughter, then back the fuck off. The last thing this woman needs is judgement.

Amazed at a PP saying they are shocked that a detained patient is allowed visitors. The vast majority of patients on all the wards I have worked on have been allowed visitors. Whether they are detained or not is irrelevant. Its Whether it is in thr patients best interests that is important.

Agreed. I work in secure forensic services and even we allow visitors. CQC would have a field day with a blanket ban on visitors with all the restrictive practice stuff they have going on at the moment.

Her mother knows she is safe for the first time in a very long time. It is unfair of her to have given your contact details without your agreement. However it may well have been out of desperation. If she didn’t love her dd imo she would not have bothered to leave you as a contact.

What about a support network of cousins, aunts and uncles for both Mother and Daughter?

My parents took my younger siblings on holiday, abandoning me as a 16 year old in hospital. I think they made the right choice - we were all better off for it.

@questionzzz if she is sectioned then she should have a Independant mental health advocate available. On all the wards I've been on an advocate has been readily available.

As for her parents being around - in my experience a lot of patients in their 20s don't have parents in regular contact. Some that do get really goid support but others get babied by their parents which can either lead to a lot of anger and resentment from the patient or someone who doesn't learn to grow up and take responsibility for themselves.

@myopinionisvalid - where on earth have you worked where visitors weren't allowed? I've never been on a psychiatric ward where this was the case.

Hi all,
Thank you for the responses.
This is the second time I am visiting somebody on that ward over the past years. I never heard of them not being allowed visitors? In this case, there is a 24-hour sitter assigned to her, and he was outside the door when i was with her. (again, to my ignorance, shocking for me.)

I absolutely agree with ppl who say I can't know what's going on in the family, that is why I am refraining from telling my friend immediately what I am thinking, and ranting about it here!

In her defence, I don't think she can have at least consciously or directly been the cause of her body image and eating issues- she is a very outspoken feminist in her work, very critcal of misogyny etc. Of course I realise people's public image may differ from their private lives, but I have worked with the mom for almost ten year not continuously), and socialized as family throughout. (eg xmas parties, easters etc)

I’m bewildered at how harsh people are being here. OP is doing her best when actually the daughter is not her responsibility at all, and she is not obliged to visit. The fact that she is visiting, is very commendable. I certainly don’t think she should be being attacked. I also think that anyone can judge when they don’t fully understand someone else’s situation. That’s a fairly human response to something that on the face of it seems difficult to understand. And it does seem that OP is being judged herself quite harshly on this thread.

Agreeing with @Aquamarine1029 ; my last admission left me with severe ptsd but frankly would have been better if my mother had of moved countries... it made me realise how toxic she is and the world doesn’t see that. It’s the Joan show and that’s what makes it even more devastating. All my love to the daughter and yourself; it takes guts to stand institutions like ED wards.

It's interesting that people are telling you to keep your nose out and not to judge when this woman has actually appointed you her stand-in whilst she disappears. I'd have an opinion too if I was you. You're not a detached bystander.